Thanks – Ideally I’d like to ask the dealer if my garage (used them for years on all my cars and trust them) could give it an inspection. Is that a typical thing to ask?

Hmm I hadn’t considered a Forekaster front and Recon rear … could be a good option.

right hand? I think I know which rock…

Thats the one!

We’re out there 9th July for a week! After my trip last year was cut short with a broken finger I’m itching to get back out again this year!!

As someone mentioned the red down from Avoriaz into Lindarets is always fun (except for breaking fingers on pokey out rocks) – maybe I should run shorter bars this year.

I’ve just built up a Chameleon as a do it all hardtail. Found a frame at a great price and built it up from a mix of secondhand and discounted new components. It came out MUCH cheaper than buying a complete. Managed to pick up some Fox 34’s 130mm brand new for £400, and the frame was £650 already invisiframed, with MX and 29 dropouts.

I’ve been looking at something similar to this – I’d almost settled on a bunch of Ultion locks until I saw a Youtube video on how easy they were to bump (https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wi8z64mndxw)

Still trying to find a high quality cylinder lock that is snap and bump resistant.

Lots of nice places … I’ve lived here all my life.

North norfolk coast – Brancaster, Burnham market, Wells-next-to-sea, Holkham hall, Sandringham, round to Sheringham (which has a pedal loop, and a few short but fun trails if you do decide to a bike)

East norfolk coast – Winterton is popular for dog walking, lots of sand dunes to explore and a good mobile cafe. If you have kids you can brave Great Yarmouth for a night at the arcades.

South norfolk – Southwold/Aldeburgh, although personally not a fan.

Norwich – good for a night out, lots of places to eat/drink, good restaurants/bars on St Augustines street and the laneways.

Good pubs around the area – The Pigs, White Hart Hingham, The Lion Thurne, Gin Trap … there are lots of good pubs.

Wroxham – go hire a boat and get out on the broads for a day, it’s lovely with frequent pub stops along the way.

Thetford forest – it’s ok, there’s no elevation, so it’s all pedalling, I take my rigid 29er and it makes it a bit more fun.

Norfolk has lots of waterways so if you have a paddleboard/kayak/canoe it’s ideal for that.

Holkham beach and the Victoria pub opposite it.

Sadly it’s no longer a pub, but accomodation/restaurant. Wells is close with some good pubs.

Layers. Over winter I’m normally a merino base layer, then a t-shirt, mid weight jumper, fleece (and a jacket if it’s really cold).

Its sad that I think I know exactly where that is.

I can’t remember exactly, but I recall traversing under the lifts after the half way point and then into some shade – which is probably why I didn’t see it. Eyes were trying to adjust.

Oh man, i feel your pain. I went there a few years ago when i bust my shoulder 3 days before leaving… I wasn’t inspired… Although it was MotoGP weekend so i spent my time in Rhodos drinking beer and watching MotoGP.. it wasn’t terrible.

Yeah it’s still a nice place to go hang out. I went for walks. Got lost in the woods and drank green beer :D

(Also tried to avoid the Santa Cruz shop so my bank account didn’t take a hammering)

Sadly my Morzine riding got cut short after somehow clipping my handlebars on a poking out rock down a Lindarets blue run (first run of the day). Subsequently breaking my finger trapped between the handlebar and rock. Three days sat around the apartment while all your buddies go ride isn’t much fun.

First time staying in Morzine itself though as we normally stay in Chatel. Really enjoyed the busier vibe.

Ah yes, not sure how I missed that! However the newer ones now seem to have regular 142 axle spacing and a threaded bb (although I think the higher end carbon ones might still be press fit).

I’d say the Specialized Diverge ticks pretty much all the OPs boxes.

16th July too. Also staying central Morzine. 5 minutes from the lifts! We missed last year because of covid so I’d so bloody excited to get back out there.

Pretty much the old Hightower but with a glovebox from initial impressions. Shame they don’t seem to have modified the shock tunnel to allow for coil.

