i think about riding a lot, dreaming about touring is up there, but also those vids on dirt bring to mind gnarly stuff. i really fancy a tour of that incorporates a few trail centres and some ace natural stuff!

riders retreat will allow small group. i went with just a mate a few years back no worries, we stayed with several others in a chalet. a year later my mate went on his own and that was fine too.

All About Mountain Biking

i wouldn’t assume it’s going to get worse – why would you? also, twice in 20 years isn’t so bad. and just because the last time it popped was last year, does not mean it will happen again soon.

unfortunately, because it’s external, it is unlikely that the water company will rush to fix it. (unless it’s the private trap for the property? in which case it would most likely be up to the owner to sort.)

it’s not surprising, those red boxes of cereal bars that poundstretcher sells have been getting smaller and smaller…. same with numbers of niknak packets in the multipacks. DOOOOOMED!

it really jerks my gherkin when a seemingly benign film ends with a big religious message about how god looks after certain people. like at the end of that post-apocalyptic will smith film. urgh

£2.70 sounds like a steal! £6 sounds more like most fares in scotland. no?

thanks you guys – these are great! 😀

i remember when cwmcarn was a single dh run, with that swoopy bit at the bottom going up the sides of the banks through the mulchy dead ferns, what fun it was 🙂

and i hardly ever saw anyone else, though remember seeing the guy who skidded his car into mine at that gloucestershire 4x and wrote my car off… no memories like that for the glentress motorway, let me tell you! 😆

those butts look pretty horrible… is that why you took a photo?? 😉

end of may two years ago i went to southern spain. had a day’s ride from bubion (siera nevada) with a top altitude of 2000m – the trail was clear but there was some snow lying in fields…

there was someone on here with a brown on one with gold finishing kit, that was a real nice looking bike.

i doubt i’m even troubling 1000 miles 🙄

1 hardtail and a bike in bits soon to be punted.

fender acoustic and i ride a kona hahahahahanna hardtail. but is it xc or all mountain? hmmm, i must confess i ride both up AND down the hills. but i also play bass and have a ukulele – how you like that for skewing your results? 😛

i used to work for the company that used to do a lot of the NI water engineering infrastructure stuff. and despite being a multinational, they generally behaved like cowboys. some shocking work they did using uk aid money in a developing country – including injunctions against any news outlet report their failures.

that was a hell of a lot baggage but i’ve got a small sleeping bag now, so no need for the dry bag 🙂

the way i did it was to push the mech (jockey wheels) so it’s lined up with the sprocket, then pull the cable through tight and clamp it in with the pinch bolt. loosen or tighten the barrel adjuster to get it lined up perfectly.

i found the screws never wound in enough to do this so i used a cable. i used the cable end that normally sits in the shifter in the barrel adjuster of the rear mech, and pulled it through with the enough tension to have the right line over the sprocket. you can tweak it with the barrel adjuster too if you’re slightly out…

i rode nearish there – around competa in the Tejeda and Almijara mountain ranges. no official bike trails that i was aware of but lots of rocky singletrack trails. be prepared for long days though – we were out for about 14 hours one day due to a misjudgment! i’m sure it won’t be massively dissimilar to where you’re going. hope that’s of use…

i use hotmail in thunderbird, and i’ve had a few issues. i had to go to tools>account settings and just make sure everything seemed right. i too had not made changes, it stopped working for no discernable reason…

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i cycled to fife from edinburgh today. it was really great. this is a shot from the fife forth road bridge viewing platform. it was only about half one but fife was shrouded in fog/low cloud – hence the sun looking like a nighttime moon…

skully lights, a buff, and some nice warm gloves 🙂

nice to hear about the pentlands. hoping for an early morning birthday ride tomorrow! 🙂

i’ve never understood this avoiding braking bumps just cos you’re on a hardtail – that’s part of the fun! i love the wheel-sized holes on la pleney. also, the braking bumps regularly get filled in and smoothed out by local trailbuilders.

here’s my beloved pile of tubes:

Every year Knog seem to have a dodgy/irrelevant/out of context shot in the calendar. Puts me off buying anything from them on principle

it puts me off buying the magazine. haven’t bought it for months but was going to treat myself this time. but no, i really can’t condone dodgy shite soft-porn, it’s horrible, and of course, hypocritical.

certainly not American!

yes, what would the neighbours say? 🙄

Morzine…no fun on a hardtail

nonsense, it’s great whatever the bike! just float it through the braking bumps 🙂

how did you get 14 years? i only got 13! 😆

2.4″ mountain king on the front and a 2.2″ spesh the captain on the rear. the rear is about the same size as the front though i bought it cos i need a tyre to fit my frame! it does fit, with about 2mm clearance on the chain stays…

like julianwilson much of my parts don’t match – different shifters, different brakes (shimano cantis on rear; avid disc on front), different hubs. the rims are the same though one is CD and the other silver!

don’t mind soggie, more worried about erosion i guess. trip out east along the sea might be the one then 🙂

so where to offroad around here tomorrow? coastal path? costorphine hill? that woods behind fairmilehead?

my dad once had a shotgun. there was nothing casual about its storage – locked in a bolted down cabinet, cos that’s the law, or so he seemed to think…

see, that’s disappointing. like when they had that awful knog one with the lesbians. where were the stunning vistas? the inspirational trails? seems like this censorship really is about getting the ‘right’ companies happy.

post it up and let’s find out!

mercedes sprinter van at work – like driving a curling stone on an ice rink.

trousers?! i’ve some thermal endura tights i’ve never used. i bet they’re well warm!

tea!

EDIT: 😉

i’m hgoin g for a vuvl;e in the snopw – yay!

it’s got to be viking moses for me.

he was meant to be starting a uk tour right about now but things went wrong, apparently…