the best thing about summer is the ability to nip out for a quick spin whenever the opportunity presents itself – you get home not being covered in shit, you dont have to wash the bike and you dont have a pile of sodden slimey kit to deal with… I had an hour or so or sunday, saw a break in the rain and went for it! spent much of the ride on my arse and spent longer cleaning up than i did riding… also its still too warm for waterproofs!! had to ditch my jacket half way up the first climb!

ill happily take it tho, as long as we can have a repeat of the April – July season we had this year!

My subscription list is; Kermode & Mayo, Desert Island Discs, Vital mtb, Downtime, HKT, Richard Herring, Adam Buxton, Mince, Stones Throw, Daily Session and Hip Hop saved my life…

Some of these I find myself listening to out of habit; Kermode & Mayo ive played forever but find irritating these days, all the listener correspondence does my head in, as well as the smarmy in jokes and sycophancy! I do like the film content tho, even though I generally disagree with their reviews. Desert Island Discs and HKT depend on the guest, the HKT presenter has to be taken In very small doses!

The rest are all fantastic.

A couple of others ive enjoyed lately… Caliphate, interviews with a reformed ISIS soldier. And Jon Ronson’s Butterfly effect was brilliant too, looks at the effect pornhub has had on the performers and producers in the San Fernando Valley – not as seedy as it sounds!

Step mother recently took a job in Dublin so her and my old man have moved over. They chose to reside in Skerries, which is a nice little fishing village to the north of the city, its a fair way out actually but its an easy 20min drive to the airport which was a breaker as he commutes to from London for his work… dunno what they pay but their gaff is pretty smart and its right on the beach.

good news indeed.

never happen but id like bob mortimer and paul whitehouse to get the job!

i want my presenters to take the piss out of no-mark guests and crap music on the corporate playlist , like mark and lard used to…

Another one for the decathlon. I have that one above and also the bigger 900 down jacket for when it’s baltic. They both get more hammer than my ‘smarter’ designer brand jackets and out perform them all.

my inlaws live at Criccieth. we always make a pilgrimage to Abersoch for the day whenever we visit. usually cant wait to gtf outta there! its lovely to look at, the beach is great (out of season) and the coastal path to Porth Ceiriad but the town is just too busy for me, and busy with the type of areshole i dont wanna be surrounded by. its mega expensive and the pubs are shite – but thats a problem across the whole peninsular… much prefer the serenity of Aberdaron, Morfa Nefyn or somewhere around Trefor fro the scenery and the hills! also, as unglamorous as it sounds, we quite like Pwllheli – the Glan-y-don beach by the marina is fantastic for kids.

i have one of each on rotation, along with a Met Roam. my Montaro is a fair few years old now and still my favourite helmet. replaced the first two sets of pads in quite quick succession, the third have been in for ages. no such trouble with the Chronicle, same pads since new. The chronicle fits just as well as he Montaro but i just feel a touch more of a mushroom head wearing it.

I am a virgin on flats too, been riding them for years!

Still get the regularly mash my shins tho, the thing is im sure you become de-sensitised to it. Its usually someone else who points out that ive got blood gushing out of fresh leg wounds….

I originally swapped to flats to give me more confidence of the steep tech stuff, which is ultimately the reason I ride. Sure spd’s help the moorland slogs but I was happy to sacrifice that – it does make the dab too easy tho. my advice would be to concentrate keeping your feet on the pedal as much as possible early on. its also scary in the air at first when the bike isn’t stuck to your feet, so maybe try to address this early on too.

finally, a quality pedal / shoe combo makes all the difference and its very personal. for me, vaults + five ten is the dream, ive tried other shoes that people have raved about and they’ve been hideous!

yeah the area around route 66, superflow etc are the only trails worth bothering with over that side imo, some pretty flat out runs in there and some nice sendy features. all quite short tho so tend to do laps of the best ones. id carry on over to redlands or even ride hindhead instead for some steeper stuff.

i have just bought my third pair. love them. cant imagine there is anything better for me.

but yes, they are definitely a little stiff out the box. soon soften up tho.

Awesome! Mini golfie sounds perfect!!

Will check out he others too. Camped at Eskdale once and walked some promising stuff…

Thanks.

yeah looking forward to the new Unfriended film, looks fun. enjoyed the first one too despite the silliness! said at the time they should have done it with real person threat – seems they listened…

B_LL_CKS T_ YO_ THEN

theres one for you, whats the missing letter??… :)

swore a lot called us both “Gay C**ts”

I hate this kind of language. someone said that to me the other day – i couldn’t believe it, nearly choked on his cock!

Have not ridden it myself yet but i notice the local fast ews lads ride it a lot lately. keen to check it out.

Ray ling is one of my faves tho. Aussie rules, no social, waterworld, and feed the pony too.

I bought a pair of boost pro 4’s but I don’t have a boost fork yet – can the front hub be adapted back to non boost?

