well done bullhearts. Good call from Les getting you down to the undisputed second best event of the year. (after the BBB, bien sur mes amis). Sounds as though sharki embarassed the rest of you with his whippetyness and rad skillz 😉

Andy, good chatting with you on the climb after the farm, I never did catch you up going back down, you must be a bit quicker than you think you are 😀 .

Shirley you guys should do the Dusk Till Dawn next, if its on this year?

Torchbearer solo, my first ever non-team event so a biiiig step up and eye-opener for me. Therfore relatively chuffed with 11th place avec 8 laps before I threw in the towel at 11.45. (I supopose I could have done a 9th, but I had so many ‘moments’ and a fairly big stack on my 7th lap so proper worried my co-ordination/skillz were too shot to do it safely.) Wierdest bit was riding all the climbs as slow as possible to conserve energy rather than just blasting up them. 😕

Either I signed the wrong box at registration or they gave me the wrong numberplate, but I kept looking for Tim Flooks at the start/finish as the commentator mentioned a couple of times that he had just gone through with the same number of laps as me, and I couldn’t believe I was nearly as quick as him. (oh yes he really is!) Turns out I ‘was’ Tim Flooks (who wasn’t there at all in the end). I would like to publicly apologise for inadvertently bringing his otherwise excellent racing reputation into disrepute with my paltry 11th place, I am sure he would have nailed 4th or 5th. 😳

xcwanabe – Member

That was the most brutal 12hrs I’ve done, Euro Solo Champs in May was easier!

From someone who is so much quicker than me in local races, that is relieving to hear!

Hookworthy (woods at top before return to capsite in the middle of the course) was certainly ‘interesting’ after midnight, having raced those bits in the yummy dry weather, the exposed damp and polished roots really were something! Definitely the hardest of the four 24/12’s at Newnham so far, both in terms of climbs and overall tricksiness. Nothing ‘gnar’ but nice and twiddly in parts 😀 .

Nice to meet a couple of new-to-me stw faces too (sharki and midlandstrailquestgraham), I just about kept sight of Graham down the cottage descent on my 8th and his 13th-or-so lap, he is pretty quick for a 40something vegan! 😉

I proper hurt this morning.

ya!

four or five (is the transition a single pivot with linkage? can’t tell from picture) different back end/linkage biznesses going on in those ‘similar to look at’ frames too.

I liked that daft downtube on the older RM flatline, that looked ACE.

do they still make bontrager big earl wet’s? A bit like a big volume mud x in nterms of sticky compound and wider spaced knobs (different shape knobbles, mind), but be wary of ‘outgripping’ your front tyre.

I kept meaning all winter to change my now-balding SB8 on the back, still haven’t got round to it yet so i guess that must be pretty ok.

no idea…

but impressed/worried with the ‘filling your wife’s post before she left it’ bit. She is NHS isn’t she SBZ? We have no end of hurdles replacing staff, which cannot start until the day after then outgoing person’s last day, I would love to speed that along a bit as even with the system firing on all cylinders we have a typical 10-12 week gap when someone leaves (kiddies mental health, no shortage of applicants and enhanced CRB’s fwiw)….

and

Compact-sized dynamo and course planner/taper Maddie Horton posted on xcracer forum last night:

We have had a fair bit of rain recently, but today the sun shone at Newnham all day and it was scorching. We have just clocked off from day 4 of course set up and by our afternoon trog round I counted about 3 puddles in total.

As we all know from last year though – heavy rain + 1200 riders = mud,

It hasn’t rained in Sunny Plympton for about 28 hours, is forecast to rain a bit today and then sunny sat and sunday. As long as it has a chance to dry a tiny bit without everyone riding all over it, it will be nice. My experience of Newnham is that as long as the rain stops before the race starts, the repeated riding over it sort of ‘churns’ the mud dry again in a short while.

xcwanabe, I didn’t really phrase that so well: I meant lots of racing (paid for) at newnham and night riding in the bits north and north east of the estate. I know better than to trespass in Newnham and spoil it for us all. As well as the ‘getting accidentally shot’ bit. 😆

there was a link posted to something on southerndownhill about Juice Lubes Fork Juice.

Long and the short of it was that is a little bit better than generic silicon spray, but it also by no means Juice Lubes’ own original formulation: the guy chose it to sell as fork juice as exactly what window manufacturers use to put between large sheets of glass, somthing to do with the ‘slipperiness under pressure’ which is better than dashboard spray.

