I found London to Ivalo (northern Finland), flying in June for £250 return whilst having a browse at the weekend.

Playing ‘Battling Tops’ in my much cherished 40 year old arena.

That transit looks good enough to tempt me away from mortgaging my soul for yet another VW when the time to change comes round again.

Diane. WCA’s catalogue of ‘accidents’ could probably fill a thread of their own. The one I was closest witness to was the ‘crowd surfing without a crowd’ incident at the Big Bike Bash. There was a crowd, but they all saw the size of him and parted like the Red Sea in front of Moses when he dived.

Nick. Wifey says thanks. Her break was 6 years ago now and also inolved a dislocation. She still has restricted movement in the ankle and it stiffens up badly overnight or after an hour or more sat down.

Motorman’s area in NE Scotland looks nice but I’m quite happy where I am on the edge of the New Forest. I’ve got good riding, road and off road, that I don’t have to drive to and coast and town both within riding distance. The only real downside is that it can get a bit crowded here. I think I might struggle with the lack of winter daylight in Scotland.

Bet you’re glad you weren’t last on the list on a Friday…

With an injury like that you get top priority and are rushed past all those malingerers with nothing worse than a gaping flesh-wound, as my wife found out when she did something similar.
Good luck with the healing WCA.

A quick hose down(even quicker now we have a water meter) in the back garden is no hardship. Outer layer of clothing goes in a bucket before I enter the house. If you don’t have a hose just fill a bucket with water before the ride and leave it out of sight.

All it needs is some decent bikes and it’d be just like…………..my Surly 1×1. That’s even got blue rims too. And a big fat Kenda Nevegal on the front.

I own and run a small bike shop so my presence here is quite seasonal.
Over the next three or four months expect to see plenty of my opinions/wit/knowledge/drivel*. By mid February I’ll (hopefully) be far too busy fixing brakes, gears etc on Argos bikes to have time for idle chit chat.

* Delete as appropriate.

it may have been nice to have kept a bit more hair on the body

I’m not sure I’d want my wife to have a hairy chest.

“Advertising is the most expensive least trusted, least effective form of communication know to mankind.”

Magazine reviews — possibly the most mistakenly trusted form of communication known to mankind.

Once again we’re treading that thin line between banter and offense.

For what it’s worth I have a tricked out 26er and now a 29er (both singlespeed). The 29er is now the first choice for racing but for pratting about on dry singletrack it’s the 26er every time.
I wouldn’t be seen dead on a 650B (commitment avoidance bike) though.

now I know what I need but not sure it’s worth the bother

Another triumph for the STW hive mind.

that’s a firecracker

That was the opinion of the police officer who has just visited.

One of the less well known advantages of 29ers is that the slower rotation of the wheels causes them to throw up less crud at any given speed than 26ers.

I believe X-Fusion have a Velvet fork that fits all your requirements for far less money than a Fox.
I’ve been very pleased with my 26er Velvet this year.

Don’t underestimate how much extra kit you’ll have to wear over cycling to stay warm when you’re not supplying the motive force.

More than you might think tbh. And if you don’t feel you need the low gears, you can go up a size on the front

I think I’m going to undermine my arguement here. I ride singlespeed almost everywhere, including road so I could just say MTFU. But, if I change the ratio on any of my bikes by just a single tooth then they do feel very different. Hmmmm?
When it comes to gears though I still think eight speed was the pinnacle of usefulness vs durability.

I still fail to see why anyone would want to ditch a perfectly good 9 speed set up for 10 speed. 9 speed cassettes are available in 11-34 teeth, 10 speed 11-36. How often is the extra 2 teeth going to make a difference?
Surely the money would be better spent on upgrading wheels, brakes or suspension, or even a weekend riding somewhere really nice?

Now you’re middle aged your sense of self preservation and knowledge of pain are most likely pretty well developed. I’d be more concerned about a young rider. Get professional training or at least some supervision and advice from someone experienced and build your confidence somewhere quiet.
Lots of motorcyclists don’t die on their bikes.

Can you give us a recap on how you did it for those that missed that episode.

I wouldn’t bother with a smart phone. I bought a Galaxy in the summer and very quickly got thoroughly pi55ed off with daily charging and not being able to go away overnight without worrying about the battery dying.

I bought a £15 bum-basic Samsung to take on holiday and haven’t touched the Galaxy since. On the £15 phone I can speak to people and send texts and the battery lasts all week. Mobile internet is slooooooooow compared to broadband and trying to see most web pages through a small screen is like trying to look at the Grand Canyon through a porthole.

It must have taken a monumental quantity of time, thought and effort to come up with something even less useful than a BMX.

The trip’s on!

Today I finally booked flights from Bournemouth to Carcasonne for Friday 28th and back on the following Monday afternoon.

