If you google ‘Guru’ Bike Fit, then they use a database of geometries to determine what would be a good fit.  Retul have something similar but as they’re now owned by Specialized their may be a little bit of bias in there.

Both will use a fit bike and motion capture to work out the best numbers and compare that against their database to see what’s close and in what size.

I think some of the comments about ESF are a little unfair, they do have some very good instructors.  Particularly some of the younger ones our kids have had have brought them on massively.

That said, we don’t tend to use ESF anymore since they ‘lost’ our 6 year old on the mountain.  Fortunately another instructor found him sitting by the piste in his ESF bib crying and managed to reunite him with the group a while later.  Obviously we only found this out when we spoke to our son about his lesson in the afternoon and when we tried to talk to the instructor the following morning he ‘forgot’ all the English he was speaking fluently up to that point and couldn’t understand my poor French.

When you’ve got 20 kids following one instructor it only takes one at the back to fall at they’d never know.

I don’t know about Morillon but we’ve used Oxygene Ski School a few times and they’ve been excellent.  I’d echo the private lesson route.  Have a 3 hour private morning lesson early on in the holiday then spend a few days bedding in what you’ve learnt, then another 3 hours morning on day 3 or 4 to fix any issues and progress further…

I’ve got a Carbon one of those I’m looking to shift as well (M I think with Fox bouncy stuff and old school 3×10 XT)… the bloke in one of the Yeti dealers seem to think I could get £700 as Yeti’s are still sought after, for it but I’ve yet to put that to the test… £5/600 for an Alu one is probably about right.

@meesterbond. Where did your mate crash on Surfin Bird? I can imagine the surface being fairly unforgiving for most of it.

Not sure exactly, I was a little way ahead.

From memory there were a couple of short, sharp rocky slopes – I think his front wheel got a bit a caught up in the rocks and he went over the bars, used his left hand to break his fall.  I don’t think it was a particularly big fall, he didn’t even realise it was broken until it started to swell up and he was advised to get it checked out.

More annoying for him was it was the first run of the day!

To be fair on Sunday they had a sign at the top of Bonneville/Surfin Bird (and also at the top of Blue Belle which is shut) telling people how to get to Willy Waver so that they could do a blue. No idea if it was there before but perhaps they put it up in response to concerns.

That’s the one… we were there the Monday before and there wasn’t any sign I could see… ended up going down Surfin’ Bird which is where he came off.

If I’d realised quite how big the jump from flow blue to tech red was we’d have probably spent longer with the map and worked out a more sensible route down.

Went for the first time last Monday with a few mates – one broken wrist later..

Our problem was that we’d taken Melted Welly down to the road only to find that both of the blues that we could have taken to the bottom were shut and we were left with a black or two reds to chose from.  Having never ridden it before, the reds (even the easier ones) are quite a step up from blue and a bit too much for an experienced rider on a 100mm hard-tail.

Wasn’t there an episode of MacGyver where he ground down a Mg road bike frame and used it to blow his way out the shed he was locked in… a decent file and a cigarette lighter and it blew the whole door off.

No way I’m riding such a deathtrap… I’m out.

Cheers for the advice – sounds like Cwncarn isn’t really worth a visit at the moment and Forest of Dean is only another half hour away so I’ll investigate that a bit further.

The Black Mountain Centre looks a little too downhill and gnarly to be honest.

Definitely a big weekend but I think with the mix of people I’ve got, some will duck in and out of different days – doing blues and greens to finish the day rather than reds, or more likely end up in the pub early instead!

Very sad… i’ll be taking my Marcello out for a spin in the morning.

Totally…

Although the one time it actually worked, the assistant ref missed the offside for the third goal and then Jamie Bloody Redknapp add insult to injury and blames West Ham for playing that way rather than the officials for their ineptitude!

As a lifelong West Ham sufferer it’s nice to see that we’ve spent £100m or whatever and yet still have the defensive frailties we’ve had for the last god knows how long.  The Sky Liverpool love-in was excruciating though.

That said, better teams than us are going to visit Anfield this year and get soundly beaten.  I don’t know if they’re 17 points better than last season but Klopp has clearly improved what was already a top notch side.

