On-one Bignose is also worth a try. Though mine got a bit squeaky after about a year. I also rate the Spoon; frankly I can’t see why anyone would spend any more when you have budget saddles this good.

How did you mange to break it? I’ve had my 500 sitting on the bars through all sorts of trail riding including a fair few offs and it’s always been fine.

I’ve found BikeHike to be very useful and it’s free.

Sandwich ^^^ how did you work out the compression thing? I’ve got over a hundred rides still on my 500, typically of about 1.5 to 2 hours, with the detailed logging enabled and whenever I upload to Garmin Connect it only every uploads the new routes. I thought when it eventually fills up it just over writes the oldest route?

OP, there’s still some HONC tickets left, that haven’t been released yet due to the cock-up at the weekend. Even if you don’t get one of those you’ll find people selling them on here nearer the date.

We used a rear facing BeSafe until he was 4. It gives them a better chance of survival than forward facing in a crash.

Rearfacing.co.uk[/url]

I did a fair amount of research about this and it’s amazed me that rear facing until 4 hasn’t been made law in the UK like in the Scandinavian countries.

OP, you’ll also find that your existing seat is still fine for another 6 months or so. Check out the maximum weight as it’s this that determines how long you can use it for not the age of the child.

If you want shitty northern seaside town go to Jersey

I can’t see the similarity drbob65 – have you ever been to Jersey? If anything it’s more like the classier SW seaside resorts than those in the North.

Jersey is by far the better choice. As with any British destination, its success will depend on the weather. If you’re lucky and its sunny Jersey beats just about any other destination on the Med. Even so, there’s plenty to do in the rain. Don’t be thinking it’s cheap though, those days are over.
Here’s some outdoor suggestions:
Clamber around the rocks on the N coast (they call this coasteering now), particularly east from Greve de Lecq, try swimming through the tunnel to Little Greve (take local advice)
Walk out to Seymour Tower on a falling tide – the sea goes out for about a mile- maybe a bit like being on the moon!
Surf at St Ouen’s bay (waves and good weather in the Summer don’t often combine though)
Walk any stretch of the coastal path o the North coast for stunning views
Take a Kayak tour
Mess about in the fountains on the Waterfront near the Grand Hotel with the little un.
Sandcastles (rain or shine)
Take the DUWK (amphibious vehicle) to Elizabeth Castle AT HIGH TIDE
Trip to Sark is very easy and worth the time.
The cycling there is mostly road. Not much off road of interest.

I used Midwinters a few years ago and they were fine. I think next time I’d use an internet firm, there’s not much of an advantage in using a local company in this day and age if you can save yourself a few quid.

My Deore BB was goosed after one lap of CyB Beast.

mrmo have you got any gps tracks of these trails that are still ridable on Cleeve or maybe some directions? With all this rain I haven’t been up there for ages, favouring Lecky for local riding.

dobiejessmo, Cranham in this weather? Really?

Calla D’or in Mallorca. It’s the classier end of the island which is good for families. Loads of cheap flights. Cheap car hire. Take a look at Owners Direct to find 2 bed apartments. There are plenty available. We found a lovely apartment with private pool and large balcony. Friends stayed in a complex which was cheaper but also good.
All well within your budget.

After waiting a few days for an email response from CRC they have asked me to post them back and they’ll inspect them- what ever that means. I’ve risked it and gone for an exchange. Hopefully 2nd time lucky.

I did my first set of Fox Floats recently. I’m only mildly competent when it comes to this sort of stuff and it wasn’t too difficult. Took a lot longer than 10 mins (more like a couple of hours beginning to end!), but now I’ve done it once, I’m sure when I come around to doing the second set I’ll be much quicker. It is easy(ish), don’t be afraid to give it a try and save yourself a few quid.

I spent ages looking for gloves which would fit my 3yo and settled on these from Specialized. The price is stupid, but the fit is excellent, so they don’t interfere with gripping the bars and they avoid tears from the regular offs.
Not pink, but who said they had to be for girls?!

Cheers guys, I did think that the F100 was a lighter version and if the internals are the same, then I’ll assume the oil volume is the same.

One of the more recent firmware updates added an option to do 1-second recording, which is more accurate.

One of my riding buddies has just bought a 29er and I’ve gone from just been able to keep up with him, to him having to wait for me to catch up. 29ers are going to ruin some good friendships, it’s either time for me to get a 29er or find some new riding mates!

Hertford and Ware are definitely worth a look. Small towns with good comms links and services. There’s a good selection of local bridleways for some moderate XC.

mrmo, the whole area is in a bad way because of the rain, but me and my riding group have found we can get a better, faster flowing 15 mile post-work loop around Lecky (Sandy Lane, Salterly, South Hill, Coberley, 7 Springs, Daisy Bank) than we can on Cleeve. Back in the dry February/March we were riding Cleeve each week.

