Yeah – yesterdays evidence was pretty shocking (but expected), surprised that the media haven’t run with it as much as the could but then there are other things happening at the moment and maybe public interest is wavering a little now.

It’s cirtainly becoming more and more the ‘upper management’ scandal rather than ‘horizon’ .

All the best Amanda – no pressure James, but you’ve some big boots to fill 😁

Had the same on a night ride with a group I’d not been out with before from a shop ride. They absolutely blitz through the first 3miles or so of flat single track, no warm up or gentle into it – just flat out sprinting. When we got to the first climb I was absolutely done in….

In my van I’ve a wired connection with absolutely no problems. In the car I have to use a battery bank and both phone and bank get quite hot, but not to the point of failure….

I have to be up at 6am and start work (from home) at 7am 7days a week. But I quite often get up before my alarm between 5&6 as it gives me a gentler get up time.

If your waking at 5am regularly, my only advice is to still try to get as much sleep as possible (8/9hours) and go to bed regularly around 9/10pm.

Is the UK university system broken ?

No, the entire education system is and has been for 30+ years.

Lack of primary school funding requires secondary schools to do catch up with students in basic subjects, maths and English standards seem to be dropping. Secondary schools are fixated on GCSE results & college acceptance. Colleges are obsessed with university places. Every part of the system from secondary school onwards is geared towards the next level of education – not the workplace.

Jobs that should just require a couple GCSEs now have ‘degree necessary’ on application.

I did my degree 25+years ago, on completion I was asked to do a masters, I declined, went into the workplace to find 2 others in my office who had left school at 16, worked there way up and we’re on significantly more money than my starting wage and we’re also 2 years younger with 4+ years experience. I’ve found this to be the case at every step of my career. And it took 10years to pay of the dept I’d incurred at uni.

My 10yr old touring battery lasts around 4 hours max now…. Unfortunately I found this out mid ride in Wales having not used it for a few years….

TBH I’m an on the fence voter, if anything this debate has pushed me away from labour and back to the lib dem’s and green (no SNP candidate in the north Cotswolds 😂). Angela Rayner needs to stop bickering with Penny Mordant.

I’m fairly certain most are aware of the outcome of such an event.

If that were the case it wouldn’t be such a strong part of the two main party’s defence policy’s. Our ballistic missiles are more to DK with Anglo American relations than defence.

A kid was dropped off at my local independent school in a helicopter today.

I went to two private schools is the 80’s – helicopter drop offs were relatively regular at both back then (once term or so). I’m also pro putting vat on private education and removing charitable status.

Labour and Conservatives both don’t understand or don’t want the public to understand that if you press the button in retaliation, we are all already dead. It’s irrelevant in a global nuclear war (which all nuclear wars would be) if you have a deterrent or not as the two main players would wipe out the northern hemisphere.

Wife has taken that tickets in Bristol tomorrow – good seats so we’re 129 each.

We’ve tickets to the foo fighters in Cardiff, they were 70 each bug not great seats.

The Corrs at Westerburt were £50

In comparison we saw Spirited away in London west end last month at £120 a ticket for ‘ok’ seats.

Just finished

Nuclear War: a scenario

Amazingly good book, sickening, horrendous and scary but also incredibly interesting and readable.

Tchaikovsky’s, Children of Ruin

Great series of books. TBH I haven’t read a bad book by Adrian Tchaikovsky who’s currently my favourite sifi author. His latest comes out tomorrow iirc.

I don’t that any did a Top-Bottom, two women did the road gap I think, but every year theres more likely hood of women competing as they get used to the course etc.

The point of the event is the ‘big feature thing’, it’s literally in the name. Hence the Cannon, the Road Gap, the Canyon Gap, the 90 footers…

This was one of my criticisms going to watch it live at the weekend. You could spectate at the features, but absolutely no where else. Kinda took the fun out of DH spectating – spotting different lines etc.

As for the canyon, they apparently have planning for five years so it’ll stay for a while, if it becomes part of the course it remains to be seen.

But because it is an organised event with an insanely wealthy and well known brand backing it and publicising it, it should be subject to a higher level of scrutiny and safety. Baffled as to how anyone thinks otherwise.

This could be said about many events and sports, mountain biking is an ‘extreme sport’ and has risks at all levels, life changing injurys and deaths have happened at trail centres, Hardline and events like it are at the most extreme end of the sport.

Why does testing happen in the week before the event?

Calender and other commitments – same as every other event.

How can features, built by professional trail builders, be so poor and wrong?

This is why they test. Smart for every other event – lips changed at darkest for example.

Why was it built without any consideration for rider safety and the only thought of a net came a few days before the event after someone had got hurt?

As far as I’m aware only keyboard warriors have talked about a safety net…?

Jim Munro wasn’t an official tester, why was he allowed to hit an untested and unapproved feature.

He’s one of the riders and as such took the call to test the features himself. I’m sure he’d have signed safety wavers with RB.

Looking at events like RB Rampage, where there’s similar features and arguably bigger coverage, and with previous life changing accidents at rampage,  I’m sure RB and the Atherton’s are far from amateur….

As others have said, BK and Gee were the official test riders for the sections of the course, Matt J and Jim just happened to be in the area and agreed to also test out the new features. The whole point being to get rider feedback back and develop the course so that it’s ridable before all of the other riders turn up this week.

The whole point of hard line is that it’s the most challenging of DH courses and not a WC style event.

