Oh won’t someone please think of Tormund!

My rule of thumb is – unless I see someone die on screen, they’re not dead (just forgotten).

Olenna (??) (highgarden) – not dead, she was prepared with some antidote.
Dorne woman – not dead, just chilling out in the dungeons ready to get her revenge.
Tormund – surely he’s got a role to play later with a defiant last stand with Lady Brienne.

Honestly thought Tyrion was going to get the chop though.
Jaime is still needed to stab Cersei in the back.

If you’re a paid up member of the National Trust (and what Audi driving, Axe swinging wood-burning STW type of chap isn’t), Gibside (5 mins off A1 near Gateshead) is a good stop of ice cream, scone and a walk so long as it’s not raining.

I convinced the other half that due to the lack of mammals on New Zealand the birds had evolved to fill various niches that would normally be filled by mammals

Um, you do know about the Moa, right?

And the Weta fills the niche normally occupied by Mice….

I would:

get rid of the Synapse carbon and buy a 2nd set of wheel or tyres for the Arkose.

Then:

Not buy the Solaris because the Soul and Coedine and Arkose have it covered.
Or sell your Soul as well.

Do you know what trails you’re riding?

The big take home message from my riding at the Golfie and Inners off-piste is that there’s very few (almost none) features that you can’t roll or that I (a half decent rider but no means awesome) wouldn’t just ride on sight.

Also, you can’t get too carried away with riding particularly quickly on those trails. There’s a minimum speed below which you fall off and get stuck on roots, there’s a maximum speed at which you start crying and want to go home. The speed you’ll ride at is generally somewhere between the two 😆

I’ll keep an eye out on the North East England FB buy & sell pages

jam bo – Are the Guide Tennie the ones that Northwind bought and went completely mental at for being water absorbent junk?

Have you used them much in the wet?

I have successfully repaired a couple of pairs of Freerider Elements with Freesole – it’s a PU based glue. Not particularly cheap but much cheaper than a new pair of shoes.

Pull the sole off a bit so that you can reach inside, brush it clean and dry, fill with glue then tape it all up to dry. I used newspaper to help give the shoe some shape and to apply pressure evenly across the sole while it cured.

Don’t buy too big a tube as it will cure and only keep in the tube for 6 months ish.

Since then I’m eventually starting to wear through the sole at the front of the foot – I’ve obviously spent too much time walking in these shoes!

Leaky sidewalls, leaky bead, leaky valve, could be leaks anywhere. If it’s going completely flat pretty quickly you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding the hole.

I’m assuming you have sealant inside an have given it a good shake.

Did it last year (well, the 100 km), it was fun. I’m not much of an XC racer any more so not exactly the target market.

As far as BW and doubletrack bashing goes, it was a good and interesting ride. Hilarious to see the XC also-rans walking down anything remotely fun.

Fun weekend but wouldn’t do it again.

My trail boss tough (650b) goes ok on to my Hope Flows (both the Flow EX and now the flow Mk 3). It only has the one wind of tape around to seal the bead. It’s maybe a touch tighter than the Maxxis, but not silly tight.

Is the tyre new to you, does it go on to any other rims?

For comparison a LWB T5 is 5.1 m long. That just fits within a normal parking bay. With bikes on the back* you’re longer.

*have to show them off, they’re not for riding.

I think I got some cheap plastic and wooden things from Wilko and cut it down to fit inside the lid. Just long enough it doesn’t fall in to the pan.

Anything else is over complicating it! (IMHO) 😉

How about I go between 2 slower riders… I leave a 30 second gap to the person in front, the person behind me leaves IMMEDIATELY after me, and we’re all happy…

Just what me and the Mrs do when we’re racing together 😀 (except she gets the big gap behind her instead of in front of me) We’ve rarely had marshals object to this as we’re still keeping riders flowing through.

