I went from nasty student dreadlocks to a no.1 for my graduation when I was 25… my tutor thought it was hilarious when I walked on stage to pick up my certificate with no hair… F-me that was a long time ago :cry:

Longest my hair has been since was about an inch… clippers with no guard and the odd wet shave is how I do it now.

P.S. – My dreadlocks frequently had bits of stick and leaves in them… what was I thinking :|

Unfortunatley interventions like this with a motorists can make you and other cyclists a target for a “punishment pass” or worse… if you feel you have to do something note the car reg and report to the police; that way they “should” get a phone call about their behaviour. It probably will make no difference to their behavour but at least you have done something, and done it correctly.

Work colleague was whinging the other day about a visit from the police after being reported to be on his phone in traffic… there were two witnesses so he has been given points and a fine, which buy totting up means he is very close to license losing… and since he lives 60 miles from work his only option is to drive blah blah blah… he was on about appealing or contesting the points… but surely his best option would be to not speed or be on the bloody phone then :roll: .

I had an early Bontrager Carbon post with an alloy head in the mid nineties. After a few hard years the head squeeked and rotated a little bit… and I noticed this two days before a race, and I was skint, and as the post had not bent or failed in any other way like so many before I decided I HAD to try repair it. I managed to remove the alloy head and there was sign of delamination etc so my brain said it would be okay to rebond (glue) it. So I degreased the two surfaces with nail varnish remover and stuck them back together with Araldite (two part epoxy). This held for another few years before I did the same again.

Return it if you can but a repair might be possible depending on what it looks like when you take it apart and how brave/skint you are… only you can decide.

Love the Curtis 8)

Shand?

This looks a bit XC but its custom so have it your own way :mrgreen:

That slope holds the snow pretty well… and if its full of snow its the perfect angle for some snow riding (This was May 2009).

There is also a crap phone vid clip on utube (Maniacs BtoAtoB) from a few years ago.

Below Etchechan looked like this.

If you want to know what its like go and find out :P

Pho

A huge bowl of the Vietnamese soup with all the greenery and stuff to bung in it would go down perfectly right now.

*schluuuuurp*

Or Larig an Lui to the Fords of Avon and then follow Glen Avon down to Builg and out via Culardoch and the Invercauld Bridge. Quite a long way to go but very beautiful and from what I remember quite easy riding in the heart of the Cairngorms.

Another one – I ended up with a kitchen waste flood through the kitchen and into the dining room. Kitchen waste pipe drained down through to the adjacent bathroom waste, and then out under the wall and conservatory to where we knew the main drain was. Kitchen sink water had been backing up and there was a funny smell in the bathroom with a damp patch in the cement floor. Part of the cement floor was a cement “plug” which was being damaged from below by the backed up waste… pop goes the plug and all the waste backed up in the pipes comes up through the floor. Clean that up – get a rodding guy out who jets down the hole in the floor and re-floods the house before realising this is pointless… the fix was to hack a hole in the conservatory floor and find the blockage which was in an old victorian drain which had been cemented over when the conservatory was built. Fix holes in bathroom and conservatory floors (with proper access points of course :roll: ).

Only ever done it once during an MTB race in the early nineties. I was half a mile from the finish but my vision went and I couldn’t stand. Nearest marshal gave me a Mars bar and after 10 mins I was able to stand and eventually make it to the finish. It was such a horrible experience I never want to go there again. I’ve had the warnings of it a few times since but the full on bonk/wall I’ve managed to avoid since.

Installing a big ceiling rose on which the instructions say to use coving adhesive, but as I’m putting it up I think to myself there is no way this is going to hold so I’ll go get my drill and pop a couple of self-tapers in to be sure. But it seems to be holding so I’ll nip down the ladder and grab my *CRASH*

Broken ceiling rose and coving adhesive all over the floor and sofa… five minute job takes two hours.

Managed to clean up and did “functional” repair on refit of ceiling rose before wife and kids came home.

I’ve got a DeLonghi Magnifica. I paid £100 for it secondhand but living with it for six months has shown me and the wife that we would happily have paid full price.

I say “hi” to a Buzzard on the same fence post most mornings which makes me smile. As does seeing the roe deer in the fields and watching a fox slinking across the road last week. I see more wild animals than cars on my commute (until I hit the town that is).

Home

Lusso Gel Bib shorts are the best I have used and are about that price (or cheaper at Ribble).

Made in the UK if thats important to you :wink:

Lusso roubaix 3/4 knickers have been ace on the cold early morning commute.
Answer Fall Line Gloves are simply brilliant for my hands and are somehow great for almost all four seasons, they only lose it in the depths of winter.
Shimano winter boots… coz everyone needs a good pair of winter boots.

Good question jairaj – $150USD each + postage + import duty = about £250 for two. I needed new rims and spokes anyway and flow rims are £80 each so cost to change-up for me was just over £100. Cheaper than buying Crossmax or other light pimpy wheels for me in my circumstances :P

I rebuilt my trashed Hope/Flow Hoops with the Light-Bicycle Wider Carbon rims and DT Revolution spokes & Alloy Nipples. Dropped the weight from 1900g to 1494g (12x135mm x 20mm)… I’ve been running them for a few months and they feel great so far. I’m pretty hard on kit hence trashing the Flow rims but so far these rims with Bonty rim strips and Conti Rubber Queens/Baron’s have impressed me. Quicker to accelerate and they feel just as stiff as the Hoops. One reason I decided to rebuild the wheels rather than replace them was that rather than go for some proprietry 24 spoke design with this set up I still have 32 spokes so if I lose one or two in a ride the wheel won’t ping itself to a taco… I’ll get to finish the day/ride and replace the normal spoke without having to send the wheel to XXXXXXX to get it fixed. The alloy nipples worry me a bit but in for a penny in for a pound… If they all start breaking I’ll replace them but from previous experience with Revs and alloy nipples during my XC racing days (early nineties :oops: ) they will last a couple of years before fatigue causes problems (IMHO, YEMV etc etc).

