Hmmm, good timing. I’m going on holiday to a place near Sitges on the edge of the Garraf National Park next week. It’s a family holiday but I’m hoping to sneak away and explore some trails. Any tips on routes? Thanks!

You called?

Yup, as P20 says I had my Fox shock done by them this time last year. Great service (was a full service as far as I know), very quick (despite me only giving them 48 hours notice as I was doing an XC race that weekend and I called them on a Thursday afternoon) and they don’t need to send them off.

I’ve been back to them with various other issues on various other bikes and they’ve always been very helpful and not too expensive.

miketually – Member

I’m guessing I’m not in a high risk category (white, youngish, fit, non-smoker)

This is the UK website for accurately calculating your 10 year risk of something bad happening: QRISK2[/url]

Thanks Househusband!

In the end, I didn’t get a chance for a ride on the Saturday as I was too busy visiting ageing grandparents and only managed a quick blast round Glentress on the way south on Sunday. However, I suspect I’ll be back up in the not too distant future so will give you a shout.

DBM motors on the main road in Ryton have been great for me recently – not the cheapest, but they know what they’re talking about and have always had space to squeeze my dying car in and get it fixed ASAP.

Cheers all. Will have a look at all those options

Thanks guys. Lomond Hills seems like a good bet. I’ve had a look through the forum but can’t see any links to routes etc – does anyone have a GPX file or strava link of a nice route? Failing that, I’ll download the OS map this evening if anyone can describe a route?

Thanks!

It’s been around for a while as a separate beta feature, but now there’s a link on everyone’s ride (not just your own) to view “flybys”. I use it to stalk people on my commute and freak them out by commenting on their ride 😈

I got left hooked at a roundabout a couple of months ago (car overtaking and turning left, me going straight on after taking primary position in the correct lane). Luckily I managed to stay upright by turning left as well and gave the passenger window a smack with my hand, loud enough to make the passenger jump out of her skin.

Caught up with him a few metres later at some traffic lights and motioned for him to wind down his window.

Me: You almost killed me!
Driver: But I was in front of you!
Me: How did I manage to knock on your passenger’s window then?
Driver: But I was in front of you!!
Passenger: He’s really sorry, it won’t happen again…

I suspect there were a few choice words between the husband and wife on the way home…

I like how the guy filming made sure his bike was safely propped up against the flower beds before going back for his mate who was lying in the middle of a 3 lane motorway, unable to walk 🙄

Biffy Clyro
Born on a horse

I pronounce it “aluminium”
Because there’s an “i” next to the “u” and “m”

Anyone got any idea why I find it impossible to do a morning workout on TR?

I had a late start at work today, so thought I’d get my TR workout over and done with after I got up. Had a decent night’s sleep, ate a light breakfast and went out to the garage about an hour after getting up.

As soon as I started the warm up for The Priest (part of the MTB low volume plan), I could sense that my legs just weren’t up for it. My HR was consistently 15bpm higher than what I would expect for the stepwise warm up. I bailed after the 15 min warm up with the sort of HR that I would expect at the end of a hard hour of intervals.

I’ve always had this issue with morning workouts – I know that if I do the same workout this evening, I’ll more than likely complete it.

Any suggestions? Dehydration? Nutrition? WTFU?

If you didn’t die, it’s probably fine 🙂

The reading of 196bpm looks reasonable from that data.

Max HR is very individual and isn’t a marker of fitness. Each individual’s max HR does go down with age, however, eg mine was 196bpm when I was 27, and is now 192bpm at the age of 32. My friend, who is also 32 and of similar fitness, has a max HR of 155bpm. Weird.

Tignes isn’t far from Bourg too – probably about 30-45 mins drive when we did it the other week. The ski lifts had loads of photos of some cool looking MTB trails (I jealously thought of you guys!). Not sure when their lifts are open till, but I think they are free in the summer.

Syrian hamsters are bigger, friendlier, stupider and less bitey. Easier to catch too (for both your son, and the cat I would have thought).

The last time I was in Gravitate Cycles (near the station in Newcastle), the guys weren’t too busy and were happy to do simple repairs on the same day. You could give them a call?

Propranolol is a short acting beta blocker and its primary function is to reduce the heart rate (with the side effect of also reducing blood pressure). I would expect the effect to wear off relatively quickly.

If you do the Lonesome Pine/Bloody Bush, Deadwater and Osprey trails then you’ll probably end up going further than the Cross Border Route with a bit more singletrack for your effort (I reckon it’s about 65km with 1500m ish of climbing for all 3).

Here’s a link to a shortened version of all three trails (I missed out Bloody Bush and the top of Deadwater, and a new bit of the Osprey has been added since): https://app.strava.com/activities/24801482#442703938

I did the Kielder 50 route the year it was cancelled, and a fair bit of the route was not on public ROWs. I didn’t see anyone else all day, so it wasn’t really an issue, except for the number of times I had to climb over/under fallen trees or hike through unrideable undergrowth. Not sure I’d bother with the hassle again!

Their cycle jerseys come up a little small. I’m a size 8-10 and the small fits perfectly. I’ve also got a couple of XS Scott tops and, whilst I can squeeze into them, I only use them for turbo work out of the sight of unsuspecting members of the public.

Try http://www.Muchbetteradventures.com

We stayed with The Tasty Ski Company just outside Morzine last year (at the foot of the Nyon cable car) and there was a couple in the chalet who only stayed for a short break, so might be worth contacting smaller companies directly.

What did you expect when you trained for the job?

having someone barge in with a baseball bat and knife

Probably not this.

