From one famous Charlie to another:

‘I’ve got one speed – Go’

Just got back from there myself, can’t find any on me but thanks for the heads up, will be wearing longer socks next time thats for sure.

Easy…I’d do that on a unicycle.

Ponce I’ll do it on a unicorn

Pah, I’ll do it in a unitard

Pathetic, sadly i suspect it isn’t neds, its just the same local protestors as other years, as crazy legs says this needs planning and i’d suspect that outside of the cycling and local anti-cycling groups no one is aware of the dates – certainly not your average ned/chav.

Even a closure of a couple of hours seems to drive GB’s car-bound morbidly obsese wild – I ran in the Eastleigh 10k this year and some residents drove their cars into the main pack of runners (at low speed to be fair) beeping their horns and swearing despite the race lasting about 90 minutes all in with rolling closures and the closure notices having been up for months beforehand. Police ended up having to intervene as one knob actually pulled across the road and blocked off the route with his car. Saw 5 cars ignoring the closures during my run and I was in the quicker half of the field, it was apparently worse at the back.

Geordiemick00 do you take bank transfer via an escrow service? I am currently based in Nigeria and would be very interested in your auction :D

That five is a picture, i always wonder if the seller has ridden the bike much offroad given the fork/headtube issue or if they have just built it up from spare bits and stuck it on ebay in the hopes of finding someone silly enough to buy it.

Freesytle extreme are good in my experience – got some knee pads off them a while back.

Depressingly I’m currently considering going the other way and getting a car after seven years without one, its come about because of the increasing cost of public transport, unpleasantness of the journeys (mainly due to other users) and the cancellation of services locally. The hack bike has been a good substitute for getting to work and shopping plus I use delivery services for heavy groceries but I’m sick of being stood at bus stops in the rain wondering why the service hasn’t turned up or having to say no to weekends away as I simply can’t get to them because public transport doesn’t exist in some areas on weekends.

It’ll certainly cost more but I am increasingly tired of staying car-free when the country is pretty much 100% structured around motorists – will probably look at a low emissions vehicle to keep overheads down.

Oh dear, in a similar but less extreme vein one of the senior managers at my work has just made his first ‘proper’ bike pruchase a Pitch for commuting to work.

A Pitch, for commuting, on the roads.

He lives about three miles from work and likes to ride in during the summer, i did a comedy double take when i saw it in the shed. I asked him how he was finding it and apparently its a bit heavy but the suspension is good for potholes, the bikeshop said it was a good mountain bike so he bought it.

Oddly enough i was looking into asking the same question as my order for a Knog Milkman cafe lock got cancelled earlier this week (they are something like six months late now and CRC have dropped them).

Currently carry a kryptonite flex type lock when out as the bike is never out of my sight for more than a trip into a shop/pub but wanted something much lighter for taking hack bike into town to pick stuff up. May look at one of those abus locks.

Of course the Tories don’t actually use AV for leadership elections but lets not let facts get in the way of a good story Mr Snow.

Sadly the pro-AV lot are as full of it as the No-AV lot.

Mens MTB and a day at the velodrome for me hopefully

Most of the Royal Estates will be shorthanded – cheeky trails?

On a more serious note I’ve got a horrible feeling the countryside is going to be rammed with royal refuseniks, most of my office appear to be planning to be away from the TV.

will be interested to learn if there is anything different in this one, last one was a bit of a letdown to tell the truth although I did pick up a reasonably priced headset

I’ve just got a wildfire on the above talkmobile contract and am very pleased with it so far, its a nice entry level smartphone and the gps works really nicely plus HTC sense is really good. Its 200min/200texts/unlimited data per month for £12 although you can’t tether

Poor troll, no mention of gear ratios or wheel size, may work better on bikeradar

Have had similar damage once about five years ago (did it tripping while moving a heavy object – the leverage tore the cartilege) – felt like a heart attack it hurt so damn much. Not really a problem any more but have to stretch every so often as it gets achey down my side.

I did a lot of core exercises (still do some) and wore a 661 coresaver for a while when doing any riding as it gives a bit of protection without being a full pressure suit. Would hate to have done it more than once however as I can see how it could get progressively worse.

Ultimately its your call but it may be worth seeing if a combination of conditioning, compression tops and body armour will decrease your chances of injury any.

If you go down the armour route you will of course have to put up with the singletrack gnartrolls laughing at you for being overdressed!

I’m special, perhaps its for the few of us whose card details crc don’t have yet

Speculation but presumably the rangers forwarded your mail round the locals with an ‘anyone recognise these two’ header added.

Thats a data protection act no-no as its handed the local numpty your information (and depending on your email address and the covering note your name/other details) so you may now be in a position of recieving anything the local red socks/dog walker brigade want to send to you. Plus its unlikely to help with the old MTB/walker unpleasantness.

If it was me I’d drop the rangers a mail with the email above attached querying how your details got into circulation. If they give you a reasonable answer then fine but on the face of it a complaint to the information commissioner (ICO.gov.uk) wouldn’t be out of line either.

The two women in the photo also have a case for complaint if the Rangers spammed the mail/photo round the local area rather than investigating quietly.

That said if the rangers are volunteers and are generally decent then its probably not worth taking the ICO route as it’ll generate stress for them – I’m not familiar with the pentlands system but seem to recollect they are volunteer.

You did good, could have ended badly.

