1 in the morning, occassionally one a lunch. Might have one after dinner if we have gone out, but try not to after 3pm-ish…

can do easy 6 mugs+ of tea though; more in the winter when it's cold, less in summer…

2; 700c commuter and XC full susser.

Would like to add a BMX/DJ type muck around on bike and a road bike.

Can't be arsed shuttling the DH stuff around here and I get bored of it TBH anyway, so no need for DH. Would be different if I lived need lift served maybe.

Don't need/want an XC hardtail either; ride for fun, not race, so pref the comfort of the full sus. Could go for 5" instead of the current 4", but again don't need the extra cos of the terrain around here.

Roadie for "just riding" would be good; commuter has a small sus fork up front for the half asleep commute in and out of work and flat bars, but is a bit sluggish for longer rides when the point is the actual ride, not just transport.

Can't see the point of more than you can actually use and is why at present I would like another two, but don't actually have them. Would rather spend the money on other stuff, like travelling to new riding locations.

Ours is Grace Harriet; on "the list" if we have another are Edie/Evie/Eve, Hazel, Violet, Audrey(!) for girls…

Like epicyclo said – check great grandmothers and such; Grace Harriet is a family name in my Dads family; we dropped the "Darling" that was also in there though!

We know of several other Grace's too – it is fairly popular at the moment.

And being in Australia – land of Anglicised phonetics! – we decided to avoid the Irish names from my wife's family a la the Siobhan and Niamh comments above.

http://baby-names.familyeducation.com/topnames/girls/

Rolling on ignitors at the moment as a "winter" tyre down here in Aus; can see my lazy self leaving them on for a fair while beyond winter though.

Nobby Nick from Schwalbe would be great too though – just can't afford them currently :(

Always; on- or off-road.

Helps avoid sunburn down here in the Aussie sun too… :P

what a fun week that looked to be – pushing cos you are tired from riding the day before and a headwind, rather than unfit from not riding enough, is the greatest excuse!

Skills course until you find a coach you get on with – then MTFU the credit card and get some one on one coaching. In a fairly intensive block (like 3 w/ends in a row or something). It will have an effect.

The more regular riding helps you practise those skills which helps confidence which helps cement the skills, which helps confidence… and so on and so forth.

Try riding road? Easy to fit a quick hour on the roadie in to keep you bike fit – spend the time to focus on pedalling good circles, staying off the brakes when cornering (find a quiet back street!) when the ground is consistent to get the idea of positioning and where to put your body weight… lots of transferable skills can be practised on the road, rather than just zoning out and pedalling or worrying solely about HRM zones and that stuff that all the mags refer to.

they are nothing to be excited about out here…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_brown_snake

Corroded – you a former Adelaidean then? I prefer the Dark Ale, but hard to go wrong when most pubs here have Pale on tap whether a 'good' pub or not, beerwise. Way better than Fosters or kronenbourg choice many leave you with in most UK unless you are careful…

Waiting for a box of Australian (mainly South Australian at that) Microbrews to rock up this week – can't wait!

this in the fridge for a bit later…

Oh, and any Aussie based STWers, I recommend http://www.adelaidebiershop.com.au/home.php
for great service, great choice of interesting beers with lots of good SA micros in particular.

It's been 3 weeks now since ours arrived the same way – been so worth it so far and I'm sure there is plenty more to come.

congrats and wishes to all 3 of you!

From a whole two weeks experience:

Make food, freeze it. Even if just for you, if the family stays in hospital a while and you get home late from visits (this was way better then pizza/kebab/burgers everynight from takeaway)

BF – your decision, no-one elses; but it does take a knack so give it a good go. However, we subscribe to the "happy parents, happy baby" school of thought.

Express and use a bottle occassionally from fairly early on – this means YOU can feed baby too; bonding for you, brownie points when you get up and feed baby letting mum get some rest/a lie in. If mum is ill, has appointments etc you can keep baby happy as you have the practise and experience.

Do change nappies… I'd never changed a nappy before Grace arrived, although I'd watched our nieces and nephews have it done to them; it's not hard, and needs to be done. Again, no reason you shouldn't be able to take full care if mum is not around for whatever reason.

