as . said – basically both bikes have got to be obviously for yourself, and the total of the two must not be over a grand. This is to facilitate people who would like to ride a proper bike but get a train to work – therefore they can leave one bike at either end of their commute.

Easy!

Don't get caught buying a bike for a spouse though – that's naughty.

Give me a shout if you have any other questions.

Jim

yup no heorics from me – just XC and a bit of trails, but with no drops to speak of. Not getting in with the Shimano cone stuff, like the idea of cartride bearings.

they wouldn't be heavier than my current wheels!

ok so thats decided then. Thansk for the advice 🙂

Jim

does anyone know if there are any results up yet?

Ecky Thump – good spot eh? only skied it for a day when I was checking out Kronplatz for Neilson holidays a few years ago.

More gondolas than chairs, access to the sella ronda, and a brilliant town brunico just a few miles away.

le ET said, kids clubs are excellent, and based at the top of the mountain, so it's dead easy to go check on little people halfway through the day without having to trek across a resort. It's also nice for the kids as they do get a feeling for a ski holiday. really friendly there too.

Dolomites snow making is excellent, though altiude is generally higher than most austrian resorts. Sella ronda area is the place to head to if you want to put some miles under your skis. If you want to enjoy something a little different Kronplatz is worth a look, (italian name is plans de corones). still in dolomites, but based arounf one big mountain. Amazing snowmaking with a season that often runs into may, (with artificial snow)

ah. dodgy link.

dolomites?

all this snow talk has just made me wish the summer away.

I want to go snowboarding!!!

The Dolomites

The Italian Dolomites. thread closed, beacause:
The lifts are virtually all brand new. More gondolas than chairs.
1200km of piste on your lift pass, of which 600km ish is all linked together
Long, mellow wide runs, mainly above tree line.
Glacier skiing
The most snowmaking in Europe
Best snow record in the Alps
Italian food
Austrian efficiency
fun, friendly apres, usually starts at 4:00, and finishes about 7pm, in time for your lovely italian meal (see above)
Good value compared to france
Friendlier than france
less crowded than france
Lots of nice dutch people (don't know why)
nice quality hotels, most with spas, a few nice chalets, usually without.
I would recommend Corvara (Called Alta Badia). Beautiful scenery, amazing hotels.

Hotels? check these out – I have been in them all when in a previous job:

Panorama sporthotel

Sassongher

Hotel Table[/url]

Col Alto

Mail in profile i fyou have any questions on the area. or post on here.

second I aches question

second I aches question

Giant anthem X3 £1100(would need to haggle but not implssible)

Giant Trance X4 £995

drop me a line when you're down this way – I work in guildford/live in brighton. we ride pitch/leith/holmbury hills most weeks after work. I'll show you what I know, but really there is so much that I'm still finding stuff (read getting lost) most of the time I'm riding….

🙂

Nah – they're not robbing you, just reducing the risk on their part to zero. (well they actually do quite well once they've taken their reduced NI and the final FMV payment is taken into account)

J

Kinda666,

sounds like your company may be using an external finance company to fund the scheme. This is common among companies who aren't that cash rich (or scared of the potential take up among employees for the scheme, as at the end of end of the day they have to initially fund it)but want to run the scheme. Therefore the savings aren't as great as they pass on the cost of borrowing the money to you.

sorta sucks, and your savings won't be as great, but you'll still make the savings compared to a normal purchase, and it's spread over an amount of time. Seems correct to me.

mail in profile if you have any more questions.

hope that helps.

I like the idea of a virtual lane – drivers like lanes, they understand them and it may help them judge distance from cyclists better.

not quite as simple as yes I’m afraid – you need to speak to your HR department and see what the company policy is regarding you getting another bike – essentially it’s up to the compmnay how often they choose to let people take advantage of the scheme.

That said, if you set it up, you should be good!

recon has anodized upper stanchions Tora are just chrome. Recons look cooler as a result, (possibly a bit smoother/less stiction) and are a bit lighter. Nothing wrong gwith Toras mind, but I’d plump for the Recons.

errr, dare I say for that sort of money……Macbook?

Not a great gaming machine but reliable, well made, and won’t get viruses…..

cyclesurgery stock it too
linky

lyric. thread closed.

surfacing…..that a bit like building a road innit? why not just go the whole hog and have the whole course smooth and grippy like the kenda climb…..

I liked the slippy bits, not cos I’m good at riding, (i’m not) but it’s a mountain bike race. lots ofdifferent surfaces is what our bikes are designed to do.

I loved it, don’t surface anything. the lottery of a mud bath or not makes mayhem what it is. and it’s ace. don’t want to wait another year for it though…

p.s. the brighton big doggot referred to as on e of the top XC courses in the country last year by several mags. might be worth a bit of reasearch as to what makes a course good….

excellent riding straight into stanmer and direct access onto the downs east or west. Drop me a line if you fancy. legs will be back in to riding mode after the week off after mayhem, but always good to meet up with new peeps!

Jim

set 2 rise this year was truly brilliant – nto sure how it would cope with hundreds more riders, but as a 5-600 capacity event it was ace.

