Yeah, seen a few CB pedals fail. A warranty is all very well, but it doesn’t give me confidence when riding down a hill quickly.

my eggbeaters never failed I hasten to add, but lost the faith. Back on M520s now. 🙂

for what you’re looking to do I’d go for the plain old macbook – it wo’nt fall over doing the stuff you’re going to ask of it and you can put what you save towards a good peripheral i.e. airport express/apple TV to wirelessly stream music thorugh your hifi.

My two penneth

edit

by the way, lovely things to use. well worth the cash if you’ve got it.

OP – poor troll

will be fine – downslink (the majority of the ride) will be fine. potentially a bit loamy when you cross the M25/A3, but north downs will be fine. South downs climb is Truleigh hill, which can be a bit chalky/clay, but you should be fine.

nice day out, though the truleigh hill climb is a bit of a bugger.

had shoulder plate and pins out after a year. The relief was immense, even straight after waking up after the op – after such a long time, you get used to the discomfort, but when it’s gone, it’s a revelation!

get em out!

2/10 spongebob

Ok, this is meant for the iphone, but the sentiments the same….

to clarify, pistons fine at the caliper end – it’s the lever not returning. feels like there is some crap in the lever/master cylinder.

The caliper is fine and pistons returning no problem.

simonfbarnes – Member
so is it a stolen bike or a scam ?

It’s a scam, that I havn’t heard of before. Thought people might be interested in a bike related issue.

and were we to list them all wouldn’t the forum be maxed out ?

er, I guess, but the forum seems to manage under the strain of plenty of other pretty random stuff, so I think we’ll be OK.

My HR clagged up at the brighton big dog. but then everything did, so no great surprise there.

Actually found the Fire XC not bad when I changed onto those for my last lap.

However, HR back on the bike now and I’ve never had a problem with them riding round holmbury each week.

Still, each to his own, that’s why there’s hundreds of tyres out there I guess.

FTR, Eskars are great tyres and very very good value.

Panorama has turned into the Moving Mail.

Fact is you have to pay high quality people to do high quality jobs.

Yes, the PM earns a paltry £142k, but that is not the motivating factor for a PM (DC could have earned many times that in plenty of other industries, if he ever ran out of trust fund). History has shown that Ex PMs only really hit pay dirt when they leave the job and start consulting for major international firms (blair does a couple of million a year for 1 day a month consulting, plus £200k an hour for talks)

Maybe we should get all public sector workers to work for free, for the greater good – lets see the quality of people who turn up for the job then.

Panorama shmanorama

bloody hell that’s a lot of bearings….

i’ll stick to my orange…..

+3 for the olympus – excellent camera, though annoying that they insist on using XD cards, and a non standard USB cable, which is annoying when you forget it and want to download pics onto a laptop.

Mine has been snorkelling, kitesurfing, snowboarding, covered in mud, sand and still comes up trumps, and I have a solid record of camera destruction.

tough situation for her if she doesn't speak the lingo….

I do sympathise with her to a certain extent – if her experience is seeing all her mates get exactly what they want when they want, she probably feels like she's on a shitty deal.

However, by the time she's 25, she'll be thanking you for instilling some values and a work ethic while her trustafarian mates are still living off daddy.

I have – it's lots of fun, a little steeper than the five, and the linkage makes it feel a little more plush.

That said, I preferred the five overall.

I have some fire XC 1.8s that are quite good. work quite as well as mud tires too.

silver/shimano/cheap/came off my commuter/170mm/not very pretty/has been used for other purposes since coming off bike i.e. hammer/but the taper is fine!

I know it feels like you're running out of time, but trust me, you're not. chances are you/I will be working till we're 70+, so best go roaming while you can. houses/women/jobs/money/careers/friends will all still be here when you get back.

without being too presumptious, I'd say the majority on here would have bummed around for longer given the choice and benefit of hindsight. the ones that don't usually have met their perfect other half by that point which is also great. but if you havn't then travelling is a great idea – wish I'd done it.

Also on another note, you're far more likely to meet hot, tanned, willing women on an indonesian beach than you are driving a desk in the UK 😈

Well I like it.

Nice reviews, nice articles. nice pics. Only had a quick thumb through, but looking forward to a ST session later.

Was very surprised to see my question answered in the fitness section too – completely forgot about that!

yup – the taper is shagged. new crank arm.

in fact I've got an old, non rounded one you can have if you like

flickr is doing my head in at the moment – anyone else had problems since they brought in the new features?

photo deleted – for now….

http://yfrog.com/2ccdxyj

ok, have changed that – hopefully it shouldn't show photo locations to you horrible lot now.

FYI for any dishonest types that's where I uploaded the photo, not where I took it.

I live in a land far far away populated almost solely by women with dissappointing legs.

arse.

Jamie – already have! it's a 16inch frame, but seems to work well with a longer post climbing. the one in that pic is right on the limit.

45 minutes to go!

Not always. My previous one also had a garage but was only £25K new and could be had for perhaps £16K 2nd hand now.