When we picked up my girlfriends C2W bike from halfords I asked the mechanic why the tyres were on the wrong way round and he had a jolly good chortle at me with his mate from car stereos as ‘tyres don’t have ways round’ – oh but wait, why do they have these little arrows and front/rear notations on them. To be fair they were atrocious kenda rebadge rubber and probably dragged either way but it was indicative of the care and attention each bike gets.

That said some of their guys are really good and they are cheap if you time your puchases, I’d still buy a boardman or a voodoo if the price was right.

I want a bottle of Golden Glory right now as a result of this thread, and the shops are closed. Rather like Lemony Cricket too in the warmer months.

I’d email the Tyn Y Groes to check as its low season for them at the moment, foods good if they are open and they usually have a couple of Purple Moose beers on the bar if ale is your thing.

UK pays for jolly for Manchurians

I’ve now got this image of an 1880’s Chinese gent riding away on a XC bike laughing with cash billowing out of his pockets. :)

Course looks like it may end up pretty exciting, I don’t really watch XC (or CX, or BMX for that matter) but it looks like it should create some good opportunities for risky/gutsy moves by riders which should make it pretty watchable.

Hasn’t this kind of gone off topic – the thread on pistonheads was about the best value mtb, in terms of pure price the boardman is doing pretty well compared to many brands.

But yes I’m sure hawt girls get excited when the op rocks up on his expensive bike, seatpost all the way down, lowridin’.

LBS will think your a cock.

My LBS haven’t sold any actual mountain bikes for a year or so now – its all fixiecore niche junk and shopper bikes, tragically Halfords is pretty much my LBS if I want anything for an offroader

One on the main road is pretty good, Beics Betws isn’t a shop anymore – hire only.

Beics Betws guy is really nice – sorted me out with a seatpost bolt after mine snapped on the Marin, shop on the main road didn’t have any of the right size and we tried him on spec.

Boardmans are pretty nice, certainly better value than almost any other full suss, at the price point the FS Pro is pretty damn good.

Probably shin splints but you shouldn’t trust me as i’m not a doctor, if it is shin splints then do what you get told and rest it, I MTFU when i developed it and made it worse.

HMS Invincible was on there until recently – if you keep an eye out some of the bigger ships will be up soon I expect.

goot – thats seriously nasty, I know a lad at work who suffered a similar injury jumping off a bunk bed – his ‘parts’ had fallen between two slats so when he jumped down they stayed put, nearly died from blood loss, he is stupidly proud of his ‘franken-sac’ now.

Fettling I managed to put my back out removing a lockring – pulled a muscle in my lower back and ended up walking like an elderly gent for the best part of two weeks, couldn’t even put the ruddy thing back together or make it up the stairs to the flat without help.

Cycling-wise my mate fell over at approximately zero mph on a doublewide shared use path/cycleway after he attempted to answer his mobile phone while trackstanding to let a couple of roadies past – brain fade after a full day of gnar without injury and ended up so badly bruised he couldn’t raise his arm for a couple of weeks. Was like a slow motion spd failure but all the funnier as he was on flats and engaging his brain for even a second would have saved him.

A little late to this but I enjoyed the article and didn’t get the urge to take a big travel bike up there and ride off the paths. I didn’t get the impression that Sanny was encouraging us all to move the Singletrack Weekender to the region and it seemed a reasonably balanced article given it touched on the fragility of the landscape.

Surveys done – will highlight this at work this week

‘Dan’ appears to have edited his public info to remove his surname in the last ten minutes, I had assumed it was a troll up until that point, oh dear.

I have these :-

http://www.sony.co.uk/product/nws-w-series

Completely wireless as the earpiece is also the storage device. Very comfy to wear, very good sound quality and suprisingly secure on the head.

And were 29.99 on M&S website for the 2gb versions, only violet or pink left now however.

That said you shouldn’t be wearing any when cycling. naughty.

Was going to order something earlier but not after seeing this thread, quick google reveals mtb, roadie and bmx forums all independently posting the same concerns, little bit too widespread to be chance I suspect.

WCA – I’m southampton based part of the time and while i lack even the most basic skillz to perform on a pump track i would be very happy to volunteer some time to help with any manual labour.

Why do i always miss the hazing? I was out riding my bike and missed all the fun.

OK I know this was back near the start, but in Germany the standard speed limits in residential areas is 30kmh.
And it is much more policed in Germany as well. Through roads in villages tend to be 50kmh IF they a judged to be wide enough (which is actually most of the time) but as soon as you turn off the through roads its 30.

It does feel a lot safer being a pedestrian or cyclist in residential areas as well.

+1 – trouble is motorists in the UK generally coudn’t give a toss about the existing 30mph limit so without massive enforcement you won’t get this kind of sensible balance, i find it genuinely sad that people can’t treat the speed limit as a safe limit rather than a target to be exceeded whenever they feel safe they won’t get caught, then again i live round the corner from a rat run that to$$ers use to avoid a fixed speed camera so I may be jaundiced.

I tried this for a while more so I could kid myself I hadn’t really bought a second bike, was a lot of faff in the end as neither felt quite right.

Jezkidd – how does the rear shock feel on the Jabba Wood? The Bikeradar review slated the bike for the compression damping setup but it looked a little unfair to me.

Wish i hadn’t seen this – am considering buying a Jabba Wood, horrible name but kit looks rather decent.