Make time for cuddle time – it's great for you all!

Make visiting hours known to everyone now; we made it very clear that we didn't want a million people around straight away including mother, sister, brother, etc. All was – and still is – good. They came the day after, short visits to say hi and today (2 weeks on) is the first time since that they'll be here to see Grace. We keep in touch, text, pic msg, facebook updates etc so they know whats going on, but we can actually work out our routine because someone else is not here telling us what to do or not do.

Do remember to talk about non baby stuff with Mum; you both need to keep some sanity and baby gurgling and nappy changing doesn't do that!

You can ride still; just need to be more organised and accept it's not going to be all day long, every chance you get for a while. TBH you probably won't want to anyway.

Lastly, they come in to your life; they know no different that what you show them; they don't have to rule your life, although you will need to make allowances for them.

Stranger – some great pics in that album!

self guided write up in the current mountain bike australia – I'll check the recycling box tonight, sure it hasn't been collected yet, and can scan it or can post it to you if interested; there was a google earth map with it I reckon and with the various town names etc, should be possible to piece together the route from the two

mail in profile if interested

Well.. it'll be a while before I forget the sickening feeling of utter helplessness as we watched our unborn baby's heartbeat drop through the floor. If it wasn't for the frankly amazing team at Wansbeck Hospital I'd have been posting a very very different thread!

Yeah, we had that happen too; it came back up, but they felt that the time it had been at that point in the labour and that starting to happen, they wanted to be sure and went to the C option.

Congratulations!

Grace will be one week old tomorrow…

So far, no dramas with the sleep thing; but I think if you accept it'll potentially be like that, then you can get over it and back to sleep quick smart; freaking out and waking up in a rude shock everytime they stir makes it much harder to get any sleep at all.

We too had the induction that ended in 'emergency' (they should change this to 'unscheduled' – would be a far more realistic term for a lot of the time…) C-section, but ultimately everyone was all good.

Tomorrow will be the first time I've ridden a bike in 10 days and not MTB in 3 weeks ("just in case labour starts!"), but it is very, very worth it – you will have a few sit and stare moments for sure.

Threw an SLX double front mech on. shifting is much cleaner with the double than the triple although both options work…

Over-exaggerate the amount you move the bike around if you want it to actually have an effect on riding.

For the "what tyres for…" crowd; riding the same tyres long enough to know when they will grip and when they'll slide is much more useful/relevant than what someone on the internet thinks is good for them, on their bike, where they ride (all of which are probably different to your situation or you wouldn't need to ask online!)

For every hour you ride a trail, spend 15mins doing trail work to keep it up to scratch and give us all more trails to ride.

Hope my wife wakes me with this in the morning – "overdue" by almost 4 days now, but the wife is just "over it" with the aches and pains, interrupted sleep, awkward movement due to the bump, etc.

I hope for her sake it goes sooner rather than later as the hospital tend to wait until 8-10 days. By then, she be royally pi$$ed off the way it's going – that'll be fun for all concerned :roll:

We should probably all join a club, affiliate to CTC/IMBA and then we would maybe have some say in the stuff that bothers us(some anyway)

The constant mumpin and moanin on here about rights of way, bridleway access could be tackled with a bigger and better voice

I'm not in a club, but am a member of IMBA…

the local one to me is race, race, race. As such I don't bother with it, as I want the 'social' (though not necessarily easy plod along type) ride, rather full on training every time I go out.

1:1 = 32:32 or 28:28, depending on what you change.

Like TJ said, pretty narrow range there on the back. If you're "struggling" on the flat, you need a bigger front ring. If you're struggling uphill, you need a bigger cog on the back.

I run 28/38 up front, 11-32 out back on a 2×9. 38:11 means I'm not catching roadies on the tarmac on the way to the trail, but not spinning out either. 28:32 is for that steep, long drag at the end of a 6 hour ride.

Personally, I think 36:11-34 would be pretty good if going 1×9, but up to you, where you ride etc

"if you don't recognise the number, don't answer the phone; if it is important, they'll leave a message. If they don't, it's not important"
– been applying this a fair bit lately. The world has not yet ended despite the dramatics of the odd person to begin with.

