hear hear … Thanks to Alex for fixing the puncture and kenda for giving me the inner tube in return for the manky old one… Gee yeah who else could spit the dummy out not once but twice in a ten yards and in case any one had missed it and was not rolling about on the ground, no need for a replay, he stopped to abuse his own team stand 50 yards later then erupted in a fantastic bottle throwing routine which luckily managed to miss those it was entertaining… beat anything I've seen on telly for ages.. I thought such behaviour could only be observed at downhill events or on Fawlty Towers… was sad to be proved wrong though

shame all cop forces were not so enthused about kicking this particular crime into touch.

Drum . .er that will be the mountain o nthe northern Carneddau there is not a right of way to cycle up wont it…. just checking to see if I have my facts straight…

nothing really radical with discs on bikes as druidh says, there are loads of those poncy flat bar mtb look alike 700c things with 'em on. They would just have to have foo foo small pads and rotors or they would be way too powerful for ultra narrow HP tyres and the spindly frames, that would of course lead to brake fade on long descents. .as said there might be issues with quick releases and the force being transmitted through the forks with breaking on sealed surfaces which mtb's dont suffer with large volume tyres and suspension to neutralise the forces.

To be fair Lance spouts masses of shite on his twit, not least his renunciation of the heretic Contador which was only eclipsed by the dross of Bruyneels twits. You dont have to look far to find other twits, including Boardman, who from a point of knowledge rather than conjecture are having a right go at Lance over the nonsense, The UCI issue is that the limit is intended to make for a fairer equal platform that most companies building bikes have a potential to build winning bikes. If the weight limit went the rather dull cycle companies like the one lance rides would end up carving a ferrari style monopoly at world cup grand tour level.

Isn't there an award for best services team like they do in many of the classic motorbike enduros?

Nice pics Mr Pips

make way for podium finisher…..

PS Dick Barton could actually be quite right… I was told a story of a cycle dealer who had a regular customer who bought new bikes then having sold them to his mate who had to have it came in to buy something else.. something the dealer at first could not believe his luck, this went on until having ordered a new bike and paid a deposit he never collected it,

some one in the know with the criminal world suggested the guy was probably spending money gained from drugs dealing and was cleaning it through this and other transactions, his sudden disappearance is more likely due to the volatility of the industry rather than the police feeling his collar as he simply appeared to vanish off the face of the earth. Right now one of you may well be riding one of those bikes which for all we know he might have sold on eBay rather than his mate.

the matter will be resolved of are the bikes stolen or not by simply asking him if he could ask his mate for the serial number of any bike, as a potential purchaser of said item you would never wish to buy a stolen bike and would therefore like to check with the local police first before bidding…. if the listings vanish there's your answer… pdf them before you write so the evidence can be sent to ebay – the bill

if the listings are taken down its not a problem, he will loose potential sales and have to devise a plan b to cash convert them…. anyone emailed ibis to see if they have had a customer report a stolen bike? maybe the uk importers could start to run a service recording stolen bike serial numbers for those buying expensive uk imported bikes and have them stolen so the singletrack forum police have somewhere to go, might actually make the higher price than direct importing sometimes a bit less bitter for some.

what was that been and pitched your tent .. or your Ark?

kglol

er thanks for that everyone especially those who understood what I was asking and attempted to answer the actual questions I asked.

I was watching it and thinking it shows the crippled state of the cycling business if the only company with enough money to fund the idents was Halfrauds… why were specialized or trek not biting at the bit to get all the well healed tdf armchair buffs down to buy their commuter bling…. even the abc could have tried to take the opportunity to expose the great unwashed to their local bike shop where you might even find a specialist rather than mail order over the internet

I'm just pleased it was not Nissan Ford or Saab who got the chance to sell their cyclist killing devices in that short spot

exactly, I thought not.

one off..no but Forestry Commission will ensure it is if anyone is caught riding there.

