Enduro/trials practice/training centre.
Maintain the obstacles and take a cut from instructors who use it. Add some rugged blockhouses, a big stove, and a few washing machines for weekend/week long courses.

Or grow potatoes.

More bike than me = “over-biked”.
Less bike than me = “might as well be riding cyclocross”.

I found the tyres were sliding before my knee reached the ground, so just chuck it on your knee, don’t spend too much time getting there! You can slide them into, round, and out of corners – doing so I managed a high side that rolled the bike 3 or 4 times; your mission is to beat that! 😆

Seen this sort of rubbish with 2 friends. Both times the collection of action packed manly hobbies were indisputably a big part of what attracted the girls, but once they were together then said hobbies were supposed to stop!?!

(I sometimes suspect some women think a bloke’s interesting hobbies are put on in order to attract girls.)

The Ecuadorian’s are gonna need a bigger embassy. 😉

My Grandad was the kind of guy who appalled my parents and delighted us kids. Anyone bringing food or drink was “a gentleman”, particularly a young waitress. Any time a hand was put on his shoulder he’d throw his arms up and say “I’ll come quietly!”

I used to lean a bit of pipe on some bricks and he’d go through a full set of artillery yelling before shouting “kerrrrrack!” and blowing smoke from his pipe up the “barrel” of the “howitzer”.

My Gran got interested in foreign holidays and he didn’t want to apply for a passport, as she’d find out he’d lied about his age when they met 60+ years ago! (Of course she knew) His stubbornness brought on this gem:
“Norway, oh Jack we could visit Norway, and see the fjords”
“I’ve been there, didn’t like it.”
“But that was a commando raid on the Lofoten Islands!!”

When he was finally persuaded abroad he carried a bottle of ketchup in his pocket at all times, in order to flavour up that ‘foreign muck’. He approved of German food (a big concession for a WW2 veteran) because they have a lot of sausages.

I could go on forever…

The Norwegian University of Science and Technology study found greenhouse gas emissions rose dramatically if coal was used to produce the electricity.

And what if it’s not?

Exactly! If a car runs on electricity, then it doesn’t matter how that electricity is generated (cough nuclear nuclear nuclear cough) the car still works. Some great electric bike prototypes coming out too.

In addition, producing batteries and electric motors requires a lot of toxic minerals such as nickel, copper and aluminium

How much of that is recycled material?

And how much COULD be, a proper recycling infrastructure around electric cars is a no brainer, along with leased batteries or possibly battery swaps in “refuelling stations” (instead of plugging the car in) it wouldn’t even be hard.

I was in the film “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”, and some people have slept with me, and I’ve slept with them…

If you must have a tablet, and he must be able to do homework on it, buy the Asus Transformer Prime. It comes with a keyboard dock for when you need to type (which rather cutely increases oomph and battery life when used) and stomps on every other tablet for spec and functionality, and costs less than an iPad.

That said, when you’ve got the point where your kids expect a specific 5-600 quid noddy toy computer for their birthday while trying to con you that it’s “for homework” (an xBox would be as much use) then a sound thrashing and bed with no tea seems more in order. Homework is done with chalk and slate, or if you’re ridiculously modern – quill and paper!

That looks to me like an attempt to block the route to non-footists (pedestrian sized gap on one side of the “fence”) which someone has later poured rubbish all over (rubbish is all on one side of the “fence”).

I ride up hills in order to ride down them. I hated being clipped in descending, but cos my bike is a prehistoric lump being clipped in is a good idea for the climbs. So I run SPDs, as loose as possible, with multi-release cleats. I can bail just as fast as with flats.

World class downhill riders will figure out what they need, but for those of you with biggish bikes who ride up what you ride down, my approach might be worth a look.

Still, it’s interesting that (to my knowledge) no motocross, trials, or enduro rider has EVER thought about clipping their boots to the pegs. But it could be that placement of pedals as a means to provide thrust put them in the wrong place as somewhere to stand, and vice versa, so presence of clips and positioning and geometry all wander round the various compromises.

The biggest issue is: are pedals you clip into really called clipless? 😯

-Any clothing made for mountain biking
-Changing tyres ‘for the conditions’
-Carbon fibre anything
-Titanium anything
-Fox anything
-Lycra for any purpose other than undercrackers
-Anything chosen to be the same colour as anything else
-Big rings
-Any bike that costs more than the current most expensive Boardman MTB
-Knowing the manufacturer of your bike’s brakes/mech/shifters/without looking. Even worse if you know the model!

Basically, unless you’re competing in at least county scale championships with money at stake, then nothing about the tuning of your mountain bike matters unless you could explain it to a 12 year old, and result in them giving a flying f***.