-so if you can find that for less than £7 a can you are onto something.

Quite a few years ago our ward (as in hospital) housekeeper got sacked after he, errr, ‘poached eggs’ in the staff toilet. 😕

it wont stop people doing it but IP addresses and people would give themselves away eventually.

Phil, ‘spot Fred’s new login’ has become a seasonal sport for some on here in recent years. Also applies to the lesser spotted Glupton, but typically Fred/elfinsafety gets banned and Glupton/SBZ just changes his login because he gets fed up with the forum for a bit or for trolltastic giggles.

I remember as a student ‘Red’ (ie ‘proper’) Marlboro being refeered to as ‘full fat slaaaaaags’ aswell.

I’m way too scared to go past about 45 kph on any bike in any kit on any surface/trail. 😳

Nothing to add to the above, but my wankyphone tracking thing tells me that my ride to work has no downhill at all and 150m climbing in just 3.5 yummy Devon miles. So not so suprising that with traffic lights being ‘average’, my getting home time is about 60% of my going to work one.

Torchbearer 12hr solo.

Only 3 lasses and 22 lads in it. So that will be me placing 22nd. We have a reputation to keep up as the slowest team in the south west and I am not one to spoil it.

The course is, errrr, ‘interesting’! I am a proper cheeky nightridin’ local as well as it being my umpteenth race at Newnham, and there are still bits on the course video i didn’t recognise. 350m of mean and nastty climbing per lap, stats fans. 😯

[edit] oh, hi carl. The vastly superior Met office website says ‘dry’ now. Rah!

Surrounded By Zulus – Member

JW – Guilty conscience?

Consider it a vicarious ‘chokes a little’ on your behalf. No need to thank me 😛

Surrounded By Zulus – Member

Depends if the cliquey keyboard warriors and usual suspects turn or not.

*chokes on tea*

Am I missing something, or is Boris not being an MP a considerable obstacle to his becoming PM?

That would be The Big Bike Bash, wouldn’t it?

+1 😀

Except the pub is a tent, the beer is possibly the cheapest real ale in a pint glass you will find south of Nottingham, and the jukebox is that ace band that played Sabbath covers. Rawk! It has all been very good natured in the BBB pub last 2 years and Luke got loads of Blandford Fly in too. (ahem)

Can you tell I’m looking forward to it?

I seem to recall that stealing a 50 yard gap on everyone else by narrowly avoiding the comedy pileup right at the start was also instrumental in Carl’s (and indeed my) first and most likely last ever podium. 8)

I love a good clean comedy race pileup.

We should have a river crossing next time, preferably right near the start: that would make it way more silly.

Oh, if you’re watching Nick, is the ‘rad track’ finished yet?

Filmy folklore says that his ‘audition’ included 15 minutes of him shouting non-stop insults at the top of his voice with no repetitions hesitations or deviations, whilst crew members threw stuff at him.

He is of course the sergeant of the little green army men in Toy Story too 😀

Oh, and getting hammered the night before the races is perfect preparation actually.

Fact: carlphillips off here was four or five pints into his evening when he won the biffers’/normal speed people’s night (1 lap) race last year. He says he barfed at the end. [edit] and he only has one gear. Grrr!

I’ve heard he sometimes sells things with/for gears too though 😯

Last time I was in a European Décathlon (Brussels iirc) they had quite a few flavours of not-fake replica cycle team kit. Not particularly cheap though.

here can’t be people who have non-clotted cream on scones, can there? Where do I sign to have them deported to Ungo-Bungo Land or wherever the savages live these days? You people disgust me.

I am terribly shocked and sorry to report that at tea round my dear maman’s house earlier on today, she had some sort of thick creme fraiche on her scone, plus blackcurrant jam. She is French though.

Good omens. Greatest Hits of Queen gag = julian’s childhood car memories ages 4-14.

(Awaits chastising by proper Pratchet afficionados.)

cream+jam+bit more cream for good luck. Best of both worlds then.

34 next week. Still don’t know what to ask mrs j for my birthday. 😕

I’ve got an orange ‘fsmail’ address. I don’t think I have had any trouble with mail going out (a small-ish distributor of fine bike parts managed not to reply a few times but hey, perhaps it was a ‘blacklisting/spam’ thing after all…) but I have had issues with it coming in. (all fine now though, never did work out why)

Never heard anything back from Orange helpdesk the 2 or three times I emailed them about it. Perhaps they ‘blacklisted’ their own adresses too!

