Didn’t expect it all to come together again but delighted it has, this is going to be a bonkers last lap

I’ve used ATACs for a decade in horrific Chiltern mud. They’re superb in it

Thanks. Only using DX cogs so a bit of wear’s not really an issue at £2.99 a pop

Viewranger is excellent

If you can wait a few days, I’ll give you my verdict on the WTB Cross Wolf tyres that CRC are knocking out for a tenner.

29 riders though, bound to thin out.

Think this’ll be the decisive group. Lots of big names, so no reason for many of the others to chase.

Millar reckons Cav will pull out after a few laps

You won’t regret it I reckon. Mine’s getting a build up as a cross bike… ish… for the Rapha Cross race in October at Ally Pally. Then onto its winter duties as mudproof singlespeed for the Chilterns clag. It’s been a London urban commuter attack bike, and even briefly had gears on. Mostly, it’s just a bloody great mountain bike.

Yeah, if someone pointed a gun at me and told me I could only keep one of my bikes, I’d keep the Karate Monkey.

I’ve had a bat fly into my face. Hit right between my eyes, under the helmet peak. It writhed around on the ground a bit, got up, and flew off uncertainly.

Ran over a snake in France as a teenager. No idea what sort of snake, and it had slithered off the singletrack when I crept back to have a look. That alone was a miracle given that I hit it with my Raleigh Amazon, which weighed the same amount as eight hippos.

Wanna see mine?

It’s always that dirty. It likes being dirty.

It’s a GREAT bike for knobbing about on

I’m a big fan of mine. How do you want your bike to ride? Karate Monkeys are great fun, a little industrial I guess, but fast in the twisty stuff and dependable everywhere.

Yep, what Simon said about the Base Seconds. No point in attaching, it fits great anyway and works as a drive-away awning

Our Freda has eight seats and the rear rows fold down into a bed that is bigger than the double one at home 🙂

would certainly second not needing cooker/shower/jacuzzi. Just take a camping stove. Quecha Base Seconds a an awning for under £200 more

wors – Member
Thanks for all the photo’s, been looking for a VW or similar, so I can use it as a ssecond car, but be able to get away for weekends or so without the hastle of packing the car with tent etc. Trouble is as there is 3 of us, the prices for vans with pop up roofs are massive.

Define massive? You can get a good Mazda/Ford Bongo/Freda (same thing) for well under five grand

Another Freda/Bongo here

Unconverted, so basically a big pop-top MPV that doubles as a tent on wheels. By far the best thing we’ve ever bought.

Am I right in thinking there is a website somewhere that live tracks you on your GPS so for example, people can use a website to see your location on Google maps in real time, maybe with a password or something? Could be useful for solo night rides etc.

I use Viewranger for this. I ride by myself, so use the buddy beacon feature, which is pretty much exactly as you describe (although not google maps, it uses viewranger’s own mapping)

If my iPhone only samples every three seconds, how come I knocked 1 second off a pb yesterday? Genuine question. Does strava interpolate?

Yeah, many of us do that I know, but you do of course need to understand the map in the first place. I love GPS as it helps me get more out of maps and the terrain they represent. I rose with Viewranger on my phone, in a pouch on my wrist. I love it, one of the best gadget things ever to happen for my riding. Still need to know how the map works to get the best of it

I love sitting and looking at maps, too

Yeah, I learned in scouts too. Schools should teach it, early ish in secondary age groups, I think

For the Chilterns, get stuff you can depend on in mud. My own preferences are low-maintenance stuff like Marzocchis and full length cables.

What others have said

Highway 17 from Santa Cruz to San Jose is a beast, mind, and deserves utmost respect. Fast swooping mountain dual carriageway.

I’m marshalling on the KoM at Crocknorth. Say hi, I’m very tall

Real. I’ve had four steel hardtails, and several aluminium ones. All were a bit different, and certainly one of the alloy bikes (a very nice Schwinn Moab) was plenty compliant, it felt like it had to be built too flexible to provide that. My trek was a rigid arse beater. I’m a big bloke but steel bikes just seem to be buildable in a way that gives the best of both worlds: comfy and zingy, yet not too twangy and fragile

Ejector seat

My gawd, who the hell would take a light fitting?

More fun to treat Stonor as a climb.

I’ll let you know when I ever clean it

before that he was a ‘fan’ of another club.

We don’t want him back, you know.

I always remember the Wellplace Zoo descent being really good, but I rode it recently and it was a bit poo. Maybe I just caught it on a good bluebell weekend.

(I’m bookmarking the hell out of this thread, keep it up!)

The descent of Grims Ditch from Nuffield all the way to Crowmarsh is both off limits due to being a footpath

The second (Western) part is bridleway, yes?

I’m glad I’m not the type of person to think that cancels out the FP.

Neither of these are epic descents in terms of height lost, but they’re cracking little blasts…

Thames path – Whitchurch to Goring
The swoop down out of Woodcote, along the edge of College Wood

EDIT: Not sure either of these will pass the “losing height so slowly it doesn’t feel like you’re going down” test. In which case I guess you need to be heading further north

pingu66 – great posts.

For me it’s not personal, but as a football fan I’ve despaired at the attitudes of some of my fellow fans (a minority, fortunately) who have trotted out the same old lies for years… “ticketless scousers jibbing in”… “arriving late and pissed up” (I don’t know who these temparate and punctual football fans are who have never done either, mind).

A lot of minds were changed yesterday. Those that weren’t never will be. The justice campaign has done a remarkable and important job.

I mean, seriously, two and a half seconds per person, per turnstile!

I’m unsure what exactly the families and parents of those that suffered really do want after all these years

They’ve known for 23 years that a huge coverup had occurred over the death of their loved ones, by people protecting their own backsides (and pensions). What would you want? I’d want to fight and fight and fight.

but some blame must go to the late arriving fans.

Do you know there were so few turnstiles at the Leppings Lane end that the required entry rate, per turnstile, was 1443 per hour, versus a Green Guide maximum of 750? The crowd had built up long, long before “late”

(sorry if I get a bit defensive here, as a football fan I’ve often despaired at how much the lies and misinformation have stuck with so many people)

Crowds are crowds. If you have moving crowds moving through tight spaces, you need to control them. The police lost control. There is blame to be ascribed there, to me it’s self evident.

And there’s wider blame ascribable to anyone involved in letting the game happen in that ground. It was a deathtrap. Ask Spurs fans from 1981, or Fulham fans from 1975, or any others who had frightening crushes in that end (Here’s footage from 1981:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtzHVe2mEN0)

SYP were the ones with responsibility for crowd control, though, and there was so much more they could and should have done. Instead they were covering their own arses before people had finished dying.