Moley’s puncture was nothing to do with the weather. The sidewall blowout he had was due to his tyre being even older and fatter than he is. It was quite crunchy under wheel though with fallen twigs and branches. I was expecting broken spokes after a big one flicked up into my rear wheel.

Follow the black around

That’s the hard bit! Towards the end of the black there’s a descent shared with the blue. If you’re going for it, it’s very easy to miss the small sign that directs you to the final, and best, section of the black.

Unless it’s changed since I was last there.

The bigger the group you go with the more fun it is, two or three families together works well. Yes the restaurants are expensive but the chalets have everything you need to self cater if you are inclined.

Cracking day out Andy. I rode home with Ciderinsport and the two Steves and finished up with 46 miles on the clock. The Itchen Navigation was slippy and slidy in places but all of us stayed out of the water!

I’ve got the Corsa SL LR, budget version. The brochure says they’re internally adjustable between 80, 100 and 120mm travel. As standard they’re more like a 50mm travel fork with adjustable ride height. I’ve had mine apart numerous times in an effort to improve the ride. There’s a huge and massively over strong top out spring that either robs you of hte top 30mm of travel or means you have to put so much air in that the forks become very much less than smooth. Then the compression damping is two stage with the first 70mm being far too weak and the second stage being the blow off for the lock out and hence far too strong.
The only positive I can see for these forks is that the oil volumes used are large enough to bode well for long life.

In my experience:

Chris King SS Hub, expensive but lovely, make sure you service them once a year and don’t expect the alloy sprocket supplied to last more than a couple of months in gritty or sandy going.
Hope SS Hub, good but the weak point is the freehub to hub body seal which can let mud into the pawl cavity and the six speed compatible freehub doesn’t really give you the ‘proper singlespeed’ look.
DMR SS with screw on freewheel, does the job for not a lot of money. Easy maintenance and looks good (in red) but be wary of spoke rub on your disc caliper with 29er builds.
Superstar SS Hub, not up to sandy soil, freehub is easily overwhelmed.
Halo SS Hub, unknown but looks good in the brochures.

Freewheels:
Shimano, Halo Clickster and White Industries are narrow enough to let you run 8 or 9 speed chains, cheapies restrict you to BMX chains.
I’ve killed a Shimano FW in the sticky mud at the Brighton Big Dog but otherwise they have been fine for me in my more regular sandy, muddy rides, as has my Halo Clickster which gives quicker pick up.

Anyone remember seeing South Today 10 or more years ago when they featured some local young lad who had big hopes in downhilling? They showed him riding down the cliffs in front of the car park and hopping the rocks at the bottom.

I made it in to work without giving in to the urge to turn round and go back to bed.

What more do you need than a pint of beer and a mince pie?

Another pint of beer and a mince pie.

We will mark the course in advance so everyone can enjoy the ride at their own pace.

Is there a prize for the first to finish?

Sorry, I can’t do 11 because I have a………………..

Only joking, that’ll be good for me 😀

I always find early January mornings the hardest because that’s when the sun rises latest. This autumn didn’t depress me any near as much as normal because the weather was so good. October 2nd, my birthday was fantastic, a proper beach day with swimming and sunbathing. This is the first year that’s happened.

Some of us will be riding from the other side of Southampton!!

I’m trying not to think about what time I’ll have to get up.
We’ll need lights for the start and finish!

Cider was right, I’ll be there.

When I clicked on this thread I thought ‘why?’. Fatbikes aren’t about performance so why waste good money on titanium frames for them?

Now I’ve seen the pictures, I understand.

Salsa Delgados if you can find anyone who still has some. They’re 29mm exterior, quoted at 460g by the manufacturer and very, very tough.

So, to follow on from this curved space thingie that says that when you think you’re going straight you’ll still end up back where you started. Could it be that if we look to the north and see something 13 (or 30) billion light years away and then look to the south and find something the same distance away, we are looking at either side of the same thing?

Whilst we’re on the subject of astrophysics can someone tell me if there any gaping holes in my own theory that the big bang did not necessarily include all universal matter and may just be a local phenomenon. We know that matter and energy are interchangeable, so what if there is a limit to the mass of a black hole, beyond which it becomes unstable and it’s constituant matter is crushed out of existence and makes that transformation in a similar manner to a nuclear chain reaction. Such a violent explosion would erase all traces of anything existing for a pretty big surrounding area and anything not affected would presumably be too far away for us to identify with current technology.
I’ve always been intrigued as to WHY the big bang occured and this is my attempt at explaining that.

Try loads on and then buy the one that fits snuggest without being constrictive, irrespective of price, colour, brand or any other consideration. Get a suit that fits properly and you will love it until you wear it out. That’s priceless.