Both breaks on mine took months before I felt confident to ride. Even the commute to work. Not sure I’d have been riding (let alone racing) after 10 weeks.

The worst part was the mental aspect. Getting confidence back took a long time.

Sadly not. But I didn’t ask to either.

@guandax just a simple day procedure. Felt much better afterwards – especially as I had young children who liked to sit on my shoulders and climb over me.

@guandax The second crash made a big old mess. It pulled out the original plate, pins as well. Then broke into a couple of smaller pieces. The surgeon said he’d try to do what he could but couldn’t promise anything.

I’m the end he did an amazing job. After a fair bit of time and physio it’s feels all back to normal. I did end up having the plate removed – just in case there was a third time and I didn’t get so lucky.

Franks hot sauce mayo

I’ve done the same collarbone twice like you. Plated both times. Typically a break isn’t caused by a direct impact, and more from the force elsewhere – i.e. putting your hand out in the event of a fall.

IMO there is no armour that would stop you breaking it again. I believe collarbones are actually designed to break in order to prevent worse injury in the rest of the shoulder.

I think I read that some jockeys even have theirs removed as it’s so likely to break when they fall off a horse. Might be a myth though.

@scud The old dual track got bulldozed when they did some logging. But just up from Weybourne station there are some new trails which the FC are happy to have there (currently) as long as nothing too stupid is built. We’re up there on Sunday if you want to be shown where they are.

Not sure in Norfolk where you are but we ride at Weybourne/Sheringham quite a bit if you ever need someone to help you “test” that shock 🙂

IXS Flow thirded. Wear them for everything other than alps days where I use their heavy duty pads.

@guandax – I do happen to have one in a basket, but I’d like something that was as comfy but maybe a bit better airflow

Like others on here I’m pretty much down to my MTB (SC Hightower) and a gravel bike (Diverge), both used for very different things – the diverge is just used for anything… riding into town to meet friends, longer road rides, bridleway exploring.

Mainly it’s a road bike I can take off road if I need with bigger volume tyres. I’m not fussed about speed, I don’t ride with a club. The country lanes around here aren’t great and the bigger tyres are far more comfortable than 25’s.

The gravel bike gets used from the front door, which is it’s main advantage. To ride the MTB it always means at least an hours drive somewhere. Which is fine if time allows.

I also have an older rigid Spesh Carve … which is great fun to ride over winter. And it sometimes gets used on the road, but I generally dislike using flat bars if I’m riding for any decent distance.

Just ordered a Giro Ambient soft shell. Sign up to newsletter for an extra 10% off sale price. Bringing it down to £53 posted.

Running these on my diverge with 38mm (size up to 40mm) Terrano’s – just about cover the width but clearance is a bit tight in places. Although took it for a ride yesterday and there was no rubbing:

BLUEMELS PRIMUS 28″ 53 BLACK SET

Good timing on this thread. We pick up our new border terrier puppy on Wednesday. Our current female border is 11 years old, and a bit worried about how she’ll react to him. On walks she generally doesn’t like to be around the younger dogs and gives them a wide berth.

How long should someone leave it before returning to running after a minor injury?

Some context – I went for a run on Sunday, was in a bit of a rush, so didn’t really stretch or warm up. Within a few minutes I felt a twinge in my right knee when pushing off. I carried on anyway, and the pain got worse towards the end of my run. The rest of the day and a couple of days after saw me hobbling around struggling to put much weight on it.

In hindsight, it was stupid to carry on. Knee feels almost better, apart from the slight twinge every now and then walking around. Should I wait until it feels 100%, or maybe try a very slow, short run?

Also this injury happened on the second run with new shoes. Could this be coinsidence, or bad shoe choice?

Went there for the first time this year. At first we thought we’d got the wrong place as the car park feels like it’s just for the park. But after we saw a few other riders disappear into the tree lines we assumed we had the right place. As others have said it’s pretty easy to find your way up. We went there when the temp was 30+ and was a hot slog up!

