YES…this thread was made for me!

I LOVE stopping, chilling, chatting, snacking, admiring the views, take a few snaps, re-fuelling, exchanging war stories regarding the last techy section, and of course to acclimatise to the lower oxygen levels that are associated with the uphill trails (yeah wtf is with that!?).

For me, riding is massively social, I ride with my best friends. I love capturing the moment for prosperity, and I’m also into photography so I get to do two things I love at once. I find the ‘quit taking photos and enjoy the moment’ point of view extremely patronising, for the following comic can sum up more eloquently than I:

I also have this theory that food tastes at its best when you are on a bike ride, so I’ll bust out the big guns when at the top of the mountain (Ferrero Rocher, After Eights, Lindt bears, Belgian chocolate shells, etc), at first it was to see people’s reactions to being offered an After Eight at the peak of mam tor (or equivalent), but now it’s just an excuse to have nice chocolates.

I think the only times I loathe stopping is if the weather is particularly inclement or if we’re training for something and the stoppages are too frequent.

_tom_ those panos are beautiful, particularly the whistler one. Nice work.

Awesome.

Is the big rocky section filmed on Shipley Glen per chance?

I’ve made my own on countless occassions, have always have been accepted.

Last time I used: Camera + tripod + remote trigger + white wall + well lit room (I don’t own flashes) + print out at boots. Usually a print of about 4 costs about 30p. If you’ve got someone to hold the camera then that’s a bonus!

I went to Castle Douglas (Scotland) the other day, if you are ever passing (maybe when visiting 7 Staines?) there’s a good health food shop on the high street that sells the solid liquorice, as well as the liquorice root. There’s also a sweety shop close by to stock up on other classics, here’s my stash:

I’ve disolved a chunk of the liquorice (hard stuff) in some boiling water, which is a new one on me, but pretty good.

mmm liquorice.

Went for the first time last year as part of a Sport Mixed team of 5, and everyone enjoyed it. One guy had been twice before but the rest of us were noobs. It didn’t take much (any) persuading to get the team back for another crack at it this year.

I thought the atmosphere and craic were great last year, I guess it depends who you are with and their attitudes as well as the what the organisers and sponsors can muster up.

lomo dry pack

Have a look at Lomo sports. They specialise in waterproof gear. the pack i’ve got is comfy and big and think i’d quite happily use it as a buoyancy aid.(cheap also)

This looks awesome, I think I might have to get one of these! Great value too.

Yes, I secretly want the 24-105 Canon. I just want your permission. And yes I probably will go full frame eventually. I have a whole load of primes, each for its particular job, but sometimes a day out with the kids requires a bit of everything.

Sounds like you have your answer.

I forgot to mention the canon 15-85mm, which is a good walkaround/on-holiday lens for a crop body, but optically it’s pretty average (So I have the 17-55 2.8 as well – but this leads to a lot of hard decisions when packing my camera bag).

I’d replace that one lens with about 4 different lenses 😀 Those big range zooms are a big compromise. Maybe good for a holiday if you can only take one lens. I’d get a Tokina 11-16, Canon 17-55 2.8, a nice prime (28 to 35mm ish), and a telephoto something (not my forte).

I’d only get that 24-104L if you were going to upgrade to full frame soon, or have something else for wide angle duties. Bit of a weird choice for a 650D, the canon 17-55 might 2.8 be a bit more useful*.
* caveat with this lens is the noise of the IS motor when recording video with the built in mic.

Vitus Vee springs to mind, singlespeed though but low maintenance(£250ish). You can get geared ones for a bit more. I think they look pretty cool.

This is terrible.

Pardon my ignorance, but what is a “police probe car”?

Come on woodsy!

Agree entirely. I’m blaming the terrible pipe.

Harsh judging there on Katie’s second run 🙁 Feel really sorry for the women’s ski slopestyle today, terrible conditions. They really got the pooey end of the stick on this one.

The boarding events are brilliant…. it would be a rather boring games without them. When’s the boardercross?

Handy link for the snowboarding events

…and you get to watch it all again tomorrow, but for the women. 6:30am for the semis and 9:15 for the finals – BBC 2.

Jenny Jones (3 time gold medal X-Games slopestyle winner), and Aimee Fuller (just plain awesome) will be sending it for Team GB. Both still have to get through the semis though, fingers crossed.

Pain?! Hell yeah, especially after them being tightened. Dull, aching, sleep-preventing pain. I remember it well. Paracetemol and if you want to splash out get something with codeine to take the edge off… It’s pleasure pain though, because you can think about how much better your grid will be after they come off. 😀

Two GB riders in top 10. I’m havin’ that!

