I’m excited to hear that but I just know that any Logan’s Run remake will be a pile of shit. When the original was made, they knew the effects and sets couldn’t hold up to close scrutiny – they form a (reasonably effective) backdrop and the actors / plot / dialogue hold centre stage, which is as it should be.

The remake will inevitably be big budget, which means they’ll feel obliged to add a bunch of overdone CG scenes, action sequences and pacing climaxes in an effort to attract the masses and recoup investors money, the storyline will go to pot and the acting will play second fiddle to the tech and “forced” set pieces.

The central moral issue of the film (A utopian society with the flaw that everyone is “terminated” at age 30…Logan’s job of terminating “runners”…Logan about to turn 30…the lifecalcs…the conspiracy of “carousel” etc.) could make a really good film. I think it is possible to make a great remake of it (much better than the original, in fact) I just don’t believe for a second that they won’t screw it up!

To the OP: I generally do a couple of these types of holidays a year and it’s very useful to have an impression of your trip, thanks.

I’ve been on something like 12 or 13 guided MTB holidays now. One of the first things that inevitably gets discussed when you meet the people you’ll be riding with is which other trips they’ve been on. Usually at least one person has been with Sierra Cycling and those words inevitably seem to be accompanied by a wry smile and a raised eyebrow…

I was on a trip last week with a couple who were very impressed by the setup at Bike Verbier – I’m sure you will have a fantastic week there. I’m considering MountainBike Kerala next year too, so would be very interested to hear what that trip is like…

Very helpful, thank you!

On the new OPI setup there’s no star fangled nut, the preload is achieved by tightening the steerer, which is a tube inside the head tube which threads into the bottom of the OPI stem and is braced against the bottom of the head tube.

If you have this setup, you can just loosen the two lefty clamp bolts, then tighten up the steerer – you can see the end of the steerer tube at the very bottom of the head tube (uses a standard Shimano HT2 bottom bracket spanner fitting)If there’s still play after this, then I would assume the bearings need replacing.

Here’s what the stem and steerer look like without the headtube – might help to understand…

I’ll tee that one up and ping it over to you

You are kidding? Without any hint of irony at all?

I’m quite horrified – that one requires a serious twatting with the Gunn and Moore.

Not seen that Buzz punch clip before. Usually I’d say that sort of thing is needless thuggery that proves nothing. In this case it was exactly what the situation required. Good job Buzz. Adding you to my list of heroes – You are next to Prof. Dawkins, whose Excellent “Blind Watchmaker” book I’m currently reading.

I don’t see why it’s so inconceivable that we went there (using the football “we” there) The critical factor was having enough political and public desire to spend the money and have a go at it and that was certainly in evidence. The real miracle is that those guys managed it with the technology of the time. I don’t know the stats but I would guess a 2011 phone has more number crunching power than the whole of mission control in the late 60’s.

DT240s = 2 (0 when packed with grease)

I used to completely pack my old hope XC’s with grease and they would go totally silent for a few rides – lovely! It’s more tricky with the DT’s as they’ll slip if there’s too much in there or it’s too thick.

I can’t believe people still trot out that: “head injuries rates don’t fall when helmet use goes up” statistic.

I’ve broken 3 lids. In each case, my head was fine. In each case I am certain I would have sustained a head injury without one.

The only guy I know who refuses to wear one smacked his head on the ground and was carted off in an ambulance last year.

I still think that helmet use should be voluntary but non wearers need to get real – it IS self evidently more dangerous not to wear one and furthermore, if you do crash, the people you are riding with are the ones that have to pick up the pieces!

Just don’t really get factory wheels, even less so at £600!

Yes, I don’t see any advantaage – they seem to be more expensive, no lighter and more difficult to repair…

Some of them do look nice though. I love the look of the crank bros wheelsets. (wouldn’t touch them though)

As per the other thread, I’m fed up with this: 3 pairs of foxes in our house, all well maintained and all completely shafted after 2-3 years of use. Not good enough for the money they cost.

One of the reasons I’ve gone over to lefty’s – they come with their own issues but the wearing surface is independent of the leg and is replaceable.

