The forest is pretty dry at the moment and mostly drains pretty well even after heavy rain.

The Cannop Valley route is the one posted on a website for a pub / bunkhouse in Parkend I believe? Will be rideable although one part of the route runs through a Nature Reserve where bikes are 'frowned upon' so don't be surprised if some well-meaning local dog-walker tells you to get orf their land. One junction of tracks in the woods can look much like any other junction of tracks in the woods, so have fun :wink:

Plenty of other riding too. Get along to the Pedalabikeaway cycle centre at Cannop where you can get maps and advice. The area behind the centre is free to MTBs although there has been a lot of felling in the area this year so some trails are unpasssable at the moment.

Dab not rub (sorry if gandma / egg sucking interface situation but no-one told me and it took a while before I realised why it wasn't very good!) :-)

It’s really lacking xc stuff?!? JonGW ~ you need to ask to be shown around, there’s miles of the stuff :roll:

Hope you enjoyed FoD daveells; would have liked to have been out myself in the area but helping daughter move house meant no riding over weekend :(

Only if you watch on TV could this really matter. I went a couple of times in mamadirt’s time ( ;-) ;-) ) and I can’t even remember who I saw performing. Vaguely remember someone sliding into what they called toilets in those days. That was apalling. And **** … :lol:

For me it was neither hard nor easy. Those that know me will confirm that I am portly, possess limited technical skills and have a distaste of speed yet on my 2nd lap (19.30 -20.30ish Sat. eve.) I managed to ride the complete course (via the mincers’ divert). More by luck with the weather, ground conditions, proximity of other riders than any other reason related to possible bike riding skills ;-)
I came a cropper on my 4th lap on the wet, stoney descent to the pond. Not through lack of confidence; I think of it as bad luck to which my bruised left shin and skinless right elbow and forearm will attest!

I thought it was a good course. Reading the comments about pro- and semi-pro above reminds me of being passed first by Anthony ? (Mojo semi-pro?) soon followed by NickCraig (pro?) who promptly flowed up the hill as if I was stood still and Ant was pootling. The reality was that Ant was flying and Nick still reeled him in, chatted awhile and moved ahead. I was impressed as if I were a teenager 35 years my junior.

Downsides for me: the TROG team who ran a generator all through Saturday night and ignorantly dismissed any of their neighbours that asked them to turn it off for a while; the reduced number of trade stands (including the coffee people :-) ); the ‘U’ shaped arena; the smaller change-over area; having to fight through all the pedestrian traffic on the way to and from the change-over area due to the narrow strip between course and trade tents.

Good points: friendly banter, friendly heckling, dedicated marshalls, the mincers’ divert, showers, bumping into old friends, that feeling when you finally get back after a mentally draining lap, Sunday morning fry up after an early mornin lap, a long soak in a hot bath when you get home…

One of the better ones I thought. Cheers to everyone involved.

Forest of Dean and Wye Valley just over the bridge from you ;-)

swamp_boy – Member
Unless you are a farmer or something like that its hard to find a logical, hard headed economic reason for owning a Land Rover. BUT that’s not the point of Land Rovers. You will either hate it and get rid of it at the first possible opportunity or get hooked…

Too true! Bit like riding a SingleSpeed really ;-)

I’ve not been without a Land Rover of some sort or other for nearly thirty years. I’ve trialled them, raced them, rebuilt them. Oldest was a ’55 Series 1 (think rigid ss), currently have a Ninety td5 (think full sus xc).

Old Sodbury Sortout, never been the same since the Old Sod moved it from from Old Sodbury :-( Needs must though.

Morning Matt. Impressive collection in the background ! Good selection of single malts too ;-)

“Tufty” is the Tufthorn Inn which is at Milkwall, Coleford about 7 or 8 miles from Monmouth. A group ride from there on Weds nights.

The guys that ride from the Wye Bridge at Monmouth on Weds nights meet on the bridge at 18.30 throughout the year. They would make you welcome (having mentioned it to one of them yesterday!) :-)

There are a couple of groups ride out of Monmouth including one riding on Weds eves as sheppie_hill says. One of the groups have a xc / triathalon background so may suit your riding.
As redthunder suggests, there is some more rad dude riding close by too.