EDIT. The carbon rims are really impressive and very easy to build up as they are very stiff compared to a lightweight alloy rim. If I lose a spoke or two I expect the rims will stay straight enough to complete the ride.

The recent non UST Conti Rubber Queens I have seen have a lot more meat to them than the older ones. My latest pair fired up tubeless with none off the faff and liquid leaks at the sidewalls of my previous experience. I think Conti are making there tyres a little more robust and tubeless friendly (and heavier) :mrgreen:

Combo of high bottom bracket and slack seat angle is why I didn’t like the BFe with 160mm Wotan forks. IMHO 140mm is the limit for all round riding but if your purely riding in bike parks and the like where riding back up stuff isn’t a problem then the 160mm was fine as a doonhall only play bike (although for one of those I would still ideally have a lower bottom bracket).

Does thread onto the outer stem as in step 3 below when the core is removed.

If so this device makes a lot of sense. Seating a tyre tubeless at this stage with normal presta adapters is a PITA as they thread onto the threads on the valve core which you want removed to get more air in (see step 3 above). Normaly have to sort of hold it on and faff about holding wheel, adapter, and squeezing compressor trigger… three handed job I tells thee.

Is that how this works?

Customisable Ti goodness from Kingdom… at a price though 8)

Cancelled here too :cry:

The trans-savoie is a sinch – its only roughly the equivalent distance of 2 megavalanches back-to-back, on repeat for 6 days on the trot.

*gulp*

:mrgreen:

I have two pairs of Hope Pro2 EVO Hoops which I can swap between my hardtail and full suss. Both running 9spd cassette’s and the same size discs, the only change I have to make is one bike has a 12mm axle and the other is QR so I have to pop the cassette off to change the adapters. I run a combination of RQ’s and Baron’s on the two wheel sets so similar tyre choices.

The outcome off this is that in the two+ years I’ve had this set up the only time I have swapped wheels is when I’ve destroyed a rim… the cassette’s were worn a little differently but it all worked fine and the discs needed no adjustment for the few rides until I rebuilt the wheel. Its a nice idea to change for tyre choice but life is too short and if I get the chance to go out on a bike I will grab the one I want to ride, not caring what tyres are on it (Note. I’m not convinced the Baron is better in the wet than the RQ… I think I prefer the RQ almost all of the time?).

I’ve not managed to shear a maxle :? … but I’ve destroyed a number of Hope Pro2 Rear axles before upgrading to the EVO axle.

Resistance is probably useless…

I tend to start near full-open and then add a click (or two/more) until its not working as well as it was… and then back off a click (or two). Similar with compression… for me less is more.

Loco has some good set-up tips on his site.

Linky

I tend to run my rebound fast to allow the fork to recover from one impact before the next.

Compression damping I tend to leave quite fast/open too as in my experience cranking it up tends to make things feel harsh.

This thread.

I looked into Hans Damfs but the skitty performance of my last Schwalbs (Big Betties) on wet roots and rocks had me pressing the button for Rubber Queens BC again.

Non UST is my choice as I found the UST carcass gives less feel.

I’m a squirter; good compromise of performance and minimum faffage.

I’ve got some Royal Racing which are very fitted and very light weight. Mine are a few years old but they look like the 365 shorts available now – my favouritest shorts over the top of bibs unless it’s really wet in which case the Endura MT500 with the waterproof butt get used.

Unlucky stim… plenty time to let the finger fix itself though.

I tested a BFe with 160mm Wotan’s and they were too much fork IMHO. Bottom bracket too high for good cornering and seat angle too slack for techy climbing… went doonhall in a straight line over rough stuff fine though :mrgreen:

Wow… some cool ideas in there. Lottery win required for tour of the USofA stuff :(

Snapped a spoke on my road bike on Monday half way through the commute. Managed to release the brakes and tweak a couple of other spokes to get it to spin through the frame and continue into work. Due to after work stuff I wasn’t able to pick up any new spokes but when I tried to tweak the wheel a little more at home later two more spokes snapped so it looks like I was very lucky to have made it into work without breaking any more! I bought my road bike in 1998 so the wheel has had a good life :oops: :wink:
Rebuilt with new spokes last night and back to the commute this morning. Time for my 28mile commute has dropped from 1h45m to 1h35m so I might add on another little loop to bring it closer to the 2hr mark I was originally thinking it would take… or perhaps one day a week I add a massive loop? Really enjoying it now.

I’ve gone cold turkey the last couple of mornings with no ill effects. So far going without any breakfast seems to work just fine for the 28 mile ride into work 8)

This was ace until it broke :cry:

This is the “short-term” replacement which I’ve been running for a while now.

I like hardtails.

I used Freelancer Financials when I moved last year. Linky[/url]

I’d been a contractor for just over a year at the time. They were good to deal with and I got the mortgage and house I wanted. Email in profile if you want info of who I spoke to.