RB are sponsors, just like rampage, where similar jumps and risk is involved (and no safety netting) so I’m sure that they have contingency/insurance and legal teams too.

One thing Jim’s crash has done is give the event a whole bunch of additional marketing and promo over a week before the actual event.

The Gap? if you’ve got navigation and don’t want to start on trail centres…

Cwmcarn?

Had anyone here been a spectator at previous hardlines?

How much of a hike is it for spectators to get to the top of the course?

I’ve tickets for Sunday but we have two full days of riding beforehand but would like to get to towards the top of possible. Just not sure how far my tired legs will hike me up the hill….

We’ve had a 13 plate c3 Picasso for the last 6 years, can’t say it’s been any less reliable than any other car I’ve owned. Other than a small oil leak and a coolant leak it’s not given us any headaches.

Site wide Alpkit 20% discount code HAPPY20TH

Valid until May 27th, seems to work on sale items too….

However, the UK voted for Brexit which very much affects those of us living in Europe in that we are now at risk of not being able to live in Europe anymore and being forced to return to the UK because of policy decisions we had no say in.

I know more people who own houses in Europe that voted for Brexit than against….🤷‍♂️

I know PV already believed in god, but with today’s election news she’ll be doubling down on that belief no doubt.

She and the media have another two? Days of her enquiry evidence for her to gaff (or cry) her way on to the front pages.

Unfortunately she’s only shown how incompetent and complacent she was in the role of CEO, imo too trusting and stupid to change a broken system.

Having worked with PO and now ‘for’ the PO in my shop, they has always been and still is a gap between PO management and Postmasters. For example we’ve run out post office for over 8years now – we’ve seen an area manager face to face twice in that time…

🤷‍♂️

PSAs that may or may not be amazing enough to warrant their own thread

I’ve an orbea wild with the Bosch motor, but if I were buying today I’d go with the new Rise LT – the  Shimano motor doesn’t put me off as they are now repairable out of the 2yr warranty and seem just as likely to go pop as any other now & you have 2yrs of warranty between now and any potential repair anyway.

Yep – I’ve had it happen twice, once arrived at windhill with no way of changing gear and once at an xc race but luckily had the dropper battery to swap over.

Also I put spare cr2032’s in the car/van as I’ve also had the remote run out when arriving at FoD on a separate occasion…..

Had mine 3+ years and had no issues…

As we are no longer in the EU we don’t have the same shipping deals with China that we used to have, fewer AliExpress sellers are shipping here as a result.

The seller prob only ships to EU addresses so they don’t have to fill in the extra paper work for individual countries and also provide additional shipping rates.

I’ve a £5 volt on my ebike and the top carbon £200+ volt on my xc bike – the £5 is more comfortable, with significantly more padding, the £200 one is about half the weight but firmer. Both are 143 widths.

The volt is my current goto saddle, having tried and bought many alternatives over the years (probably in excess of 15 different saddles in the last 10years, and many more before that), but may or may not be right for someone else – and I’m still looking for a ‘perfect’ saddle.

From what I’ve read Brose used to be one of the most unreliable, however now they have the most amount of ability on spare parts, but apparently the seals are still pretty crap on the motor as standard.

Bosch have one of the best reputations as far as I’m aware of for reliability, which Is one reason I went with a Bosch equipped ebike, but Shimano spares and repairs are now also pretty common.

As others have said it’s less a case of reliability now but more of a where you buy from, warranty approval and customer service. Buy local and from a reputable shop and you should be good (not that bigger direct sales brands are bad). Most manufacturers will only cover motors for 2 years so Privateer deal is pretty normal – outside.of the two years as long and it’s serviceable and parts available it’s all good.

Water ingress is the killer of motors so again it’ll depend on when, where, how often and what conditions you rde in.

All of the dvd players at Ritchersounds used to multiregional – I’d assume they still are…. We have had a Sony for 15+ years now….

Been following Ministry for a while now – Chris does great daily vids on Instagram showcasing the development of his brand/bike and start up mountianbike company which are really interesting.

Great to see him get some more exposure.

Topics created 211 replies 3391

So 1:16

I always think The Abyss is one of those films that shouldn’t work but does and I can’t quite put my finger on why.

Bit of a curve ball but I preferred Sphere, similar but better plot, just not as well executed (great book though).

Alita Battle Angel or whatever it’s called. Good but needs a part 2

In cinemas later this year….

My favourite is probably Moon.

For those that like The Martian – Project Hail Mary is in the works, release date 2026 ATM. Should be, interesting….

Buy bitcoin….

Well, 7months after my post up there, and my rockguardz on my orbea wild is toast – cracked carbon etc….. I suppose you could say it’s done it’s job as the standard orbea Bosch motor plastic guard is fine, but I may well invest in an Ali version to replace the rockguardz.

I’m all in favour of 20mph limits in residential – the road safety figures speak for themselves.

If your a pedestrian hit by a car at 30 you’ve a 7% chance of death, hit by a car at 20 it’s 1%…..

& driving at 20 or below is only ‘hard’ if your not used to it. Do you remember the sink kicked up by people when  rear seat belts became mandatory? This is the same.

2nd gear in a 20,

3rd in a 30.

🤷‍♂️

😳

30years of riding spds and I’ve tried many times to quit…. But every time I’m back on the clipped in train within a week. It’s an addiction I just can’t quit even though I know.my rinding will progress further with a flat pedal…..