^ I only remember cos I held on to my collection until last month 🙂
Then literally binned the lot cos I didn’t think our local charity shops needed to be inundated with bin-bags full of unintelligible VHS tapes.

Now wondering what to do with a load of wobbly-noise vinyl…

Due to my lazy-stoner-couch-potato hazy past I’ve watched way more than my fair share of Kung-fu films 🙂

Some decent ones are mentioned above; this is the best I’ve seen:

Sadly the dubbing is proper Chop Sockey, but if you can lay your hands on the subtitled version Channel 4 broadcast many moons ago the narrative actually fits the action.

I use a cardboard bike box to give a padded bag rigidity & shape – took a bit of work to cut it to size & so it would be decently re-useable.

Have seen someone just use a couple of empty shoe boxes to acheive a similar result.

Back wheel first if you’re landing in a ditch*

*Huck to ditch not recommended.

^ That’s my kinda attitude! And partly the reason I can’t raise my left arm at the mo

^ I read that as having had enough of the experience & would like to move on.

But can’t.

For a while.

Worth it for the very last guy, I thought.

Rim wise, you’ll not kill a Mavic 729. But then again unless you run 2.5″ or larger tyres all the time it’s probably complete overkill. The EX721 is a few mm narrower, about as strong, and fine with “normal” tyres as well as DH ones.

Agree. I tend err on the side of overkill 🙂

IME DT rims are made of Swiss cheese. I was told they’re meant to ding really easily, rather than break, so you can still get to the bottom of the mountain. Bullshit detector went up to 11

New wheels should always be retrued after the first half a dozen rides or so as they need time to settle and any unevenness in spoke tension to sort itself out.

Don’t let Roger Musson hear you say that!

Outbound:
Easyjet insisted on surcharging me on the way out for excess for my bike even though I’d paid upfront in line with their T&Cs.

They then mislaid my rucksack with my clothes in it and got it delivered to me 3 days later.

Return:
Bike box damaged – badly. After much to-ing and fro-ing they wouldn’t pay out to replace it; it was bought half price as was ex-demo and they reduced the payout by 10% of purchase price per year (2) so I ended up with enough for a replacement bike bag – which I happen to prefer, that’s not the point 🙂

I used to like budget airlines as they do the job (usually) and never understood the moaners grumbling about shoddy service as I expected nothing more than arriving in one piece (with luggage).

Mostly used Ryanair since (mostly) and never had any issues (possibly dodged the bullets), aside from getting ragged off with flying in general, crowds of people and being in no fit state to ride on the day I land.

Sleeper trains are now my best friend, although they don’t always work out as planned

I’ve got a couple of dings in a rear one, but not managed to taco one yet – not through lack of trying

Don’t like to think how badly things would have to go to fold one of these on the front!

I have them on an 06 Enduro with Domains, coil shock & DH High Rollers, it weighs a friggin ton and is a plodder on the climbs, but I think it’s worth the effort for reliable descending.

Almost literally a shed-load.

I’ll give him a ring Monday.

^ That and he deleted the email I sent him
Don’t you hate **** who ruin trails for everyone else eh?

He’s been in touch today, has emailed FC and expects to get the all clear next week.

Righty-ho. Not heard back from Tally as yet; have just left him an answerphone message and will get stalking him on FB in a mo…

Looks like we’ll have the 16 seater as we’ve currently got 14(ish) bodies interested. Have had little interest from other forums, but the remaining places shouldn’t be hard to fill.

So far we have:

Me
SidKillerest
Vortexracing x 8?
thegman67
Ton
BoardinBob
MussEd
Northwind ?

Will post any further updates here.

How about waiting a bit and using the bike you’ve got to see if you really do get into it before spunking more money on a bike that’ll hardly see any use? The Stumpy is quite a fine bike even for the tech-fest that is Sutton Park.

FWIW I tend to look for what’s available ex-demo (can still have warranty), on offer or second hand instead of deciding on what bike I *need*.

That way the resale value is maintained quite well (although I just tend to add to the collection & don’t sell much on ) and the inevitable upgrades or component replacements are more affordable,

I’ve got a booking for here http://www.bunk-house.co.uk/ in May.

Can’t tell you what it’s like as I haven’t stayed there before but looks like it might suit your needs.

Sorry to hear about this MTG.

FYI CTC use Russell Jones and Walker for such things and, if you’re a member they will take the case regardless of admission of guilt (I’m told). I’m not a member but they handled my claim no bother, but as the guy who knocked me off admitted liability they were hardly going to lose.

RJW also trade as Claims Direct so avoiding

sue & screw law firms

may be impossible as they all seem to be the same

Edit:

at the moment you probably aren’t too bothered about it – that is possibly becasue you aren’t dead.

This was my experience, one of my friends pointed out that if I’d had a narrow miss I would have gone bat-shit at the driver but was just thankful not to be dead, so was pretty relaxed about being mown-down.
He was right.
I’d not hesitate to press charges against someone who knocked me off & scarpered.

Aside from a very few exceptions

Lifer – Member

Recruitment agencies can suck a fart out of my bumhole.

I very much share this sentiment.
IME an industry 99% staffed by shysters, liers & absolute muppets.