Anyway, we all agree that there needs to be some tweaking to the format/entries to allow the more competitive riders to be grouped together and away from the newbies, to keep the newbies from being knocked off by the racers, to dim the church bells at night.

Cracking fun as always though. Last year I thought would be my last as it’s just getting really busy but I enjoyed it so much again, I may just be back 😀

Great fun and a privilege to ride those trails with like-minded folk. Guys and girls who know they won’t be on the podium but are going to pin it and send it for mid-pack mediocrity 8)

submarined- the shop ought to be able to sell/give you some maps of where the local good stuff is. OK, the stuff we pay to race on is better but there are some decent singletrack descents around. The BW from Hurst to Storthwaite Hall being one (was used on the climb from S4 to S5 😆 )

I did, got the phone as expected. Think it was not network locked. Would buy again. A++++

I always left a big 20 – 30s gap at the start

You do realise that to get the riders through, it averages out at 15 second gaps?

Does anything make you or anyone else special enough that you deserve a bigger gap?

Passing and being passed without losing too much time is all part of the skillset required for racing. 😀

*correct* horse battery staple

Conversely, I find that with longer passwords I make too mistakes typing them….

the amount of folk that don’t seem to understand ‘rider’ !

OTOH I had some riders knacker their own race run before I’d even shouted “rider” at them. Too polite for their own good!

Magic Mary and Rock Razor were spot on for me. Supergravity F&R.

Race Blade Long/XL I had fitted on to the QR skewer and chain stay bridge (underneath the road bike brake caliper) , worked well.

Good times guys 😀

I really like the format that you can practice some of the stages but not all f them. I can never decide whether I prefer to be able to practice and therefore go faster or if I just love racing blind.

p.s. results are up

https://www.rootsandrain.com/race5555/2017-aug-6-ard-rock-ard-rock-enduro-dales-bike-centre/results/?ref=alert

Every time you see an abandoned tube on the trails… pick it up, take the home and if it has a removable valve core, then you can just but yourself a valve out of it.

This year they seem to be suggesting that the fields further away are just for parking and the nearer fields are just for camping.

They also say the showers take NEW £1 coins

Ard Rock final info and start times for all events

http://www.ardrockenduro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/AR17-site-map.png

We’ll see.

I have a rough mental idea of how much the shop costs to give a roughly right feeling at the checkout. Sometimes I’ll check that specific offers have been applied – either by watching the checkout while scanning or the receipt afterwards.

Necro thread?

yeah, I’d be gutted if it ever died.

I much prefer it in the company of others. It’s much more fun to share it with someone.

If push comes to shove though, I can please myself on my own.

You get the end result and have a bit of a sweat on either way.

I’m enjoying watching the overthinking types discussing it as it makes me feel better. I’l only have three spare tyre choices with me in the van…

SKS Shockboard

I’ve broken load of these.

MuckyNutz trumps the lot as it flexes

We’ve mangled and creased several of these

velcro ties

Winner! I took a wee drill to my Rockguardz (will also work for Mudhugger I’d expect) to turn the zip tie holes in to slots and used the double-sided velcro from a dead Mucky Nutz. 30 seconds to take on and off as required.

Cable rattling you can fix with some good routing, a few bits of tape or cable ties.

Some friends who did home-brew bikes used velcro to reduce chain slap. Really! Stick it on like, the proper rubber chainstay protectors. Worked really well. Also use sraps on inner tube around the chain stay and the bottom of the seat stay.

At least a couple of days at the bike park – the shuttle bus is cheap. The native trails (Hatupatu, Tawhiti) off the top are great. The EWS has been through several times since I’ve ridden there so new trails have gone in and been ridden out since. Kung-Fu Walrus was a new one when I was last there 😀

I’m going to have to dig out the trail map to remind myself of what my favourites are.

Don’t forget to do Kutore (Kutties) on a wet day 😆

Rainbow mountain is short but fun. Do a couple of laps then stop of a hot dip in Kerosene Creek.

