sorry can’t be involved in this thread .. not married!!

Very interesting people’s opinions on books! I loved Life of Pi and Chcolat, however I’m still trogging through Perfume .. not got any beter yet and I’ve got 70 pages to go!!!
I have read many shite books lately but funnily enough I can’t remember some of the other names of them!! So memorable! Never even picked up any of Dan Brown’s books as they appear so rubbish! Mr MC said Da Vinci code has same story line as Angels and Demons .. he’s not money grabbing hen is he!!

Mr MC’s perferred colour option is the “guinness froth” or whatever it’s called, he has a thing for whiteish bikes! his coiler is a similar colour. I quite like the blue mind!! Think the Ibis is winning, he hasn’t stopped reading reviews and things since …. I think the credit card will be winging it’s way out tonight!

So next question … what forks does he put on it??

Goes to show about some reviews really, I thought Marley and Me had received some cracking reviews .. guess I’ll be staying away from that now! although now I’ve discovered the joys of the local library I don’t always feel obliged to read a rubbish book through to it’s conclusion in the hope that it’ll have some awesomely good and dramatic twist, this is rarely the case!!!!!!

OH my I’m laughing hysterically and I certainly like the world SINGLETRAQUOIS …. that is ace!!

Richcc that’s where he found the Mojo too … having not spoken of buying a bike .. he has his credit card on the table ready when the census is in …… (waits with bated breath).

This was (above post) Mr MC posting .. who only owns one bike!! I own 3 of which one is a Giant Reign 2 which I love!! My answer is hey which do you prefer??

My thoughts to Mr MC were …. would you want the Giant Reign AND the Kona as aren’t they now getting a bit similar. Kona is a tractor for riding around UK, Reign has nearly 7 inches of travel … do you really want that for riding around the UK????

Ibis looks super lush and light, would be great all round for both XC and slightly more (like when we go to Morzine), money isn’t an issue (luckily) and can build it up from nice parts off the Kona!

At the end of the day I’m a chick and would probably pick the bike on the paint job …………..

Now 2nd question what country still has national service for women!!!??? israel!??? Bring it back I say might sort out our knackered crime rates amongst the young.

When I normally see lycra clad MTBers I think XC whippets .. however I’m not so sure in this case ;-0

I haven’t done any skills training with cycleactive however I’ve been on one of their awesome holidays and our British guide will be the guide who does the skills training, Richard Barnard. He was brillian, reallys knows his stuff and was very good in teaching people whilst we were away on holiday, he taught me how to wheelie (well I now know the prinicple I just need to practice now). Definately worth it I say.

If anyone fancies riding around the Chilterns drop me an e-mail, last Sunday there was about 15 of us out riding around Turville all people tha have “met” through Singletrack. I can add others ono our mailing list ify ou interested.
franwhyte AT hotmail DOT com

Despite how much I love MTbing and couldn’t be without it .. you not gutted you’re off to Cape Town!!!! wierd ;-)

Think they may be a litle too heavy for 1st class stamp. Instead you can spend hours wasting away your life queuing at the local post office! good luck

Wow that’s impressive £4 for a dress made to fit! Think you may be surprised with the quality as well. I went to Oman and took a really nice work shirt from Bennetton they made me loads exactly the same size at about £2 each now I always get complimentary comments when I wear those shirts!!

How do you find out about what they cover bike wise on line? just did a quote and didn’t ask anything about protecting bikes away from the home, do you have to do all that stuff on the phone then??

So what football match is this!? I so HATE football .. love rugby though! luckily Mr MC hates football too … bonus!

Like said previously it’s each to their own, some wouldn’t spent £2000 on an MTB. Hey I think 9k is “cheap” for a wedding, don’t they say the average wedding is 15k!! Craziness!!! But that’s just my opinion!
Find where you want the reception and just say you want a meal for a party will cost half the price .. maybe I’m just a cheap skate :lol:

We did a grea long ride aroudn Turville and Ibstone area ending in a top pub lunch, awesome riding with some wicked descents. Can’t make the Chilterns ride on 21st June.

It’s weird thought you go to France and the first thing they do is place a large jug of free tap water on the table.

Agree with all the comments above. I have ridden MTB’s for 15 years and until 1 month ago have NEVER had a women’s specific bike. had a Kona Fire Mountain for years, then GT I drive full susser and a Giant Reign 2. Got a Cube hardtail women’s spec about 1 month ago .. love the bike but don’t notice any difference geometry wise from any of the other bikes I’ve ridden over the years.

