OH, I did the same thing and asked some other guys on the bus and they said follow me. Nice people like

there is a bus that goes from the Annecy train station. 5.80 Euro a day and it will uplift you as many times as you want. basically there are some tracks that run down the northern spine of the mtn back to Annecy and as someone else said, follow your nose.

Just so everyone knows, the Swiss local govt agency has put a big no cycles on the Col de Cou ride, so that generally means don’t ride it.

I was up there two days ago and had ridden over there to ride the track to find it closed which was a major disappointment

While I was tempted to ride it, you have to respect the locals wishes

The stuff has been released here in New Zealand. I just got a set of the cranks and they look very nice Piccy[/url]

Blue gum (Eucalyptus) is a popular hot burning firewood in Australia and New Zealand. Goes very well on the log burner, but it needs a year or so to dry out and season!

Saints or Zees are very powerful and good reports on these. Only 15g heavier than XT, but a worthy tradeoff especially for bears on bikes

Great photos @Olly! Looks lovely there and I’ll be heading there in early August

yes I had some problems and I ended up deleting the pairing and starting again, then reseting the garmin. Not sure if the reset was required, but for a a month or so two months ago I was having similar problems with the garmin pairing

I recently bought a HD3 with the cane creek DB inline and I have been very impressed with that shock. Very responsive when you need it to be. Did a continuous 800m descent on Saturday and it worked very well. Planning on taking that bike to the Alps in August.

My partner has a Fox Float X on her Pivot Mach 6 and that is a very good real shock too. very sutble but also has the CTD thing which works well.

BTW, great bike too and climbs wells, loves single track and awesome downhills. A friend has recently started riding one and compares to to something between a SC Nomad and Bronson.

I’m with the professor, entirely possible to go to a place int eh alps and get a map or visit the local tourism office and they often have VTT with all the maps.

It’s what I do when I go there

the antibiotics kills the bacteria and stops it being infectious

Depends on how bad you got it and and how quickly you are put on antibiotics to stop the damage to the villi in your bronchial tubes.

I had it a few years back in the middle of bloody summer and I was coughing really badly for a month and did no riding for 5 weeks, but then got back into it but took it easy.
It lurked around for another month or so.

My wife and daughter both got it and the 24 yr old daughter got a mild dose thanks to an earlier vaccination, and my wife got picked up with it very quickly, so was on antibiotics which stopped the damage early.

I’d recommend everyone get vaccinated against this as the vaccination you have as a child only lasts for 15 yrs and it seems there are lots of folk in the community happy to think they have a mild cough but are actually spreading a potentially lethal diesese in the case of young kids

6 weeks in the alps and Aix-Provence July through to Sept. Beaufort, Samoens, Bourg, Digne les Bains and Menton

Kenmore to Applecross is the seminal ride there. There and back

Wellington is well worth a visit, but I live here so I’m bias . Vibrant city and a really good trail network right in and around town.

One recommendation, don’t try to fit too much in as driving times are long.
Rotorua where you are going is good, and there is some stuff at Taupo too.

More than happy to answer some questions you have. geol at paradise dot net dot nz

Yep been running a triple XT with 26, 34, 48 for a while. Bit of messing around with BB spacers to get the chain line right, but no problems at all

Great video! Good to see you did Reno-Flag-Bear and Monarch Crest. So much good riding in CO and a place everyone so go riding in if they get the chance.

some photos here http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/kona-ti-explosif

I have a 2014 Ti version. 17″ frame and sizing seems a little strange, so check that out. Great bike though and do it all sort of thing

I was a sceptical about the 650B, but there does seem to be something to it and as another poster said, it ticks all the boxes

@craig86 I don’t think the stickers glow in the dark, but they are nicely sublimated in a covert kind of way. I was a bit sceptical about the 27.5 wheels, having always ridden 26″ wheels, but have been surprised with these. They roll very well and no real issue with tight corners and switchbacks.

Nice to be back on a HT and a kona again

Beaufort is a great area. There is a bus which charges 4 euro to drop you and your bike at the top of the resort. The local information centre has very good maps of the trails and the town itself is a very nice spot and not as busy as Bourg St Maurice

Here is one of the maps http://www.beaufortain-bike.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/plan-basse-def.pdf

When I was there I saw various of the UK guiding vehicles dropping people off in the area and the local bus at 4 euro a trip is considerably better value that one of these all inclusives.

Best track is the one from Las Saisies down to Albertville

I lived in Norfolk 10 years ago and went mtn biking a few times out near Sheringham. It was surprising good and a real hidden gem.

Tip. 3 weeks is a pretty short amount of time and NZ is a big country. I’d suggest doing one or the other island and south island has more wilderness, but North Island more culture. Read about it on lonely planet and make your minds up. Personally 3 weeks in the south island is what I’d go for.

Hire a car and get to crested butte and/or durango. Trails are well marked and there is heaps of info from local bike shops, tourist office or online as to where to ride

I second Fatbirds in Norfolk for a place to buy a road or cross bike.

I have a lynsky cooper CX with some trigon carbon forks. Had this for 18 months and it is nice both on and off road. Fitted with discs front and rear.

Take some concrete pills and harden the f00k up!

I’ve had this happen a couple of times and you can buy 2nd hand part on ebay which are pulled from old macs. Last time around apple quoted $1000 for logic board replacement, but I got a logic board for $100 from HK on ebay. Worked fine

@mikewsmith. Where is that final video filmed? Rosier, but could you give me the grid coords of where it starts? Looks great!

The coughing can be in real spasms and it too was nothing like any other cough I’d had. Sometime the coughing was so bad, I ended up dry retching at the end. : (

Bad news is there is no real treatment apart from taking it easy and drinking gees lintus cough mixture to stop the coughing at night so to help you sleep.

Doc can do a throat swab to diagnose and stay away from families with little babies.

Both myself and my wife got it. We are both in our 40s and it started as a cold which lingered, then turned into a very nasty cough. I was off the bike for a month and took about 10 weeks to get over it. Not fun and I now tell others to get the whooping cough immunisation as it is just not worth getting this bug.

Nice report. Went to Florac last year and did several rides from there. Generally rode up roads and down single track, all of which was really nice. Heaps of potential in that area!

Thanks guys, I’ll work through your suggestions

re the cracking of 08 DW frames. I have seen two do this now in the same place-at the base of the seat tube, but Turner have changed the design in this area and added a gusset which has fixed this problem.

Nice bikes

I was an early adopter of a turner DW 5-spot in Nov 2008. However I had managed to break it at the seat tube/bottom bracket weld in 3 months. Turner replaced it within a week and 4 months on it happened in the same place again. By this time Turner had some out with the 2010 model which had a much bigger gusset added to the area where the weld had failed and they had obviously had a few break at this point.

Customer service was excellent from Turner and I have had no probs with the new frame. They said if I did it again they would refund me…

What's going on must surely be one of the best albums ever. There isn't a dud on there and marvin's sweet voice and hard hitting lyrics are something else. Came out in 1973 and still sounds good.

I worked with a guy that saw Marvin and Tammi sing together in Harlem and he said it was amazing.

anyone?

Col, I heard it was a bit cr@p……but then so is sitting on a boat between iceland and the faroes…..

Ro you raise a good point and I think large groups of riders does have the potential to p1ss off walkers and other track users. Personally I like riding with mates, but 4-5 of us is a good number, with 2-3 people best. The more people the longer the ride takes and the higher the chance of mechanicals with you all standing around fixing bikes.

Do we all need to go riding in groups of 20?