@neil853 – that is stoning value hard to beleive really. That’s what you might get on £4k bikes in terms of kit (if you were lucky).

Did a skills session today with Richard from All Biked Up in the sunshine on Holmbury Hill.

Great fun riding and I learned loads. Top day.

If the blinking couriers get their thumb out of their backside it will be building up a 456. Possibly in time to take on a skills session on Sunday morning (asking for trouble?)

It’s in a depot 4 miles from my house. What’s the chance of it getting here today….

I’m lazy – what’s the precis?

Cool, thanks for the replies. I’ll be driving past the Surrey hills, but it’s cool to explore new areas.

B. You are going to be safer (IMHO) as you will end up in the lane you want to be in, and knowing that it’s possible / likely that another road user might have adopted the A strategy you can be aware of / leave gaps etc for someone pulling out right from the left hand lane into your lane.

Whilst the road indications suggest you do otherwise I’d rather be in the right hand lane allowing people to pull out than in the left hand trying to get into it, especially as there are two lanes.

They should either have a srtaight on and left arrow in the middle lane or a solid white line between the middle and left IMO.

But then again i knocked my own driveway wall down last night turning into my drive so what the F do i know….

I’d find an event that is 8-12 weeks away (there are some trail runs even if the spikes and singlets season is over). It’s a real motivation to get out and run.

As everyone else says, start easy. If you have decent aerobic fitness it’s quite easy to overdo it and get injured, as I found out when trying out barefoot. Watch out for Achilles injuries, especially if you do too much hill stuff.

It’s a great way to keep up the fitness, mixed with some riding too as it’s just more time effiecient, you can be finished in an hour and changed/showered and still have had a reasonable workout.

You are all FREAKS. End of.

(phinbob who has read this thread with morbid fasciation as he has an entirely irrational and unjustifiable fear of spiders). 🙂

I was on the ride, there was more of me then.

And if you are load balancing your site get it to detect non 2XX responses and mask the content from the user……

Nothing wrong with having the LBS doing it, if that’s what you want. But making that decision with the knowledge that the work is fairly easy to do yourself and that it’s not that expensive to aquire the relevant tools is surely better than from a position of thinking you *have* to get them to do it.

Do it. Take some ibuprofen. Don’t sprint from the line. Buy now – pay later*.

*unless you have a more important event next week or rely on full mobility to provide income.

I spent the morning riding in just long and short sleeved thermals / shorts here in sub-tropical Surrey…

Seriously for that money you can buy the tools and do it youself.

The only specialist tools you’d need are a bottom bracket spanner (£20) and a headset press (£30ish), and maybe some decent cable cutters (£20).

Nothing is difficult to do either.

+1 Alpkit gamma, cheap works fine, I’ve used one for a few years easily bright enough and has a low power option for when you forget to replace/recharge your batteries. Doh.

The postman has only just come here, but still no magazine 🙁

Saw one in my local LBS today. Mind you it’s only a magazine so it’s not exactly a crisis in my life…

Yup, just paid nearly 4k for flights (4 of us into Seattle out of San Fran).

I hope for your sake that they go down but I will be gutted if they do!

I like them. I’ve got a pair on one bike and a set of TrailRalkers on another.

I’d say they were not quite as grippy as Trailrakers in the gloop round here (N Downs / Surrey Hills so muddy but not clay), but roll easier on hardpack/tarmac.

What about the Tour Du Mont Blanc? MBMB do a good tour.

Boot into safe mode with networking (repeadly press F8 whilst the machine is booting).

Start->All Programs->Accessories->System Tools->System Restore and restore the system to a known good point. It won’t affect your files etc. but it will fix it.

Then download somethig like malware bytes and scan the system.

Mcafee failed to protect the system on my father in law’s machine too.

64 Mb/s seems pretty fast really to us old skool folk…

Drill it.

I’ll let the debate about what to eat run s I’m no expert (but do find a higher pritein diet + lots of veg the easiest to live with).

I had exactly the same issue as you, bottom half ok, top half shocking.

If you want to get this done you need eat less calories, by 500-1000 a day. That’s going to take a bit of adjusting to and that’s the tough bit, even if you go for the ‘best’ diet.

I found that I had to make a project of it, really focus for a few months on dropping the weight. I had a really positive mental picture of the slimmer me and I would picture it when tempted to overeat. Weight yourself, I think weekly is as frequently as you want to go.