I don’t think pointing out 3 extra inches of wheel diameter and using the word inertia is gonna cut it.

Visiting folks at Xmas, I was the only one who wanted to stay up and watch Aliens. Turned off the light, headed for bedroom in the dark, and a piece of tinsel had detached and was hanging in the middle of a doorway – I walked face first into it and jumped out my skin.

Got home one day and after a bit of a potter about realised the loft hatch was on wonky… Poked a camera on a stick in, in case the murderer hiding in there was ready for me. Suspect that open windows and a gust of wind popped the very lightweight cover askew.

Riding my motorbike home on a chilly night, I kept catching peripheral glimpses of flickering wispy figures dancing through the tree cover ahead and above me. My headlight was reflecting off puddles and illuminating mist among the branches.

(Sorry if this post is a woowoo free zone, but ghosts don’t exist.)

I heard a tale of a guy who mail ordered the most powerful magnet he could own without a license or contacting an alien race, and then unpacked it on his steel workbench.

And there it remains.

(Apparently once with a lot of levering and swearing he managed to rotate it over by one face.)

Motorbiked in, as like every day. Heine Gericke kit just about holding out. Solid queues most of the way in, because of:
– One diversion from a busy road ONTO my route.
– Two sets of roadworks
– Two floods
– One upside down car
– One uprooted tree (possibly uprooted by aforementioned car)
– Bristol.

Biblical! 😆

A lout in a giant octavia nearly knocked me off, then followed me about 2′ off my rear wheel for miles and miles. After slowing and giving him every opportunity to get past on a series of dual carriageways (I never “race” people) I was eventually intimidated into fleeing. Said lout then hit the blues n’ twos and did me for speeding.

Allegedly got done by a scamera van in some village, speed safe chap was asking where everyone got caught. I said I didn’t know, as I didn’t see the camera as it got me from the back (a motorbike only has a rear plate) and apparently that’s not actually allowed!

Hmmm.

Why not go to a spin class together? The instructor (should) insist she has the saddle at the right height (“same as on a real bike, isn’t it?” you cheerfully chip in, to which the instructor says “of course”) and as it’s from a new source that is
– non-cyclist
– not you
– (maybe) female
she may start to accept the mounting evidence.

(I mention it as my S.O. immediately knew where the saddle goes because of lots of time in spin classes.)

A few weeks back I was overtaken by about 50 motor bikes as they rode up to Stanage Pole from Redmires to protest about the proposals.

Talk about “How to make friends and influence people” – well, they were certainly doing the latter
You don’t like being overtaken? Or is it just that they forgot to shout “Strava!!”..?

If you really feel that legal use by motor vehicles renders a trail unusable then just use some of the other 98% they don’t get to, or a trail centre, or the cheeky trails that don’t even officially exist. With the whole country to ride on it’s amazing you can actually have a problem with those few restricted to a few measly percent.

Maybe it’s the almost limitless good fortune enjoyed by UK mountain bikers that breeds this sense of privileged entitlement.

What cheese is made backwards?
Edam.

Don’t mention the ‘damage’. It’d put anyone off viewing, but probably wouldn’t put everyone off buying once they’re there.

C J Cherryh (pronounced “Cherryh”).
Her merchanter/belter/thingy stuff is great; gritty, political, kinda ‘procedural’, believable.
Includes Heavy Time, Hell Burner, Cyteen, Downbelow Station, Tripoint.

The pyjama side of fighty stuff has that sort of weird discipline side to it. Bowing to people, rigid lines, do what you’re told, speak when spoken to… Which might help lead a particularly odd person to those lengths. “You are weak! You will never be ninja!” <smack> etc.

Fighty stuff that is approached more like a sport (including judo, despite the jammies) is generally less like ‘The Cruel Tutelage of Pai Mei’. (U-Tube it!) Oh, and may actually work, if that matters.

(All IMO+E, of course.)

You’re just full of yourself because your bargain new wheels turned out nice

Now Buzz has an interesting approach. He browses CRC all day every day, and buys anything that’s a bargain. Every six months or so it turns out he has a whole bike.

(Plus 30 six speed chains, 12 eight speed cassettes, 3 fixie wheels, 4 180mm rotors, 5 v-brake ready rigid forks, 2 shock pumps…) 😆

Hoorah for the OP! See people on here endlessly examining which component to fit with the same intensity as Ron Dennis on a work day.

Some here may be real racers, the other 99.9% (which I’m in) buy toy bikes to rattle round the hills and act like a 12 yr old. The way some people worry about tyres, travel, geometry, you’d think they’re prepping for world championship extreme enduro – and the MONEY being spent.