Nice one Bruneep. You must have some stories to tell after 20 years…

Any more expensive than the pin badge and the medal and you’d have the haterz swarming out of their pleasant 3 bed semi’s in force, waving their daily mails and demanding you go back to looking for the sun alliance insurance plaque on the front of a burning building before turning the hoses on.

My boss has a glass thing (like the monolith in 2001 but clear, on a glass plinth) polished/frosted in honour of 20 years of service with one of our local nhs trusts.

For my impending ‘unlucky 13’ years of unflinching NHS service, I got punched in the face at work the other day, and will shortly be TUPE’d into the uncertainty of a social enterprise, having a pay freeze (read: 3% per year cut) and my pension screwed over. As per Ernie’s post though, I’m sure I should be honoured and grateful for the opportunity to do all this for you though. 😕

Code is advertised on the french language site but not the english one, also a couple of things i had my eye on are not in the english one but are in the french one. I reckon it might be worth trying again in french site (and in french language!) . It is bastille day after all 😀

Derek, do you mean National Institute for Clinical Excellence?[/url]

As a child we lived five minutes walk from the school that my dad worked in. Nice enough catchment area, probably 20% of pupils lived in coucil/housing association housing if that’s a measure of ‘affluence’. Dad didn’t really mind at all: being both head of fifth year/year11 and a languages teacher meant he was at a disadvantage with some kids/families and relied a little more in his dazzzling personality :D.

Pros:
-walked to work unless he had tons of books to take home. Therefore one car family.
-Never got ‘snowed in’ 😆
-walk home from end of term staff pub crawl.

Cons:
– halloween was ‘interesting’: extra special attention is paid to one’s teachers’ houses isn’t it?
– My sisters and I went to the same school. Trail rat, do you have kids and would they also go to the school?

Dad didn’t mind it, and the school was plenty big enough (1200) that he was never our head of year or teacher. I had him ‘stand in’ for absent staff maybe three times in 5 years. But we ‘Mr Wilson’s kids’ were definitely under extra scrutiny from pupils and staff. No point whatsoever bunking off school or forging notes, and my sisters responded to being teacher’s kid by underachieving and generally being naughty. After four ‘geek years’, I eventually responded by being in bands and acting outlandishly rather than naughty or nerdy. (only limited success at not being a nerd, mind!). My sisters and I (and a couple of friends whos mum also taught at the school) often wonder how different school would be if we had not been at the same one as Dad. Big sis turned herself round nicely and is now a headteacher. Ulp!

jontydewolfe – Member

all distributors tend to have a shop too,

Notable exception being Silverfish, who seem to be getting rather large in terms of their range of stuff. Their warehouse is just bonkers big. It’s suprising to see in cubic metres how big the UK market for nice canadian frames and fancy french race ‘sleds’ actually looks like.

I suppose if you sell direct it risks undermining your dealer network somewhat, but to have a linked ‘proper’ shop like Stif (jungle) or Bromley (evolution) you need staff, space, location and start buying in from other distibutors in order to have a complete range of bike stuff.

Idoles sexuels de France

et

et

et bien

France’s Sebastien Tellier arrived in a golf cart, had a backing chorus of bearded ladies and inhaled helium from a blow-up globe… but left the Eurovision voters cold. He came in 19th place.

Vive la révolution, camarades. 😀

The powder inside is ground up fishbones to stop the tube sticking to itself, innit.

Not much of a haggler here, but I have had a couple of frames and a bike from classifieds here for way less than 50% rrp. To put it into perspective, the last one i bought (a yeti and all!) was 2006 not 2009 granted, but absolutely mint and cost me maybe 30% of original rrp. I think I got a tenner off the buyer’s asking price and a discount on seatpost he was selling in same ad.

Oh, got my sums wrong up there. So buyer offered you £180ish. I expect they planned to be haggled back up to £210ish for a 2 year old £400450 frameset then. Is it me or does that not sound so bad?

[edit] crossed posts. It looks pretty easy to come by one at £50 off rrp though.

How much does the fork compress?

35mls of oil will be significant (manual says oil volume must be accurate to +/-3mls iirc)

But motion control lockouts also have about 10mm of ‘give’ even when locked out: the rockshox blurb says that is intentional and normal.