Some guys have spent a lot of time building these tracks for racing, why do most riders seem to think this is some kind of public works and they can just roll up and have a play afterwards for nowt. The course is dangerous and needs loads of catch netting to reduce the hazard. I don’t doubt some tossers will turn up to try to ride it, and even if they do not injure themselves, if the forestry find out that will be the end of it and it will be ‘Nannerched’. the course got hammered the berms are all blown out and it needs a major refit before being ridden again. The bottom wood is privately owned and the owner is likely to render bikes found on it unusable, likewise the whole woods is a let shoot for rest of the year and the guy with the shoot is not a reasonable man and was the reason the event was not held last year.

The event will be held again next year it is hoped but the track will be different. There will be track work days, if you are willing to turn up to one of those and graft you will get the chance to ride it in closed private uplift sessions that will be authorised by the FC as part of the track building process.

Well those that did not make it and could have will now probably be kicking them selves for missing one of the best NPS Downhills… so far. Great racing to boot and good win by Brendog who decided to boot aside a payday ride at some flat field skirmish in the midlands when he heard how hard Llangollen was. Few good world Cup riders came to watch or ride on their way to fort bill

Got to say the new NPS caterers should be michelin guide listed and the bar was well above average.

Crowds was massive and more cowbells than Austria, saw loads of local riders out enjoying the sun and fun with their families

some people who were going!

I was there all day and it was brutal although somewhat ground down by the end of the day, they played today tomorrow they race… Brendan Fairclough skipped duties at Bike Radar to come and ride. .rep341 must be clearly drunk,there is a 3 page thread on the venue on the sdh forum dedicated to the NPS downhill. its about half a mile off the A5 on the east side of Llangollen signposted plenty of parking… the entry list is posted on the nps DH web site…

with fatma hubbard… reverse fli bars wide and flat.. so wide i cant ride the bike into the kitchen anymore.. and the xc course at Sherwood is out of bounds not because it’s too flat.. cant get between the trees….

i ordered the OS Snowdonia mapping with one last week.. that arrived this morning, this afternoon got an email like Schweiz.. rang them and suggested the mapping was a bit useless without the gps they did not argue when i asked them to take it back… even though the email said temporarily out of stock they said they could get no more units.. looks like they are having a bit of a closing down sale me thinks?

If you intend to go to Malaga, I’d check out what the local dealers are, I travel around Spain a lot and although roadies can find shops that sell just about any amount of bling, finding one that has a good range including high end mtb hardware is not so common. If you buy something needing bearings and servicing you might want to look at how easy it will be to get it serviced locally without lengthy waits while parts are sourced then fitted unless you are a handy mechanic with tools yourself.

leave it……. which blonde??? myself ride both weekly spd ensure the 15% which is a climb is easier, falts mean you can choose the shoe of choice for comfort o the remaining 80%

first sensible Cavendish post for 3 months or more

Hairy Chested .. you think you and your uncles mate are the only one who knew what the Milk race was all about in 1976. I was knew riders who rode the 70’s milk race and went on to took tour jerseys & podiums in the 1980’s.. even Mercx was a lover of his tabs ( not tablets)… pop off to check if your granny is ok, she might need help sucking her eggs

ideal on North Wales slate / silurian shales, peaty podsols and roots, however there is a world of difference between the std 2.4 folding and the black chilli protection that is more than just the prices. I find the black chilli 2.4 sticky on wet rock instant self cleaning and the large volume very forgiving on a hard core alu hardtail….

if you are riding in muddy Northhants or Leicestershire i would doubt my review is of comparible conditions

It’s the sort of question that was custom made to be asked on a road bike racing rather than mountain bike forum…. asking it here will elicit a…

‘not unless he moves to an obscure eastern european ex CCCP dependancy and ingests stuff…’

I am hoping SFB will turn up and put this kind of question to bed shortly

surely the question is…

do uk mountain bikers spend more on bikes than is necessary.. when comparing bikes on the start line of euro regional national dh and xc events compared to similar in the uk I would say yes

Surprised all the bnp ukip mail/express readers lot are not kicking off… probably would have if they had not been laughing at the pain Broon was suffering as Patsy wacked it about his head in front of the press

mtb brecon beacons[/url]

Well at least we can all be pleased the winningest downhiller is not American which probably annoys the yanks more than any amount of scraping fingers down their blackboard or abuse of our language will do.