Sage and Torstein were two of my favourite riders to watch so pleased Sage managed to get the gold, and possibly marks a change the direction of judging to style and creativity over triple corks with mute grabs.

Should be interesting in super pipe as shaun is hoping to land the first triple, but if its fugly it won’t mean shit.

Righto, that’s TWO British guys in the final of the snowboard slopestyle, Jamie Nicholls went straight into the finals from the qualifiers, and Billy Morgan only bloody just finished TOP of the semi finals.

08.45 today if you want to show support.

Play it cool rodders, play it cool…

Yeah I got up early and watched all the slopestyle mens and womens. Amazing Stuff, Jamie Nicholls representing yorkshire landing that massive 1440 got him a ticket straight into the finals. Was feeling pretty proud as I’ve seen him ride at castleford a fair few times. Will be getting up early for the semis and finals on saturday too. Now we’ve seen style and nice spins awarded well and triple corks are not the be all and end all, Jamie could well be in with a good medal chance, he’s got a triple cork in his arsenal as well, depends if he wants to pull it out.

Worth a watch: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/winter-olympics/26063907

+1 Ed Leigh – he’s done a great job so far, him and Tim make a good team. It’s pretty funny when they pull each other up on calling the wrong moves.

Yes, that’s 100% factually correct, everyone who has ever snowbladed is a chav who muggs old ladies, even David’s wife above! Unlucky David, ads678 said so!

*belm*

I think it’s because all of the practical implications are negative.

That’s debatable… And I was referring to the amount of stereotyping of people who do a slightly discipline of winter sport. From both sides, skiers and snowboarders above. Then someone comes along and suggests something different and a bit more of an outsider sport, and they get instantly flamed and told that they look stupid/like a sex offender. There was a time when mountain biking was an outsider sport too.

I could post a picture of a shit skiier, it doesn’t prove anything.

Here’s a picture of a better snowblader:

Going to go into hiding now for mentioning blades…

Full props for the suggestion, I can’t believe how judgmental everyone has been over something that should only have practical implications. I don’t think blades make you look stupid.

There’s no ‘one is better than the other’, if you can ride well at your chosen discipline – that deserves respect. It’s the mountain snobbery that pisses me off about winter sports.

I think there is one thing that all skiiers and boarders can agree on is that blades make you look like a Parisien peado.

But it just looks exactly like skiing but with shorter skis? Are you saying that the only thing that stops you looking like a Parisian Peado is a bit of extra plank at your feet?

But what about cross country snowboarders? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w7sVSMbjyM

I have just as much fun boarding* on pistes as off.

*yeah BOARDING.
Who let the gapers out? 😀

“If you’re going yo go every year then ski. If not then board. Skiing requires more technique and a greater range of techniques and, fitness”

Seriously?

There is some snowboarders that have progressed beyond the majority of side slipping resort riders you see.[/quote]

Nah, I got up early to watch the olympic slopestyle qualifiers this morning, turns out those guys just ride for a week a year Ed was saying, Jamie Nichols (Team GB) just blasted straight into the finals with a cab 1440 he got taught by one of the guys in ESF after he got his turns linked… piss easy.

^ completely agree. You could flip a coin and have a great time doing either. Some good practical pointers above though, just ignore the snobbery/stereotyping (who would have thought there would be so much for two alternative ways to slide down a mountain).

Snowboarding is a fad for people of my generation. (40s)
Snowboarding is for people who generally aren’t very sporty.
Skiing is much more the thing if you’re into mountains/ sport etc.
Skiing is for rich people (sauf Ecosse).
Snowboarding is for normal people.

mwahahaha…aaaaah brilliant. Such snobbery/elitism.

I learnt to snowboard when I was 14. I’m 32. Still got my generics 90s board in my garage!

*shrugs* Never heard of him 🙂

It’s a trick…. Shaun white is significantly richer, so women probably prefer him.

Travis is arguably a better “complete” rider though. Shaun just slays the pipe, grabs boot, etc

>> I have thought about doing some days at snowdome first. worth it?

Hell yeah – I’d totally make sure which ever I did I was as good as I could be before heading out. I would hate to be on the mountain but not be able to explore the whole area or go on guided off piste because I couldn’t hack it. When I know I’m going I’ve usually been to the fridge every week for a few months before, not everyone does it, but you’ll get a lot more out of your holiday if you do (granted I go to freestlye nights, if you aren’t into that you can get bored of 120m of slope and poma lifts)

Proper first world problem 🙂

I skied as a kid but snowboard now. I’d probably like to ski again at some point but it seems like a waste of time on snow when I could be snowboarding as I’d have to re-learn everything.

