I reuse mine when switching tyres… not dead yet

Finally we have a battery installed and were in the queue for the train.

Thanks everyone for the comments and tips

NorAuto was the place for batteries in the end. I suspect we’d still be here next weekend if we waited for the recovery people to sort us.

Once I get home I’ll check to see if I have one, if I do you’re more than welcome to borrow it to get you going – even if it’s on a bike.

I’m in Dorking / work in Woking.

Ride day !

Choosing which shorts and jersey to wear, pulling on the knee armour, and filling the water bladder was the same as usual, but it still felt like there’s a component that’s a bit different; oh yes, it’s that fear of the unknown.

Walking the bike across the wooden slatted bridge in the centre of town my thoughts turned to things like where do we get the passes from? how do I get the bike on the chair lift? But before I knew it we were at the top and searching for Le Pleney Bleu, and I was cycling – all the nerves were gone.

The first ride was fun, steeper than home, but nothing silly. And the cows had bells on them… cow bells… hearing them made me smile almost as much as bagging my first ride of the trip.

With that we decided we’d head over the Les Gets as it looked like there were more runs over that would be suited to us. Le Tour Du Golf was another run that was suited to us and we were really feeling at home after only two runs and there were so many more blues ahead. Turns out Triple8 and The Shore weren’t the same as the previous blues, this is where steep came into play. Both front and back brake we’re being dragged constantly down through the berms for fear of being spat out the top…only one minor off, but my arms and legs were jelly at the bottom of each run. We found Tomahawk was a much better run, but the bottom half was like riding on corrugated iron around the berms.

A few hours in and we’d probably only managed 7 or 8 descents and we were shattered. Even popping over the water drainage gutters wasn’t happening anymore, we we decided to head back.

Following Le Tour du Golf back instead of following the red trail back to Plenny wasn’t so nice with 25% gradients at places and in the hot sun it was sapping our already tired legs – but once we were past the golf course it was downhill all the way.

At the top of Pleney we took the left blue and I got a little lost, taking us over some nasty roots and I stacked it. I landed on my right elbow / shoulder.

I think it was mainly from fatigue and no longer weighting the bike correctly and bad brake modulation. Or to put it simply / honestly my ambition outweighed ability.

The elbow pads did a great job and my shoulder was only bruised – I felt lucky that my scaphoid didn’t break

We tootled back to the bottom and Morzine and that was the first days riding done, the nerves were mainly gone, and we’d done some discovering, and yep, it’s steep.

Dinner was a burger and a few beers in town, and another fairly early night, as tomorrow we were off to Super-Morzine

….

It’d been a long drive, but splitting it into 2 hour shifts made it very easy to do, and the Autoroutes were easy driving. For reference, it’s cost us ~£70 in tolls to get here. The scenery became prettier with each hour that passed and the closer to the Alps we got.

We found the hotel, decamped from the car and then I saw the ski lifts – and boy did that hill look steep and I was meant to be riding down it tomorrow, the nervous feelings started coming back, and thunderstorms rolled in just to help the atmosphere

To take my mind off it, we decided we’d better head out and find something to eat – and just around the corner was the Morzine Hideout, so we dived in there before we got too wet and grabbed a beer each. As it turns out Ibex is a lovely beer and they served food that was made fresh, seemed pretty healthy, and was very tasty – couldn’t ask for more.

The place was full with folk that I’d describe as pretty gnarr. The kind you’d expect to see on the cover of a MBUK magazine. This just compounded the feeling of being in at the deep end, way over my head. A few beers later everything was cool and and the next thing I knew I was waking up for ride day one…

We probably should have gotten on and tired to look confused when it didn’t restart.

It needs a jump each time, as the immobiliser has started kicking in when we try to bump it.

Recovery people are bringing a new battery to us this morning – I believe / hope.  Actually I’ll believe that once I see it.

Thanks for the advice for next time folks

… there will be a next time

… I can’t wait

Reckon I’ll wait until tomorrow when I can copy paste from a pc – hopefully then I’ll not have this crap formatting

we’re on our way home – wish we had a few more days.

Hey up Ambrose… that’s cool you’re out there just now. I wish I’d posted a week ago for your advice, but Although I wrote this earlier, I’m editing it on the way home / retrospectively.

how do I clean up the text?  I wrote it in iPhone ‘notes’ and the next section is ready, but don’t want to include all the ‘spans’ etc.

Couldn’t source a battery – tried a total of 5 service stations.

Euro tunnel wouldn’t let us on with a known fault.

Recovery people are disappointing to say the least – if they were on the ball I think they could have got us home tonight and saved themselves a bit of cash and me a day’s leave

*edit

so day in a hotel enjoying a cool beer to forget about it all until 8am tomorrow, when I have to deal with the recovery people again

We’ve been restarted, but if we stop the engine it won’t restart.

Maybe we can ask euro tunnel before hand?

Yeah – it’s tempting to claim ignorance, but would rather get home before midnight. And not annoy the other people on the train

Turns out that roadside recovery insurance doesn’t cover the autoroutes and you have to ring them back to find this out as they just leave you wondering for an hour+

112 for the autoroute recovery onto private (non toll) roads and then call back the insurance.