First they discover they cant win at cross country, now they can’t win at downhill or 4x, other than American Football and Doping there is not much they are really good at where the results are more than about how much money you spend. It’s time they go invent another world class sport.

I dont think so, Hill was on the button, everyone expected him to win, it was just one of those things, loads stacked at that point last year, I stood at that point for ages and there was a camera there too.

In fact this years coverage was disappointing with only 5 cameras on course put in positions where the splits where that did nothing to give the viewer any idea of what was happening when compared to La Bresse last week, it was a sows ear from which no silk purse could be made. Filming in forestry is not easy, but the footage desperatly needed Cedric and Bobs flowery commentry and was nothing more than a collection of clips padded out with slo mo replays rather than live coverage, the amount of time you were sat wondering when the rider would be spat out of the tunnel in the trees to come to the finish with little idea of what was happening till the result showed. Also the fact they only covered the run of every other riders meant when you heard the results you found somebody had been beaten by a rider you had not seen come down. The most spectacular footage of the day was actually that shot from the finish camera when he was taken out by the Swedish rider putting the camera off air for the rest of the day

Cannondale Profit.. not much recently, I thought they were just bailed out by Tenneco :)

How about buying the bike that you like best, and not worrying about whether people think that makes you an individual or not?

I think that’s the point, well certainly ‘try’ something different, and looks like he has

I’d think some of the climbs would cause a few of your mates to spit out feathers if they are done after a night on the town, You see a lot of enthusiastic mountain bikers , possibly from Holland or Norfolk, if your mates are not mountain bikers of any conviction I would avoid taking advice of the trail gods, if its wet the rock sections are easy to hurt yourself on if you are not used to riding them. I agree with Jimmy the Saint and suggest you nip down to Llandegla where the only real climb is not steep and once at the top those with no fitness could have a good ride down the blue and feel like they have mountain biked if you dont mind a few short sharp climbs along the way do the red. You can eat before or after the ride and get good coffee.

You can get there drive back east along the A55 to St Asaph then straight down the A525 passes the entrance to Llandegla about 50 minutes to an hour, to avoid the traffic at St Asaph turn off in Bodelwyddan and cross the bridge or next turn after the marble church passing through the business park, both routes will take you into St Asaph, journey about 50 minutes to an hour

If you reconsider your opinion about Llandegla which I think seems rather unfairly jaundiced.. i rode Llandegla before you even knew what it was and stil lride the old tracks in the trees we made for races , the trail remains fun and there are new trails to be opened shortly, Gwersyllt Station is not that far.. you could still ride across the sleepers on Offa’s dyke

alternatively if you prefer something not so manicured and constructed as trail centres, from Buckley Station its about a 6 mile ride to Loggerheads of Cilcain and the ridetheclwyds.com where there are miles of natural native trails there.

any of the apps that need a sound input, gps or a camera are going to work or install on an ipod touch

NBT I could not possibly blight your reputation probably not, if you struggled to find parking. I was not tryingto single any person out but there was one party where 3 cars and one white van took up the parking spaces in a bay capable of taking 6 vehicles… was not sure who they were they seem to have left enough space to get wheelchair users in and out.

Ponti…. That is very obvious and worries me too, I would doubt the local community wanted the trail at all and will not until it starts making a visible difference to better the economy as painful as that makes it spending both by donating in the tin and in the villagers own hands is necessary. Penmachno has always been isolated and set in its way and Cwm Penmachno is worse, you will note the ‘drive slowly’ in English on the village road sign has been covered over presumably because they dont mind english only speakers speeding through, rather than stopping and diluting the language. Speeding Cars with bikes on however are considered an important part of the blight some think the trail centre brings to their culture. The businesses that are often economically active migrant english who move in and that only makes matters worse.

who?

I cant see what the real fuss / point is here.. pop has always been the stomping ground of manicured musical outfits. When we dream back to the 50’s and the 60’s Elvis was manipulated and Berry Gordy was as responsible for what went out as Motown as Phil Spector was t othe Wall of sound.. why should Lily Allen have to be the first pop act to clean up and get real. I am sure as a young kid listening to the Archies chirpy chirpy cheep cheep my dad must of rolled his eyes whilst tolerating my right to listen.. . in fact that was all the fault of radio 1 and it took twiddling the dial to find Fluff Freeman that my taste started to improve.. much to my dads further chagrin and seeing school mates thinking Sweet or the Osmonds to be the best music had to offer.