Climbing – I’d say a short stab somewhere along the course that was reasonably technical with some line choices to avoid bottlenecks. I’d aldos say that 2-3 climbs over an 8 mile lap make for some good psychological milestones – especially for beginners who struggle in the night.

as you said – single track descents or wide open yet less steep descents work well – I felt that at OSMM you lost a lot of altitude very quickly. Pedally singletrack keeps it interesting and fast while not losign so much height. How about a mix of Set2Rise and Bikeradar? Eastnor is an awesome event, not because of the course, but the size and sheer number of abilities/riders/stuff/festival atmosphere.

Camping,toilets,cooking,showers are all good things. One other aspect which is a nice edition is a main arena or camping area where the race can pass a couple of times a lap, and hence team mates can easily pop onto the course to cheer their mates on/take pictures. In this way, the G2 revolver (rebranded as the Brighton Big Dog[/url], which is going to be an awesome event – sign up soon!)is a really excellent event…..

If you find a venue with the above, I’ll be there with bells on!

I was product manager for BA for a couple of years – I looked after the hotel offering in Paris.

Mid price goodness would be:

K+K is nice though a little soul-less. More of a business hotel IMO.

Meridien etoile is another nice one.

Rochester – traditional – gold, marble, gold gilted mirrors etc but looking a little tired when I was there last

le standard design – based in bastille on rue de la roqutette. small friendly, a bit more individual.

I’ll have a think if more come to mind though it’s been a couple of years now!

what about a wilier triestina mirage?

Nice bit of italian goodness:
Wilier Triestina

I think they were from OS marketing people. I got interviewed by them when I got off a lap, and it was all to do with my brand perceptions etc. basically so they could go back to OS and say that their money was well spent. on that note, how much do you reckon they spent on sponsoring Mayhem?

Here are mine – can’t be arsed to tag them with race numbers, but feel free to download the hi res versions if you are in there.

🙂

My flickr set – My flickr OSMM set[/url]

My flickr set – can’t find motivation to tag all the race numbers, and I was riding too, so didn’t get into the woods or anything as sleep/food/banter became the priority, but if you see a pic of yourself, please feel free to download the Hi Res versions.

My OSMM flickr set[/url]

Jim

hmmmm. the cheating was a bit naughty – but as everyone said they can’t leave the event actuslly thinking they have completed it. I’m not going to lose sleep over it.

Course was fine – I rode the mincing route every lap (I said I’d check it out for the team as I was on the first lap) and actually really enjoyed to 40mph blast thorug the field. At the end of the day, it was slightly longer, but a lot faster. Alternative routes are a good thing in my opinion, and allowed several people to rode the course who otherwise would not be able to. Agreed that it should be at a penalty, but it’s very hard to quantify how much extra time it should take. anyone care to propose something? 30% longer than the hard route?

we had a cracking race, everything it should be. hard, challenging etc. We aren’t pot hunters, but loved the racing atmosphere!

so when are the results getting posted? I didn’t look yesterday, and I’d love to know the lap times to see who got the quickest in our team (suspect it wasn’t me though!)

my T5 1.9 84BHP gives 38 overall, so not too bad.

@ransos – bromptons now have a catch on the rear swingarm that you can choose to engage or not to prevent that problem – kerb hopping can now be done with only the fear of the bars snapping!

🙂

Bromptons are nice in that they fold dead small, and are british and are a bit cool. however, every fecker has one.

I ride a mezzo, which doesn’t fold as small, but definately rides nicer. also designed by jon whyte, so there’s even a tenuous mtb connection there. best get to a shop and try them out – I found bromptons a little twitchy, and components not that nice. but that’s just me.

agree about the weather – getting nervous when forecast looks this good, it’s just trying to tempt me not to bring some crucial mud bath equipment.

thursday night for me, should be good!

a decent fancy dress party a few months ago

thursday night for us – SO has been talked into an all girl team so support crew has now been diminished.
Still looking forward to it, not sure why as the last time I did it it was one of the most miserable experiences of my life.
we are gluttons for punishment eh?

still, skinny tyres bought, bike is working well, I have proper lights this time and proper clothing. how bad can it be???

😉

first one for me in 4 years. was there last year spectating, which I thought would mean a dry day, but apparently not! maybe, just maybe this year it’ll stay dry through the night.

like them man said above, it drys in seconds there, it really is amazing given the amount of rain there was last year, how dry it was at the end…

fingers crossed then!

rudeboy, I don’t recall the recruitment process of the underground involved holding a gun to someones head and making them work on the underground. pay is good. condiditions have always been that way, so completely unjustified to use that as a reason for a strike. what are they going to do? install daylight on the tube? have the customers got worse? maybe, maybe not.

No one deserves to be treated badly by customers, but in a customer facing role, it happens, and is endured by waiters, shop staff, bar staff, bus drivers, train conductors (repeat to fade). MTFU and get on with it!

hmmm. pay and conditions for tube workers is hardly that bad – hundreds of thousands of people in the country have opted for pay cuts/freezes/unpaid leave in order to get through the recession and keep their jobs.

striking certainly does not help public opinion sway in favour of the tube workers, most of which did not vote for a strike.

Still, I’ll just ride my bike across london tomorrow instead. 🙂

I’ve bought some panaracer fire XC 1.8s. Idea being I don’t have to worry too much about changing them during the race as they’llrun in most conditions, and I can use them for more than once a year. I can then concentrate more on EATING and SLEEPING.

normally run spesh enduro pros.