He now lives in a $150,000 home and drives a Chevy Malibu with 80,000 miles on the clock

Is that just one step away from Skid Row by American standards?

I called my sister last night to arrange meeting up over Xmas and what to buy the kids. It was during that conversation that we both realised we hadn’t spoken since before their summer holiday. Nothing deliberate, just a failure to do much outside the day to day, week to week routine.

We’ve changed our ride night to Friday this week so we can have our Xmas curry and mostly (not me) not have to get up for work the next day.
Tonight is going to feel a bit strangewierdfunny for being at home on a Thursday.

Thanks folks. I’ve now had a call back from their customer services and have been told that they have marked my account ‘free to go’ so if I can find a better deal I can change without having to wait until the end of the year-long contract. Time to start searching.

If you’ve got an alloy freehub body and you push hard then the sprockets will dig in to the splines making the cassette hard to remove in future.

The saddest thing for us is that my wife’s parents are both no longer with us and mine are. Her parents did everything they could to involve themselves with us and our son but both died in their mid sixties. Mine never visit and rarely call despite managing to spend two months of every winter in Palm Springs and have told me and my sister not to visit at the same time with our families because too many people in the house stresses them.

was going to spend my first ever bonus on it.. just to celebrate having my first ever real job.

£500 would go a long way towards giving you your first real holiday.

For a good Polar trek book try ‘In The Footsteps Of Scott’ by Roger Mear and Robert Swan, the account of their 1985 unsupported walk to the South Pole. I’m currently re-reading that with my 10 year old as a bedtime story, which he’s enjoying. Even with full support going there is hardly a walk in the park.

@Mostlybalanced> was Lois Pryce that South Africa chick who worked at a TV station?
The one they met en route in Mondo Enduro?

Not sure about that one.

That last round the world thingy he did seemed to be ‘oh look at me and my bike … ok, just look at me because this is all about me’.

Well, yes it is. That’s how he chooses to pay his bills and further his career. He’s probably done more for BMW motorcycle sales than any other advertising could have dreamed of. KTM must be kicking themselves for turning him down.

As Simon G said above, although I think Charley wiould broaden his appeal if he kept a lid on the language. I bought the DVD of his Paris-Dakar attempt and would have felt more comfortable watching it with my son if every other word didn’t begin with ‘f’ and end with ‘uck’.

Interestingly, 4 or 5 years ago TBM Magazine printed a really bad hatchet job interview with Charley Boorman, (quote: “you did it for Unicef. Charidee, how boring”) written by Lois Pryce who came across as a very spoilt rich bitch and gave him no end of grief for having the film crew along on his journeys. Austin Vince was the prime mover behind Mondo Enduro (7 guys riding round the world the cheap way) and is now married to Lois Pryce.

Bike is actually a little lower at the front that with the std 29” wheel.

So that’s why the saddle’s pointing down at such an unnatural angle.

Forks OR that wheel. Not both.

Bump

Is this still happening?

b r – Member

XTR cassette

You mean people actually buy them? 8 years in the trade and that’s news to me.
Please come down to Totton and see me b r. I’ll be your best friend.
For ever.

Probably about 1k. Having a shop and getting stuff at trade doesn’t save any money, it just means I spend more getting stuff I probably wouldn’t consider if I was paying retail prices.

My brother in law makes several hundred each week for wifey’s bakery, no automation involved. Good quality flour makes a big difference. Wifey gets hers from Clarks of Wantage, obviously wholesale only but if you can find a small bakery selling it on then I can thoroughly recommend their’s, particularly the granary.

John Lydon for being the polar opposite of a student.

Sue. It sounds like your superiors are taking you seriously but I don’t think it would help your cause to argue with their terminology.
When you are having a hard time, try thinking of the hard times you’ve had in the past. Then remind yourself that you are still here, you got through those times and that sooner or later these hard times will be just memories like the others. Think about the things in your life outside work that the person giving you grief cannot affect. Unless you are also homeless, going through a marriage breakup and unemployed, all of which happened to me more or less simultaneously about 20 years ago there’s probably plenty in your life to be positive about. They were bad times to be sure but I now like to think they have given me a better perspective on life.

Sleeping’s not been good for me. I woke to find I’d done something nasty to my shoulder rolling over in bed part way through last night.

To the OP. If you are still using the original 8/9/10 speed cassette it’s not surprising that your chain has dropped off. Cassette sprockets are specifically designed to make shifting easier and if you stand alongside your bike and push down on the pedal, see how the lower chain run slackens as the frame flexes.
32:14 seems a bit high for off roading, 34:18 works for me on my 29er.

A solution in search of a problem?