They are designed to hold a bladder, although the bladder tends to go into a slip pocket at the rear of the normal bag. They don’t get their own seperate zip pocket like camel baks do, they look like nice bags (or the girlie ones do anyway!).

Nowt wrong with wearing baggies and MTB shoes on road bike! Lulls them into a false sense of security then you can whoop their butt! sod wearing skin tight lycra that just shouts out “whippet” to me … which I know I’m not!!!! Sticking to the baggies this end .

Oh my God what year is that!! HAs to be 80’s .. don’t think I’ve EVER seen that frame colour before! Thought my 1994 one was old!

He won’t develop the stamina unless he gives it a go and works further! kind of puts a downer on his 3 stage wins TBH.

Druidh …that’s exactly what I was thinking! But I don’t mind Cav … is it really a problem!?

I see Cardiff and Birmingham also have Masters, I thought about it a while back but I don’t know really. It’s having time and dedication to do it along with a full time job. To get promoted about I think it’s Inspector you often need to do a degree, well that’s some pulling power I could use to do the Forensics. we’ll see though as I’ve still got to get up to Sergeant!!!!

Claudia Felser taught me as well, trying to remember which courses!! Essex always appeared renowned for good linguistic lecturers however being 18 and not much clue in the subject I’d randomly picked it didn’t mean too much to me!!

Still completely fascinated by linguistics, the think that go me into it was “The Cambridge Encyclopedia of language” by David Crystal which I was given to have a look at when I was 16. Still go the copy as it’s very interesting introduction to all things linguistics.
Are you doing research in linguistics?
Just thought if you want to e-mail (rather than hijack this thread) then franwhyte AT hotmail DOT com

Ernie your linguistic/family background sounds fantastically interesting!!

Mrs Militant Biker .. yes yes to Harold Clahsen … good though! I still love linguistics and if I was a copper I would definately go back to that field of work/study. Problem was when I left uni I had no idea what I could do with my degree. Always wanted to get into Forensic linguistics now though.

anyway sorry for the hijack!! Chris .. perserve with the French as even though your child more exposure to English, they will soon learn that they have to speak/understand French to get past you!! Definately worth becoming bilingual especially in this economic climate, more job opportunities speaking more languages, often more freedom to live abroad etc. It’s the one thing I strongly believe we should do in the UK and that’s pick a language, Spanish and insist it is taught from the age of 4 at primary schools … like a foreign kids and their language acquistion and ability!!! They a laugh at us ignorant one language only Brits!!!

Ernie .. very interesting study though for us linguistics (or ex …),

Militant biker I did my degree at Essex Uni, at that point it was the only place in the country that did a full degree in Psycholinguistics (rather than just an option within a linguistics degree).

Language acquistion has long been thought of as a process of imitation and reinforcement, children learn to speak by copying the utterances heard around them, and by having their responses strengthened by the repetitions, corrections and reactions that adults provide.

There is a widespread popular impression that the children of bilingual parens are linguistically at risk. It is said that their brains will not be able to cope and they will grow up “semi-lingual”, confused or “retarded” (a few years ago they thought that!!!!). There is no justification for this pessimism, as is evident from the confident fluency displayed by millions of bilingual/trilingual/multilingual children around the world. Look at French, Spanish, German children, they all learn English from when they are tiny (even if their parents don’t speak English), they all hold a far higher level of competence (most are even fluent) in English than even a small percentage of British children could hold in the opposing language at the same age.

By the time your child starts school this is when they will normally have caught up in their linguistic development and will be at the same stage as other kids.

Children learning 2 languages, learn to speak in a different way to other kids. Phase 1, the child builds up a list of words, as does a monolingual child, but the list contains words from both languages. It is rare for these words to be translation equivalents of each other.

Phase 2, sentences begin to contain 2 or more elements, words from both languages are often used. The amount of this mixture rapidly declines. At the beginning of their 3rd year nearly 30% of their sentences contained mixed vocabulary, but at the end of that year it is less than 5%.

Phase 3, as their vocabulary grows in each language, translation beings to develop. But the acquisition of grammatical rules takes longer. For a while a single system of rules will be used for both languages until finally the two languages diverge. This is usually at the 4th year and they are well aware that the two languages are NOT the same.