Cheers for the suggestion Diane; I’ve posted on
http://www.mtbscotland.net/forum-5/
&
http://www.trailscotland.co.uk/forums/

Not heard back from Tally as yet as to whether the Forestry Commission have given the go-ahead; I’ll give him a call in a couple of days if I’ve still not heard.

I wouldn’t have thought having it on his CV would hurt.

When I did it it was like a Saturday morning club where people with a bit of interest in computers got together and chatted – it was nice to be around like minded people as none of my mates give a shit about what happens in the whirring box.

As it happens I knew half the syllabus when I started it and still only half when I finished ;0 but I did learn a whole bunch of more interesting & useful things along the way. Only 3 people in a class of about 15 bothered to take the exams as they found what they really wanted to know was outside the syllabus.

Never used ^that expensive one, which I’m sure is very nice.

Have used a number of others and the best has so far been the chain splitter that comes on the Topeak Hexus – one I’ve had for about 8 years is still going strong.

Some people say advertising doesn’t work on them.

As I’m currently quite amused and considering emptying my wallet I guess I’m not one of them 🙂

skills coaching can only compensate so much for saddle time

Many years of riding won’t “compensate” for poor skills.
Keeping on making the same mistakes over and over and over won’t improve anything.

Having a good foundation of the basics to build on, however, followed up by of practice and applying the basics can result in huge improvements in a surprisingly short time.

Shame I didn’t realise this some years earlier, but better late than never 🙂

I think Garstang is the most horribly named place I’ve heard of in Britain.
Always makes me think of a concentration camp for some reason.

With that in my head, should I ever visit there, I’m sure my expectations will be exceeded quite easily

Gomez descent runied by “sanitisation”

The Climachx is mercifully close

Eschew for Nant yr Arian

Nearby Snowdon has best descent

Don’t misunderestimate my intentions here;
No malice intended, per se.
There are just better options;
In my mostly unhumble opinion.

I love riding anywhere, really!

headfirst – Member

Life of Brian = best film of all time

Man with taste right there!

Most of the rest reads like my all time list of films to avoid whilst sober. Whilst drunk, however, the weakest of “comedy” offerings seems hilarious.

Sadly I watched Anchorman sober 😕

I thought it was great. Hadn’t heard of it before watching.

I’ve been told so many films are HILARIOUS and then wondered where the jokes were and how I could get that hour and a half of my life back.

I’ve got 3 sets of Elixirs & 1 of Juicys, an arbitary choice to go with either SRAM or Shimano on all bikes.

They’re ok but I do have issues with them from time to time & it turns out I prefer Shimano brakes for bleeding as dot oil is a PITA.

Oh well…

Previous XT brakes I had are going strong on a friend’s bike after 7 years use. I’d go SLX 🙂

They work well, quickly, low volume, and convect well.

Isn’t it where they’re positioned that gets the convection current going? E.g. under a window works better than on an internal wall.

Nice one Dave

Northwind – Member

How weird is it that the 16 seater is more than twice as expensive than the 8 seater, btw?

Only slightly 😉

You would imagine it’d be slightly cheaper, no?

I think the idea is that it’s £32pp, but to make it round numbers he’s knocked a bit off for the 8 seater (which he owns?) against the 16 seater, which he has to hire.

Or something.

EUREKA!!

One of my friends (who, admittedly, is pretty good at wendyball) likes to claim he could have been a professional footballer, instead of spending his days driving a van whilst listening to Steve Wright in the afternoon and perving at schoolgirls.

I tell him I could have been a professional footballer, which he finds amusing as I have the co-ordination and ball control of a drunk toddler.

He’s right, of course, I couldn’t have been a professional footballer. But if I could have, I would have – wouldn’t he?

Ok, the story so far..

Just spoken to Tally (nice bloke). The 8 seater cost is £250 for the day (£31.25 x 8 ) & the 16 seater is £512 (£32 x 16). If, say we have the 16 seater and only have 15 bodies in it we would have to split the cost of the empty seat between us.

Sounds like we’ve got the 8 seater covered no problem and probably will be able to do the 16 seater with not much more effort; Tally says he can advertise it on his Facebook page, which has had people fill spaces in the past.

He also needs to get the go-ahead from the forestry commission, so I’ll be emailing him in a mo to confirm the date – am going to go for Wed the 16th. Once he’s got the go-ahead he only needs a couple of week’s notice re which vehicle he’ll be needing. I’d like to get it confirmed well ahead of then as I’m proper anal when it comes to organising things and want to know it’s all sorted so I can look forward to enjoying myself

No idea how the payments side of thing will work, will ask Tally if it’ll just be through his website once the date is arranged, as clearly you wouldn’t want to be sending it to me & I could do without the hassle of collecting payments.

Think that’s about it for now, will update when I know any more; if anyone else wants to come & play, post interest on here.

Edit: If anyone knows any other forums we could get people to join us from, do let me know. Have done same OP on Southern DH & MTB Britain, but no interest as yet.

Souperbowl

super post, headfirst

^ It’s amazing what you can achieve with a good grip and a bit of elbow grease.

^^ Turned them inside out and noone was the wiser

Have used my socks in the past, think they were biodegradable but wasn’t even slightly tempted to take them home with me