Take a look at some of the stuff by Tom Venuto – I’m not advocating the nutrition / exercise he prescribes but the mental aspect is IMHO bang on.

phinbob (well nearly) (used to be fatbob).

Yup transitions count.

It’s worth practicing, and R G active do some training sessions in Richmond Park which I think are well worth attending.

Also consider doing some ‘bick’ sessions, alternately runnig and cycing. At the end of a decent ride, pop on the running shoes and go for a run.

Your legs will feel like poo for a few minutes, but keep the pace up and they should come good, with training.

Enjoy!

I’d go for fell shoes, as it’s usually pretty slippery. I’m running but I’ve been injured so I’ll be well off the pace. 🙁

Go on you know you want to…..

You’re not going to have that much time if you are going to cheer he off and back in. There are plenty of bridleways around there, head east from the carpark across the road.

Or you could always enter the XC race, it’s quite fun….

Oops, didn’t mean to light the blue touch paper and run, I was just (pleasantly) surprised at the balance, compared to say Peaslake or Leith Hill tower.

Same for flats really (although flats and armour seems de rigeur around Surrey (just jealous since I don’t have the skills or (pick gener specific homone producing organs of your choice here) to need them.

I’ve got one. Good if you like single pivot suspension. Probably bad if you don’t. One for the rider who just wants to ride. Good all day solid dependable bike.

I’ve got 100mm Rebas on mine, which is fine for round here, but I’ll probably stick some u-turn Rev’s on once I get round to getting a bigger fork for my other bike. I think with 120mm forls and a dropper post you have an excellent big day/lots of days/all round bike.

iDave, I’d really like a copy of your plan, I’ve got about 5kg to shift, but it’s that last bit that’s always the hardest….email is in profile.

Cheers

(nearly) phinbob

Those army tarps look good but heavy – 980g seems like quite a lot…

Head for the Hills in Dorking had one in the shop the other day, it was in a box so no idea on colour etc.

I did the barefoot thing for a while – and would again if I could find the f’ing things – they must be in the house somewhere :-(.

Take it slow and easy, I went at ti far to hard, my legs and CV system were waay ahead fo my feet/tendons and I give muself quite bacd achillies tendonosis. Took about 6 months to be able to run well again. I’m not knocking the barefoot thing, but just take it easy and allow lots of time for your feet to adapt.

I don’t want something I have to clean out

Don’t get a tank then. You are going to need to do some maintanance, 10-25% water changes every other week (using a syphon to glean the sand or gravel), give the filter a rinse form time to time, scrape algae of the glass (depending on your water and light situation). If you don’t a) it will look bobbins b) your fish will have shorter and stressfull lives.

Gannon G12 woudl be my vote, my wife has a G10 and it’s realy very good.

You don’t need an organised event, just do it. There are plenty of water taps on route, and it’s fairly easy to follow.

Used to be fatbob. Lost 21kg. Still trying to earn my name.

Now I’ve let my personal hygene slip from time to time but I’ve never got to that stage………

Last year I mainly ran and rode on the road. Did a marathon and a longish duathlon, which was fun. Even shaved my legs. Thought about selling all but 1 mountain bike.

This year I’m getting back into MTB, and running is taking a back seat (apart from some crazy ulta thing I might do in the Autumn) It’s all good, nothing wrong with mixing it up. We do this for fun you know.

I’d be concerned if I lost the urge to do anything that got me out and exercising mind….I’d soon be back to stripping down and buttering myself to get through doorways 🙁

Agree the just ride bit, but I aslo found a big difference to my riding endurance after doing some core and upper body strength work. At the end of a ride I felt far less ‘beat up’ and seemed able to keep a better posture etc.

As for training on the bike, hill repeats will build your muscle (depending on how you ride them) and power output – but do you need that for a 12? I found a decent length route (2-2.5hrs) and set myself marker points (24 mins to the top of the first big climb) etc. so I could track my improvement over time). If you have the time it might be worth borrowing a technique from the ultra-running community, where people rearely run the full distance in training, but simulate the fatigue by running long two days in a row. No idea if that would work for cycling mind.

I think the best way is to ride long ant low intensity, but as said above, it’s dull and hard to do in winter, especially on an MTB where hills and terrain changes make keeping in a zone almost impossible.