Ha to buying a battery over here – from what I can tell, rural France is pretty much shut on a late Sunday afternoon

cheers for the PSA… I think I’ll have one of these for the Morzine trip coming up

I reckon I could be addicted… I ordered some 0.0 lager to arrive this afternoon while I’m stuck in the office (my weekend starts tonight)

<span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”>regret university… not a chance… it was pretty much all fun from start to finish</span>

Keep going for a week or so more OP and see if you find any difference then.

I’ve reduced my booze intake very recently from around 30 units a week to single digits. I’ve found the zero-zero beers handy during these hot summer evenings where you crave a frosty beer or two.

Overall I feel better, and without any other change in lifestyle I’ve dropped a few kilo’s too.

I assume you know about the ability to slide the channel so you can centralise the bike on the rack?

No way is a zesty too long… SB66, Capra and Bronson, all in their biggest sizes fit just fine.

cheers guys, looks like I got it wrong… again

Will go and have a peek to see how that thing gets adjusted.

edit…

591 Adjustment by LittleNose[/url]

591 and an Atera Giro AF here on the Thule wing bars…

Like both systems in general, with the following minor hassles:

– Atera straps aren’t long enough for plus sized wheels

– my Zesty’s wheel base seems too long for the 591; front wheel sticks out too far <- maybe I’m doing it wrong!

That sounds awesome !

love that the bike came back to rescue you… do you think Tonto was hiding in the bushes to send Silver back your way?

off to Morzine in a couple of weeks, so putting the other bikes away and playing on the Zesty for the next couple of weeks to reacquaint myself with it… new bars took a little getting used to, and recovering from a bug, but was nice to get out there for an hour today.

Holmwood Bump by LittleNose[/url]

How do you intend to get the magnets off afterwards?

You asked for forces – I think that to determine the forces is fairly straight forward once the problem is understood – I think we have most of it.

A few questions …

Which direction are the angle sections added… longitudinally down the 40 m length, or vertically in your diagram?

What size and spacing is on the angles?

Which direction is the curvature?

What format are you looking for your answer ?  (excel / notes)

yup, give us a sketch

The new Boardman centre is near me and a full fit is about £40 more than I paid for the road bike.

Check around and see if there are some cheaper folk… local road cycling clubs can generally point you in the right direction.

that really is an awful situation to be in… I hope for you guys that they get bored and don’t return tonight.

I’m impressed you’ve kept your cool.

+1 for bombers

Maybe don’t piss around at skool and end up in a shit job then breed kids you can’t afford to feed? Always some one else’s fault though isn’t it.

… are you being sarcastic?

excellent thread.. really enjoyed reading it – thanks Poopscoop.. and most certainly “chapeau!”

Why not use the iPhone as a hotspot for the macbook ?

very very nice bike !

Is it worth speaking to a bike fit specialist?

I have OE in my knee, and took me a while to get to a happy position on the road bike as I’m not ‘moving around’ and changing the load point as much as on the MTB.  I noticed the pain was is exaggerated whenever I’ve used the turbo.

If you buy multiple  bikes, make sure they’re really different – then you choose the bike to suit the ride you fancy doing.

yep, this… my mood tends to ebb and flow, so my preferred bike goes through cycles

Oh and single spaces after a full stop. Period.

Not so sure about this one… I’ve always liked double spacing
ArsTech has a pretty good article 
… but who really cares?

as mentioned by bacondoublechee – Avon’s “skin so soft” works quite well.. not perfect though

can you feed it through the other way?  … push it through the exit hole, and then up ?

doesn’t have ‘the view’, but has a decent beer garden, plus they serve up a lovely beer & lovely food – the Surrey Oaks in Parkgate is where I’d go

Always love reading this thread.

Despite the cracking weather, I haven’t been out since Wednesday, but have almost finished the new bike build…

IMG_4207 by LittleNose[/url]

Back out riding tomorrow evening

Looks like a crackin’ weekend by all

I enjoyed a trip over to Dent in West Cumbria on Sunday, followed by a trip to the Peaks today.

Dent by LittleNose[/url], on Flickr

So very sorry to hear about your loss Ricks…

I lost my dad in March, and your comment about being able to deal with your dad, but not knowing how to help your mum resonated with me – I felt similar.

As others have said, I found just being there with my mam was the biggest thing.  Having a hug at the start and end of each day, and any time in between.

Speaking with my mam, she found that taking care of the little also things made a big difference – the ones that you can’t do once you head back to your own home… as an example, my mam hadn’t driven in almost 20 years – so I had to find the right way to get her back into the knack of it.

Looking back, I didn’t really take care of my own wellbeing during that time, all I wanted was to make sure my mam was ok – I’ve only recently started to function in a manner that I’m happy with again… remember to take care of yourself too.

Its £119 at Jessops with code GOPRODISCOUNT 

Ordered – cheers :)

Been really enjoying a few short after work rides lately, and my weekends start on Thursday eve… so here’s the latest ‘weekend’ pic… I nearly always stop here to enjoy the view.. and tonight some hippies were enjoying a smoke… I had to move so I was no longer downwind of them

St Martha's by LittleNose[/url]

Loving the trails at the moment !

ace stuff that unicorn dust