Oh with a little bit of planning and an early train the Peaks is doable for a day trip, Afan too at a push just takes a bit of planning and imagination!

All much of a muchness really, I'm in the 'Stow, my Saturday ride of choice is ten miles across town then train to Dorking from Waterloo, 30 plus miles in teh Surrey hills and train back to Waterloo.

I'm close enough to Epping Forest that I can go out and hammer the trails their when it's dry, nothing super inolving but considering it's within the M25 it's alright especially on a cross bike.

Live where you know people or you can afford and that seems pleasant, ten miles to Waterloo is nothing for a days riding, and I guess that covers a good chunk of North London.

Ribble have been great during the post strike 20% off of everything during the sale ordered Wednesday evening stuff arrived Friday morning. Previously there dispatch has been a bit idiosynchratic, but stuff does come, I've just never relied on them in a rush. Strangely my Condor road bike took weeks to come, but that's manufacturing in relatively small batches I guess, the stuff has to be physically made.

For cheap road kit they're great particularly if you're not in a rush, especially with the special offers they do.

Seriously have you thought about a skills day first, it's made a vast difference to my jey mincing, it's an awful lot less money, I'm pretty confident that a day with Ed O of Great Rock has probably gained me another year at least of finding the limits of a fully rigid bike. I'm planning to keep going back as it seems a far cheaper way of upping my game long term than splurging on new kit almost continously.

Ed really is great I think I learned more in one day and improved my riding more than I have in the past fifteen years. I'm actually looking forward to rocky trails now rather than just bricking it.

Magic can't reccomend it highly enough.

There's a book by Neil Gander that's worth a look.

The old railway lines have some nice bits of fun singletrack linking them all up, for a long day over the top to Towlaw the back way into Hamsterley do a lap of one of the routes and return.

Spenny woods are always quite good fun as well, nothing mega techncical, but with teh railway lines you can do a full day offroad and on a cross bike knock in 60 miles without any bother.

Alternatively ride up to Chopwell which is a long hilly ride but doable for a hard days riding.

Hi could you let me know where you've seen the 38T version, it wopuld be about perfect for my next build?

The fact that somebody with a speedhub is talking about aesthetics is possibly the most entertaining thing I've read in days…

CO2 cartridge and tube in jersey pocket, would be teh easiest thing…

The XTR shifter was a supplememntary mechanism to the main shifter though wasn't it?

Rather than a dedicated bar con shifter IIRC.

Enough of the misinformation already.

Bar end shifters exist in Dura Ace, Ultegra, Campag Sram as well as Diacompe friction shifters.

Choose the flavour that matches your number of gears/budget Ribble are good for Shimano shifter very cheap but not stella delivery times.

Exit the cable before the brake lever ideally the shimano shifters come with instruction, at a pinch just check the Shimano website for a PDF or perhaps Sheldon Brown as a reference.

Barcons work fine just not quite as convenient as STI but they are cheap and the Shimano shifters offer friction as well as indexed shifting if that floats your boat.

Seeing how expensive STI's are at the moment my next CX bike will likely run bar cons possibly mounted by the stem using Paul component adaptors.

Essentially you can run Barcons and Shimano brakelevers of Ultegra quality for about £70 a chunk less than STI's.

I understand I just don't get it 15 or so miles west to east 25 mile ride round Epping ride back again equals a good day out, well about six hours ;0)

Why not go mad and actually ride offroad say in Epping which is in London…

Kerazy I know ;0)

They have an ace reputation at the OU it's AMBA accredited as well.

As a thought a number of MBA courses do a part time option which is effectively a a day or perhaps two per month usually a Friday and a day on a Saturday as well.

Might also be worth a look?

I'm doing 17 miles a day here and to be honest it does pretty much nothing for me apart from burn off lunch time cake, I'm now supplementing with two evening rides in the week plus rides at the weekend.

26 might be enough to feel a difference, but 17 miles a day I don't tend to feel unless I do it fixed on a road bike it's pretty much effortless…

I’ve used

Hope Mini
Hope Mono M4
Avid Juicy 7
Shimano XT new generation Hydro
Avid BB7’s

BB7’s are the only brake I would actually reccomend to anybody else, tehy just work, Sideways Tim set mine up and he’s got them feeling pretty much as smooth as hydro’s with my Paul levers.

Every bike I have will now have them fitted where possible…

The DH track and 4X course are ace but they’re pay to ride…

Uplink, I think the big problem with Hamsterley is that there’s no real flow there at the moment, and it’s often a fireroad climb for a short steep descent.

The North side of the Forest in particular must be ripe for all sorts of fun contouring twisting stuff like the Sidewinder bit at Afan for instance. Hamsterley building seems to be about trail features at the moment like ladders and boardwalks rather than just fun swooping trails. I can see th epoint of features I really can but when you’re in a forest on s quite steply sided valley you’d think that making tight fun stuff through trees would kind of be a natural choice really, rather than echoing the Scottish centres.

