Dear God people, do any of you actually read Singletrack magazine?

There was an article on this exact thing last issue, it referred to being confident in your ability to do stuff as self-efficacy and therefore gaining confidence as increasing your efficacy expectations. It was broken down into:
1) Change something to make it seem less daunting – pads/bigger bike/flats etc
2) Practice on something similar to build confidence
3) Watch someone you deem similar in ability do it
4) Get feedback – video/trained bod (Jedi for example)

There’s more to it for the finer details but the article does put it relatively simply.

hind-sight is indeed a wonderful thing!! :)

Elfin – I’m sure you’re right and no I don’t blame you for trying to cash in. However I think I need to re-submit this advice request.

Imagine I’m a hick numpty who knows nowt about the big smoke although I have been there before and used the tube. I have no idea how long it takes to get anywhere by rail or where are places to avoid staying in. I have in my head the idea that we could stay somewhere just inside/outside the M25 (on the SW side as we’re comin from Devon) and then use our famous transport system to get around. Am I living in cloud cuckoo land or is this feasible?

I’m not taking the mick, I really have no clue and believe that someone on STW must have a good knowledge of London and the surroundings to be able to help!

Yeah, wondered how feasible the whole camping thing was. Obviously not in London itself but somewhere nice outside it.

konagirl – that’s a nice tip, didn’t know about the 250 day thing.

Cheers for all the other links, I think we’d like to stay out of central London and get transport in but London is a big place and knowing where to avoid and where is lovely is a difficult one.

We like the idea of a nice B&B but for ease of use may well go with a bigger hotel. We have a budget in mind and are also cultivating family/friendship links so may be able to avoid all hotels. We’ll see. Cheers again though, I just didn’t know where to start!

I’ll be honest I haven’t read all 6 pages of this post but I’ll put in my twopenn’orth if that’s ok.

I’m a female rider and at the moment I ride with a group on a Sunday morning when I can. A couple of weeks ago there were 5 of us out, and that’s fairly normal. Yes, we stop and chat about sections but it’s a mixed ability group and sometimes we want to session a spot so we can get better. That doesn’t always happen with the blokes.

However, on that Sunday there were women all about the place riding in groups or with male partners/friends (I didn’t ask). i actually commented on how many I’d seen.

I don’t ride as much as I’d like but that’s not because I feel alienated but because I have a small child. I no longer do the evening or all day rides I used to. My hubby (and riding buddy) and I last went out together months ago as we tag team parent on rides now.

I love fettling my bike but don’t have the time because Baby Kip wants me as soon as I start to do anything focussed away from her (even if she’s been playing happily prior to that!!)

What holds back women in biking is often their guilt at taking time for themselves away from their family. They often feel they should be the main care-giver and, as Dad is often works long hours as the main wage earner, feel Dad deserves the time-out more than they do. I’m lucky that Mr Kip is massively supportive and lets me have as much time as I want, but TBH I don’t want to take the p*ss as he deserves the break as much as me. We compromise and as such get out maybe once a week if we’re lucky.

I love riding my bike for the fun, the dirt, the exercise and the social side of riding with men and women.

Told you!!!

Not convinced you’ll get a whole lot of sympathy here ;)
See thread “look after your own kids…”

I’ve found this discussion interesting especially as I had a proper row with my father-in-law about my right to strike and how I should be lucky that “the private sector was bolstering up my public sector pension”. I pointed out that, using his theory, as a tax payer I was paying twice for my pension, once from my wages and again as a tax payer. I also pointed out that I had signed up for one thing and was now being told that it would change and I could do nothing about it. Furthermore I noted that surely going to an average salary scheme was discriminatory against women who tend to take time off to raise kids and therefore have a lower average salary. Once F-i-L had finished sounding off about “that’s your choice to take time off to have kids and not work” and wanted to know why his pension pot was low (apparently to prop up the public sector pensions) I’d had enough.
F-i-L runs his own pretty successful business with a number of employees, his, and their ability to earn high wages is greater than the average teacher whose salaries are centralised and capped. Yes I get better holidays but my (unpaid) working hours are longer. On average teachers have a shorter life span once retired than other retirees.
Basically what I’m trying to say is, yes I chose my job knowing full well the pro’s and the con’s…what I didn’t really expect was to get right royally screwed again and again with no say on the matter.

Mr PeterPoddy
that’s flipping genius that is…cheers :D
Will sort my new to me 2008 Rebas according to this tomorrow and hopefully won’t find them to be totally mullered as I though they were today!

£3.5k!!!! Dear god man, did you really want all of them or were you hoping they didn’t all go through?
Anyway, just rung bank and have a debit pending of £48 which is the value of 1 set of 3 tickets. Please let it be the boxing or weightlifting and not the canoe slalom (that was just to kill some time!), definately not BMX finals though!
Oh yeah, it says on the website that payments go out from 10th May to 10th June. Does this mean they still have to ballot for oversubscribed tickets or has that already happened?