Yeah i got from langset to the ladybower inn via Derwent edge and les arcs on less than 500mls, I had a pint of coke there and necked my other bottle then filled them both up – I had decked them both in by the time I got back to the bottom of the cutgate climb so drank from the stream!! Otherwise I’m not sure how I’d have got back over!! So hot

Rode over cutgate yesterday, the climb up from langset was difficult, imagine taking your bike to a kids play centre, empty the sand pit into the ball pool then riding through it!! Coming back over was great tho, North America was sublime!!

Organised chaos

Took a lot of advice from this thread so thought I’d add a post in case others find it…

Im just back from two days up there in 30+ degree heat! previously only ridden it in the wet & mud and during race events where I just blindly follow the course and never really enjoyed it tbh, but I absolutely loved it this time.

My route yesterday was; repeat offender / flat white / splash n dash / waterworld into boner / 3G into Avalanche / community service / final fling.

Then today rode up and did Ray ling / Aussie rules / no social / feed the pony – over to inners and did green wing / angry sheep and finished on Gold run.

awesome few days. Highlights for me were waterworld and FTP.

also – whoever created Trailforks, I’ll buy them a pint!!

It’s a lovely ride but you might as well have a quick blast down witches broom and back up the cart track while your up there…?

We did a skiddaw sunrise a few weeks ago, was good but the descent was a bit disappointing down ullock as it was still in the shadow…

at the bottom we rode over and did Grizedale Pike via the mine. The descent down that was amazing in the early hue, and we could see ullock basking I the rays across the valley too!

We all ageeed we should’ve done it the other way round.

Made a 4am assault on Skiddaw to take in the sunrise on sat morning. Flew down Ullock then over to Grisedale Pike for an amazing people free full speed descent all the way to Braithwaite. All done by 9:30am. So weird not finishing a lakes ride in a pub tho!

I negotiated a 9 day fortnight. 36hrs / 44hrs but I found after a W hile I was running out of hours at lunch time on the Thursday of a short week or Friday of a long one, but buggering off in the middle of the day wasn’t really welcomed so I started doing a full day every Thursday and taking every Friday off! 40/40

if your going solo, and for the first time you should enter the PPDS. It will give you a good base knowledge of the area then you can return to your favourite bits later. You might make some fwiends too…

…

Why did Humpty Dumpty push his girlfriend off the wall?

because he wanted to see her crack

I rented one for a week. Scratched an itch that had been bugging me for ages. That’s about all I got from it too tbh. Load of old shite.

I launched them little gromits into orbit in sweary outburst building mine. Never used them since. Seems fine…

excellent… saving it for the long drive home tonight! still got to play the Peter Baynham one too…

i remember an advert for shoes on the tele, clarks magic shoes i think?  there was a bunch of kids on a magical adventure, a witch and a golden key.. id have been about 7. that is all i have about shoes.

had a little light chaser round the bottom of Swinley. for some bizarre reason i was really struggling for motivation last night despite the weather but eventually forced myself out and had a jolly old time! kicking myself for not going out earlier… very fragrant logging going on down the Bagshot end!

i have forgotten to enable flight mode a few times, just fallen asleep… never fallen out of the sky.

i think that the pilot hearing interference is bollocks. its more likely the fact nobody wants to endure other peoples phone calls when your sat on each others knee.

I love mine too. i have become dependent on them, having massive panics when they’re not where i thought they are….

which is strange because they’re not that great. sound quality, perfect for spoken word, awful for music. they are comfortable but don not feel secure, would never ride or do any sport in them, i use them mainly for driving. i have a van with a shitty old radio so i listen to a lot of audio books and podcasts on long drives, and im always ready for a hands free phone call, and siri will read texts and emails to me… also sitting at work – its nice being able to get up and walk around the place leaving my phone on the desk. and general travelling too, watching films etc, its great not having the trailing cables… the little case is a quality bit of kit too.

just had a butchers at that Freeride Morocco. looks great!! pricey tho, esp considering you are staying in a mountain gite most nights. for less money you can stay in a fancy chalet with whiteroom with unlimited bevs. be hard to convince the lads to do the morocco trip…

if im paying £40 quid i want picking up from the bottom of 50 shades / roots m / hot stepper!!

E-bikes are the answer…..

I have one, every now and then i swing a leg over it and take it out, have amazing fun and use it again for the next handful of rides, then i get back on the luxurious full suss i wonder wtf i was playing at!!

always handy to have…

I bought a load of stolen inflatables off a bloke in the pub and now the police are knocking on my door…

gonna have to lilo for a while!

the parrots stood on a perch… one says to tother

“can you smell fish?”

yeah it took me a few attempts before I could warm to it. but I kept being told how good it is so tried again and now I think its great… Peeping Tom was the one that caught me!

maybe I need to do the same with Lee & Dean because I thought the first episode was shite.