I live in Monmouth and would be happy to meet up when you get down here. I know the FoD and Wye Valley pretty well, don’t mind long miles but xc racing pace is long past!

Monmouth is a great base. As well as FoD and Wye Valley you are close to Black Mountains, Brecon Beacons, Malverns, The Marches, Cotswolds, Cwm Carn, Afan Argoed / Glyncorryg, and more :D

Hope they enjoy the FoD, the “Red route” is a bit of a misnomer by todays standards being pretty much a fire road circuit labelled before currently recognised gradings.
It’s drizzled/rained here pretty much all day with more of the same forecast tomorrow :-(
Cracking road trip though for a good cause so all the best to the guys riding it and their support crew.

Honey and Banana granary sandwich. Mmmmm!

There’s a (small) bottle of single malt if you can clean the climb from Soar-y-Mynydd on the Spork…

Sat work.
Sun Doethie Valley. I’ll be pointing and laughing at the most hated SS of all time :wink:

I was at the Marin Trail today, riding with a mate and his gobby girlfriend (you know the type, hair pulled back tight to stop her getting wrinkles from talking too much).

Anyway, we were out for a gentle pootle minding our own business and took a picnic along with us. We noticed this guy, all the gear and obviously a good rider but he seemed to be taking far too much notice of us. Don’t know if he fancied my mate’s bird or maybe he fancied my mate.

Still, we stopped for a picnic and this guy was kinda stalking us; he’d obviously been holding back keeping an eye on us. Weirdo! We were just getting back on our bikes and a wasp got under my helmet – jeeez, I was off up that hill like Nick Craig but would you believe the weirdo tried to race me. Ha, he had no chance, that wasp put me quicker than Sir Chris. The little bu99er (the wasp that is) got out near the top of the hill so I pootled back down to my mate. Luckily the weirdo appeared to have had enough. He seemed a sensitive kind of guy though…

:wink: :lol: :lol:

Loads of female riders on our local trails. On a good weekend, probably a hundred or so. Still outnumbered by male riders though. A lot are on the family trails with youngsters but there’s a good percentage of ‘proper’ ( ;-) ) MTBers too. Having said that, they’re just other riders out enjoying themselves and we don’t really take much notice of the male / female thing.

Maybe people expect everything on a plate these days. It doesn’t take too much effort to browse, search, do a “quote”, make contact with people, use FlickR or Fotopic.

I’m not knocking progress but it’s not that long ago that you’d have to write a letter or find a phonebox to do most of the things you do on here. Progress is great, what the STW team do for us we should be grateful for. The site is one of the (if not the) most popular cycling sites in the ether so they must be doing something right and they’re developing / improving it all the time (I see we can now go straight to page on threads for example). Don’t take it for granted.

Footnote: The venison was very nice. Pot roasted 25 minutes / lb at 170C. Thick redcurrant gravy and parsnips to accompany. Moist, tender, tasty. Dessert of strawberries, strong dark chocolate mousse, and ice cream to follow. Right now I’m mostly fat ;-)

Thanks to all.

Hope so!

Mmmm. Just finished eating some FoD venison coincidentally (thanks to all those that responded to my ‘venison recipes’ thread).

Have had groups of up to 28 out in FoD ‘back-in-the-day’ without losing anyone but the front riders have to be patient else they’ll be out in the woods alone 8O

MM ?

In MTB terms it probably has its roots in Motorcycle Enduros, long distance off-road motorcycle races.

LOL @ Rich!

You are today the result of the experiences of growing up so if anything had been different you wouldn’t be what you are now.

Me, I wish I’d paid more attention to learning languages. I’d love to be multi-lingual.

LOL Matt, no! But ’tis local ;-) And a drop of Mr Burgess’s finest would indeed be a good accompaniment :-)

Thanks for the ideas. The stroganoff looks good Andy; will certainly try that one with another cut. The one I’ve got is better suited to roasting. [How are things btw, hope all is well. See you in June?].

Looks like tankslapper’s idea is getting the nod from the wife given the cut of meat, the sauce will be red wine based and probably ‘earthy’ in a mushroomy kind of way.

We’ve never cooked venison previously although have eaten it in steak, pie, and casserole form before. We’ll be lining up some loin cuts to try some of your other suggestions.

