LOL at the Mod’s edit!

Could have straightened the bath mat at least!?

Aaaah – Silly silly me!

It’s got 29 gears too. Quite clever given that 29 is a prime number :lol:

The Michelin man is actually called Monsieur Bibendum.

Related to the tyre fire;

The mine fire in Centralia, Pennsylvania will continue to burn for the next 250-1000 years. There is an underground coal mine fire in China that produces almost as much CO2 as all the cars in the USA, and consumes 200 million tonnes of coal per annum.

As above – SRAM PC1 Nickel. Cheap and basic, buts lasts a good time.

Tried a budget KMC effort and it lasted a few months.

When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking.

Arthur Conan Doyle

There was never any requirement to use the bike, only that 50% of the mileage of the bike was for commuting. The conditions of the scheme could be fulfilled by leaving the bike at home and never using it for a year.

If HMRC don’t think there’s anything funny going on, then they are more stupid than anybody gives them credit for. However, I suspect that proving the terms of the scheme have been broken would cost a lot more than any tax recovered.

Yep, I’m pretty sure the Swamp Thing is available 2.35″ or 2.5″ in Dual or Single ply and in 42a and 60a flavours.

Thanks – will have a look.

I always drop the forks on climbs on the Bionicon, but the angle changes there are, of course, massively exaggerated.

Erm, isn’t the Minion really a dry condition tyre?

At least, I’ve always considered them such, and gone for High Rollers for all-round conditions and Swamp Things when it gets muddy.

There was an interesting debate recently about how winding down your forks felt like harder work and vector analysis suggested that with the forks wound down, the bike pushes into the hill rather than up the hill.

Sounds intriguing! Got a linky Onzadog?

At a evening I went to in Edinburgh a few years ago, showing 111 years of designs for GF Smith, the speaker mistakenly (?) said “Adobe and Macs are now ruining design” instead of “Adobe and Macs are now running design”. Oh how people laughed. :|

I used to carry a can of de-icer (the smaller sized ones sold as lock de-icer are a good size) to free off pedals that had iced up.

dropping down to 63Kg (6 ft 1) did wonders.

Blinking flip – you’re skinnier than I am!

Leaving my job, moving to the USA and riding 75 miles of tight twisty singletrack per week on a singlespeed has done wonders for my fitness and strength.

And finally teaching myself to go left foot forward for some of the time, helps massively to keep the flow going and really helps get through technical stuff.

The insurance that I’ve had (and never had to use, but other people with same insurance have used) generally covers all the bills after some sort of excess/co-pay. Small things – minor X-rays, hand injuries etc, you may have to pay up front and then claim back.

If you have a major injury then they will come collect you, sort you out and the paperwork is done later. I recall after a friend broke his arm, the paperwork wasn’t completed for a few weeks after. Thankfully my memory is little hazy on the particulars as it’s been several years since we had any injuries of note – saw plenty though.

However, you can generally read all the conditions before buying online, so check what your policy will cover. I’ve always gone with Endsleigh.

Whilst a lot of the riding is not rocky, there are a good number of tracks which are sidewall eaters, especially the off-piste stuff. So if you think you might want to explore a bit, I’d recommend something with meaty sidewalls – dual ply Maxxis tyres are everywhere, and it’s not just fashion! I’ve found Minions to be perfect tyres for the dry weather conditions there. Swamp Things when it rains.

If you put on a fresh set of dry weather tyres, they should see you through a week, provided you don’t get some old Slow Reezay, which might last a few days. Then pack a set of mud tyres. In my experience, if you’re there to ride, rather than party, for a week, and it rains, you’ll want to go out riding. Some of the trails benefit from a little bit of rain as it can help smooth out the braking bumps.

There’s a heck of a lot of riding within a few chairlifts of Morzine now. Would thoroughly recommend going over to Super-Chatel or Morgins. Both are reachable by lifts BUT it can be better to take a car (remember to get a Swiss motorway pass in advance if you are going to need one).

Also whatever the area that was sometimes referred to as “The French National”, near Les Lindarets in the valley between Avoriaz and Super Chatel, there are a handful of trails in there which are really great to ride.

A laptop can be handy too. If you decide to stay in (and at the prices for beer – you may want to get a crate from Carrefour and stay in the chalet) then having a few bike movies on a laptop helps.

And as mentioned – get insurance! It’s really not worth not having it. Check that mountain biking (esp. DH) is covered, but most do in my experience, just not competitive cycling. Also, get an EHIC (European Health Insurance Card?) as I think they are required by most insurance companies in their small print.

Rain jacket that can go over your body armour. Get stuck up on a chairlift in the cold and wet (it happens – trust me!) and you’ll be glad of it.

14″ here at 6’1″

I’ve had gentle abuse on the road as I don’t provide much drafting potential!

Having a Park bog roller holder though, one can have it any which way one wishes very easily though. Head angle is a touch steep for freeride wiping though, and over agressive use can lead to the QR failing and the roll pulling out the holder, with potentially catastrophic consequences. Swapping to a Shimano QR helps, but I’m waiting for a 20mm maxle compatible version to be released before upgrading.