<jealousyandchiponshoulder>I could have sworn £25k was a lot of money.</jealousyandchiponshoulder>

Guildford/woking area isn't bad and you'll have easy access to the north downs/surrey hilld in spare time.

personally I don't mind london – spend about half my week there, but wouldn't leave brighton unless I got a monster wage increase.

Got my iphone4 and think it's ace. battery life is massively better than anything I've used by HTC, and the phone does just feel better. I find almost every other phone a bit plasticky and light. the apple is weighty, compact, solid.

The screen really is excellent too.

I'd get one if I were you.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330454566242&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_500wt_1154

Got this for £250

Hmmmm.

I'll be buying it. I'm interested in the guy. He makes a strong case re the middle east policy, though the cost of iraq was massive in both cash and casualties.

I have to say I'm torn on Blair. Have just watched the interview in full, and to be fair Marrs gives him a hard time.

Suggest everyone watches it.

But the book – yes – an interesting set of memoirs and apart from everything, initial reviews say it's a pretty good read.

When working a summer season in grenada, one lad got into the habit of nailing the bike guides bike to the floor (tyres off, screw, washer, tubes and wheels back on, tyres pumped back up). Apparently it never stopped being funny….

cougar – the wording in the Hire agreements is that that bike MAY be offered for sale at a FAIR MARKET VALUE. no indication is given in writing of the figure being 5%.

Interesting how different providers are all opting to take differing stances on how the scheme will be admimistered at the end of the hire term.

While 5% was a very low figure, the bike has been fully paid for, and therefore has no value to the company (unless they are the business of accrueing a massive pile of used bikes). Remember, it's supposed to be a Tax Free scheme – an incentive to get people on bikes. Perhaps a victim of it's own success?

HMRC aren't cricket players – they do what they like when they like.

I would continue the loan of the bike until you decide to leave the company. over time, the bike will depreciate until it's value is negligible. Then get them to give it to you.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/eim21667a.htm

the only thing is that the bike will officially be thier property until the transfer of ownsership, but who cares? to all intents and purposes it's yours, unless you want to sell it.

I think that was the toughest race I've ever done. great fun, tough course, and I had a shocker of cramp on my last two laps (meaning missing the 6:15 cut off by five minutes – gutted)

great to slipping around again, I'd forgottenwhat riding in mud was like!

MASSIVE thanks to the morvelo guys for putting on a great event, it's brilliant to have a local, proper grass roots event organised by people who do it for the love – too many events these days are for profit and as a result corners are cut (Muc-off 8, I'm looking at YOU!). BigDog is a shining example of how great these events can be.

see you next year!

i'm more worried the longer lap times will effect my beer drinking schedule.

+1

High rollers, mainly because I can't be arsed changing them, and with my levels of fitness tyres are the least of my worries. but actually looks like a good choice now. I'll probably win. 😉

mud/no mud – I ride Stanmer park all year and it's fine. slippy and greasy yes, but lots of fun.

there is one section which is fast lazy s through the trees, that'll be interesting!

tiger_roach – Member
IMO the scheme should be changed so that hire of the bike is over 3 years and bike deemed to be worth a nominal amount after that time.

There speaks sense.

can only relate to the five, and I rode the 2011 one this week. it's pretty slack for a trail bike but climbs well. As far as single pivots go, I'd say your mate has never ridden a five. truly sorted bike both in the slow and the fast-hammer-down-trail sort of way. I guess you could say you need to stay of the brakes a bit more. bit it's sheer simplicity works for me, and the slcakness lets you get away with a bit more..

if you're both learning, then doesn't matter where you go really – I'd wait till last minute and get a deal somwehere where you know it's gonna be snowy.

Lessons are a must – Andorra particularly good for instruction.

Like I said, if you wait til last minute in Jan you'll save big on the cost of the holiday, and it might be worth putting what you save into a private lesson or two (you'oll learn much quicker)

clothing? I spent two very cold winter seasons and several subsequent work trips (used to work for neilson)on kit that I got from TK Maxx. Not worth blowing hundreds unless being bang on trend is important to you. I would budget £50 on some pants, 60-70 on a jacket, 30 on some gloves, 20-30 on some goggles. your biking base layers will be more than up to the job of keeping you warm so don't buy snow specific stuff.

hardware – hire kit in resort is invariably terrible – and also pretty expensive. makes a huge difference these days, so I'd either look to these guys : http://www.edge2edge.co.uk/snowboard_hire.html or even look to buy your own board (quite a few on sale at the moment due to the coming seaason) http://www.snowandrock.com/boards/snowboard/fcp-category/list?addFilter=sex&filterValue=unisex

Snowboarding is ace, but I've always struggled to justify the mega spend on kit, given you only get to do it for a tiny proportion of the year.

finally, they are great holidays – just being in the mountains is such a great experience, you'll love it!

That's Fowey isn't it? I'm going there next week for the regatta and Red Arrows action so don't bin 'em before then!!