It’s bad design IMO: The bearing / interfacing surfaces of the forks are part of the main structure and therefore non-replaceable.

At least stanchions (and steerers) used to be bolt in and you could replace them individually. Now stanchions, crown and steerer are one piece it’s uneconomical to replace them when they wear out.

For recovery, I think about four main issues:-
1) Hydration / electrolytes
1) Topping glycogen back up as fast as possible.
2) Reducing DOMS
3) General fatigue

For 1) Not too much of a problem in this country usually. I just drink some extra water when I get back. If it’s really hot I put some electrolyte tabs in.

For 2) yes, 4:1 carbs to protein within 20 minutes of finishing excercise. I use rego if I’ll be riding again soon but rice pudding / custard otherwise. AFAIK fat inhibits glycogen production so chocolate milk, rice pud etc. is not quite as good as something without any fat.

For 3) Stretching (afterwards) Cold shower on the legs and eat something with protein (taken care of in “1”)

For 4) Sleep (a quick kip after really helps!)

720mm flat bar on my 29er, really like it but it does make things a bit dicey in the singletrack!

I like him! Let’s Keep him! – Reminds me of Partridge in full flow…

“No cats here of course, the groundsmen are quite strict about not letting cats onto this course…”

The riding is great round here. It’s mostly open downland so you have to seek out the singletrack but it is there. Very good riding to be had in Stanmer (a big thanks for Brighton MTB guys for their hard work making some sweet trails in there!) and the Big Dog guys for organising the race in Stanmer every year.

Quick plug for the “other” Brighton MTB club, Brighton Explorers http://www.brightonexplorers.org/index.php (though we have a few members in Lewes too) A multi activity club but quite a few of us are MTBers. (and a bit less “Famous Five” than the name might suggest!) 3 organised rides a week, usually starting / finishing at a pub. Tuesdays is fast, Thursdays is moderate (with slow rides in summer) and Sundays is a longer social moderate ride.

Here are some local rides posted by one of our guys (thanks David!)
http://www.wabsnazm.co.uk/rides/

I havn’t had them before but recently we’ve been able to get free massages once a month at work. Usually I’d say it’s very pleasant, relaxing and my legs seem to feel good afterwards but it would be hard to say if it makes any quantifiable difference to recovery or performance. However, Monday I had one after Big Dog (6 hr race) and my legs were still quite sore / tight in places. The massage made a massive difference to the soreness / heaviness – all but gone afterwards.

Chris at LeisureLakes – Thoroughly helpful chap who went out of his way to source a cheap (but vital) bit for me even though I’d never shopped with them before. Big props to you, sir!

Jimification: Cramp is an interesting one. I’ve never had cramp on the bike and I don’t sweat much so I wonder if they are related?

Purely anecdotal I know, but I don’t sweat much either (unless it’s really baking hot), and I often get killer cramp if I’m giving it beans on a three-hour-plus ride. I suspect it’s because I spent most of my twenties sat on my arse in front of computers, and have only started to put some miles in over the past couple of years. Stretching definitely helps, I can feel my legs going a bit crampy after a ride if I don’t give them a good stretch out.

Ok, that’s that theory out of the window then…the muscular endurance idea makes a lot of sense.

Also the cleat position makes sense too: Surely every pedal stroke is downward force on the leg and for that to be applied through the foot, the calf muscle must resist this force and hold the foot level. The further forward your cleats are the more leverage your foot has to counter and the harder your calves have to work (potentially leading to cramping or exhaustion)…at least that’s how I see it.

I’m presuming most people get cramp in their calves?

I always thought it’s my quads I should worry about but I had a sports massage recently and was surprised when the masseuse said my quads were ok but my calves were really tight…

Hardly a scientific test of course but carbon is a lot stronger than you might think…

Cramp is an interesting one. I’ve never had cramp on the bike and I don’t sweat much so I wonder if they are related?

