Ditto.

I still have nightmares about the time we thought it would be a good idea to go from Wasdale to Ennerdale via Haycock! The climb and decent both ways is grass/heather bashing carry your bike for hours. AVOID.

As anc says, there’s loads round that area that is really good, but Haycock is not one of them.

I own the exact bike in your picture. It’s brilliant, really light, really stiff, absolutely flies up down and across just about anything. The one you’ve pictures is the 2010 full carbon one (inc rocker) with full XT groupset (inc wheels) and it weighs about 24lbs. Sure you could go lighter if you wanted faster, but it’s a really amazing bit of kit as it is.

What’s it for? If I wasn’t racing mine I would get the trance equivalent I think. Bit more travel, bit more comfort, not much less speed.

Depends where you live. I live in Manchester and while I love my car, I only have it because my girlfriend lives in Durham and the costs of getting there by train got so much that it was worth me having a car when you factor in how much easier it is for getting around mountain biking etc as well. When we sort out the long distance thing, we’ll get rid of my car I expect.

Definitely get your food delivered, even if you have a car it’s sooooo much better than going to the shops yourself! If you can be 6hrs-flexible, Asda will do it for as little as £2.50 a trip.

Is Cav in with a shout of those Green points?

Reddish Vale, park at Morrisons in Reddish then head to Werneth Low, Etherow Country Park, Marple Bridge, Goyt Valley.

It’s the perfect area to get up to speed as it get’s progressively more hilly the further away from Reddish that you get.

If you’re stuck for routes, consider getting a GPS and using the connect.garmin.com site linked to above, it’s invaluable for exploring new areas as you can almost always find someone elses route to follow that matches what you want to do.

Anyway, here’s my ofering:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/93651584

This is a hard route, but it’s really three of my rides done one after the other, starting from Reddish. The first loop is straightforward but fun, the second loop is harder and a bit more fun, the third loop is a bit tougher still and good fun.

Hope that helps.

Used seatposts, they’re really good. BUT they’re a road bike brand, so be careful on here…….

I have no use for this*, but I’m all over it……..

*Other than swapping the engine to my Scythe……

Category B license is 8 passengers, so 9 seats including the driver by the way.

Proper confused myself then; itv.com is showing highlights from yesterday, then live at 2pm. Thought they’d whizzed through 140 miles!

Boonen down!

Cav could have got back on the gas and got 4th or so I think. It would have been better for him to deal with it after the race rather than sitting up, but that’s up to him.

Replay; YES the motorbike did just nick his bike and leave him a bit confused! One for Question of Sport I think.

Did the motorbike just whip Sorenson’s bike out from under him?

Cav not happy about being blocked in the sprint.

Contador is down!

Gesink looks like he’s out. If I was Cav I wouldn’t be happy either!

I get to Les Gets on Thursday evening, so I can’t really get there any sooner than about 9am on the Friday.

My parents have a camper van and looked at going, but you have to pay for a pitch for an entire week and they would be stuck to just going for walks etc when up they wouldn’t be able to move the van without some ‘clogger’ as you put it stealing the pitch. So that’s why people get there days before hand I guess.

Tell me more about the cable car thing? Can I take my mountain bike up with me, then whizz down to the bottom?

What about parking near Oz and riding up the road from there to Huez? That’s not the route, so should be open.

Cheers

It doesn’t really matter on a road bike. I had a french thing setup the wrong way for ages, you brake much more evenly so it’s easy to learn one way or another.

a) because I grew up in the middle of nowhere and before getting my driving license a bike shop repair involved waiting or my parents to have chance to drive through to Keswick. And it’s all pretty easy anyway innit.

I’d take the one with the best forks. In the Lakes for the techy stuff my first priority would be forks, then brakes, then frame. On slow techy stuff I don’t think FS adds anywhere near as much as it does on faster trails.

When i rode off Old Man of Coniston I culdn’t get my new FS built up, so *had* to take my 456C, the lack of rear suspension didn’t matter at all.

It’s 12p to add each extra photo on eBay. You could argue whether in this case it would be throwing good money after bad or an essential to the sale though.

What’s it cost to get the PP retuned on my shock then? (Not that all that faff should be necessary!)

I’ve got RP23s on both a Banshee Spitfire and a Giant Anthem Advanced. The Spitfire I can’t tell if it’s on or off so I just leave it off. Or on, which ever way the elver is when I get it out of the car. On the Anthem you can tell the difference when climbing a bit and a bit more when standing up. Generally I can’t be bothered messing about with it, so I’ll leave it on or off during a ride depending on what the descents are like, tame xc stuff and PP stays on, wilder decents and I’ll knock it off. I probably shouldn’t really be ragging the poor thing anyway!

Thing is though, I would much prefer a lock-out with blow-off on both bikes. The Anthem forks have lock-out rather than a variable compression tune system, so if I set both ends for their ‘best’ climbing ability and stand up, the front stays solid and the back end bobs a bit, so the whole bike pivots around the front wheel axle. Which is pretty rubbish. If the back locked out it would be perfect. Or at least matched. I’d honestly have no preference whether the forks were changed or the rear shock, so long as the bike was balanced. This is a bike that was over £4k new, so these sorts of niggles shouldn’t really happen I don’t think.

So, the RP23 has 3 settings of PP, none of which are a lock out and two of which don’t actually appear to have much use. Would be much better if position 3 was a lock out, 2 was a bit firmer than three is and 1 was half way in between. Actually, they should make an RP4 that has off – a bit – a lot – lock on a 4 position lever with remote actuation. That would be much better.

