Tankslapper, why did you buy a rectal thermometer in the first place?

(I've a feeling I may regret having asked this but it's got to be done)

Middleburn on the posh bike and Shimano M442 (£55 RRP inc rings) on the winter filth bike, both square taper.

Proof that for cost effective filth riding you can't beat Deore hubs.
Don't confuse them with the M475 hubs that appear as original equipment on many mid price bikes, these definitely AREN'T up to the job.

She was nice but nothing special. Anyone remember the girl they were chatting to in a layby a year or so back in the Alfa challenge, petite brunette with a very tight strapless top?

I'm now fully Ayup (helmet and bike). I was using a Hope 2 led on the bars and an Ayup spot on the helmet but got well and truly fed up with faffing with power levels on the Hope. Also, at nearly three years old the reliability and battery life of the Hope weren't what they once were.

As far as I know the Chinese do make loads of mechs, mainly cheap ones for the mass market. I should imagine the XTR market is probably too small for them to bother with.
For Shimano XTR exists to showcase their research and development wing and generate interest in Shimano as a company. Despite the high prices I'd be surprised if XTR sales contributed significantly to Shimano's profits.

1) They don't have to stock everything, but a well thought out selection that fits their customer profile will cater for probably 80% of what people want. They can also usually source specific stuff for you, or you can go online for the bits you need urgently

As a LBS in a small town myself, that means that I can't justify stocking any bikes over £700 retail and with the advent of DX no lights of 'off road standard' at all. I'd love to have more to show genuine enthusiasts when they do turn up here. Unfortunately there seem to be rather a lot of folks who stop briefly on decent bikes, look through the window and then move on when they see the family and entry level kit I do stock.

Any LBS that tries to equal the online stores stock variety will eventually turn into a museum, unfortunately.

Gears

Consider this scenario:
It's your annual review. Your boss says to you "times are hard, there are loads of folks unemployed out there, most of whom would love to do your job for three quarters of what we're paying you now, how about you matching that?"

I've often told the wife that we should run the TV off a pedal powered generator.

One of these.

It's a 36er by the way.

We've got spaces booked at Glasfryn B&B over the Xmas hols.
Call them on 01267 202306
Haven't been there yet so can't comment on how good they are.

Green Day's recent tour in Birmingham at teh end of last month.
Adam and the Ants in Southampton late summer 81 the support band 'Gods Toys' stole the show for me. Look them up on Youtube.

Send it back to Hope, they probably won't charge you for fixing it.

Try the secondhand ads on the Isle of Wight http://www.iwcp.co.uk.
Earlier this year a couple of local personalities set up an internet radio station and were heavily pushing sales of wifi radios. That station has now folded so I should imagine there are a lot of sets sitting idle over there now. They were originally selling them for £75.

Pubs should be at the bottom of hills, particularly on winter rides.
Everyone knows that the temperature drops 10 degrees between entering and leaving so you need to ride uphill to warm up again.

Look at the average speeds.
Pushing up hill 2 to 3mph
Riding back down 20ish
That's roughly 8:1. Hence out of a two hour ride on that basis you'd expect to spend about 15 minutes actually riding the bike.

Give me cross country any day.

They'd probably be quite easy to sell through a LBS to folks who aren't in the habit of scouring Ebay or the various MTB forums. There really are quite a lot of those people out there.

More to the point, where are those 10 sites being developed?

She dumped you for another bloke and you're still friends?
How does that work?

If you've got a pimped up Intense AND a grand to spare you should be looking at buying a second bike. Put the grand towards something that'll have you flying up the hills and rattling your teeth coming down the other sides.

You'll have to fit it to the other side of the spider due to the counter bores for the bolt heads which will only work with 5 bolt chainsets. 4 bolt chainsets have different height shoulders supporting the middle and outer rings. The only way round this is to buy a Surley ring which has no counter bores on the bolt holes.

Has anyone considered the ratio of exciting time (designing, liasing with manufacturers etc) to mundane time (sticking bits in boxes and taking them down to the post office that's likely to result?

Having said that, I'd say that there's a gap in the market for a reliable singlespeed cassette hub for £50 to £70.

I've used a couple of Salsa Delgado rims in the last year or so after I had problems with fat tyres squirming arround on my 717s. 460g (claimed) and about twice the width of 717s plus added rarity value.

I escort my 8 year old to school on our bikes. It's 95% cycle path but there's one short stretch of busy road where we ride on the pavement rather than send him out in the rush hour traffic. If you're polite and considerate then usually no-one grumbles.

A few years ago, on our way to his previous school some old bloke with a walking stick had a go at me for riding with my son (then 5) through a park. Less than a minute later a little old lady on a step through shopper rode past him. He didn't bat an eyelid. How tempted was I?

Dean Colonel Ti hardtail with custom geometry.
I specced it with an unfashionably short wheelbase and steep angles to mimic my much loved and rusted 93 Clockwork. Turns out the geometry is within a gnat's of the new Orange R8 that Chipps liked so much in this month's mag.

36T up the front with a Gamut chain device. Light, pretty and it works.

Take plenty of nappies and wipes in your hand luggage. Even a slight pressure drop that you or I wouldn't notice can cause the little one's bowels or belly to unload.

I was going to ask that too.

My 04 Marzocchis were reliable but a little heavy and flappy, I’ve now got a Magura which has been fine for a year. I normally ride fully rigid when it’s seriously gunky though. I could do with a more robust headset for that one…………..

Bucketted down between 3 and 4am Saturday and a bit drizzly the same time on Sunday.

The track wasn’t dangerous, it was the folk not being able to ride it.

You need to remember that we’re talking about a race course not a trail park and primary consideration needs to be given to maintaining uninterrupted flow for a large number of riders (ie avoiding bottlenecks) rather than opportunities for individuals to develop their riding skills.

I thought the course was a well balanced mix of many types of riding, hills, singletrack, spinny bits but the decision to send the route across the stream with the subsequent erosion and swamp that developed after it, doesn’t seem like the the actions of an experienced race course builder.

Personally I preferred last year’s course as it got the biggest climb out of the way early on.

I built on onto a Salsa Delgado rim (18mm inside edge to outside) three cross using 257mm spokes.
Note that the Alfine chain line is something stupid like 42mm which stops you using a big enough chain ring at the front to give sensible road gearing. The way roung this is to flip the dished sprocket over and bin one of the plastic chain guides. Nexus sprockets also fit and are available in a greater variety of sizes for not much money.

I ran 1×7 on a winter bike before I went singlespeed, a £5 Suntour cheapest of the cheap front mech kept the chain on 99.9% of the time.
The Gamuts do look far nicer and I’m getting one to run 1×9 on my full susser.
Work out what ratio you use most often and size the front to give the straightest chain line when using that gear.

During the foot and mouth crisis when there was no off roading to be had down here in the south, me and a mate hiked the lenghth of Chesil Beach. The nearest road was maybe less than a mile from the mid point as the crow flies but without a hovercraft to get over the big wet marshy bit the only practical routes were about 5 miles.

Singlespeed 38-14 and 26×1.3 slicks does me for commuting and the odd road training ride.

No travel info here, just a Severn Bridge story.

The building on the Welsh side of the old bridge is the Army Apprentices College. Young squaddies hitch-hiking back from weekends away would be dropped off at the services on the English side, walk across the bridge and then have to choose between a seven mile walk on the road through Chepstow town or a seven foot leap into a tree and a thirty or forty foot climb down into the college grounds. I was told that the jump and climb was quite popular.

Littlest Hobo I applaud you. I’ve so often wanted to do that to the tightar5es who come in obviously begrudging you making enough money out of them to feed your kids.