You know deep down which you would rather do, so do that. I’m a standing sideways kinda guy. If you do pick snowboarding though, don’t call it boarding 😉

The following are generalisations:
Skiing is faster, but there’s times when snowboarding is too fast for me “fuuuuuu…”
Skiing you have more control (two edges vs one)
Snowboarding allows you to ride powder sooner
Common snowboarding injuries are broken wrists, cocksys (sp?!), face plants. Expect to fall a lot when learning to snowboard.
Common ski injuries are buggered up knee ligaments (ACL is very common)
Skiing seems easier to learn the basics and get down the hill, but harder to master
Snowboarding basics are quite tricky but once done, you can get pretty good, pretty quickly. e.g. Carving is an easy unlock.
Snowboarding seems to have more fun easy-unlock tricks to play around with (butters, prezels, 180s, reverts, tail blocks, etc) which are great fun, skiing has some, but they look a mess with poles and sticks everywhere.
Lifts are crap for snowboarders.
Snowboarding is a pain in flat resorts, if you are good you can bomb through the flats, you will deffo piss people off doing that. The flats are usually blues and greens, it’s a loose-loose situation.

And the most important reason to snowboard:
Methods

I’d probably just do what everyone else is doing. I’ve gone mainly with snowboarders but there’s often been skiers in the group too – it’s all good. Whatever you do you’ll have a blast.

Yeah always worth uninstalling and then re-installing the latest version of gopro studio (I think there was new version the other day). And check you have the prerequisites like quicktime for example.

Do you want to play or edit?

Play-wise VLC should do the trick on both ipad and pc.

I doubt you will be able to get any editing done on an ipad, they really aren’t powerful enough. I would try and get to the bottom of why the app is crashing on your pc. It’s very good for a free app.

^ Sk1llz, I had been waiting for this moment. May consider upgrading mine if/when it croaks.

I have a wheels pf30 with regular povvo bearings, £30, deffo worth it, much better build than the SRAM one.

The tools to fit/remove are a bit expensive though 🙁 Quite a few threads about different options, and the praxis does get mentioned a lot.

I’ve got one set of both, I’d buy the thru-pin ones again (unless you are a weight weenie and unlikely to bash on rocks).

I’ve lost a few grub screws from the non thru ones, but the thru ones have all their original pins.

Thanks Junkyard, that’s really interesting. I wish I could go back in time and advise those guys that went to really look into it, as the new terms for redundancy were so much worse than their old ones.

I have been struggling to find why I have in my head that 2 year figure, I can’t seem to find it online. I think it could have been from the HR department at the time :S

Looking through the rest of the doc, there isn’t much else that has a hard 3 year limit on it like the redundancy terms. I know I won’t be there for three years, but I’m wondering if now I have worked in the new shit company for over a year I have accepted that the redundancy terms will change at the three year mark. I think I’ll look into this.

This is taken from the document that was produced as part of my TUPE:

For the first 3 years after the transfer date we are maintaining the [OLD ACE COMPANY] current redundancy terms (this would apply for any employees who leave [NEW SHIT COMPANY] through compulsory redundancy before 1st August 2015). After this date, we would pay redundancy pay in line with [NEW SHIT COMPANY] practice at the time. Historically, [NEW SHIT COMPANY] redundancy payments have been above statutory requirements. The 3 year proposal remains valid if employee continues to work with [NEW SHIT COMPANY] in the UK even if this is under a different assignment. If employee is relocated within [NEW SHIT COMPANY] to another country, then this term will no longer apply.

Thanks Junkyard, no offence taken. I was under the impression that TUPE has to last a minimum of 2 years. In the instance of the TUPE I was part of, our previous terms and conditions were negotiated to stay for 3 years, rather than the 2. So I was stating that ours were 3, rather than the (what I thought was the statutory minimum) 2.

So is TUPE forever – or is it that the length of the protected terms under TUPE is negotiated during the process on a case by case basis?

That is exactly what they cannot do as you are employed on your current T & C and would clearly win any case in a court of law.

I have witnessed this happen last August, the group of employees got TUPE’d out with their T&Cs protected for two years, they (my current company) waited until after they had worked for them for 2 years and made about 15 people redundant, all getting little more than statutory redundancy pay. 🙁 Are you saying this could have been avoided?