Friston Forest can be a right mix of everything, in the low flat areas it can be muddy and boggy enough to bring the bike to a halt, there’s slippery chalk tracks, fast gravel roads, great singletrack and loose steep downhills where a touch of the brakes will have your rear wheel passing by in a jack-knife scenario … all great fun, and that was last summer!

The ‘V’ on the map above is, I think, for visitors centre, there’s a car park just behind it, turn onto that yellow road and go in the first car park you see – it’s not marked on that map, you have to pay in the car parks though, was about £2 for the day last time I looked? From that car park in the top right corner there’s some tracks that go up almost parrallel to the A259, again they’re not on that map, but you’ll find some interesting downhill bits further on, basically any track that looks like it’s rideable you can go on … enjoy!

Oh yes, I have an old 1999 Heckler and noticed a pinch bolt missing on one of the main pivots last year, sent me 2 new bolts and loctite free of charge, this was for a 9 year old bike remember … top stuff! 8)

Going through a similar thing myself, lent friends 🙄 some money to help with mortgage arrears a few years ago, never had a penny back.

Send them a recorded delivery letter with a deadline for payment, or you will persue it through a court.

If no success, go on the money claim website and issue a claim against them, make sure you have all their details, address, etc, they then have a certain amount of time to respond to this – they can either defend it or agree they owe the money.

I issued a claim to both my friend and his wife, neither responded so the judgement went in my favour, then you have options to recover the money – a warrant of execution, an attachment of earnings order, a third party debt order, or a charging order. As I knew they both had an income I issued an attachment of earnings order, this goes to them and they have to answer this and give details of income/employment etc (and they can’t make it up as it has to come from their employer) otherwise the judge may issue a warrant to arrest them.

The attachment of earnings has been succesful and their employers have to pay money to CAPS (centralised attachment of earnings payment system) which then gets paid to me.

This has taken about 6 months so far, cost me about £300 which gets added to the amount due, and I even added interest to the amount they borrowed – your right under ‘section 69 of the County Courts Act 1984’ at a rate of 8% a year.

But, I had my friend sign an agreement before lending the money so had a signature, had the bank statement with transaction details, and knew they both had an income. As mentioned you need to make sure they have some kind of income or savings?

All the info, help and forms are available on the money claim online website, good help and advice over the phone too. Print and keep copies of everything. I can’t remember the amount you can claim for but mine was more than yours so go for it if you can.

Good Luck 🙂

I’ve done the Atlas Descent trip too, fantastic, might be worth giving Exodus a call as they use a local company for the bikes, guides and transport so might be able to arrange something for you for a day or give you contact details to arrange it yourself? The ride on the last day of the trip was something like a 40km descent from the mountains to a beach on the Atlantic, superb trails, (goes and finds trip notes: Immouzer to Agadir).

Don’t think any locals could point you in the right direction as I think it’s just something they don’t do, most of them looked at us like we were crazy. And, you would be better off to have a guide and back-up vehicle if going to a remote place off road, civilization is few and far between?

Enjoy 😀

Yep – muddy, wet, slippery, and probably have a strong headwind too … same as it seems to have been the last 2 years!* 🙄

*Although, I do remember some sun April 2007 ?

Saw someone near Brighton with bars like that, on my way home from work, had to do a double take, going down a hill quite quick, looked unstable to me! I spent the journey home wondering … WHY? 😕

Lifetime warranty usually only applies to the original purchaser with the original receipt – they will want to see the receipt, so if you have that with the bike you should be ok?

I had a similar thing with a cracked specialized fsr frame, 2nd hand, but with no receipt no warranty 😥

But, as mentioned the bearings are cheap and easy to replace anyway and your LBS should have no problems doing them 🙂

Phew! indeed snowslave … and interesting what satmap had to say, might keep an eye on their website?

Andym, not sure if you understood that question about entering details from a map? I meant with no access to a PC – a for-instance would be: I’m in a campsite in dorset, buy a OS map of the local area, work out some interesting route and want to put it into the GPS to help follow the route, I’m wondering if you can enter OS grid references straight from a map? … I’m not sure if this is possible, so apologies if it’s already been explained?

