Hi Turnerfan1,

We actually have a new pair of these going (I think)

They are brand new – were fitted to wheels I built up indoors (with tubes) but never ridden – they were going to go on my wife’s new SS (being built up) but she wanted mud tyres on there instead, so I’m sure she’d sell them for a good price…

If you’re interested, I’ll check the sidewalls tonight to see if they are the model you want (from memory I think it says both “EXC and EXO” on them…)

cheers,

Jim

ChipsnGravy: Thanks, that John Dent lecture was excellent 🙂

Some sort of Ballantine like those old Matessons ones. That’s what everybody else does.

Loddrick: (or anyone else) does anyone know if there’s an official guide to the new 1st Oct planning laws online? They are coming into effect next Monday and the only “semi-official” info I have found so far is from newspaper articles.?!? The planning portal doesn’t mention the new laws at all.

Also do the laws apply for extensions already under construction? ie: say I already have a 2m extension under way with permission, can I now take it out further to 3m or is it only for work started after 1st Oct?

Thanks very much for any info anyone can give.

It’s the guys that shout “elite/pro/expert rider coming through” that piss me off, like they’ve got some unwritten right for the trail ahead of them to be kept clear.

Yeah, that grates – In any case, I reckon I can tell who’s coming up behind me by how fast they approach, where they gain time on me and how much noise they make. If someone’s faster than me and they don’t say anything, I’ll usually say “I’ll let you pass as soon as there’s a space“. If they’re *really* fast (ie: battling for the lead) and there was no overtaking spot, I’d probably stop to let them through. I don’t want to mess up anyone’s race.

Politeness really does go a long way in a race though.

Brilliant games, lovingly conjured the atmos of the old Sunday afternoon war films.

This level was my favourite – The U Boat pens:

Lovely texture work:

I feel both threatened and belittled by his luxuriant, full head of hair, and culinary skill. When’s Nigella back on telly?

I think she was banned after this episode…

Usually 2 or 3 a year but nothing for the last 18 months. I put it down to base training, proper sleep and being careful around young children. (they are proper germ factories)

We’ve just temporarily switched from gas to electric while the kitchen is rebuilt. Christ on a bike – I’d forgotten just how crap electric is for control. I’ve not used an induction but if it’s anything less than as fast as gas for temperature adjustment I wouldn’t consider it.

What a brilliant weekend! We were racing male pairs and came 13th out of 45 teams. Pleased with that really, as I think we both rode well (for us) and (most importantly) had a great time – and some good banter on the course.

I have to say, that course was CRACKING….Absolutely loved it!!! Hat to whoever worked on that 🙂 (especially the sandy, pineforest, berms on a slope section after the “your 1/2 way round sign” – what a blast!)

Not sure about the marshalling system though? (same as AYTE with guys on motorbikes) seems like it could take them quite a while to discover an injured rider?…

Really liked the DJ, grotto and some great supporters all around the course, thanks a lot guys! Also, nice to see a covered transition (listen up, Mayhem!) Catering (Quavers) was good but really, it would be nice to have something a bit healthier (Falafels, Tarquin?) To cap it all there was some lovely real ale at the end. A big thanks to all the organisers and other riders who made it such a fun weekend.

The power to weight thing hill vs flat is interesting…One of the world cup rider’s coaches was talking about this. He said, for example, the power to weight ratio of the male and female WC riders is pretty similar, yet the men average about 12% faster.

Seems like one of the things people tout about 26ers over 29ers is greater manouverability in tight singletrack. I would think by shortening 29er chainstays to get the same effective wheelbase (and hence, turning circle) you can overcome some of this.

I have the Niner ones, really like them. They’re shiny and flat, 9 degree bend, I think. They are a touch wide for me at 720mm – Keep meaning to cut them down. They have an offset centre bulge so you can run them 5mm higher / lower by running them the other way up.

That’s a pretty daft notion though!

Why? Production cars have benefitted from similar F1 development constraints – your example of a penny farthing is just fatuous. Let’s have some proper reasoning, please.

Hub gears seem like a good potential succesor to derailleur systems to me. Are they really that inefficent? I don’t like the weight of the current systems but if they could solve that then I’d trade a few watts for reliability, longevity and stickproofness.

I don’t know about the tooth wear problem…The main wearing surface should still be the front face of each tooth. I don’t think the side would wear down much, so it should still grip the chain well:

I wonder about chainsuck in the mud with the additional friction between the chain and ring though…

Hub gears seem like a good solution. Maybe the weight issue could be solved with more development effort?….What if the UCI made a ruling (and remember, making rules is their favourite hobby) – hub gears only for World Cup races? I think we’d see hub gear weights drop pretty fast.

