Hot Fuzz –
Yeah, you wanna be a big cop in a small town? **** off up the model village!

No worries, have been through a couple of cheaper Vango bags and whilst they do the job they are heavy and not as well made,
The Decathlon bags look good as well, If I was on a budget I would buy one of those and spend more on a good sleeping mat – you will lose more heat to the ground than to the air, so a good sleeping mat will boost the warmth of your bag.
Depends on weather or not you will be doing a lot of camping around all year or just in summer.
Buy the kit that fits your needs, generally buy cheap, buy twice rule applies with ‘most’ camping equipment.

cracking battle between Pinot and Bardet, should make the final climb interesting to see if one or other can put some time in!

did a fair amount of research when looking for a good value bag for camping and bikepacking.
I went for a Robens Caucasus 300, comes in its own dry-bag, is a down bag (duck down) rather than synthetic, 2/3 seasons with a good lower temp limit, have been out and about with it and it’s plenty warm enough, packs small and is lightish approx 1kg.
Also has separate face and neck baffles with seperate drawcords.
I paid £85 for it from some random shop I found on the internet, quick Google shows here for £100, am sure if you hunted it down like I did you could get it cheaper.
http://www.climbers-shop.com/10899217/products/robens_caucasus_300_sleeping_bag.aspx

Thought yesterday was brilliant, Pinot really put it down and was going all out to the line, was great to see Bardot really giving his all to make up the time on the descent to limit losses as well.
Was some great racing, Rogers was great and as soon as he was off the front he was not going to lose.
Looking forward to today, be interesting to see if Bardot can do anything to make back time and the other podium places are still pretty contentious with today and tomorrows mountains and a ITT to come it should be great racing.

I give up trying to paste an image
i’ll be there tho

wow, never even knew it was there, must have been past it 000’s of times in the last 3 years!
will go have a look on the way home this evening

I think thats a shame, I liked the understated matt greys and blacks with bright bolts/hubs etc thought they looked really good as well as being instantly identifiable as a Whyte, now they just look like every other euro/us bike.

beer for me, abuot 8.30?

feature on Pinkbike about Schwalbes system which was developed with Syntace

http://www.pinkbike.com/news/schwalbe-announces-details-about-dual-chamber-tire-system-2014.html

mark a 5mm line round the inner diameter of the steering tube, pop a screwdriver through the SFN and tap with a hammer until it’s level.
always works for me.

I sold mine to fd3chris, still slightly regret it, amazing bike.
I am 5:11 – 6ft and it was short in the top tube, i rode it with a 90mm stem.
i would suggest an xl, i think the effective top tube is 600mm so pretty upright on a large if your over 6ft.
unbelievably good bike tho.

and yes to this one too! as i would not like to favor either one of you 😀

and yes to this one too! as i would not like to favor either one of you 😀

I thought he was referring to the Oakham beer

ah well, never mind, still, can never be enough good beer recommendations for a sunny weekend eh! 😀

where did you get the homebrew kit from ? how did it turn out?

zilog6128 – Member
I like a strong IPA so may have to track that down. Very cool artwork too!

it’s from California and quite a hoppy beer, very pleasant especially in the sun.

it’s also pretty common in the UK now, well down South anyway.

had two of these in the sun this afternoon, am a little slow this afternoon 😀

yes plenty at the end of coxford road on the left

yes

so much fun to dip in and out of, seems that the gap between the front two has stayed fairly consistent for much of the race, or will Mike have pulled out once his spot tracker has new batteries?
nice blog as well McM’

Ok next slightly confusing question, at 5ft 11 will the regular sizes be ok or should I go for the longer version ?

Ok next slightly confusing question, at 5ft 11 will the regular sizes be ok or should I go for a long one ?

Hi thanks for all the replies, so between the synmat and the neoair by the looks of it.
I generally plan to bivi in the spring summer and autumn, can’t imagine too many winter trips.
So between the two I generally would prefer comfort over weight, won’t be doing more than a couple of nights at a time.

ow ow and ow, no direct comparison,but hope it heals well.
For a long injury layoff I can recommend getting the Shield box set as 7 seasons of great cop TV to watch.
Good luck with the recovery.

I’ll send him a text and tell him you have posted as he does not normally spend a lot of time on here.

over for some medicinal cider eh 😉

yes

Cheers McM good to get a bit of background as it helps the imagination when looking at the maps.
Mike Halls blog and website is good, as are a few of the other competitors, real insight into proper endurance racing.

this is fascinating to pop in and out of every day or so.
avg speeds and distances traveled are incredible.
Would also like a 70 mile descent! probably not followed by a 100 mile climb tho 😕

thats awesome and really good effort, only thing better would have been to do the forks in the same way.
still from scratch that’s pretty impressive.

yes should be there, will let you know if running late

It’s raining, must be Thursday.
see you there

Not raining at the moment

should be there
it is supposed to stop around 8.
happy to drive up just for beer if it is like this tho.

I have been riding the pikes for 5 months now, came from a set of Fox 34’s and X-Fusion Slants.
I think the Pike is a good fork and I am certainly very happy with it.
I don’t feel it is as plush in the first part of the stroke as the Fox was.
The Fox is very smooth over small repeated hits, not that the Pike is bad but I cannot get it to feel as good as the Fox.
Where the Pike is much better is in the latter part of the travel, it stands up so much better and you do not feel as if it is diving rapidly on the larger hits.
As said above the trail setting doesn’t do much and they do not feel flexy at all. tend to ride with them in the descend setting all the time, using the climb for road or fireroads.
Would definitely suit a bike where you spend a lot of time in the rough.

hi,
5ft11-6ft and demod a medium and a large,
settled on the large with a 50mm stem, seems about right.
tt length is 605mm on the large.
It is not the most stretched out bike and I would definitely not want anything smaller, kept knocking knees on the bars.

Pickled onion monster munch, never fails

or at Nics pace we should be by the gate by then 😀

no power hour this week, too much work, will be there for 7 for a pootle.