I’ll reserve judgement until we’ve played a few more mediocre teams in the next few games… Bournemouth, Arsenal and Wolves…

Incidentally, literally a month before the offence Stokes is being charged for, there was a episode of Fighting Talk when one of the panelists recalled a story about Stokes in the 2014 (?) Ashes series… He came out to bat and the Aussie wicket keeper starter to sledge him.  The English batsman at the other end (forget who) took Haddin to one side and told him to lay off.  When Haddin ask why he was told ‘because he’ll f$%&*g kill you’.

I think he’ll probably get off.

At least the last test has shown we don’t need to him to win – a little bit of cloud and Trent Bridge should swing nicely so I doubt we’ll need to bat twice.

Cheers Gents, much appreciated… I did wonder if there was a rather cheeky element to the trails there.

I’d never even heard of Tunstall Forest either – I might pop up there this afternoon.

Anyone?

Feel like I’ve broken a cardinal rule.  The first rule of Danbury is: You do not talk about Danbury etc etc….

why do people need so many road bikes

– Aero carbon road bike

– Lightweight carbon climbing road bike

– Pretty, Italian steel road bike

– Heavy Steel winter / CX road bike

– Time Trial bike

See… all completely different.  Besides, the Italian one is red and doesn’t really ‘go’ with my club kit so I absolutely need all of them.

3 road bikes, 1 CX/Winter bike a TT bike and 2 FS MTB…

They’ve all got pedals on… Speedplay for the road and flats off road.  I’ve probably got 5 or 6 pairs of usable pedals in the spares box from various failed experiments… SPDs, Mallets and Candys, there’s some Time road clipless pedals before I saw the light and converted everything road to Speedplay 10 or so years ago.

Goodness knows how many pairs of shoes… there’s probably 9 or 10 pairs in a wearable condition knocking around the house / garage.

And yes, I need all of them (in case my wife reads this).

I guess I’m kind of glad it’s not just me then.

I usually take precautions and ensure that the wife is fairly close as she’s like a Michelin-Starred banquet to anything small and bitey but it looks like I’ll have to break out the DEET again.

Interesting thread… can’t say I’d ever thought about an escape fund, much less an escape bag.  I guess I always thought that if it came to that, I’d grab my favourite guitar, jump in the car and drive off into the sunset.

As MissusBond earns considerably more than me and has pretty much maxed out her pension, she covers the mortgage and some of the bills and a significant proportion of my salary goes into topping out my pension, ISAs etc.

We’ve always had separate accounts, never really argued about what we spend money on (although I’m regularly reminded about a pair of Ti Speedplay pedals I bought and she accidentally saw the receipt).

To be honest, I don’t really know what other accounts and savings she has but as I’m generally rubbish with money and she’s an accountant by trade I’m very happy divesting that responsibility to her.

I’ve got mixed views on Garmin to be honest… when they work they are as good as almost anything but they do seem to be a bit flaky.  On the plus side, their warranty service is very good.

I’m on my second 735XT as the first one just died.  It was replaced with a brand new one within a week so no complaints there.  I’ve not tried the Fenix but the 735XT is damn good, functions-wise.  It sits quite low too so doesn’t get in the way of a wetsuit.

I think it’s as good as anything out there, perhaps not as daily-wear looking as a Fenix but it depends what you want from it.

I’d have thought the motivation to ride like he did was obvious… he was a good chunk of time behind and frankly 2nd, 3rd or 4th does absolutely nothing for his palmares so why not go all in?  Win or bust.

It was clear on the early ramps of the Fenestre that Yates was cooked and Dumoulin got distanced slightly when Sky pushed on so he just went for it and it stuck.

It is a little uncomfortable knowing that he’s got the AAF hanging over him but there’s not much anyone can really do about that.

Needs 2.49 if Dumoulin comes in second according to Eurosport

The cleanest way would be to upgrade to Sky Q…  we had cables, splitters, Magic Eyes etc etc in order to get Sky (with Multiroom) to 4 rooms.  Sky Q just does it wirelessly and (almost) seamlessly

We live in a decent sized village and yet the wired BB is still lousy… I stuck an EE 4G router in a couple of months ago and it’s great.  Much, much better speeds and far more reliable than the Sky one we were relying on.  We didn’t need a roof aerial and the router is in a cupboard towards the middle of the house.  I was told that running a long cable from the roof aerial would negate any benefit but luckily don’t need it.

