I got a POC XC helmet, it’s great.

If I was in the same room as Hitler, Osama bin Laden and a recruitment agent and only had 2 bullets I would shoot the recruitment agent twice.

You can’t go as fast down rough tracks with the saddle up high, because the rocks and what have you kick the back end of the bike up into your knackers and throw you over the bars. Dropping the saddle a bit gives you that extra room to maneuver your body and soak up some of the hits.

Unless you’re happy to mince down descents taking a ball bashing or you’ve worked out a way to defy physics I can’t see why it would be preferable to leave the saddle up 🙂

Barbour Beaufort here, 15 years old and getting better all the time.

ah the cwmcarn tunnel of death? claimed a few egos that one!

I have lots of friends I envy, mainly because they have children. I have lots of money but being a fat middle aged single gay man somewhat limits my horizons when it comes to having kids. I would give my right arm to have the chance to be a good father to someone. I guess I can be a great uncle instead, and you can hand them back at the end of the day right? 🙂

WGAF? Drive whatever you enjoy, don’t worry about what people think. The people with an opinion on what *other people* drive are tools by definition.

It has to XTR all the way darling

hardly, I’m the biggest snob on this forum, I’ve never even touched an XT component!

I don’t think cheapness comes into it when you’re looking at a 5 grand trail weapon 😛

five frame, CCDB coil, Fox 36 RLC…

^^^ This – unless of course you ride in Surrey, in which case a carbon nomad or mojo hd will fit the bill better 🙂

You could try Hobsons or Stuarts, they usually have some in stock.

bolt through

—@ East side til i die!

Well when i was rich it was always sandy lane, but the last few years I’ve been hitting up Bathsheba on the east coast – possibly my favorite place on earth!

Jay Z is coming on soon!

Whenever I am in Barbados I try to neck as much Mount Gay as I can

Esi grips sound right up your street OP, the only bad thing I have to say about them is they are a bit fragile, I managed to tear two pairs in two weeks this summer. Currently using Troy lee lockons, they are very soft too.

Like indoor toilets and electricity, the people of the Northern wastelands are yet to discover rear suspension?

Hey I have an average sized penis and no kids, and used to have a 4×4, but now I don’t, although I do want another one. Clearly 4x4s make you gay.

Gotta disagree with you here though, for stellar mileage you want a good quality sporting saloon – far safer if only due to their lower centre of gravity, and quieter due to not having a ‘hatch’.

We’ll have to agree to disagree 🙂 After years travelling round Europe in all sorts of posh BMWs and Mercs, the absolute best car for this sort of thing I find is a TDV8 RRS, the combination of the high driving position (I find this less tiring over long distances) and the air suspension make it a brilliant continent crosser. I don’t think they make them any more.

@geetee I don’t think many people see the need to justify their car choice. It’s pretty clear who here hasn’t driven something like a twinturbo X5 or a tdv8 RRS though. They handle better than many cars with sporting pretensions, have a great driving position, are supremely comfortable and very very fast for such big vehicles. 1000 mile trips fly by in airmchair comfort. Awesome things really, if I was still doing stellar mileage I would have another faux by four in an instant.

What abut the kids in the other car?

If their parents loved them they would be in a Q7, obviously. On a more serious note, what about the kids in the other car? Why would anyone care about some random stranger’s kids as much as their own?

Some of these posts are literally amazing. Talk about social conscience and injustice all you like, I don’t buy it. The crux of the matter is that some people don’t like the fact that someone else can afford to buy and run a bigger and more expensive car than them. I bet the guys in their cayennes or x5s don’t have an opinion on some other guy’s vectra.

Envy and jealousy really has nothing to do with it. I could afford one of these ridiculous cars if I wanted one. If we are going to get into armchair psychoanalysis, what about the low self esteem of those who feel the need to buy an impractical and antisocial car for reasons of ‘status’, but don’t have the confidence to admit it, so come up with all sorts of frankly laughable justifications?

Envy and jealousy has *everything* to do with it, what do you think fuel the bile-filled posts? – it’s the same thing as inverse bike snobbery only with 4 wheels. I find it interesting how much some people care about what other people drive 🙂

Good to see envy and petty jealousy alive and well on STW! OP wasn’t asking for demonstrations of how low some people’s self esteem is, so low that they feel threatened by his choice of car 🙂

@OP I would go for an x5 out of those you mentioned. Maybe a merc GL? They were a bit chintzy last time I looked though. I’ve had disco3s, RRS and FF over the last few years and they have all had reliability issues which has put me off them, besides the RRS is tiny inside for such a big car. Saying that, there are all new versions of RRS and FF out this year, and I know I will be tempted again, especially if the tdv8 makes a comeback! Q7s don’t really do it for me.

Someone giving away a few billion when they are sitting on a pot of a few billion x3 – is that really philanthropy? If it was really for the good of mankind why not keep enough to live off comfortably and give the rest to mankind. I’m pretty sure $100bn would see AIDS, Cancer and Malaria wiped out pretty damn quickly.

I wonder if there’s a single billionaire on the planet who isn’t a sociopath.

You’re kidding right? Here are just some who are great philanthropists: Giving Pledge

Weird that. I’ve seen tons of folk riding Alpines, Fives and Patriots very hard on very rough trails in the Alps and Lakes, and they seem very happy. Kinda ties in with Dirt’s verdict on Alpines and Fives too. Still, I guess Keswiki’s point highlights the problem with comparisons like this.

Conversely you’ll see loads of Nomads and Blurs being ridden “very hard” in the Surrey Hills and South Downs 😛

@OP why didn’t you do what a normal person might do and contact the company explaining that there was an issue in the first instance? Jesus.

Just think, in the time you’ve already wasted thinking about this you could have ordered and have fitted a muckynutz/neoguard

Yes I’m sure the very real and totally a big issue “brake jack” is what’s holding you (and every other rad to the sick) rider up.

I could never stand the Office Heroes when I was working, you know the types who come in early and stay late for no extra money. Idiots.

I wonder if you could invent some kind of detonating tire valve, where you send it an SMS or bluetooth signal if close enough and it fails, flattening the tires instantly. Might be useful in grab-and-ride situations like this.

Or better yet fails the brakes.

Really bad advice. Did you ever have to use the mace? It’s very easy to sit behind a keyboard and feel brave, but in the actual reality of a situation, unless you are trained/experienced in dealing with sudden violent confrontations, you will more than likely not be able to function in a calm, rational contrleed manner at all.

I’ve done the NYPD firearms and tactics training (pepper spray is a module within this training) but never had to use it in earnest thankfully.

Could you use your multitool to slash your own tires? The scumbags won’t be able to make a quick getaway at least, giving you time to run away and call law enforcement. If they leave the bike, great.

I was going to suggest carrying a can of mace (this is what I used to do when I lived in NYC), but it’s classed as a firearm in the UK. Although, if you maced someone “tooled up” trying to steal your bike, would they really contact the police?

This does suggest that the comparison sites add a little on to get a cut.

How did you think they worked? @OP try adrian flux or directline

Can’t really put a finger on it, but I feel the same way about men over the age of about 25 with earrings. Something about them sits wrong with me.

I find grown adults who choose not to learn to drive a bit unsettling to be honest.

How do people with no cars cope when they have to do things like go to the hospital or go shopping, or go and collect a takeaway or take day trips, or go to job interviews etc?