My thoughts exactly :)

With two weeks holiday it’s been awful ……. had to have two ice cold pints mid ride last week.
Tried an evening ride last night to avoid the heat …….. awful, couldn’t see the trails for the sunshine glaring into my face.
Dry dusty trails everywhere, even in the forest, worst two weeks of my life :)

Used Snowcard a few times for biking and snowboarding, make sure you select the right level of cover for the type of riding your will be doing.
Never had to use their services thankfully, but when initially looking around there were some good reviews from those that had needed to make a claim.

Another recommendation for Rohloff.
I had the first one in 2003, so far it’s had an annual oil change, 2 sets of new cables, 1 set of seals, 1 16t sprocket.
Bomb proof but not cheap :D

Oops – ignore me, misread. :oops:

I run four sets of Mavic EX823 easy and faff free.

ITU10 is still working,gives you £8.33 of a £85 spend.

Tried it many years ago on my own at an age where awareness of your mortality is overshadowed by a belief of being invincible :).

It was around March time, weather wasn’t great with a low cloud base but not unreasonable.
Got about halfway up and hadn’t seen a soul, weather turned to gusting wind and horizontal rain so decided to turn back (self preservation finally kicked in)

Helmet put on and just starting a nice steady roll down when whilst hopping a water bar a gust of wind grabs me and spits me off the bike.

Very lucky, winded, grazed and holes in clothing at all the pointy bits but no serious damage, but somehow managed to travel 25-30 ft further down the track than the bike whilst avoiding some very sharp sections of rock.

Go for it but take care.

My Alfine 8 is rock solid also with a Nexus gripshift, this sound like symptoms of the more sensitive Alfine 11.
If it functions better with the dots slightly out, it’s probably the length of the inner cable from the end of the outer ferule to the bolt/clamp thingy (184 mm to bolt centre on the 11), but just set where it works best.
Also count the gear position for setup and don’t rely on the shifter gear indicator.
Check there are no rough edges on your outer if you have installed and cut new cables.
No sharp bends in the cables, also I wouldn’t run an Alfine on an FS
Clean the gear assembly mechanism.

Good luck

Love the Intense tyres, but the single ply have super thin sidewall, managed to tear a front one around Cannock, and the dual ply are a little heavy so no middle ground.
Running tubeless ok with latex but don’t inflate the 2.5 Kevlar SP past 50 psi.

Dude !!!! that’s like my second worst nightmare on film, you aren’t the first or the last person on this planet to get it wrong. :)

Glad your ok.

About this time last year I was trying to learn to walk again after three months in plaster for a snapped Achilles.
I will never take the ability to be mobile for granted again.
At least there was plenty of sport on TV :)

Excellent, thank you.

Where’s the spooky woman with the armless walker’s as chained pets?

Love it.

What I mean by “that’s how it start’s” and the expense is you start off with a £150 car and end up racing nationals where the sponsored pro’s run a new set of wheels and tyres for every heat at £40-50 a pop.
I ended up running Nitro 1 1/8 truggy and buggies probably at a rough cost of £1200 (x3) per car with upgrades every year and £50-100 on parts, fuel etc per race not to mention £1500 of other stuff like chargers, starter boxes, glow starters, batteries, tools, spares, radio’s etc.
Racing offroad outdoors all seasons also creates more wear and tear.
But it is extremely addictive, nothing like a race start with 12 cars revving their nuts out at 28000 rpm just before the flag drop (sends shivers down my spine just in recollection :) )

I would recommend looking at 1 1/18 micro cars as a very fun cost effective start up solution. You may even be able to get one each for your budget.
You can run them in doors (there were clubs about based in sports halls) or on smoothish surface outdoors.
Please find a link to a micro car forum[/url] which has loads of information.
From experience the FTX Blaze was a favoured a few years ago running well out of the box but with reasonable upgrades available.
The Associated was ok but a bit fragile especially on the steering linkage.
The Losi micro 8 looks interesting if its as good as its bigger brothers that I ran before jacking it in.
Enjoy and start looking at getting a second mortgage :)

That’s how it all starts :-) rc cars are great especially if raced, but it gets very expensive.
Makes MTB’s feel inexpensive.

Fox 36 Van 180 r £554.25

woodchip46 – just got a pair from Freeborn, advert was for the 2012 model, placed order on line in the evening and they rang the next day to say they were waiting on the 2013 model which they would do at the same price but it would take a couple weeks.
Forks turned up with 5 day, running them on a HT, fairly stiff with a 15mm axle (comparable to some Lyrik’s I ran on a previous HT) light, have lockout but no compression adjustment but it feels pretty good, rebound adjustment and the DLA two height position adjustment which changes without having to pump the forks like with a Talas.
I would rate them over RS stuff, but then I am not a fan as I have never been happy with the 4 set I’ve tried.
I had a pair of Fox 180 Talas from Freeborn previously, who seem to be competitive on prices, service appears good and straightforward.