Not cheap at £60 a month for 200Gb and we use a good proportion of that each month.

My goal is to just fit into the new skinsuit I bought at the end of last season.  It hasn’t been a very productive winter from a TTing perspective.

You could adopt the Chris Boardman approach… Keep asking yourself “can I sustain this effort until the end?”

If the answer is “No”, then you’re already cooked…

If “Yes” then you need to go harder…

If the answer is “Maybe” then you’re probably on the right track.

I’ve only been a couple of times, all organised by a friend who lived in Munich, and she would always book a table well in advance.  Think we were in the Hofbrau and Lowenbrau ones.

Admittedly it was at a weekend but given how full it was you’d never have got a table in the big tents on the door.

I’m in two minds what to do with my old Yeti (a 6 or so year old ASR5C) top spec but needs a little love and attention… ticks all the obsolete boxes… 26″ 3×10 XT drive train, no dropper (and no routing for an internal one)…

So do I pay to get shocks and suchlike serviced (I don’t really have time or talent to do them myself) or just try and offload it and put the money towards that shiny Soul I’m currently coveting!

I’ve got a Bike Box Alan and can’t fault it.  Used a Scion one for a couple of trips too and that handled some fairly serious abuse from Geneva’s baggage handlers.

BBA is big though but it does make it very easy to pack everything up and secure every tube down.

A couple for you… the Peg now has 35mm wheels rather than the deep rims

If I’m only allowed the one then I’ll probably just stick with my Range Rover.

Saw a Lotus Carlton in a car park last weekend… now that was a properly cool car back in 1990.

I had lessons at the beginning of last year in preparation for a sprint tri in May…. ended up swimming that breast stroke which I’m reasonably quick at but as that’s 80% legs 20% arms was shot when it came to the bike and especially the run.

Entered the same tri again this year and really trying to nail FC and facing all the issues above – knackered after 40/50m because my legs were going like roadrunner to try and keep me afloat, holding my breath and then gasping for breath at the end of each length… generally poor position.  I’m still miles away from being able to swim 750m but what I have found has helped is to swim length after length with a pull buoy between my knees – helps to remove one aspect of the stroke and lets you concentrate on the arms and breathing and slow the whole thing down.

I’d second looking at Roofbox.co.uk and bought an Atera Strada which I’ve been using for a year or so and it’s been faultless.
No cheaper than Thule (which I’ve always used for roof carriers) but the quality has been great. Only slight issue is that the rails the wheels sit in are a little too narrow so larger tyres are squashed a bit when you clamp them now. Doesn’t seem to impact how solid it feels, just that the tyres are a bit deformed.

I’ve had a 735xt for a year or so. Bought it for triathlons and it does everything I need really well. Probably overkill if you’re not going to swim.

That said, the damn thing died yesterday so I’ll get a chance to experience Garmin’s customer service. Given how unreliable my 520 was, if they don’t replace the Forerunner then I’ll be looking elsewhere – probably Sunnto.

We’re with Covea as well – through Larks.
I had a crash on my Parlee during a race (triathlon actually) and they paid me the full value of the frame, cash within a fortnight.
They’re not the cheapest, but we tend to use a HNW insurer because our house is really old and of a slightly odd construction meaning none of the high-street names would touch it.

If you’re looking for a damaged frame to repair, how would a Parlee ESX work?

I’ve got one with a broken seatstay which I was planning to get repaired and build up… could let it go for the right price

I did for my 40th… A CX / Winter steel number…

IF-PlanetX-24 by anthonyjholden[/url], on Flickr

IF-PlanetX-6 by anthonyjholden[/url], on Flickr

IF-PlanetX-3 by anthonyjholden[/url], on Flickr

IF-PlanetX-16 by anthonyjholden[/url], on Flickr

Yesterday I watched my 6 year old go round a pump track for the first time – massive grin on his face! He was on stabilisers at the beginning of the summer holidays.

Bikes are brilliant.

Beef shin rather than mince, cocoa powder, dark muscovado sugar and 1/2 a pint of coffee. Cumin, oregano, coriander and paprika with the chillies to spice it up a bit.

Then cook for hours and hours