If those who do, didn’t keep bunging out multiple thousands for the marketing guff and snake oil of your silly toys we wouldn’t all be risking getting held up at knifepoint for something that MAY be worth the risk!

Ahhhhhh… So much better. 😆

We are doing… but there’s these chaps in red socks and gaters, and they’re like the masons, they have people everywhere.

It’s a bizzare British trait that people will put more energy into campaigning against the rights of others than for rights for themselves. The redsocks are a case in point.

We all know nuclear power is inefficient and responsible for millions of deaths every week.

That’s cos the workers in the stations all wear helmets.

£4750 !!??!?!!? Is this a motocross forum? 😯

Q7 was a bit weird to me. “Does air pollution cause global warming?”

Soot and un-burnt hydrocarbons are the kind of thing *I* consider to be air pollution, not CO2. (Water also comes out of an exhaust, I wouldn’t consider it to be air pollution either.)

I wonder if the rubbish jumps are down to H&S…?
Trail designer says “we’ll put a nice big table top in here, people can roll it, then float it, then maybe jump when they’re ready” to which some H&S goon says “oh, it’s too big, small is safe” and we get the utterly horrible “dirt poured over a microwave oven standing on its end”.

Maybe jedi knows how they’re supposed to be approached! 😀 But the pictures of his back garden show, to my eyes at least, full sized, wide, well made jumps.

There’s something weird about all the trail center jumps I’ve seen. Despite being old(er) and afraid(er) than your average 12 yr old, I do get down my local motocross track and will quite happily aim at a jump and have probably had both wheels 10-12 feet in the air. I think this is because I get a broad run up, a long take off, and lots of room to land.

But your typical trail center table top is just odd. Almost vertical take off, 1 foot wide on top, and barely a bike length long if that. Combine this with the most common things that I think could go wrong – getting kicked over the bars, land to one side rather than on the top, or landing rear wheel on top and front off the end… They seem designed for disaster and I want nothing to do with them!

I’m not a jump building or a jumping expert but I think a lot of people would be happier on a bigger obstacle, which may look/feel less contrived too.

A moot point

Link is broken, you’re trying to link to:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11049316
…which apparently dates from 2010..?
It is appearing in the beeb’s most read list though. Maybe some people spoofed a load of clicks to an old article For Some Reason.

They have a sense of entitlement.

If done deliberately, yep. The sense of entitlement is the biggest issue in this country, it’s our worst national characteristic and MTBers very very occasionally <ahem ahem> have it too!

As a road user/commuter I’ve vanned, driven, motorbiked, cycled, and walked (not so much on the road when walking) and as a countryside enjoyerer from the age of about 6 I’ve walked, run, built camps and played 40 40 in, cycled, motorbiked and even horsed a bit.

I don’t get pissy with or try to stop anyone, and I think it’s cos aside from driving an HGV or a landrover, I’ve been in all the other shoes. It’s called zen or something. Om.

The road bike, obviously.
ALWAYS the road bike.

Too much to read, so apologies if it’s been mentioned; has anyone ridden a Triple Base Technology (TBT) board?

It’s solving a problem I don’t really have anymore (going in a straight line) but might make all types of slope-side popping, jumping, and general dicking about much more forgiving.

Don’t know exactly, but in case it was a trapped tube try this; get the tube in place and inflate it a little bit BEFORE seating the tyre. Just enough to make it cylindrical – it’s then much much harder to get it caught by tyre leavers or the tyre bead.

Or Boardman FS *Pro* (with 200 quid in change for jelly babies)!

Seeing as all bicycle parts are available online at prices that the LBS can’t match and all spannering on a bicycle is do-able by anyone, providing the ability to fix a bike while the owner is at work *and get it back to them in a timely fashion* is the biggie. Hence I agree with the opening hours idea – along with using suppliers with one day lead times on ordering parts.

Also, somehow the industry and/or shops and/or online stores need to allow people to say “I have this bike, I need this part for it”[1] as you can with a car or motorbike. Whoever cracks THAT will be minted. (Unless Apple have already patented “shopping for the right part for a thing whilst only knowing the name of the thing”.)

[1] As opposed to:
“I’d like a bottom bracket for this bicycle”.
“Fine, what kind of bottom bracket does it have?”
“The kind they put in this make and model of bicycle, numbnuts.”

Who are we and what are our aims? We are not sure

I’d get that sorted first of all.

We have no organisers and no planned routes

Then that.

this website does not try to be representative of CM in any way

Maybe when you’ve sorted the above, make a website that *does* try to be representative of CM.

Any natural hill trail in the country will have been successfully ridden on everything from penny farthings to cast iron shop bikes with bread trays.