:D Tres amusant!

And it’s Shit Ticket, and it hangs away from the wall. Although if my wife replaces it, it’s normally sat on the floor below the empty roll, until I come along and tidy it up :twisted:

Does it smell like you wouldn’t want to eat it?

Trust your nose.

This’ll go down well…

I don’t think this one was as good as the April 2009 one*. Impressive? Yes. Beyond anything I could comprehend doing? Yes. An evolution of what he’d done before? No.

And I’m sorry, I’m sick of glidetrack shot films already.

*front flips excepted

Nice photos – I miss Drumlanrig!

I think it’d depend on the trails. In some places you could churn a rut up a hill, which focuses run off water, increases erosion, which deepens the rut, focusing more water…

In other places with less surface water, I guess you’d just be moving mud around. But if you think you’re causing more damage than usual – that might be a clue to go ride more sustainable trails until the conditions improve.

And don’t go mincing around the side of puddles. Not least because someone might ride through the middle at speed and give you a thorough soaking. :roll:

@TheBrick – Depends on how blind the corner is…? To be fair, OP said ‘on a blind corner’ not ‘near a blind corner’. If you can see to half way around from either side, but not all the way round, putting an obstruction in the middle could be the best place to put it as it slows people down both ways.

And if I was doing these sorts of things primarily to cause injury – I wouldn’t be using logs, sticks and holly trees…

I like the one that runs across the race track in York. Not sure what happens on race day…

Well I guess you have kinda answered one question – why?

As you say this is near a blind corner, my guess is that someone has either had an incident with fast bikes surprising them here, or is fearful of the possibility, and is doing what they can to slow bikes down.

However, if it is deliberate, would it count as block a public ROW and be an offence? If so, maybe worth reporting to local ROW office?

Some good ones here;
http://www.good-tutorials.com/tutorials/photoshop
http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-editing/%5B/url%5D

Good start with the picture above. Did you use layer masks? (If you didn’t use layer masks – these are great for this kind of thing – worth learning)

Nobody ever pays attention to bells. Ever. No exceptions.

Simply not true.

I didn’t find them flexy, but I weigh less than a gnat’s fart. Ran them with disc brakes and V-brakes before that.

They felt great to ride, really precise, but were destroying my elbow after I broke it, so I swapped back to suspension.

They were so nice that I was about to sell them on, then found out that they no longer make them, and decided to keep them as I’ll never be able to get a set of forks like them if I want them again.

Setting a camera with a burst mode on a tripod makes it really easy. Layer all the images up in Photoshop or graphics package of choice (images will all be aligned if the camera doesn’t move)
Get busy with layer masks to show the rider in each layer. I normally show all of the 1st layer, then just reveal the rider in each subsequent layer, keeping the rest hidden.
Fun times occur when you should be able to see the rider behind through a bit of wheel, or frame or similar (if the rider was riding towards you/away from you for instance)

Still doable handheld, but a bit more work to do the matching up. I think Photoshop might have an auto blend function that could help, but I’ve not investigated it.

Sorry, no examples to illustrate with.

But the ride to get off road is a few miles for me and I found that utterly monotonous, having to freewheel on flat areas,

Yep – it’ll do that! I ride 3-5 miles on road each way to get to my rides, and it’s a little tedious, but it’s a price I’m willing to pay. It is pretty nice scenery on the ride, so that makes it tolerable. Having no other option also helps! When I occasionally commuted on 32:16 (if I was going out at lunchtime/after work) then I hated riding through town.

And riding 32:16 on a geared bike just somehow isn’t the same. I found it a lot easier on the true singlespeed.

I do! Although my limitation are what my body will put up with. Got 5 days riding in this week.

I have no job and a very understanding wife.

Epicyclo – that looks awesome!

Maybe because most middle rings are 32 and that makes it an easy conversion? Plus someone told me that 32 is the smallest you can have on the middle ring position.

Oh and you definitely want to get rid of those big bouncy things on the front.

I dunno. I ran a SS with a set of Pikes on the front, it was a lot of fun! You wanna maintain momentum? That much travel will help keep you ploughing through stuff.

Grunting up the climbs with them flopping about was less fun, I grant you that, but on balance, I preferred suspension to rigid.

Looks good! 36:18 is spot on for most all round riding. I think most people still run 2:1, I certainly always have.

Yes you’ll spin out on the downs. It’s choosing between that or really struggling on the ups, especially with flat pedals.

Hotpoint washing machine – has it broken yet?

When I worked in a shop we nearly always sold stuff for more than we paid for them… :roll:

Ours used to gently heat the air. We go one in a dingy basement flat in Edinburgh and it used to take about 5 litres of water out per week. A clue that upstairs had a water leak was that it started taking out 12 litres a week. (Then we found the leak)

Our flat was always too cold to open the windows, so we used it in a little sealed box, with the gas fire on (and gas cooking) which would add to the moisture.

Congrats!