No tickets yet but we applied for events with pay your age tickets available. Hmmm, could it be that they would go to people paying for 3 full price tickets and not us with our 2 full price and a 2 year old? Conspiracy, us, no, never!!
Still, gutted we’ve got nowt so far and we went for some really random stuff including slalom canoeing and weightlifting!
Surely they’d rather fill seats with £20 tickets than have empty arenas?

I used to love CyB. Back in the day Mr Kip and I rode it with rigids and V-brakes (he had canti’s) then they changed it all. I’ve ridden there on a 80/100mm Anthem a few years ago then repeated on a Trek Ex8 last year. Most fun on the Anthem but I really loved that bike and rode everything from Haldon to the Alps via Scotland on it. I’m starting to get the same level of confidence on the Trek but it’s taken time.
As for 29ers. My feet don’t touch the floor on a 26″ bike when the seats up, I’d be f***ed on a big wheel bike!!

Richmars
+1

Bigyinn
+1

It’s even worse with a pram. It’s fun trying to hold the inside line furthest away from the road as someone tries to force you to move. Mr Kip has intentionally run into people as he holds his pavement space!!

No, the bit that said they were 130mm forks when they are clearly not, without some fettling on my behalf. I know I read the ad wrong, and I’m not complaining about that, that was my own fault so have to suck it up! I wanted the adjustability of U-turns so I could see how the longer travel handled compared to the shorter but I’m happy enough with these. As I say, it’s more the fact that they are not 130mm travel as described.

+1 for Bepanthen but again it’s silly expensive so may be better with proper stuff. Juice lubes have just started selling one called Chapeau that’s pretty good and it’s available in minty or non-minty for the laydeez.

Cheers. Worth getting narky about with the seller? I’ll be honest I was after u-turns but in a hurry misread the description and got these. It does mean they are a better swap for my old forks as well! But that’s not the point!!!

Before I take them apart it appears that the 06-08 were available in 115mm. Is there any way to check that it is definately due to a spacer and not the wrong length fork. Or were they standard forks (130mm) but with spacers fitted as standard to reduce the travel to whatever they were sold as?

We were unsure of speed limits so I emailed our local traffic police. They told me it has nothing to do with taxation class or weight and everything to do with derivation and windows and seats. Basically if your vehicle car derived (doblo, berlingo, fiesta) then it is subject to normal speed limits (30, 60, 70 etc). If it is not (T4, transit, vito) then it HAS to have rear seats, side windows AND rear window to be able to drive at normal limits. If you are missing ANY of those you are subject to the lower limits. Our T4 doesn’t have a rear window so is subject to lower speeds, our mates T5 does so can drive at the faster speeds.
The reason why a Motorhome can go at the higher speeds is because it is a different type of vehicle and to do with the seats, windows and something else to do with fixed cooking equipment. I’ll admit that I can’t remember all the details but I am absolutely certain about derivation, seats and windows.

We went to Les Gets a couple of years back on a FS Stumpy and an Anthem and rode loads including a random black and some DH trails. Admittedly not as fast as others but still lots of fun. Highly recommend the blue map from the Tourist office. It covers loads more routes into Switzerland and so on. We had a great time and can’t wait for baby Kip to want to go!

Had lots of abuse over the years of commuting. My favourite responses have been
1. Catching up with car at traffic lights, tapping on the window and asking what they said as I couldn’t quite catch it the first time. Resulted in lots of embarrassed faces and trying to pretend I wasn’t there.
2. Telling a chav child to “F*** off you little ****” His mates nearly wet themselves laughing and next time he just gave me a knowing nod, which I politely returned.

I have yet to use the line “why do you say things to make other people feel bad? Are you a bully or is it the only way you can make yourself feel good” Need lots of traffic and fast legs for that one methinks!

Am I correct in thinking St Andrew’s lane is a bridleway? If so, doesn’t that mean that motorised vehicles (ie quads) aren’t allowed on it?
Gutted it’s been cleared. It’s been a goodly while since I’ve ridden it due to only getting short rides in after Baby Kip was born but was going to finish a ride tomorrow night on it. May change plans now. Bu**er!

Mr Kip bought a stand from Amazon called the Velomann for £67 or thereabouts. He thinks it’s great especially as it folds up easily. It’s very sturdy, tripod stand, QR clamp, has a tool tray.

However, it took ages to put together and he’s pretty handy at that sort of thing. He had to read the instructions, it was that difficult.

To give you an example of his general handiness, he’s just replaced the shock and wheel bearings on his motorbike with little fuss or hassle.

