Thanks everyone – I’ve ordered the 34T 3/32 alu silver uno chainring from Homebrewed Components.

I’m just trying to convince myself I don’t need the titanium version!

Think I’m decided on 34T for maximum versatility. For the same reason I think I’ll go with 3/32 width.

Oh, that’s nice! I actually wanted a silver chainring so that will be just the ticket.

That’s really helpful, cheers. Do you not find yourself having to spin really quick on 32T? How about 34T?

Still no magazine here in Nottingham, and the post has been fairly normal as the snow wasn’t all that bad.

You’re at the very beginning of your uni course. Whilst it might be true that this could just be a bad patch you can work through, it’s also true that at this point the consequences of dropping out would not be too huge. I say this because I dropped out of an engineering degree in my second year and it was the best thing for me and gave me an opportunity to go and study something I ended up loving.

It seems (to me) pretty absurd for anyone to suggest that just because lots of other people don’t enjoy their jobs you should accept this as your lot too.

If you know for certain this course and career is not for you then it’s still the perfect time in your life to go looking for something to do that might have a better chance of inspiring you and giving you passion. It’s only going to get harder to do this the older and more responsibilities you get.

Just try to make sure you’ve given this uni course the chance it deserves.

Saved over £50 on an Atlas jacket thanks to this thread! Now I just need to perfect my gangsta limp…

I’m liking zombie films at the moment – Zombieland (a zom-com featuring the dreamy Emma Stone) and The Crazies were both very good.

Sanderson Soloist

I might want some stabilisers? You’ve seen me ride, haven’t you?!

Her legs are well over the minimum length so she should be okay. I imagine the idea will be to get her wheeling around inside the house a bit before unleashing her in public.

She insists on wearing my helmet (and oakleys) around the house (often being wheeled around atop my Nicolai!) whenever she visits, so it shouldn’t be difficult enforcing a “no helmet, no ride” rule!

The Little Life rucksack has been added to the list. Very good idea! She’ll really look the part.

She’ll probably be learning in Richmond Park in London so plenty of open, grassy areas for falling over on. Shame it will be during the winter, but she’ll be using the time to work on her endurance ready for summer.

I was a little disappointed it didn’t come specced with ‘Bombers, but I reckon I can bodge something together in the garage.

Is it worth getting ‘proper’ biking gloves (if someone does them in a small enough size)?

Okay. It’s looking like pads would be overkill at this point! Cheers everyone.

@damo2576 – Have a look at the IslaBikes website. The Rothan is a great little balance bike with a tiny little rear v-brake. So sweet!

BUT SHE HAS TO BE THE BEST!!! How is she going to become the next Rachel Atherton if we don’t start piling on the pressure now???

How do you think those stats would start to look when you consider the percentage of rape victims who never come forward and report that crime, relative to the percentage of victims of other crimes?

MunqueChick’s argument about the difficulty of proving rape is probably a big factor in the under reporting in the first place, and that’s not even considering the social stigma involved for the victims.

My Helius CC takes a 34.9mm Hope clamp. Looking through the MTBR Nicolai forum’s set-up database (linky) it looks like the AM is the same.

Okay. Apologies for the cheeky comment about the colour scheme! Are there any plans for a more ‘understated’ looking version?!

Singlespeedstu – everyone’s allowed one mistake, surely??? Come on, feel the love… (Edit – bad choice of words given my previous post!).

I do love my Nicolai 😀

And that’s okay as long as I don’t ‘love’ my Nicolai.

Singlespeedstu – I’ve always found Simon and the other guy at Nicolai UK (Mike?) really helpful, even despite my prolonged dithering around my refurb’ request. Maybe you were just unlucky and caught them at a particularly busy time???

Cheers Brant. So are those your forks badged X-Lite in the link paulS posted? Your profile says you design for several companies but not that one.

Ahh. Thanks for that. Chavtastic colour schemes!

Brant – any further detail (pics, weight limit, price, release date, etc) on this?

I did my undergrad at Aberdeen Uni from 2000 to 2004 and loved it. I think some of those above are exaggerating the downsides of the city.

I’m pretty obviously English from my accent and never had any issues from the locals apart from some gentle ribbing around 6 nations/world cup time. I think unless you go looking for trouble it’s fine. Also I never noticed rent or anything else being particularly expensive.

The campus based uni experience is great with a really nice community feel to it. I seem to remember hearing they also recently opened a fancy sports village/complex between the campus and beach so if your son’s sporty he should be catered to well.

I’ve also had experience of uni at Nottingham, Birmingham and Loughborough, and Aberdeen holds by far my fondest memories.

Good point about trading upwards using the Islabikes part ex scheme. How much off the new bikes might you get?

So I should definitely be looking for a 'strider' bike, and preferably something with a brake. The Islabike Rothan seems to tick all the boxes but is a wee bit pricey.

Any idea how long littles tend to use these before moving on to something with pedals?

Cheers for the replies. Puky have some nice looking bikes so thanks for that. I'm finding myself drawn to the Early Rider Classic (below) purely over its looks. Has anyone got any experience of them? Are they worth looking at?

The UK distributors have a great deal on at the moment on their website and on eBay. £1150 for the frame without shock.

Trek were great with getting me a 8500 frame to replace my 8000 after I was hit by a car a couple of years ago. Obviously it wasn't covered by the warranty but they did me a fantastic deal and got the frame to my LBS pretty quickly. I reckon 10 days sounds about right.

Great. Thank you!

This is the little lamby that could. Well done that man.

The precious –

Coed y Brenin last month.

Salsa here too.

I've been trying to source a size 35.0 QR in red for a while and they're apparently rarer than gold dust. So if anyone has one they don't need… 😉

Oops! I think I had the permissions set wrong on the photo hosting website.

The red looks great 'in the flesh'. I probably wouldn't have gone with it if not powder coated though – the lovely glossy (almost liquid looking) finish I think is specific to that method.

The 'raw' look that allmountain suggests also looks terrific though.

What frame is it you're refurbishing?

??? I can see it just above the text in brackets. Can no one else?! 😳

+1 for roof bars first. Would be a lot more difficult with the carriers already fitted.