Children will typically use each language to the parent who speaks it, if one parent uses the language of the other to the child, there may be quite a reaction. This is when the child may start playing the parents off against each other, this is usually around 4 years old, by this point you will find that it is unlikely they will be having any problems.

Studies show that trying to become bilingual from 13 years onwards is extremely difficult due to our linguistic programming. Once a child is bilingual they easily understand grammer and subsquently normally find it easier to learn futher languages. As is evidenced by lots of people above who do/their children speak 4 odd languages! Impressive if you ask me!!

There are a bunch of people riding out of the car park at the pub in Turville on Sunday . .ready to go for 1000 if anyone else interested. I would also be interested in that map if anyone finds it.

Having studied psycholinguistics and language and child acquistion at uni the best way to study foreign langugages if from the get go. Both parents need to speak to him in their own language. You will find for a short space of time (when they begin to speak/understand) your child will be behind their age range development as they are struggling with two languages. However with perserverance your child will catch up and acquire both languages fluently. The prime age for a child to acquire this is 5 years old and they reckon once you reach 13 years old you are past the “good age” at which to acquire language.

oh give us all the recipe for the lime/ginger yum yum cheesecake. .. pleeeease .

Don’t tell him you’re going out to celebrate this step in his life ending (except for the child which I no doubt he loves dearly), if you tell him it will makes things worse and he may become bitter towards his child as well! DON’T DO IT…..

Bike bag, cardboard boxes aren’t so good .. bike boxes will increase your weight limit and often struggle to get MTB’s into them.
Reinforce bits of bag with cardboard and pipe lagging if you are bothered about scratches etc.

Packing, take off the following:
discs, rear mech and chain, chainest and pedals.
twist handlebars, sorted.

I have been flying bikes yearly for the last 6 years and never had any problems. Yes I’ve seen bikes dropping out of planes 20 foot onto tarmac in a bag but if it’s all padded up, it’ll be fine. Never had a problem yet!!! I remember the days off travelling when they DIDN’T want your bike in a bag/box they wanted it wheeled on with handlebars turned ….. times have changed!

I think Morzine depends on your experiences, I have been for a week in July for the last 6 years, alwasy (except for last year for a few days) had a week of awesome sunshine. Of course you need to ensure you go when the lifs are open, but there is a huge range of riding there. You get quite a long way out just by using a few lifts. Every year the trails change, and ample to keep you entertained for a week. Head over to Chatel and the Pre le Jou area where there are maybe 7/8 runs, along with 4x course, 3 or 4 areas of North shore fun stuff, which you could spend 2 days there.
head further across up to Pointe du Moisette and down the back into Switzerland, less people as often they can’t be bothered to head out that way.

I could go on .. am I selling it!?

PS if you want the the only chalet in Morzine with an indoor (except it is nearly out door, french patio doors opening out) pool and jacuzzi google chalet Philippe, owned by a British woman who married a Frenchman. awesome place right in the centre and next door to the Supermarche for fresh croissants etc.

Just google chalets in Mozine and there will be loads, guess it depends on whether you want fully catered or self catering, but there is not a shortage of chalets etc out there.

Take it in a bike bag far better, inside we then used cardboard and pipe lagging to protect it and so far in 6 years of flying bikes we have never had a problem.

Sleezy jet, where are you flying from? The allowance is 32kg as LONG as you have booked a bag into the hold as well and yes that is total allowance for both. We recently (2 weeks ago) flew out of Gatwick, well they have put these cunning metal bars up which mean they can’t weigh the bikes. The lady tried to pick it up and just managed and said “oh if I can pick it up then it’s under 32k” .. think she forgot that was for hold baggage as well!! again coming back they didn’t weigh it. Top tip though, often if they weight them you can get your foot under the bag (without them seeing as desk in the way) and hoik it up a bit taking some of the weight slack out of it and reducing it!!!

Be careful what you put into the bike bag,as sleezy jet so bike ONLY! and they will have a peek in. So we put tools and pads and that was it.
Hope this helps.

Congrats top news .. so what’s he called and where are the pics!!! I shall have a drink for you ;-)

Morzine/Les Gets, easy to fly into (Geneva) only 1 hour transfer to resort, loads of places to stay, lots of great restaurants. Easy to find your way around the area without a guide.