Joe Friel wrote an interesting series on hydration here:

http://www.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2008/09/hydration-and-exercise-part-1.html

Doesn’t deal with cramps but some interesting points on hydration / performance (drink when you’re thirsty) and sodium concentration / replacement (you can’t, electrolyte drinks are too low a concentration to do this).

Riding along the street the other day:
Italian sounding Bloke on pavement: “What’s happened to your fork? is it supposed to be like that?”
Me: “Yes”
Him: “Woah!! Coooool!!!!”

[Jimification] Yes, signed the petitions etc. for this ages ago (“Lighter Later” campaign)

Uplink:

“How did you get on with that?”

Pretty good, thanks for asking 🙂 Only took me two minutes and there were enough signatures for a bill in the house of commons. It’s passed its second reading and I don’t think they’ve ever got that far before with the idea. Lots of people in power behind it now but I’m doubtful that it will happen in the near future. Still..worth a try though. Sorry if it wouldn’t suit you..I’m sure you’re safe for a while 😀

There’s two ways to get faster (uphill at least): Lose weight or increase power. Losing weight is much easier than increasing power. Buying weight loss (via a lighter bike / kit) is the easiest of all.

Yes, signed the petitions etc. for this ages ago (“Lighter Later” campaign)

Never understood the farmers argument – they can get up when they want can’t they? We’re not proposing moving the sun to change the total amount of daylight hours.

To answer the thread title, Yes, or at least, parts of it are.

The aspect of it that gets me is the lack of comment by the magazines. I don’t read them thoroughly, so maybe they have addressed this but when I look at MBR and they are reviewing £4k bikes in a grouptest I’m always surprised at the lack of comment on the vastness of the sums of money involved.

If you look up Evans and sort Mountain bikes by high to low, the whole first page is £4-£6k bikes! – that’s twelve whole monkeys!

http://www.evanscycles.com/categories/bikes/mountain-bikes

I think riding it one way in a day will answer all of your questions.

200 gates I think, if you are doing it both ways!

I’ve never had Ulnar nerve trouble but got some GS1’s for my new bike anyway as I liked the idea of extra hand support for long rides. They feel very big at first but you soon get used to them. I love them, don’t think I’d ever go back to normal grips now.

If you are getting numb hands (ulnar nerve pinching maybe?) then they’re a bit of a no-brainer really.

I’m a local (Brighton), have done it one way and would like to think I might have a go at the double one day (when I grow up)… I saw you going round (and round and round) at SITS and I think if you can do that for 24 hours then already you have the mental (and posterior) toughness to do it!

As above, the elevation gain isn’t 3900m for 320km, it’s twice that – about 25,000ft in total!

Good luck if you decide to go for it, it would be a fantastic achievement. I definitley think a scouting mission would be massive help to the endeavour. I’d try it one way in a day and see what time you can do – that should give you a pretty good idea of the terrain, tap locations and how you’d fare on the return leg.

Taps: Don’t think there’s a tap between Winchester and Cocking but if the QECP visitor centre is open when you pass, you can fill up there. Vandalism isn’t too bad on taps – the only one that seems to get broken regularly is the one at Botolphs and that’s only useful on the way back (you dont’ want to fill up there and then carry all that water up Truliegh Hill when there’s another tap at the top!)

Depends…Raptors do, Talons don’t.

I’m guessing that pressing in the BB is faster and easier – so they’re selling it to us as a technical improvement

On cheaper bikes, I think it’s a cost saving. On expensive bikes, as I said above, where there’s more custom shaped tubing (and people tend to be more bothered about such things) it’s a performance improvement (stiffer, lighter axle, lighter BB and greater lateral stiffness in the frame)

It’s pretty similar to headsets – pressing the bearing directly into the head tube helps you to get the lowest stack height for the biggest headtube (no space taken up by external bearing races)

This explains why you would want to do that:- (1:25 onwards)

It’s the same for the BB of course, just in a different plane.

I’m not an engineer but outboard bearings seems quite daft to me. Placing the bearings back in the frame gives frame designers a lot more width at the bottom bracket to fix the seattube, downtube and chainstays to. This should help to create a laterally stiffer, stronger frame. The larger BB axle is also stiffer and lighter (usually aluminium).