"Work to live, not live to work"
– done the 60+ hrs/week, 28 work days/month, earned heaps and was miserable. Do 38hrs/week, occasional OT, less money, but more time to enjoy what 'little' I do have.

"just because it is 'fun', doesn't mean it is not 'real' work"
– my family took a while to realise that 40hrs/week standing in the snow and cold for 6 months of the year in Colorado so that I could ski 150+ days/year was actually as real a job as being a miserable desk jockey. I had less comparable debt than any of them, way less stress, actually didn't mind going to work (except on pow days…), etc

Emirates were great when we came home/to visit (me/wife) about a year ago; flying into Gatwick and not having to fight to get across London to get home was the winner for us – not a discernable difference in price either and we got points through them.

Another vote for Singapore too though; lots of good experiences with them from people I know.

38/28… lots of undulating stuff locally, so enough to get up most anything I'm likely to ride.

darkside question… :twisted:

def make sure you cool down before using the wipes etc – not point getting "clean" whilst continuing to sweat heaps.

shoes and such at work is a def plus so you don't have to carry them.

mud guards and as many lights as you can fit on the bike and yours clothes – then one more light front and back. and have them on summer or winter, day or night. Don't give people any excuse to not see you.

Country lanes are almost worse as people cut corners etc not expecting traffic; at least busy roads means they are generally looking for traffic of some sort even if not paying full attn.

excellent – looks perfect for half term; get fitter, avoid the masses and just a good refreshing break from la glisse

See no problem as you are not camping so the permits etc that you need to do that won't be valid… As long as you stay out of any Enviro areas (like the chicken run off the back of Les Arcs) then it'll be fine too.

If you stay to the piste, remember to keep an eye out for piste bashers and snowmobiles though; once lifts are closed and they don't expect much traffic the speed goes up etc compared to daytime ops.

I used to do dawn and dusk patrols regularly when I was living in Colorado; gotta skin or hike though – it's part of the experience!

4.8-5:1

61kg – 63kg – me
12.6kg – bike (I think…)

have helped with one at at the local MTB park/trail centre…

big can of flouro spray paint to work out the shape and rough in where the ups and downs are before a spade touched the dirt.

used the soil dug out to build up the berms etc as easier/cheaper/quicker than importing lots of soil.

many hands made light work; though I reckon it'll be a damp mess if we have a wet winter this year. we shall see

kangaroo flip as it is known…

hello Hayley! 8O

Just to play devils advocate…

is BC booked? from what you describe 3 weeks of hitting Arizona, Utah and Colorado could be equally as awesome and easier to self guide…

chains aren't that hard to put on – once you've been shown and had a go or two in the dry.

that is a road well travelled and as such, generally not an issue to drive up, but yes, chains are an "essential".

also, if you are planning to drive the next day and snow is forecast overnight, put the chains on before the snow comes. saves a crap load of time and effort, and only a 5 min job to get them off if not needed, rather than digging the snow out, trying to get them on when not easy etc

Leandro Ribela – BRAZILIAN cross-country skier

sorry CG and Hairychested, but that Brazilian needs a brazilian!

On the snow theme I give you Grete Eliassen…

and Ingrid Backstrom…

and for the ladies…Mr Jon Olsson

Not today; total fire ban day so all forestry and other reserves closed down here. Been a few d*ckheads commiting arson lately too, so can't even be sneaky and ride at night.

Still, tomorrow is looking good so not an issue…

yeah, we do (though the ferals normally have it with a few more f's in there).

but that doesn't mean we have too!

and that is easily said when you have nice dry cave to wander off to – not much bivvying there really was there?!! ;)

full sus 4X bike – a la the Meta4X etc (there was a group test only few isues back, that could also be used as an XC and muck arund thing

DH bike

Gravedig…(the lightweight bivi thread got me a-thinking…)

can we push this to September this year? still generally reasonable weather in the UK, all increases the chances of it happening elsewhere – like here in Australia – as it gets us out of winter, into early spring

but the camera must be another 2-300g??? ;)

1) alcohol – actually not that hard and a positive change to numerous aspects of your day to day life

2) sleep (baby due!!)