It’s definitely a good area to bring your bike and disappear from the in-laws for a couple of hours, though with all this rain, Cleeve is far from being at it’s best, you’d be better off heading into Cheltenham and going up Leckhampton Hill and around.
If it does dry up (or you wait for the winter freeze), some good descents are: West Down into the wooded bridleway, valley into Postlip hall and Queens wood (look at an OS map).

I regularly ride on Cleeve and I think that it is worth engaging with these people. A small compromise on our part could avoid a lot of tut-tuting and confrontation in the future, when all I want to do is have fun on my bike.
I’d be quite happy to stick to a marked path over the grassy common as it’s often hard to pick up the same sheep track on each ride anyway, but I’d still want to be able to go down the valley towards Postlip Hall and a few other bits to join up the bridleways like in Queens Wood (let’s not forget that these are far harder to restrict our access to)
All that said, if they were to get their way and it was overly draconian, I agree with mrmo that I’d ignore any restritions.
Thanks for taking this up Roger, you have my full support.

There were no ticket checks once you left the main entrance, so I don’t think there were any difference in the tickets. I feel a bit robbed too, but I still had a great day.

+1 for Moorhouse farm.
Just got back from there today and the site is great, very friendly owners and they’re trying to encourage mountain bikers. They let us come back after our ride to use the showers and wash down our bikes (we only stayed one night)
I had the toughest steak ever at the Plough, the food’s not that good, but no other options. Beer is good though and nice staff.
If you’re looking for a route, we did the MBR Killer Loop. There’s a fair bit of double track, one annoying bit on a hard earned descent into Great Wood, but the drops into the Coombes are good. Knackered now though.

I’ve used an iBert Safe-t-Seat[/url] on my hardtail. Having the weight up front over the bars makes it much more stable than a rear seat and you also get to talk to the child as you’re going along. It can be quickly removed too – in a few seconds if you don’t mind riding with a metal bar pointing at your bits (though that just needs a hex key to remove it). As the child’s legs go either side of the stem, you almost eliminate the “knees apart” riding style of the Weeride.
The downside is my average sized boy had grown out of it by 3 when other seats would still fit him, though he’s riding by himself now. It’s also a bit expensive.

motey have you got any idea about how they knew your had a £6K bike in the garage? Were you followed home with the bike on your car perhaps? They must either have been very lucky scum or were casing you out.

Bump.
Any closet indexers out there?

Cool! We’re going to get my son’s first ‘pedal bike’ this weekend and I’m just as excited as when I picked up my last bike! He started on a Rothan and we’re moving onto a CNOC.

arties- take a look at Islabikes too, they are highly recommended. My son was freewheeling by about 2 1/2 yo. It took him a few weeks to get to that point.

Not run of the mill, fancy would be nice but the fancier places seem to frown on noisy kids!

If it sells, please post how much you got for it, I’ve got a Trek 950 from a similar era which I’m thinking about selling.

Is there much regional variation in these square metre figures? I’d assume that London is in another league and the North is cheaper than the South, but is that true?

Id recommend the iBert Safe-t-seat. The kid’s legs stick out either side of the stem, which means more room for your knees, so you can cycle normally. Downsides are it’s only recommended up to 15Kg/110cm, which’ll be sometime between 3 and 4 years and it’s quite expensive new.
We’ve had great fun with this seat.

londonpride, I’ve taken it around Verderers and Cannock in the last month and it’s handled them both with ease whilst still being fun. No idea how heavy it is, I don’t get too excited about weight, but it’s definetly lighter than my Trek Ex8!
Your spec sounds good. For tyres I use MudX in the winter and SB8 in the summer.

I think the Scandal is great, but I’ve no idea about the Kinesis. I built mine up with an old Fox Float 100 and a mix of XT and SLX and it rides really well. The anodised black finish on mine seems OK and it doesn’t scratch or chip any worse than my other bikes. You can pick them up occassionally on ebay for about £100-150 usually with a headset fitted. I’m 6′ and the 18″ is perfect with a 80mm 6 degree stem.

The seatpost size on my Scandal 26″ is 27.2, not 31.6 as robbo says, maybe that’s for a 29″?
I built mine with a 2004 100mm Float RL, and it rides really well.

Does anyone know if one person can buy multiple tickets online when they go on sale on Tuesday?

I’ve used cheap, clear tape from Wilkinson’s. It’s stayed on well all year, seems to be pretty waterproof and resists cable rub.

I’ve used http://www.collectmyparcel.com to collect and deliver a frame. They use the big boys like DHL, but for a tiny fraction of the price.

The was still liquid inside, it just squirted out and wouldn’t solidify, maybe it was beacuse there was no latex in it. I tried putting a finger over it but no luck. I wonder if it was the temperature, it was about 6 degrees at the time.

mrmo, you sound like you know a thing or two. I’m concerned about loosing Cleeve access as I ride there regularly. You say that it’s been discussed with the board of conservators, do you know who’s representing cyclists?