Really appreciate everyone’s input on here, loads of helpful information … Thanks K

Jizer

Smells nicer than Gunk

Also, if you rinse it off over your weeds on the patio it will kill those off too*

*erm, obviously not too good for the environment ??

Buy 2nd hand – I think that’s what I’ll do to see how I get on?

Interesting reading other posts on the GPS subject, quite a few saying they find it fine without maps, and of course if doing new routes I would take a map anyway.

Not sure about going the phone route, I know even less about those – what’s a symbian phone?? – and wonder about their durability, waterproofness, ease of use?

Another question I just thought of – If I go somewhere, buy an OS map, work out a route I’d like to do, is it easy to put that route into a GPS just using the info from the map, ie I would not have access to MM or tracklogs or PC ?

Had a look at the satmap 10, looks really good and uses OS maps that seem to be a lot cheaper than the garmin one’s you can get for some of their models, I like the idea of OS maps as I can relate them to the area I’m in quickly and 90% of my riding is off-road, but I read somewhere that you can’t use memorymap/tracklogs with the satmap 10 – bit daft if you ask me, something to do with licensesing. So it seems that the satmap uses OS maps but you can’t plot routes using other software, or you can plot routes using software and load them into garmins but they don’t use OS maps 😕

Interesting watching the gadget show stuff.

Basically what I’m looking for is something to plot new routes to follow without having to stop and get a map out to check if I’m on the right track or need to turn onto another track, and to be able to record the routes where you decide to take a different turn just to see where it goes – my local forest has lots of singletrack criss-crossing it and I’d like to note which bits are good, and also to be able to record my routes abroad and add them to google earth to see where I’ve been, how high, distances, time, etc.

Another question, how easy is it to add routes to google earth, I’ve not looked into this yet, easy?

Mmm, well spent most of the afternoon looking at the various GPS’s available, would be nice to have a colour screen but it seems that the maps, base maps and even the topo maps are not that brilliant but the expandable memory and better receiver of something like the Vista HCx would be better, seems you can add OS maps to the Oregon models but the areas are limited at the moment and the models are more £’s, I see not all do altitude either, looking for this function as I think this could be useful/interesting when going over somewhere like the Himalayas, and battery life could be an issue if on an extended trip – think the edge models may be better as I think they are rechargeable, but then you will need a power source whereas the etrex use AA’s so could just carry spare batteries?

So, still not made up my mind yet?

Thanks for those links CraigW

Is Garmin the best, most used, or is there any alternatives?

Wow, lots of great info … thanks everyone!

It’s a bit clearer to me, but I’ll have to read through the info a few times to get my head around it a bit more, thanks for the link abductee, really useful and easily explained.

Cheers

They don’t post, you have to go to the shop.

Thing is I just checked stock and they come up as ‘unavailable’ so maybe they have them in other stores around the UK … if anyone finds any please get me a pair in large and post them to me ??

http://www.decathlon.co.uk/EN/rr8-bib-tights-25269521/

Er, copy paste if the link doesn’t work/

Thanks, DHB one’s look good.

Decathlon one’s would be great specially as they are knocking them out at £1 in my local store – unfortunately that local store is a 150 mile round trip !! Shame they don’t post.

Seen some Polaris one’s going cheap (£22) so may get those?

Ah, brilliant, thanks Eggbox

This sounds very similar to what I’ve been getting the last couple of months, I’ve been doing the first 3 stretches at the bottom of the link as well as more core strengthening excercises in the last 2 to 3 weeks and it’s made a real difference.

I_did_dab – interested in that 4th stretch, but confused by your ‘flip over and lie on your bent leg’, if you’re in the exact position as the image do you mean you would lie on your left or right side?

I wasn’t expecting the whole of the UK for ‘nowt’, I realise it’s a trial version, but surely it wouldn’t be that difficult in this day and age with fast broadband/technology, etc., to enter your postcode within the download of the trial version to get your local area and make it so you can’t save or print and just a few days use – I really don’t need 30 days on a 5 mile square in middle of nowhere, but at least you could see what it can do for places/routes you already know, I might have had more interest then?