Somebody posted two codes a week ago, do a search on CRC voucher.
Think it was SWISS10 which wasn’t a standard £10 of £75 spend.

Just got the 2013 140mm DLA version for the HT.
Not been that impressed with any of the RS forks I’ve had compared Fox’s but didn’t want to spend Fox money on a HT, so thought I would try a pair of these.

Only three rides in at present but pretty pleased so far.
They are light, with reasonable stiffness and I really like syntace X-15 over the RS 20 mm axle.
Pretty plush out of the box, air pressure was set at the top end of the stated range but in theory is correct my weight, feels a bit soft to how I normally run forks but I haven’t bottomed them out yet, will see how they fair when I start running them a bit harder.
There is no compression damping adjustment, but they do have a lockout switch.
The rebound was set to the max slow position when received and needed tweaking to about the mid point, the DLA version has a two height position adjustment.
Also appreciate the brake cable clamp (as per Fox) over the RS option of a cable tie bodge.
Based on my first impressions with the Velvets I am very interested to see how a pair of Vengeance compare to a set of 36’s.

Went with a group a couple of years ago, it was awesome.
Great venue and hospitality, reasonable prices for lift passes, food and drink, would love to go back some day.
Of the DH trails the blue line was about ok for my skill level on a 160 mm travel bike and attainable speeds and was about the only mid level run, all the other DH stuff was doable but quite harsh with some very technical do or die type features oh there is a lot of high woodwork.

There are some great lift assisted trails and I would recommend doing the 5 gondola tour to get a feel for the area where a you will awesome views and scenery and find a great bit of single track on the opposite side of the valley to the blue line and some interesting runs down to Leogang.

From memory a lot of the non DH trails are on fire roads, and although we didn’t use the facility I would maybe recommend using a guide.

My only critic would be trying to track down the single track stuff (probably our fault for not using a guide) and less technical DH runs to warm up on, as per Chatel :)

Take spares, run the biggest discs you can, left thumb joint came up like a balloon and took out 5 spokes riding a rock garden because I couldn’t brake any more, cue death grip pinball run :)

Oh and one of our group took a Halfords HT, lasted 2.5 runs down the blue line, hiring a FS rig didn’t help either resulting in a full on body surfing dirt moment.

Have fun.

Photos

I use the twist shifter with my Alfine 8, yes its “plasticky” and a bit agricultural but has worked fault free in a range of conditions on the winter bike.

I do prefer twist shifters so am prepared to overlook its shortcomings, just wish there was an option for the Alfine 11.

No worries glad to see them put to good use, new cranks very nice.

Not so far, but only really started using it in the last few months.

epicycle +1, a small downside of the Alfine is indexing at the shifter.

I have a second hand Alfine 8 which has been very robust.
And a from new Alfine 11 which has been ok but feels slightly less robust, with not so precise gear engagement.
Also run Rohloffs, one coming up to 10 years old bombproof but at a cost.

Another thumbs up for the Wolverhampton branch – top people.

Not sure why but Cheltenham used be excellent but has become a bit indifferent over the last few years.

35 psi then +/- 5 psi depending how things feel, rider weight, tyres etc.

Just don’t go too low on the stony bits to avoid pinch flats :)

I have two sets of 5 10 Rennie boots, one pair in a size bigger for winter.
This allow me wear some thick wool socks for the cold or seal skin socks if its wet.

Super comfy and were good down to -7 during the cold snap we had a couple of years ago.

Just got some thermalites, pretty pleased so far, size ok.

EW3RRHN6

There was also some multi use ones posted a few days back.

I read somewhere maybe 2013/14.

Thank you very much m1zuno, got some thermal bib shorts to protect my perfectly formed but aging knees froom the cold :)

That’s great to hear, I have been running 36 x 17 (26″ rims) for last 5+ years and presently trialling 34 x 17 on a more xc setup, no issues so far, however I need to shed 5-6 Kg to be weight legal :)

@ orangeboy, tensioners work fine on a full suspension setup, generally I am running 160 mm of travel but did have a DH set up with 190 mm of travel and it was still good (this was the longer version of the tensioner, the shorter version locks at the pivot bolt and is a bit of a pain when removing rear wheel)

Aluminium does oxidise but how much depends on the grade of alloy and type of surface finish.
I’ve had four “raw” aluminium frames and they still look mint, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it, clean it regularly and just be careful using high pH (10-11+)cleaning chemical.

Yep, as above, I was after a full face helmet that wasn’t available in the scheme I wanted in the uk before a trip to the Alps.
Worked about £15 cheaper after all the extra costs compared to a £340 uk price.

Must say my Surge felt awfull until I put some 160 mm u-turn lyriks on, rarely used the u-turn and even then the lyriks felt a bit flexy.
Running Talas on another bike, I would say 160 mm Talas are a perfect choice just wish I had a spare pair :)

Yep, not been in for a while but hearing growlings of the “gems” getting trashed with traffic and wet conditions.
Save it for dryer weather, it’s a bit crappy in the wet anyways.