Ultimately my real ability to enjoy a diverse taste only really started once I found John Peel, and reading an interview in NME or similar when his eldest kids were about 11 or 12 the journalist suggested they must be the most switched on kids in the world in terms of musical taste and JP replied at their age if he found them listening to Mark E Smith or Throbbing Gristle and not enjoying Sheena Easton or any other pop act and he felt he had failed in giving them a proper upbringing. Mark E would seek them out during the angst of teenage life when they were better prepared for him

I see many people enjoy Lily and right on too its still better than any of the trite shite Stock Aitken and Waterman heaped on us during the 80’s

Sofaking.. it’s not my trail I am involved in the ongoing creation of MTB, Equestrian and Walking trails across North Wales through Public funding starting with the pre Red Bull route at Coed y Brenin, ever since it was planned I have worried about Penmachno’s long term future, it is run by a community ‘business’ group who could pack in tomorrow, there was the inappropriate riding of new trail before it was opened and more recently the loss of it’s keenest volunteer trail repairer although I am glad he has been able to find a good job down at CyB ,and the National Park have not been its greatest friend although Conwy Council have been more forthcoming.

I think it goes without saying that all riders should assume trails are not put in purely to benefit and amuse riders, there are back ground economic issues in rural that usually help the funding in order to bring revenue through tourist spend into the communities. Luckily it is currently held as a rule that Mountain Bikers, although prone to riding where they should not, also do generate substantially greater spend in communities than walkers do even though there may be less of them. The Welsh Assembly is very pro activity tourism. If you are currently enjoying trips to Wales riding and going home feeling a good day was knowing you spent nothing saving your money to by more Bike Bling from your LBS or CRC, you might be undermining your own long term enjoyment through lack of local justification for raising funding for new trails or maintaining old ones

Ian How have you been keeping? there are a few opportunties with the iPhone to benefit from the GPS feature, one is GPS tracker which uploads your gps location to the instamapper website so anyone knowing the url can track your progress in real time. The more frequently you upload data the faster the battery drain. We used it on the recent One Planet Adventure tour of the uk red grade trails one in the vehicle and one in a backpack on a bike. The predominant weakness of the one on the bike is forestry itself is not conducive to good GPS data then in dark steep valleys it is often worse and the kind of locations also have poor phone signals. The data we got back did give us a prety good idea where the riders were / had been but you could not use the data to measure or record the actual trail routes

there are a number of other gps devices that integrate your location with online mapping, iphones cant carry their own mapping yet. There in lies the problem the system is great for london where with 3g you can get all sorts of detail to help navigate the streets, but riding around Penmachno yesterday using TrailGuru in my backpack I could hear it continually pinging as it found or lost signal.

I have tested Trails and Trail Guru aroudn Llandegla and the Clwydians and although not as good as a Garmin GPSMap 60CS it gave an acceptable result which i could export out to gpx. I also have used imapmyride as well which is useful for online storage of routes. GB locate is good to give you your current OS grid ref. If you are near a free wifi or 3g Google earth is good but a bit slow under the gprs which is the norm for around out parts.

The iphone screen needs naked fingers, you cant operate it with full finger riding gloves on. Battery drain is an issue but I recently discovered that a tekkion ‘Mypower’ mobile Li battery pack

Tekkeon[/url]

that I bought to extend the range of my powerbook at bike events, that i had purchased an ipod convertor (which does not work with the iphone 3G) when used with an adaptor now available from Griffin that allows the iphone to use old dock power accessories means in my back pack I can get 5 or 6 times the life over the phones internal battery only, Tekkeon do a number of portable power solutions the iPhone users can take advantage of and many are available in the UK

other handy iphone apps.. flashlight . .can help at night to find stuff and give some illumination during repair stops on night rides,
pano for making panoramic images.
itimer gives timer delay and timelapse features to built in camera

for photographers and musicians there are many other handy apps