Red wine will certainly go down well with ‘the good lady’ so that’s pretty much a must. Juniper berries? Sounds interesting, worth a try (if I can get any at the moment).

Dark chocolate? Really?? A few chunks melted over the top after its come out of the oven?

If you ever fancy a visit sometime buzz then I’m sure someone off here (me, sheldona, mattsccm, dobiejessmo, steelfreak, and others) would be happy to show you some of the area’s finer trails.

It was indeed a beautiful day to be out on the bike. Sweet, sweet singletrack :D

It never ceases to amaze me that you can leave a carpark full of mountainbikers’ cars at the Cycle Centre, ride a couple or three miles and not see hardly another MTBer all day!

She lasted 14 minutes and 37 seconds? I hope she’s very understanding then… 8O

Did you get them to do, like, a gym bleep test to assess their relative fitness :?:

To me, I don’t see the difference between someone having that bike made, and a ‘boy racer’ who puts loads of bits of plastic on a Corsa or whatever, just to ‘stand out’. You will stand out, but don’t expect anyone to applaud you.

You are making a statement about yourself [having started your comment “to me”]. Have you considered that the ‘boy racer’ may not be doing it to ‘stand out’ but to join in? To have an interest, a hobby that he can share with friends. To socialise and make new friends. To enthuse and get passionate about. To interact with other like-minded people. To enjoy, to pass the time, to get pleasure from. There is a world out there beyond your blinkers, you know.

It’s all the result of an international cock-up by IF really. They stock-piled tubes hoping to squeeze the market and push prices up but didn’t foresee the massive move to carbon-fibre by all the mainstream manufacturers. Result – they were left with too many tubes and a plummeting market. What to do? Well, you can probably work the rest out… But, looks like they’ve cocked up again because eagle-eyed users of STW have noticed their cunning plan to slip an extra tube into every frame they build unnoticed :roll:

I heard they had to pay him to take it, they were so pleased to be rid of it…

In fact, it will add weight to the frame, which will actually negatively affect it’s performance…

Why do you assume that adding weight will negatively affect the performance of the bike?

The consensus is, that it looks rubbish.

Not strictly true ~ reading through all the posts the jury seems to be split on its appearance.

So, other than to be ‘different’, there is no reason whatsoever, to have a frame made with a stupid extra tube. And I bet that cost you a fortune, too.

It’s not really that different though, is it? There are and have been frames with a similar additional tube around for some time. Cost is largely irrelevant really.

That towel rail posted by The Swede is also a thing of beauty IMO :-)

Like Matt says, Parkend is right in the middle of the FoD and also has the Fountain Inn which is MTBer friendly (and the base for the local Cycling Club). Site also has a good leisure centre (pool, saunas, cafe, bar, restaurant).

Another nice site is Cherry Orchard near Newland. 5 minutes walk to village pub, lovely spot but much more basic.

Plenty of activities in area including canoeing and horse riding.

Mmmm, Saracen’s Head. Good food, good beer, good pub!

And on my commute ;-)
And the owner is a MTBer :D

. Am I best with standard road bike or tourer?

A standard road bike won’t take guards (no clearance) nor panniers (no mounts) so for your intended use and budget it might be worth looking for a 2nd hand tourer like a Dawes Galaxy or similar. Check out the CTC, ebay, etc..

And sometimes like this: A but never like this: V.

Of course, on a field gate, the top hinge is 450 / 600mm long whislt the bottom one is just a bracket.

No wonder it’s bl00dy confusing…

:roll:

When I used to fit kitchens I would mostly do what the first poster after the OP suggested when fitting to plasterboard stud walls, i.e. fit a plywood template behind the wall units, securely fixed to the studs, and then fix the wall units through the plyboard.

When fixing to brick / block walls, I always used to fit a batten under as per TJ’s suggestion in addition to the more secure fixing you could get into the solid wall.

Since there is a debate going on that introduced door-hanging into the pot, it’s worth considering the direction of the ‘braces’ on ledged & braced doors / gates. IMO both TJ and GG make correct points but GG is probably being disingenuous in not acknowledging TJ’s assertions regarding the need for a strong enough fixing at the top in addition to the supporting batten. Possibly. ;-)