I managed to get to work 33 miles away for the 3rd (or is it 4th now?) week on the trot without having to stay at home.This includes climbing to the highest village in the country and back again.

Near whiteout conditions at slochd summit earlier.The central reservation barriers are nearly all covered now and its starting to look a bit like a tunnel to drive through.Theres a few cars off the road and one white van is nearly unoticable.

This record will soon come to an end if megabus drivers continue to descend down Drumossie into Inverness at speeds looking like 80mph in the snow covered lane,though.

In the past year i found out something else that can cause it.nothing to do with pads,contamination,alignment or the disc itself.keep trying and let us know if you suss it out!

I will narrow it down (just a bit)

It doesnt matter if its full suss or a hardtail.

Not sure if that helps! keep playing around and you should eventually find whats causing the prob.

alan, i fell last week down three steps in the snow.went down them on my back too!

i was wearing flip flops at the time and my elbow took most of the weight and its now hard to put pressure on it.

top tip: dont walk in snow in flip flops.

I never made it up to strathpeffer earlier but on new years day it was a great descent down from the viewpoint. the front wheel didnt dive in once. ive got a racing ralph up front and it seems to do the job fine! I might leave it on after all.was planning another bonty mud-x 1.8.

its pelting down with snow and blowing around the garden now.heading up the catsback in the next hour!

If you manage to pitch a tent in that snow and use it without destroying it.. you will be doing very well.

do you know what the catsback is like? quite fancy a push/ride up and a seat down descent off it. would be quite a nice angle to keep a nice amount of speed up without pedalling.

http://photos-by-martin.digimig.co.uk/c1800364.html

some pics from new years day around a little bit of the course and up to the viewpoint.The descent down from the viewpoint was amazing.bonty mud X 1.8 on the rear and a racing ralph up front and it goes up and over anything! the last fast blast down to the carpark in contin was a bit sketch (as the long straight tyre marks-to-slide-out will show if you take a wee walk up the track lol)
anyone going around it today? i need to do more snow riding. didnt get out yesterday.

4 inches fallen here too. on top of the 15" thats still here from over the past 2-3 weeks. just been taking pics of a robin feeding on fat i put out for it in the garden.

Aviemore will have about 6 inches this morning on top of the 20 inches that has fallen over the past 2-3 weeks.

<agrees with cg.

but prolly not for the same reasons.

so hes a better rider than most of us.

are we really all that crap? lol.

get boots first. you can manage on the hill wearing diffrent jackets and pants but you need to get into one pair of boots that you are really happy with.

try them on with one pair of socks when buying and buy them snug without the toes nudging up front.more than one pair of socks on the cold days wont make you any warmer.two pairs of thick socks in a pair of boots that were always too big for you will never be right and wont hold yer heels right at all.

Jeff wrote.. "A Shimano QR, made properly tight, will clamp the axle between the dropouts rigidly."

That is correct and i would agree that everything around it is super stiff etc.but what i was saying was for all the extra weight, you could have 15 or 20mm up front. on bikes we have built up with the same bars and stem.. the difference between a q/r version over the 20mm version was noticable from the off.we all agreed.it feels so much more direct.. yet still on the same build of lowers as other forks on other bikes.most folk gone to 20mm agree.why have fork manufacturers made 20mm options on some forks and done away with q/r all together on others? why have the fork manufacturers recently been filling in the missing link by adding 15 or 20mm?

because they know the score.they dont have a missing link.from the grips under the hands to the tyre on the ground.. its the most direct you can get.no point in skimping after wasting so much time and effort on everything else.

a lot of folk will be reading this and thinking "but its stiff enoughhhh!" and not getting the point along with all the effort hes gone to without finishing it off as well as it could have been.the rigidity of the fork and the time it takes to make over a conventional rigid fork shows that he was really going about making a stiff front end.. he wouldnt have done it just for the fun of it,so why stop half way and have such a good fork and such a monster of a wheel that can take on a bit more abuse in diffrent directions over a standard wheel… yet still rely on a skewer to do all that work?

One of the best bits about going to bolt thru is the peace of mind that a standard skewer isnt going to fail on you.you know the wheel is staying there! as you have just found out with the rear.thank god yer alright.

aye but drac… i didnt spot yer hardy geordie kids.. as i was too busy working out how the 5 inches on the fence apparently measures 8! ;O)

Is that where you stay Kbrem? I thought it was a stones throw from me a few streets away!

might go for a spin up to the loch. no,i might go for a hike up to the loch!

its something to do,i`m bored. the sun is shining and theres too much snow to be sitting around in the the house.

pics will follow..

None smoker here. have had smokers around me all my life up until now.cant get away from it. it stinks..and the folk around you dont know how bad it is for a non smoker.

what date is it? ive been looking on the info page but cant see it.

dont worry about the winter midges. they shouldnt be too bad.