Maybe I need to see what else is out there or what it can do, before I right-off this sort of thing completely?

Mmm, like I said this is all new to me, I thought it would be something that covers the UK and you would just go to your area or area of interest and work out routes, doesn’t seem as easy as that? … Think I’ll stick to my paper maps then, looks like the sort of thing where you spend too much time sitting at a computer getting a headache, can’t really see the advantage myself?

😕

Thanks

I’ve recently got one of the Team Tig SL frames, I was hoping Merlin would do the same discount on an 853 frame as I’m a bit of a steel fan for hardtails, but I’m surprised how comfortable it rides and I’m sure the post man must have thought I was having a big box of air delivered it’s that light.

I went for the 19″ version in the end as I’m on the max for the 17″ (after speaking to Merlin) it’s got the longest headtubes of all my bikes and spare forks I had would not fit due to being cut for smaller headtubes on other frames so I had to get some new forks (100mm) – headtube 130mm, my older 18″ Fire Mountain and M Heckler is 110mm, so I find the front end a bit higher. Top tube measures 22″ c-2-c, 1/4in shorter than the Kona, same as the Heckler, BB 12″ with 2in tyres on.

Dunno what all this stuff about FR XC geometry is about to be honest, I can’t tell any difference, get it and change things like stem, seatpost, bars or forks to get it how you like it and ride it … Yeah ??

Hot sun … !

Where in world are you then? I think we had one day of hot sun here in the UK last year?

😆

Could it be rubbish tubes too? I had a spate of it last year where the valve looked as though it hadn’t been glued/fixed in properly and noticed it was the same cheap, buy as a bulk pack of 5 or 10, tubes – since buying bonty (trek or whatever they are) tubes from my lbs I’ve not had it happen again?

Mmm, have to admit I’ve never had a problem with them … needed some stuff before xmas and just told them I needed it by a certain date as I was going away and it arrived quickley … got answers to my emails the same day … ??

South Downs – mistake was riding along the top of em, very open and near the sea so the wind hits you with full force, nothing to stop it, when I turned around with the wind behind me I went faster up the hill I’d just struggled to get down!

But, we had blue sky and sunshine all the way.

Hi, I’ve just got a pair of these myself, only ridden them once so far though so can’t really comment on reliablity, but they look very well made, simple coil so (hopefully) not much to go wrong, stiff and plush so far and the front just seems to absorb everything with no fuss, stock spring is fine for me and I’m 85kg, think they – magura – have quite a following and good reputation, and nice to have something different too.

Think you can still get Marzocchi MX Pro’s with v bosses, but they are a bit heavier?

avdave2 – do they come with spacers, I thought you had to buy those separately? … anyway, got them in the end, fitted and ridden on Saturday, only getting about half the travel so far but guess they need a bit of loosening up and I’ve not done any mega rocky stuff yet, seem fine, didn’t notice much going on at the front which is what you want really so must be doing the job – did notice that after my post ride wash where I usually drop the bike a bit to shake off any water the front didn’t bounce up again like my older forks, they just sort of absorbed the drop and stopped.

Thanks for the offer hungry monkey but I wanted 100mm and longer steerer, and wanted them to ride this weekend.

Don’t bother phoning the embassy, waste of time, nobody ever answers the phone, there’s a downloadable form on their website £38 – just check out the companies that deal with getting visas but they add on an admin fee – plus a small cost for returned recorded delivery, and I think you have to send postal orders too, I sent mine recorded delivery just to make sure, came back within 10 days … you’ll love Vietnam!

Thanks guys, I’m about 85 kg so supplied spring should be ok, it’s a simple reliable no-nonsense fork I’m looking for for my ‘fair weather’ commuter/winter xc hack/take away on holiday machine … seems to fit the bill

Cheers.

‘new olive’ … damn!

Will my LBS be open now? ;o)

Cheers