I had Land Cruisers on the Frankenbike for quite a while (went through a couple of sets over a few thousand km) and they were perfect for the local sustrans tracks and Kielder lakeside way etc. The road cruisers that are on the commuter at the moment are absolute cack in comparison – heavy and very slidey on damp tarmac.

Carcassone. I’ve lost days of my life to that game, and I hate board games!

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves!

Plus, the drive to work is so horrendous that I can see myself choosing to cycle instead just to keep me sane (with the option of a lift home after work!).

Glad to hear it, Haze.

I’ve had a week off too (gave blood, felt tired, too much commuting, just couldn’t be arsed etc) and did Mills (VO2Max intervals) this evening at 97% without dying too badly.

I’m going to be commuting a bit less now (boyfriend is working at the same place as me for the next 6 months so we’ll probably drive in most days) so I’m hoping to actually be able to follow a training plan properly from now on. I’m going to finally finish Sweet Spot Base 2 then do the MTB low volume plan in preparation for the first short course XC race of the season on 10th May.

My second aim for the summer is to survive the Kielder 101 – anyone got any ideas on how to structure my training over the summer? I’ll be doing the short course XC league (8 races) through early summer but I’ve got a bit of a gap between the penultimate race on 3rd July and Kielder (which will clearly be a longer duration than 60-90 mins!) on the 5th September.

Mud. Steep bits. Slippy bits. And lots of fireroad if you’re not with a local. Took me ages to figure out a decent loop round there

I think we might know the same person through my OH (F2 at the QE)…

It wasn’t the QE that were responsible for the wedding cock-up (it was a hospital a few miles further north-east), but it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if it’s happened to more than one person…

HR will have the master rota for each job in the hospital, and their only job is to assign names to “Dr 1”, “Dr 2” etc. the rotas don’t change from month to month, so it should be easy just to slot someone in if they have an important date they need off etc. But it seems to be too much to ask. “Fixed leave” rotas like A&E are renowned for this… Make of that what you will.

Can’t be as bad as NHS HR.

Junior doctors change job every 4-6 months. It’s been like this for several decades, so shouldn’t come as a surprise to HR. However, every few months, I have to fight to find out when and where I am working. It no longer comes as a surprise to me when I turn up on the first day of a new job and am told to go home as I’m on night shift/annual leave/day off that day. And forget trying to book holidays in advance…

My favourite NHS HR story is when a friend emailed a hospital HR department to ask for a specific weekend off, as she was getting married. She gave them 9 months notice of this. When she turned up for work on the first day, she found that she’d been put down to work nights on her wedding night. She stormed up to the HR office and asked WTF they were playing at. Their reply was that she’d only asked to have the weekend days[/i] off so they’d assumed she’d be happy to work the nights…

They were left in no doubt as to what she’d been planning to do on her wedding night (and it didn’t involve being in charge of a medium sized hospital as the medical registrar…!) but they still didn’t make any effort to switch her shifts (it eventually ended up in a horribly complicated swap and one of her best friends did the night shift instead of going to the wedding reception).

http://www.howdoeshomeopathywork.com/

Good point about the heat in August – it’s a bit toasty.

Although my first ever experience of mountain biking was from my parents’ house with a borrowed MTB in August. We set out exploring in the woods behind the house at 7am, had breakfast at 11am by a river, then continued riding for so long that the bread shop had closed by the time I got back to the village (1pm) and my parents had almost sent a search party out for us. It was warm, but they are right on the edge of the Cevennes so it’s a bit cooler under the shade of the trees.

They aren’t near any formal MTB trails in the Cevennes unfortunately, it’s a bit more “exploring” the local terrain and seeing what you find.

The Ardeche? My parents live down there and it’s a beautiful part of the country. Lots of activities like cycling, canoeing and rock climbing. 10 hours from Calais. They rent the top part of their house out as a gite in the summer (http://www.cheznous.com/235928/la-crotte-ardeche.aspx) and I’m a bit gutted because it used to be my default summer holiday destination when they were still doing it up!

After extensive questioning of Dr Google, I think I actually have chilblains .

I’ve got this – it started during the Festive 500 last year (2013) and took about 3 weeks to settle down after that. However, with the first cold day of the autumn this year, it’s come back and not really gone away all winter. My toes are now always a dusky purple colour and, after a cold ride, they go white then dark purple as they warm up. The skin is shiny and swollen over them too, which makes me think there is actually some tissue loss.

Gonna go to the GP at some point and see if there’s anything they can do…

Tl;dr version – The feeling will return eventually. I’d make sure you wrap up extra warm on any rides you do in the near future to prevent any future damage (I feel like mine might have been made worse by repeated rides in the cold).

I thought I was an academic sort, then I started doing my PhD and now I realise that I miss the hands-on experience of my actual job and I can’t wait to get back to it. I’m struggling to see the relevance of my particular little corner of academia to real life situations.

Part of me is dropping the third workout per week solely so I don’t get too fixated on “training” to the exclusion of fun. I’m a 32 year old girl with a full time job – I’m not going to be troubling Victoria Pendleton or Annie Last any time soon. I sometimes need to remember that this is my hobby and, as serious as it feels at the time, winning the regional XC series does not make me an elite athlete!

@whitestone – I’m on the Sweet Spot Base 2 (low volume) plan at the moment, but I also commute by bike (20 miles round trip) 4 or 5 days a week and that + 2 turbo sessions + weekend rides is enough for my little body to take!

I’ve been missing out the weekend workout if I ride outdoors both days – I figure that, whilst it may not be structured training (whether it be an on or off-road blast on my own or rides with friends), it’s more representative of the rides that I’m actually training for i.e. short course XC racing (or beating my friends uphill). I occasionally go for Strava segments on the commute as a surrogate for some interval training but, again, it’s not structured.