Otherwise much recommended especially as once it’s together that’s it.

Sometimes I think that if I explained everything to a judge and jury they’d understand and let me off. Last summer it was almost worth trying :wink:

Oh hell yeah, my mother in law is mental. All culminated last summer after Baby Kip was born and we went to Norn Iron to visit. As Mr Kip reads these threads I won’t go into detail, but to say it was horrible and he came close to completely walking away from his family for good, is a close approximation of events.
MiL told me, amongst other things, that I’d given Baby Kip a great start breast feeding her for 3 months but now it was time to give other people a go! She meant with a bottle, not wet nursing. Oh God, now there’s a horrible picture!!!
Luckily major showdown has resulted in more clarity between us all – she’s mental and we smile and wave boys, smile and wave – so Christmas went ok.
In-laws, can’t live with ’em, can’t kill ’em.

Oh yeah, and watch out riding tow-alongs in the wet. Saw a poor little girl being towed along by Dad who was completely oblivious to the girl’s shouts of “I’m all muddy Daddy” as the spray from his back wheel soaked her.
Cruel but funny…actually, no it wasn’t.

Local bike shop chap had a burley trailer for his 2 girls. He rolled it by clipping a kerb, they thought it was the funniest thing. Straps worked a treat, roll cage didn’t collapse. Don’t know if they were wearing lids though.

:lol:

The funniest thread I have read for ages. I’m crying I’m laughing that much!!!

Baby Kip is only 9months so we have all this to look forward to.

I don’t get a chance to check the forum every day but do like to check on those I posted on. 2unfit2ride – glad it’s all ok, +1 for Woody.

We have no interest in Baby Kip being a console head, especially as we don’t have one in the house, but we both see the virtues of being IT literate. your comments are useful though Chickenman…cheers.

Arnica all the way. Took it after birth of baby kip and repaired very quickly much to amazement of midwife etc.

Sorry, your daughter.
If she is a normally chatty type who you get on well with chances are it’s nothing, but check with her anyway. A quick are you ok is probably enough.
If she’s a bit more introverted and tends not to tell you anything then she may be trying to tell you that things are a bit poo at the moment.
Remember that 14 can be a difficult age with everything being the end of the world. If she does want to confide something then do not under any circumstances tell her what to do. Girls want someone who listens to them, boys want answers. (trust me I’m female and it’s taken 15 years for my hubby to realsie that answers are not always wanted!)
Chances are it is nothing and she just wants to share something with her old man, in this instance it’s some emo music.
Good luck.

Garry Lager: Interesting. The whole picking up on learning difficulties is a concern we thought about. Hopefully our little ‘un won’t have problems but you never know. However, as for for the “retarded” system of learning later…that’s common practice on the continent, especially Germany, and they seem to do quite well.

mansonsoul: what was her first in? Arty stuff or techy stuff? How did she feel about the whole experience and how has it affected her socially? I’m guessing not much as she didn’t have to change schools part way through. That’s out other concern as our local school stops at year 8, and the local comm coll isn’t famed for it’s lovely pupils and high achievements (trust me I’ve worked there!).

How old is she?

Ahhh, dogs in the snow. What’s not to love? Very jealous.

Just curious. How’s things going for Kennedy in the FH household? None of my business really but found the whole thing quite sweet.

MMMMMMM cake!

The techniques you are looking for are technically known as Coping Strategies. There has been a few (more so recently) sport psychology studies in this area. This was the main area of study for my degree and I’ve done a couple of case studies on it. It’s an area I find fascinating. I get really quite excited when talking about it so sorry if this post goes on a bit!!
Strategies tend to be in one of three areas – visualisation, centering and self-talk.
Eviljoe has a fantastic visualisation strategy (tree lassooing) and most of you seem to include self-talk in your replies. The main thing is to do something positive, which even screaming out loud can be. If you talk or do sums etc to distract yourself from the situation you are doing something positive to avoid the situation, the same goes for just taking yourself away, mentally.
If you have a particular part of a course that you hate then you need to either find a way to avoid it mentally and just get through it (as already mentioned) or to deal with it (approach it) mentally or physically.
This could involve beaking the section down and trying to get through more of it than last time. Or it could involve changing bikes or tyres. Or getting off and checking the section out and then trying something different next time. The key thing is you are trying something positive and not focusing on the negative.
If you find yourself getting really wound up then centering helps especially if it is combined with positive self-talk. Centering is basically using a pre-practised key word or physical movement to get your head and body back on track.
TBH there is a huge amount you can do and a post to explain it here would be too long. I hope some of the stuff I’ve written helps, just ask if you want more detailed info.

Yes, all advice is Easyjet advice but the seat thing is worth a shot if cabin staff seem nice. Also worth a mention to check-in staff.