Fitting and removal should be fine with the proper tools. If you bash the bearings in with a hammer then they’re not likely to go in square and you run the risk of bashing the inner race into the bearings, pitting the races before you even start.

With the larger axles it should be stiffer…As for weight savings it obviously depends what crank and axle you use. If you want real lightweight performance, the BB30 Cannondale hollowtechs are stiffer and something like 100g lighter than an M980 XTR setup. The spiders and axles are interchangable too, so you can even run them on a road bike. They are expensive though, unless you can pick one up 2nd hand

Lots of nice carbon HT frames around these days!….

Cannondale Flash would be a good choice – I just got a 29er Flash Carbon and it feels like cheating 😀

It IS quite a compliant frame though (VERY stiff but floaty at the same time – gives in the stays, seattube and SAVE post) from your thread title it sounds like you want something with no flex at all anywhere…

Pete: (Re: Guilty Pleasure) Not Stryper as such, though I did partake of my fair share of coiffure metal back in the day. I draw the line at “hair metal for Jesus” though! 😀 I’ll say this for them though – they put the effort in! – Some of these bands think it’s good enough to just turn up in jeans and a T-shirt. Those matching outfits look like they took a substantial amount of work (but well worth the time and trouble, I’m sure you’ll agree)

No rain in Brighton…Trails were indeed riding lovely last night. I stand by my “dust bath” prediction 🙂

Agree about the yellow paint being off-putting. Nearly came off last night trying to avoid “hazards” that I hadn’t even noticed previously!

Maybe they could paint the SAFE bits yellow and the hazards black instead? Would that work?…

A side benefit of this is it would attract additional sponsorship monies from Stryper…

I’ve done a circuit around Toubkal with KE a couple of years ago. Not sure if it was the same trip…. It was a very good week, though. Mostly jeep track, rather than technical single track but lots of climbing and descending (7000ft of descent one day or something nuts like that). Feel free to email me (address in profile) if you have any questions or want any info…

I’ve had my eye on the Kerala singletrack trip for a while though 😉

Sorry, don’t have a photo of it but a market stall in Horsham last Christmas offered:-

Ladie’s Perfume

and…it seems a bit unsporting (not to mention OT) to start posting bad translations (“Engrish”) but this is one of my favourites….

I did mine a few months ago – Summersault with a flourish – landed with the handlebars in me ribs. I wouldn’t bother going to hospital unless you have any other symptoms (dodgy breathing etc.) It’s a long and boring wait and there’s nothing they can do for it. They won’t X-Ray it anyway so you won’t be any the wiser really.

In my case, A&E examined me and told me “it’s broken, stay off your bike for six weeks) I went to my GP the next day and she said: “it’s bruised, you can ride your bike as long as it doesn’t hurt too much”. Clearly, she knows what she’s talking about 😉

If you need to cough or sneeze (as said above, DON’T suppress a cough reflex, it’s an important lung clearing mechanism that prevents infection) brace yourself with your arm and it won’t hurt so much. I found riding wasn’t too bad…. Turning over in bed was the worst.

I just built up a set of 29er wheels with revs (3 cross) Can’t say I notice any flex in them.

I read up a LOT on this before going with revs and the conclusion seems to be that they are fine. They do actually flex more than comps. It’s measurable but too small a difference for a human to notice. The only real problem with revs is that they are more difficult to build with: The small cross sectional area at the butt means they twist easily and tend to bind in the nipple thread as you get them up to tension. This means they like to twist and a twisted spoke IS weak when you applly tension along its length. I put grease on mine (nips and spoke threads) and also (using black spokes) a chalk mark on each spoke. This allows you to see when the spoke is twisting, which means you can turn back a bit after each turn to straighten it again.

On the plus side, their bendiness means they are really easy to lace 🙂

I think there’s probably a lot more flex in the tyre, forks and head tube/stem/bars than there is in the spokes.

That is a classic conformation to stereotype with the Assos kit and the gut.

Spot on 😀