Living in Newcastle I’d be tempted to just ride out to Chopwell and ride out there, certainly the riding is as good as Hamsterley. Makes a resaonable length ride as well.If you’re going to Drive the riding round Rothbury is ace, some of my favourite natural trails in the UK.

Another Hour and a half and you’ve got Glentress to ride at there’s Newcastelton too.

Until Hamsterley is properly up and running with the new trails open unless you’re wanting to ride 4X or DH, the above options give a better scope for riding.

Hopefully the new build stuff will reinvigorate Hamsterley, I’m hoping at some point that a decent length of really tight twisty fun singletrack will get built.

Frequently Bob Crow defends the safety of teh public on teh tube, hwoever I fail to se how reinstating a member of staff who made false safety claims and opened the doors on the wrong side of a train is doing that.

Two fail at arbitration over disciplinary procedures indicates what a parallel universe the RMT leaders live in.

Interestingly less than half the workforce actually voted for industrial action, yet the picket will stand firm no doubt, inetresting that all these workers will give up wages, when they haven’t even voted for teh action rather than disobey the union.

Although who know’s what tactics teh RMT use when they can’t even manage to run ballots correctly…

Dropbars and other freak bars are fine for,

The very skilled
People not wanting to travel fast off road
People who ride dull trails

(no doubt we’ll get the usual Jeff Jones picture at this point to prove the viabillity of daft bars, but just imagine how fast he’d go on aproper bike)

So perfect for the average STWer then ;0)

I’m not seeing drop bars on the following
DH/Freeride bikes
Motocross bikes
XC Race bikes
Enduro bikes MTB or with engines.

Could there be a reason for this?

They are ace on road and cross bikes though.

It’s a race with bikes with one gear, er isn’t that by definition supposed to hurt, is suffering not actually what racing is about….?

TTFU

Radiohead, still don’t get the early albums, the later stuff is great.

never got the Jam, but can’t get enough of the Style Council, don’t like Paul Weller Solo stuff either….

“gold bottle cages” brings up Elite Patao in google…

So you want dirt cheap and great customer service?

It’s only a bike part why not just pay more and get it somewhere nice wher you can talk to th epeople, or just deal with th efact that online discounters are often a pain in the arse to deal with.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve looked at a price for J E James or RCR to find the item out of stock or for the offer to apply to xxmahoosive in yellow.

Horse for course really, worst case scenario you have to save a bit longer for something you really want, not a bad thing surely annoying, but worth it in the long run.

If you need notes then M&S is always a pretty good rate, betetr than my bank and teh Post Office by a country mile.

Pre Joshua Tree pretty good, Joshua tree passable but a bit pants, beyond that, er no…

Is the cable pull of XX compatible with teh road groups then, that could allow all sorts of fun options?

Shimano make a 12-36 cassette I think Madison have them on teh website, only deore level though.

With a White Induistries VBC chainset you could have it all now 9speed….

Trailrakers are pure mud tyres really that are great in all types of mud but are rubbish on hard surfaces. They’re my tyre of choice for the winterin Epping they just dig down and grip. For spring and dryer conditions, I’m quite liking Kenda Cortez, cheap and they just seem to work, not too draggy either whih is a surprise. They come in a range of sizes so you should find something to fit. I’ll probably move to a Small Block 8 when it get’s really dry on the rear.

Well cutting tubes isn’t rocket science really, that’s what holesaws are for…

IF weld ;0)

Had the same problem myself, then noticed the allan key hole, felt silly, then sorted it, glad to be of help ;0)

If it’s one of the new models, ie black caliper you can adjust the inboard with an allan key.

I’d say about the only thing that you’ve done wrong is not taking the lane really. It’s pretty much the only way to stop that sort of thing happening really.

If they can’t get past you they can’t cut you up.

A reasonable complaint letter on NTW who da thunk it ;0)

North Downs makes me smile, all the body armour on show at Peaslake is hysterical. I’m sure some people confuse body armour with arm warmers ;0)

So did he actually physically push you or just move across the path towards you, giving you nowhere to go?

On the other side three riders on their way back from a night ride refused to make any effort to get out of my way on Wednesday as they were riding the wrong way down a one way street towards me!

I’d be having a look at Sheldon’s words of wisdom personally.

In wet conditions road mechanics will add extra grease to a chain.

Yes it’s massively sad, the trails that are there have never been maintained at all and with the traffic they get are just dying as a result, I’ve seen the black get worse and worse and worse over the years. The Red is just a joke, you keep riding all this fire road up and then think well it’s going to start rocking soon, then it’s fire road all the way down.

It’s a wate of money going there. Chopwell is better, and with so much actually fantastic natural riding, locally you’d be daft to go, drive for another half hour or so over the top of the valleys and you’re within distance of doing a big North penines day including High Cup Nick and Cauldron Snout.

Hamsterley is good for beginers, I can honestly hand on heart say, that there’s better Singletrack in Epping Forest in London than at Hamsterley….

The ride out from Guildford isn’t really any worse than the ride out from Dorking all offroad and all fun both ways. Depending on waht you want to do, you could spend pretty much an entire day on Leith just freestyling all the singletrack and following your nose.