The only thing that bugs me is the cost of the replacement cassette. Everything else I can deal with, but a component that I seem to wear out in around 2000km (10spd xt) costing £350 is a bit hard to stomach.

Yes, I love the idea of XX1 and I don’t mind spending for nice non-wearing parts but I’d have to be quite wealthy before I would consider spending £350 on a part that I’d be replacing every year.

Conan257: How about an X9 level 10 speed, 11-42 ish, normal chainring, normal shifter and chain device…

Then I could get the range of gears I need without spending silly money…

Inspired 😀 – I Would totally go for that. Maybe starting at 12t would give less nasty jumps at the dinner plate end…

The resets are actually easier than that – you don’t have to let the air out, just take the top cap and the two half clips off then womp the lower down a few times and you’re done. Apparently the 2013 ones don’t need resests at all (they reset automatically when bottoming out).

You get used to the one sided thing really quickly. After a couple of rides you won’t even think about it. Never noticed mine pulling to one side, I think this is a myth…. If anything it tracks better than a standard fork, especially on steep, slow, rocky descents.

Removing the front wheel is really easy…take fractionally longer than a QR but not a bother at all.

Expensive but unlike a Fox, the moving / wearing parts (ie: stanchions) aren’t part of the structure so you should be able to keep it going for years and years.

Overall I really like it (I have a 29er PBR, 90mm travel) I would try to get a lefty on my next bikes for sure.

In Canada it involves going to a cottage, for the weekend, sometimes with family or friends.
They get really upset if you come prepared for proper cottaging…

Canadians also have “double fisting” and “f cking the dog” as well though 😯

Straightliner: It’s very unlikely to be the Maltodextrin. Torq gels contain Fructose, however, which does give some people GI issues. Maltodextrin is amazing stuff: Cheap, gives sustained energy, Very low osmolality and dissolves at very high concentrations. It doesn’t cause tooth decay either.

Has anyone done a study on the 2:1 (Malto: Fructose) formula at high intensity yet? As far as I know all these “2:1” products (in theory, the benefit is faster absorbtion than pure malto) are based on Jeukandrop’s study, which was done at relatively low intensities. At low intensities you can pretty much eat anything…stomachs generally get more particular the harder you go (and the hotter it is)

I find Torq gels are the tastiest but my fussy stomach gets on best with the isotonic orange SIS ones – I use maltodextrin in my drink as well, so it wouldn’t work so well with non isotonic gels either.

SIS drink contains Aspartime (gives many people nausea, including me) it’s not in the gels though

LIke Routeunknown, I think Sea Bream is the nicest fish – delicious!

Dear God, and I know I didn’t have to click on the thread title, but PLEASE… We get what, 6 maybe 8 weeks of the year without domestic football covering the entire media 24/7, the Olympics are on and they’re really quite enthralling, it’s sunny outside, there are bikes to be ridden!

Can we just leave football alone for a little while longer. Part of the reason I like this forum is its pretty much a safe haven from the tedium that is 95% of the male population of this country and their obsession with the stupid pigskin and the 22 overpaid, under talented individuals kicking it about. Do you really spend the brief time off that we have wondering what will happen this upcoming season?

Shoot me down in flames, you no doubt will, but if mountain biking was rammed down my throat 24/7 for more than 10 months a year, I’d get bored of it too!

EDIT: FWIW watched quite a bit of the women’s football in the Olympics. Shining example of one sport that is MUCH better a spectator sport when it’s the girls playing. Maybe it’s cos they’re amateurs on the whole, but there’s no diving to speak of, and the games are much more flowing and open. It’s much more exciting to watch.

Well said!

Cool. I think it will be a pretty good balance between a good race course and not too intimidating for people that might not have raced before. I’ll be marshalling, my wife is racing it too.

cyclisttm: I believe it’s a similar but cut down verion. The Coldean section is omitted (that side was actually riding really nicely on Sat) and some of the technical sections have been removed.

There’s a map up on here that should give you a pretty good idea:

http://stilettosonwheels.com/

Sliding Doors: Dogbert: I rather enjoyed sliding doors as we had been to the pub and I was quite tired. Had a lovely sleep and woke up just as the credits were rolling – perfect. I’ve seen it (or as much as I could be bothered with) on telly since and it’s definitely better with eyelids down.

The Happening: Absolutely dull as ditchwater but at least you’ve got the customary M KNight Shamalyan twist to look forward to. Oh, there isn’t one….

Chronicles of Riddick: Terrible….Pitch Black was great. How could they drop the ball so badly?

gone in 60 seconds (and all the others like this): Utter pap. Can’t you just watch Jeremy Clarkson if you like cars?

XXX: Just rubbish. Give me Johnny English any day.

Casino Royale: (the new one) Can’t watch that new bond guy…like watching a piece of wood for 2 hours….