I’d never done it until a few weeks ago, partly due to a lack of opportunity, partly due to negative reviews. I ended up there by accident, so gave it a whirl and really enjoyed it. It’s one to ride briskly or flat out, but it’s nicely rough, twisty a little technical and generally good fun. There’s better/harder stuff in the forest, but that’s no reason to discount TNFT.

Like I said, I’m no even particularly good.

It’s not a trail that only the best can enjoy, but if you can’t ride it, it’s not the trail’s fault and it’s unfair to put others off a great trail because you couldn’t ride it. Which bit are yo disagreeing with exactly?

Yeah, I suspect mine are 400s or similar. Will see what they’re like and maybe get some 440s on the cheap or something.

Captain, you need to work on your legs and your technique, it’s those that are rubbish, not the trail!

I rode all but three of the climbs no problem, the three I didn’t make I would have cleared if I didn’t have my seatpost dropped I think, hence my comment earlier about using a dropper post. I’m not even particularly good.

It’s a great trail, but it’s not fair to call it rubbish if you’re not up to it!

Don’t remember any fallen trees when we did it a couple of months ago.

How will this be worse than the normal Di2? A bit heavier?

I think it’s brilliant, but you do need to be pretty decent to be able to ride a lot of it. When I did it we had to stop and work out lines for quite a few sections, but managed to ninja all but a couple of short sections. Would have really enjoyed a dropper post for that one I think.

One of my favourite trails I think.

Ha ha, might be worth a shot if I decide to take the all or nothing approach, but I’m not sure I’ll find many places with both the Royce tool and an Airgun? Which Evans did you go to?

Why worry about the resale value? Dunno really, it was supposed to be a revenue neutral ‘new’ bike, so I don’t want to outlay any more money on it. I guess if it’s not worth selling I’ll probably never use it and won’t throw it away, so it’ll clutter the garage until the end of time.

It would build up a nice commuter bike I suppose, but given I live above my office, not something I’m after right now.

Frustratingly, there was a brand new Blackhawk frame and forks that went for £250 that didn’t have a BB jammed in it!

It’s a road bike frame….

Problem with the BB is that my cranks are Octalink not square taper. The bearings *may* be goosed, but need to check properly when I get it back. Plus the frame’s life is now dictated by the life of those bearings.

When I said the I was going to sell the BB, that was either before I’d tried it or before I realised it was a sealed unit. I thought the bearings were serviceable. I haven’t given them enough of a spin to establish whether the bearings are ok or not, they didn’t feel great but I wasn’t really paying attention, they might be ok. But then the frame’s life is limited to the life of the bearings and would have no re-sale value once it’s done.

New cranks are an option, but the plan was a cheap swap of bits rather than an expensive process as this will be a winter-only bike when I buy a new one in the spring. Any suggestions for cheap square taper triple chainsets?

I’m going to speak to the seller and see how things are likely to progress regarding a refund, if he’s difficult it could take a while I think.

The actual frame is fantastic, it’s in decent condition, very light and a bargain at £78. Dammit.

I don’t have the tool for a Royce BB, which is why I took it to the bike shop. I also don’t have a vice. I’ll ask them whether they tried that when I collect, and then take it to a second bike shop for another go. Then go for a refund if that doesn’t work. if the seller is an arse about it and ebay don’t want to know then I’ll bring out the big guns and see how strong the frame is…..

Well you would probably pick up the phone and, you know, ask if it was going to cost a lot? Or if you don’t want the hassle, you might just say that too. Thing is the whole way it’s been handled and the various conversations I’ve had with them didn’t instill any confidence at all, but I was there and they had the correct tool, so I thought go with it and see if they get it done.

I’m really asking whether it’s likely that titanium would corrode to aluminium, how effective penetrating oil is and whether the reason they can’t do it is more likely that they’re busy and don’t want the money than because it’s properly stuck.

I need to decide whether to a) refund, b) try another shop and have them risk writing the frame off or c) drill the bb out somehow and risk writing the frame off.

Do they need to man up?

They’re people. yes they’ve got better facilities, but its a difficult job and one you can’t do. It doesn’t stop being a difficult job because you taken it to a bike shop. Bike shop – not engineering works.

You have all the time in the world to spend on it, but I bet you’d baulk at £30 per hour and the potential damage that may happen if you gave them free-reign.

Its not worth their hassle beyond a certain point, because its highly likely you’re not prepared to pay for more workshop time and they have other paying work they have commitments to already

So what are you saying? Yes or no? You seem to have managed to contradict yourself in amongst trying to imply that I don’t want to pay them to do the work.

It’s the blase way they keep saying it, it came across that they do that on most bottom brackets that they remove. Like you might if you didn’t have a two foot bar to get some leverage into it. That and they decided to soak it before even trying to get it out. Dunno, just didn’t inspire confidence. Guess I’ll give another shop a go on monday.

Fortunately I have a pillar drill, but I’m not sure it’ll come out like that without a lot of work. Such a pain! Just had a look at a picture of the bottom bracket, it looks quite solid so expecting a lot of work to drill it out. I was hoping to ebay the BB.

It was sold as:

“The frame set does need attention in regards to its lacquer. It will need respraying here and there. But other than that the frame functions as a beauty when equipped with the right components. The royce titanium bottom bracket which costs alone around £120 will need a special key if needed to be removed, which I do not obtain any more. It will also need light grease to manoeuvre swiftly. All in all in good condition.”

Probably got a reasonable case for a refund?

Oh, sorry, thought it didn’t match up very well! My route is 13 miles btw. I didn’t actually go over Green Gable, just skirted round the bottom of it to get on to Great Gable, the route is dead obvious when you’re there! I wouldn’t describe it as good, but it’s the easiest way up I think!