Was good fun though, pretty steep in places as I recall – the first blue we looked at seemed to ride along a ridge and then drop in. We decided the reds actually looked safer!

The cafe did a great loaded fries for lunch.

I have read lots about a rebound when the industry becomes saturated with people joining the industry and supply outstripping demand.

Good luck with that. People coming into the ‘industry’ is one thing, but it takes years to gain the knowledge needed to be a competant senior/lead (even middleweight) developer. In that time the technology moves on, and they’re playing a catch-up game while also trying to learn the basics.

I see so many people who’s done a few online courses to learn React (or Vue, Svelte) and think thats enough. If you’re going to be half decent you also need to know about accessibility, performance, debugging, optimisation etc.

Interesting thread this. I’ve just started running for the past few weeks. I think I have a ok level of fitness, so I started out on some 4k runs every other day for the first couple of weeks. Recently I’ve moved this up to 6k. I average around 9 minute miles.

I’m not sure if I enjoy it or not. I like the idea of doing a run, and I like it after I finish my run… it’s just the actual process of running that I’m not sure I enjoy :D

I feel like my pace is quite slow (but steady), but it’s about all I can do. I see lots of my friends around the 7.30 minute miles and feel like I’ll never hit that kind of pace.

It’s also something you could support remotely more easily in my experience.

Not sure this is the case across the board – we use lots of remote resource, and most of our permy devs are mainly remote now. My new role is fully remote, and while looking for roles, most employers were ok with it (bigger talent pool to source from).

Devops is a good option, but I’d say this can be an even steeper learning curve than becoming a developer. AWS, kubernetes/containers, multi-cloud, terraforming, serverless, build/deploy pipelines etc etc – the reason it’s always in demand is it’s not an easy leap to make.

@devash – happy to offer help/advice, this is exactly my area. Although now I tend to focus more on javascript full-stack development – which really is where most front-end development roles are currently moving towards.

Yep digital is going through another boom at the moment, I’ve just moved jobs for a decent bump in salary (and pension). I was bored where I was anyway, so was a good time to move. Plus there are LOTS of roles for javascript developers right now.

graduates asking for up to £30,000 with senior developers >£50,000

£50k is not really a spiralling salary for a senior developer.

The thing that put me off software development was the presumption that you needed an IT degree to land a job

You certainly don’t need an IT degree to get into software development. But what you do need is a appetite to constantly want to learn new things (mostly in your own time) – I’ve interviewed plenty of graduates, but I’d always look for those with a passion for development over those who have a piece of paper.

EDIT:

I wouldn’t bother with Uni/Degree if all you want to do is Software Development. As above do a Bootcamp, but additionally build something yourself, anything, you’ll learn a lot doing that and it’s something to show off to potential employers.

This. Also, see if you can find yourself a mentor for whatever side of software development you choose to pursue. It will help massively – from things like code reviews, pair programming etc.

I can relate to this story – however, in it I am one of the kids. My father was a drunk. He worked off-shore, so would be gone for 2-3 months at a time, then would come home and hit the drink hard. Sadly there was domestic violence involved, at it got to the point I once drew a knife on him to protect my mum.

Being a kid in the middle of alcohol abuse is awful. You’re always on edge wondering when it will next kick off. Or what that person is going to do. I used to lay awake at night just waiting for him to go to sleep so I knew we were all safe.

Somehow, though, he turned things around once he finally stopped working off-shore. Got into a normal routine (rather than turning up to the pub at opening time), and is now one of the nicest guys you’ll meet.

EDIT: I have to agree with others, get the kids out of the situation – it has a much longer term effect than you’ll realise.

I must be the only person who doesn’t like deathgrips

Nope I also dislike them. Currently running super soft bartenders.

Burgtec Super Soft

Only in black, but if you don’t care about colour these are great. Now run this on all my bikes.

Thanks @jeffl – no, I have all those, I just need the tower.