Its the snow badger after sunset you have to be aware of.dont turn yer back on them and you should be fine.

The next time you see her might be when you are on the bike.wouldnt that be fun?

driving home last night the road had the odd bit of slush but quite black with most of the snow cleared.I was averaging around 50-55mph and approached 2 cars. the car at the front kept braking whenever a car came from the other direction.even when the road was clear ahead she was driving at 45mph in a 60 zone.At one point it went down to 35mph.i was raging at this point as it had been going on for about 3 miles.a mile or so before the dual carriageway she went up to 60mph from her steady 35-40mph.. then back down to 40mph before the lanes merged into dual.the car behind didnt know what to do.
as i passed i noticed a woman driving with her chin about 14 inches from the top of the steering wheel focussing hard on the road ahead.
I think she couldnt see out of the screen due to all the dirt and freezing temps but couldnt be arsed pulling over to clean it.

you would have called the cops on this one as well!

aye,never drink.

enjoy it while you can,aphex.. everyone gets sick of seasons never changing down there.Yet to come across someone that sticks it out and never returns home. ;O)

good luck with it all.hop you got the full reg of the car – if you dont, some police forces arent interested in looking for drivers that hit you and drive off at 70mph.. especially up here in Inverness.even if you told them the colour,make and model of car.. and also that they have a front bumper hanging off.

I think half of them are on donut duty.

Nice.The scenery on the way to Aviemore today was unreal.I forgot my camera and knew i would be regretting it as the lunch trip into town had sun blasting thru icicles hanging from a few buildings.looked really good. oh well.

right, im off to upload pics.if any are ok, ill post them later and hopefully someone can post them here to view.. as i can only drop in links.

M&S lasagne and chipz.

I thought it was a pasta thread too lol.Then i guessed that it might be some mechanical freak wanting to put his R1 carbs from the bike in the dishwasher.

I was close.

:::ponders putting the K&N filters from the car and bike in it too::::

save this thread and give it to them for a xmas present in years to come. they might like it.

Ayeeee,merry xmas all.Nice pics Keith. I ended up roaming yer pics a while back (nosey bassa you see)from a link you sent of the titus you were selling and noticed you had an eye with that camera! Lots of nice scenes with amazing colours from around the world that didnt seem to be altered in any way at all like a lot of folk do.. just good spot on pics.

I drove up the hill behind the house (Leys) in the snow.Got up the hill all the way no probs but couldnt do a turn at the top cos of all the big rocks.. so got a bit stuck lol.After that i stopped on the way back down and got pics of Ben Wyvis in the late sun. I will try and sort them out tomorrow eve.

Aviemoro, well i thought it would have dumped more as its been snowing here on and off near sea level for days.seems to be topping up the level of snow in the garden to a constant 6 inches.There must have been over 14 inches fallen over the past week in Aviemore.Sunday might be the turning point though.. and if it freezes after a bit of a thaw its going to be bad.still running pressures about 33% lower on car and bike!

not anymore. the new owner only weights about 6 stone with his shell suit on :O/

The comments on the tyre being too close to the pedals are a waste of time.scroll the picture to the right and align the framework of the shutter behind the bike to show you how vertically correct it is… now scoll left to see how plumb the right hand side of the shutter framework is. It appears to be kicked in at the bottom towards the bike.. hence the front wheel looking a bit kicked in too.

The bike is fine!

I actually took that tag the completely opposite way. It says "bloody awfully nice bike!" I think they mean they really like it.Well if it was my bike,thats the way i would be reading it.

Regarding the front fork…… all the reviews Ive read comment on its stiffness and precision…… feels that way to me too.

yeah and ive heard exactly the same from someone that had a ride of jeffs own one.he loved it.i totally agree.I believe you and Jeff when you say its super rigid and does things better than just about anything else out there.Its brilliant. Its just the bad link that i was getting at previously.The size of the wheel,the torsional stiffness etc of the fork, the amazing pin point accuracy… but not quite complete when you put a quick release hub in there with a skewer with a rod something around 4mm thick tensioned under cam action to ..well,deal with something in the midst of things that could have been better through choice of hub and dropout system.

The arguement could be that on this type of bike he didnt want a 15mm or 20mm bolt through system as its not that style of bike and not burly enough.He might say its not anything like a hard hitting trail bike/all mountain bike.. so there was no reason to put such a system up front. He might also argue that its too heavy where its not needed.but you couldnt come out with such a statement as people will then ask and smirk at why you went to all the bother in the first place of making one of the most torsionally stiffest forks ever.

would you,jeff and anyone else disagree on that?