Anything with Superheros in: People seem to like these but I just can’t find anything engaging in the “amazing special powers but with an achillies heel!” plots. I like the original batman though (the 60’s one)

Any of those new puberty films with vampires: complete arse.

Gee: Thanks, that’s useful to hear. Yeah, I really enjoyed the WC this year and Pietermaritzberg was maybe my favourite course / race to watch. Proper mountain biking but the course is open enough to film well too. That log staircase looked pretty evil. I seem to remember Frischy saying he Shat himself when he rode it…

That’s interesting reading, Gee, cheers. Well since this is the “Big Dog Training” thread….As someone further back doing 6 hour solos, I’d like to know how hard you front guys are pushing for six hours? I can see from the times that everyone’s laps drop off naturally but are you guys going fairly hard for the whole race to get those times? or are you beginning to coast a bit after the first couple of hours?

(another way of asking do I need to extend my base fitness so that my “coasting” speed is faster? or do I need to extend my endurance so I can keep up a hard effort for longer?) thanks!

TimP: Absolutely. Apart from just being nicer, people are usually way more cooperative if you’re polite to them and I like to think people would be equally decent when passing me.

Everyone was very nice at BD though. Even the two guys I moved aside for half way down A+E (battling 1st and 2nd in one of the team cats, I think, and absolutely hooning down) shouted thanks as they blatted past.

I’ve found that on a couple of races this year. The slower riders just stop at the side of the track for you to pass before you can even ask – makes me feel guilty!

We’ve got two in our house (as well as quite a few other Exposure lights). I reckon they’re brilliant: no faff with leads, seem to be very reliable. Beam is pretty bright on medium (which lasts 12 hours). Depth could be a bit longer but I think that’s common to all LED’s. Spread is very good, even works fairly well on twisty singletrack. Exposure are very good with support at races, warranty or paid repair if you get any problems too.

The only downside I’ve found is with the Maxx D on full or med, it’s almost too bright to see a joystick beam. A Diablo works a bit better as a companion helmet light IMO.

No, I think she just sees them as leverage for her to get another bike for herself.

Napalm / Simon (Catmur?): A big thanks to all the organisers. We had lots of friends and family down to watch and they all had a great day out. My parents even came down and got to see me on the podium, which totally made my day (it doesn’t happen often)

Yeah people were great about overtaking but I’d second what Gee said..wouldn’t hurt at all to have “on your left” mentioned in the briefing, as well as asking people walking their bikes up the climbs to give way to riders. I had to have words with one guy pushing his bike up the racing line on the Coldean climb (right where the rooty bit is) He seemed to think that because he couldn’t ride it, no one else would be able to… Took 3 requests for him to reluctantly move over. I could have done with that oxygen too….

Darkcyan: Indeed. I found the first 1.5 laps WELL sketchy (on Rocket Rons) Things improved rapidly after that though. It really is a *cracking* course once it’s dryish and that last singletrack descent down to the bombhole (A+E is that what it’s called?) is bloody brilliant.

Top day out! Horrendously sketchy first lap (probably not helped by the Rocket Rons) but course dried out nicely after that and became a blast as it got drier and riders thinned out. Ended up 5th in solo vets – just sneaking on to the BD extended podium – ace!

Cripes, that first 10 minutes to the top of Badgers is hard work though – the legs weren’t happy about that.

When comparing £/g remember that a cassette is a wearing part, so comparably a worse investment than the same £/g saving on a seatpost, for example, which might last you 4 times as long.

XT is a good 11-36 to go for – below that the Shimano cassettes, though not much heavier, have individual (thin) splines that will dig into an alloy freehub body.

Had a quick spin around the course this evening and it’s riding very well indeed. No puddles anywhere, a couple of damp ruts but that’s it. Basically dry everywhere and the organisers (I presume) have been in and done some pruning back of the overgrown foliage (nice one!). Should be a cracking ride at the weekend if the weather will just show a little kindness over the next few days.

Amazing job. I demand statues!

Completely disgraceful on all counts.

Taff: If up on the Thursday I will try the route otherwise will win it.

Congrats! Is 2nd place still available? 😯

Good summations above really…. The surprising thing to me is that she seemed to do it to please other people or because she is good at it but never because she loves bikes. Seems to me like the fundamental bit is missing.

Maybe it’s the difference with MTB but you take a MTB pro like Marco Aurelio Fontana…Italian cyclo cross champ…top 10 world cup xc rider…When he’s not MTB training he’s at cyclo cross or playing on some downhill and if he’s not doing downhill then he’s out on his MX bike…clearly just loves to be on 2 wheels..

…I reckon he is a happy guy.

(clip shamelessly Knicked from Billysugger’s thread)