The trails off the gondola aren’t that great so never rode them.

The Jubilee Track is cheeky (walking track) and very contentious locally so don’t ride it.

We never did any helis from Rortorua so I don’t know what options that would open up.

Taupo trails (Craters of the Moon) were ok but I wouldn’t head there to ride them.

Clutch mechs are a step in the right direction, but I’d imagine that the Zerode and other gearbox bikes are a leap forward.

Riding chainless was probably as quiet as it gets but that just means I was a aware of how much *SCOOSH*SCOOSCH*SCOSCOOSCOOOSCHSCHSCH* the suspension was doing 😀

nobeerinthefridge – please do. I’m tossing up options for our holiday in September (mostly waslking, bit of biking) – thinking either Arran or Skye

Cheers wwaswas/cougar.

In my settings I have a real email address – I receive email notifications of a PM and the newsletter etc, I reckon I’m all good.

In my profile I have a disguised email address – however Cougar’s OP refers to “on their Profiles…”

My email address is a real email address, but ‘disguised’ in an attempt to prevent automated software from picking it up.

Is this acceptable or does it fall foul of your rules?

We hired with one of the big boys (might have been National) at the airport. We were flying with 2 x bikes and 2 x ski kit and had an Explorer booked. We were upgraded to a Pathfinder, which was great as we would have struggled with all the kit in an Explorer and they didn’t deduct anything for the small scratch I put on the bumper. 😀

So to answer the OP’s question – the only one of the Blue tails I’ve ridden is the bottom of 3, descending toward Champsec. It’s a flat out, fast hoot. The rest of trail no. 3 is double track – the dashed lines on the mamp are pretty clear about doubletrack, the solid lines are the good bits.

In the few days we were there (camping in Champsec) we rode a handful of trails, riding up and doing the odd shuttle in the camper.

In somewhat increasing order of difficulty:

14 (Red Barmasse – Lourtier) EB rode this and was gutted at how boring it was for the elevation lost. Wide walking track with lots of water bars.

15 (Red Six-Blanc – Versegères). Fun. Nothing very hard.

23 & 9 (Red ) leads in to 10.. I was really disappointed by this trail. Narrow, unexciting track with a solitary steep tech section.

7a (Red Attelas – La Chaux) Techy rock garden XC route. leads nicely in to 11

18. (Black Lardzay – Vernay) Well-ridden. Felt like an easy DH course. fairly steep but no nasty drops, no hidden features, good sight-lines and a wide track.

11. (Black La Chaux – Lourtier) Awesome ego-massaging trail bike DH. Almost no super-tight switchbacks but brake burningly fun.

10. (Black Château – Crie) Exposed tech, tight switchbacks. It’s had repair work to the corners meaning front wheel endo corners are mandatory and I was having a bad day on this track (didn’t help I smashed my mech off on the only loose rock in a 10-mile radius).

Also not on the map is the descent from Col des Mines to La Tsoumaz. Excellent in a medium-difficulty Lake District style. Loads of fun.

Also, what Jambalaya says – get the Swiss Mobility app to access topo maps on your phone. You’re almost never without reception and great to double check where you are.

I’m sure he’d be quite happy to guide you.

Fair enough if he’s a guide and that’s his thing. The single line comment was a bit know-it-all though.

yep there on the back of the map. Not the bike park dh stuff.

I’ll have a look at the bike park map when I get home and have a more helpful write-up.

All the best trails aren’t on the dh or enduro maps.

Of course not. But you wouldn’t actually be so helpful as to enlighten us then would you?? 🙄

Got a Mary on the front, I’ve been wondering what to put on the rear for months

I’d really like something half way between a Magic Mary and a Rock Razor for that perfect 3-season tread pattern.

They’re normally so outdated and generic they’ll spend fifteen pages showing you how to do up a 9 mm quick release skewer – when you have a maxle front and rear.

On the plus side – KS & Hope for starters put the info out there including YouTube videos.