ViaMichelin says it is 100 miles to Millau so I’ve got two and a half days to do 200 mile round trip. That sounds do-able.

Post op sample delivery was the worst. I bumped into a customer and his wife on the way out.
“We’ve just been told we’re having twins. What brings you down here?”.
“Errrrrr”

I had one of the alloy framed bikes in my shop recently. The mech hangers are now unobtainable and are held on by two M3 screws that thread into the frame. These threads were stripped so the only way to get the bike running was to convert to singlespeed with a DMR tensioner clamped under the QR.

Do something (cycling related) that you haven’t done before. I wasn’t lacking in any motivation to ride but signed up for the British Heart Foundation London to Brighton night ride earlier this year. To emphasise that I wasn’t going to treat it as a competition I took my SS commuter and it turned out to be the most memorable ride I’ve done for a long time. But then there’s also been Mayhem in the mud with a Sumo suit, a trip up country to Innerleithen, last Thursday’s ride and wade through a flooded river locally……………..
Just get out there. Every ride gives you something that you wouldn’t have had otherwise, even road rides.

As there’s only 2 minutes between posting times I suspect he probably didn’t.

SKS Hightrek for £7.99 the pair. Once you’ve bolted the brackets on you can remove and refit them in seconds (tool free) as the weather dictates.

I only started winning races after I became a parent, but you do have to pick the small events.

So far:
Guernsey Mountain Bike race (veterans)
3 times Big Bike Bash Night Race winner. Seeing my boy so proud of his Dad that he had to tell EVERYBODY was both touching and a little embarrassing.

No specific training, just ride when I can because I enjoy it.

The average mountain biker is getting older and lardier and ‘effort’ is out of fashion these days.

In years to come I suspect it’ll be failures in the ever more sophisticated electrics and engine management that’ll pull cars off the road early.

ononeorange – Member
One thing that the mud has made me curious about – 29ers. How do those clown-wheeled bikes cope with it?

Mine works really well in mud and any kind of soft going, dry peaty for example. At last year’s Mayhem when the Plasticene Woods were just sticky rather than runny some guy I passed called out to me “everyone who’s passed me through here is on a 29er”.

Interesting (and nice) ride Zippykona, pretty much the opposite of my snot bike. Down here the soil’s sandy and there’s plenty of roots so I’ve gone for fully rigid and big fat tyres on my Surly 1×1 which, with only ten and a half stone of me on top, float over the worst of it.

I’m lucky in that most of my rides end in my back garden so I can strip off the outer layers and chuck them in a bucket before going inside. When I’ve driven to a ride then a bin liner for kit and an old pair of tracky bottoms keeps the van clean.

mattjg – Member
So I’m looking at building an SS for the sloppy days … but I’m not totally sure about rigid forks vs sus. Am I going to get shaken to bits? I can see myself dropping a hundred quid on carbon then regretting it.

Our trails are forest: mostly rooty not rocky.

Whaddyareckon?

Get a steel fork like a Salsa or Surly. In my experience both of these will have more give than carbon and cost a lot less. If you’re building a bike for snotty conditions then a little extra weight is hardly a major issue. A biggish front tyre will help.

As the years go by MTB racing seems to get less and less coverage in the magazines. Headline space is mostly given to the burlier, more spectacular aspects of riding. Race kit is rarely reviewed and when it is it’s usually the ‘money’s no object’ end of the market. I’ve seen plenty of technique tutorials on how to jump, nail rocky drops etc but never one on how to maintain efficient forward progress (and therefore maintain enjoyment) in mud.

I’ve been to the Mayhem nine years running now and I’ll agree with previous posters that it has lost a lot of it’s festival atmosphere in recent years. For events to move forward and grow they need to offer more than just the racing. I was fortunate enough to go to the Mayhem with a large enough group that we could club together to buy a sizeable and sturdy marquee but my heart goes out to those who turned up with just a car and a small tent. Maybe free communal covered areas or premium trackside marquees for hire would help. It was a poor show that the changeover area wasn’t covered this year and I think that one ommission will have done huge harm to next year’s entries.

Cinnamon Girl – no criticism intended, just trying to give an insight into a view that you (and others in this thread) obviously don’t hold. Big epic scenic rides are great too, both on and off road.

cinnamon_girl – Member
It’s just not something that interests me. I don’t do camping, I don’t see the point of riding round and round again and again.

It’s all about learning the course, how fast you can push in the corners, the best lines for traction on the climbs, where you can overtake etc etc and then getting each lap as perfect as possible. Personally I love short course, multi lap races, but each to their own.

Nearly an hour in and no-one’s suggested singlespeeding yet? Quel le ferk?

I’ve been riding road too, for the shorter rides that can’t justify the cleaning up afterwards but I’ve been enjoying my singlespeed commuter (MTB with slicks and running 50:18) far more than my road bike despite it being about 2mph down every time.