I wrote the last reply and made you think i was thinking you had a Ti skewer in there.I didnt.sorry.I just brought up the Ti skewer as an example of how bad the skimpy ones could feel in suspension forks.Ive got a fully rigid bike right now that had a ti skewer in it and i was glad to get a good solid shimano steel one in there.definately noticable.

As for folk commenting on this bikes geometry,you cant.

You dont know what camera/lens etc was used to take the picture so its most likely slighty distorted.

Unless Futon has spent the same amount on a Tilt Shift lens as he has on this frame,or has a near perfect lens of some sort.. then its likely he would also agree that it doesnt quite look like it did through the naked eye.

well i narrowed it down to 2 that i quite liked and phoned up a certain shop.i said i liked the look of a few of the beginner copters and he said he wouldnt recommend them for a beginner.ffs.
he mentioned something else but it looked so cheap and tacky.i said i would check it out and call him back.

so i looked around and found the blade msr for 115quid. after reading the review i went for it. This is from the guy thats been flying for years in the above link..

"VERY IMPORTANT…

Stay away from single rotor collective pitch birds with electric tail rotors – they are rotten to learn on. You need a belt driven or shaft driven tail rotor with variable pitch to react fast enough to correct for the ever changing (at times violent) reactive torque loads from the the main rotor – yes even more so when you're just learning.

A motor driven tail rotor simply can't respond fast enough to keep the tail steady. The tail holding and control is vague and twitchy at best. On top of that, tail motors are under enormous strain and usually burn out quickly. I explain this in greater detail in my theory section and harp on this point constantly.
That said, the new E-flite Blade mSR actually breaks this rule – click that link to find out why. It is a very small micro electric heli however, and I am focusing on larger birds here. If you are looking for a low cost single rotor fixed pitch bird that actually flies well – the blade mSR is the only one I can recommend"

cant be bad with him bigging it up like this..
http://www.rchelicopterfun.com/blade-msr.html

It sounds good,seemed a good price and on youtube it looks really good.

well i suppose theres not too much wrong with the diameter. if a threaded solid axle with axle nuts on it were fitted then it would beef it up a bit more.

I just see everything so burly on it but at one point in the chain.. theres a weak link,you know? fitting a scrawny ti skewer would really show off how bad skewered front ends can be no matter how strong and stiff a wheel/rigid a fork is.

compared to flexy forks that the majority of us all use.. it will be so direct.but imagine it with 15mm. or would someone come along and tell us that its too stiff?

there you go stuart.. got 800 quid to spare? probably scrub the seat inner arches and the 40 profile will be over a grand lol.

http://ssl.delti.com/cgi-bin/rshop.pl?details=Ordern&cart_id=24967541.110.27928&typ=R-133413&ranzahl=4&Breite=225&Quer=50&Felge=17&Speed=H&weiter=0&kategorie=6&Ang_pro_Seite=20&Transport=P&dsco=110&sowigan=Wi

old set of steel wheels is what you need.they can be had for pennies.
15" steels with these maxxis at 60 quid each.

http://ssl.delti.com/cgi-bin/rshop.pl?details=Ordern&cart_id=24967541.110.27928&typ=R-148424&ranzahl=4&Breite=185&Quer=55&Felge=15&Speed=H&weiter=0&kategorie=6&Ang_pro_Seite=20&Transport=P&dsco=110&sowigan=Wi

I collected tyres for my father earlier from some wholesale place and the tyres on display looked good. especially the gislaved norfrost 5. not sure how good they are though. ive got the eurofrost 3s and asked the guy what the difference was. he said it was just a more updated version.not much else :O/

I like it and i love the big front end although i would have to make sure that for something up front so burly.. i would want something more than a tensioned piece of steel holding the hub in.Every part from the dropout to the treads on the tyre would have to be kind of matching in girth if you see what i mean.15mm minimum.great fork design and the stiffness of it and how direct it is must be great to own.. but to be let down by a qr skewer at such a critical area,such a shame.

Not pissin you off, my first 10 words expressed how much i like it.

sounds like it might be one of those weird brand new spitting the dummy issues.

have you tried some other axles and wheels in the new fork to pin point it?

nice. very snowy. how does yer girlfriend get on with the saddle sticking up like that?

this week? front and rear rebound as fast as possible and with the temps its still not fast enough.

if fox make snow mobile shocks that can obviously work really well in the cold, what can they offer for cold riding conditions on bikes?

even if it meant a bigger sized shock to hold a bigger range of adjustment, im sure a lot of folk wouldnt mind the extra weight if it meant a shock that works well in under -4c conditions.

be as well getting them to fit new timing belt and kit at the same time then. get back on the phone and ask for the extra work to be done (if it IS that)

Prince – lovesexy

the dead weather – horehound