I want a Niner.

The back end is so light it levitates off the ground FFS!

The "half-wits" are the cabin crews who can't understand the following.

BA need to cut their staff costs to remain competitive. They need to make redundancies or reduce wages to do this. This is basically simple mathematics.

Its symptomatic of how comfortable we are in this country that people expect to turn up at the end of the month with their hand out, receive what they determine to be a fair wage, and blame "the management" if things go wrong.

BA staff are facing the kind of cuts that have been going on in the private sector for months, its hard to feel sorry for them when there are 1700 people on Teeside who are really suffering.

Most of the money is UK VAT which is fair enough, however there is also £15 for "Deferment Procural Fee", essentially this is TNT charging you £15 to pay the duty and send you an invoice.

Its annoying but TNT will take the "standard fee" line with you. I paid it in the end because I was having a load of hassle in work and didn't need any more for the sake of £15. I reckon they have set it at £15 because they reckon most people will pay up, they are still making a healthy profit on it.

I think striking over Christmas is a serious own-goal. Obviously they want to cause the maximum possible disruption, but the message that their customers are going to get is that BA staff are quite happy to leave them spending the Festive Period in an airport or paying a fortune for last minute flights.

The pain is going to be shared by all concerned.

BA will lose loads of business and that lost business will be picked up by foreign airlines who do the same thing, cheaper.

Enter Sandman, Metallica
Guerilla Radio, RATM
Paint it Black, Rolling Stones
Insomnia, Faithless
The Seeker, The Who
She Sell Sanctuary, The Cult

These are very nice people, holidays in Morzine and Chamonix.

Cold Fusion Chalets[/url]

Slight threadjack, the 2010 Revelations get very good reviews but a lot of people seem to rate the Pikes ahead of them, why is this??

Competitive Cyclist Fit Calculator

This takes about ten minutes and gives you some figures that you can compare to your current set-up, ETT, saddle-to-BB, seat-bars, etc.

Wibble-fest.

I stopped stretching pre-exercise because I started noticing niggles developing that I don't get if I just take it easy for the first ten minutes.

I stretch after training when I'm warm, or gently in the evening. Pretty standard stuff with and emphasis on relaxation and breathing. I find if I force stretching it messes with my posture, concentrate on posture ahead of how far you can stretch.

If you do too much on a specific muscle group you'll get imbalances, try and keep it well-rounded.

If you are trying to find out how hard you are going to be hit, you need to go to a decent jewellers and ask a load of questions. You will find out quite quickly what all the variables are and how they impact on the price and then you can make your mind up from there.

Chamonix for a fortnight over Christmas, nothing else booked, yet.

He is just taking a chance that you will accept it, call his bluff and he will probably pay you in full.

Its a tough call, the Disco will be a much more comfortable daily drive but will be more difficult/complicated to repair. The Defender will go on forever, has more basic mechanicals and might hold its value better too. I had a Hilux for 4 or 5 years and whilst you get used to driving an "agricultural vehicle" its noticeably more relaxing driving a decent 4×4 jeep.

EDIT – I had a Freelander when they first came out. It had the Rover 1.8 petrol engine in it and it blew a head gasket. Be careful what engine you get in a Freelander, otherwise they are good cars.

I've always run Burton boots and bindings, I've not seen many major parts broken but I had a pair of P1s where the ratchet straps didn't like the cold. I quite like the cap design on the toes but it doesn't make a massive difference.

You might want to try and match your boot and binding choice, either with the same manufacturer or ones with tie-ups like Drake and Northwave. It can help cut down on pinching etc.

Sort of a flashback episode where the guy who recruited Ros turned up. He gave her his "memoirs" which were bugged and used them to access the database. He was seeking justice for his ex-lover who had been sent to her death at the hands of the Russians in a trade-off for some important information. When he found out they had figured it out and changed the records he shot himself in the head.

Meanwhile the American bird thinks she has covered her tracks since killing her boss but they triangulated her phone location at the time of the murder, so they know she was the one that topped him. She and Lucas are both playing each other and giving each other lots of hugs with troubled looks over the shoulder. You could cut the tension with a knife 😆

Did you miss this Wednesday?

Loosely translated.

4, check that the landing is free before you set off.

5, no snaking, i.e. don't slip the ropes and enter the park halfway down.

7, stay the fvck out of the landing, especially if you haven't even used the take-off and are out of sight of the run-in.

Thats that cleared up then, good lad.

The only supervised park you can find is a kids one in the arse end of the Pyrenese.

I've had enough of arguing with you, you tedious cvnt.

You just carry on talking yourself round in circles.

The words supervised and snow park on one page. The first one is in the Pyrenese FFS.

And I have been through Val park plenty of times and the only thing that those guys are supervising is who is skinning up next.

You are melting my brain you patronising cvnt.

In hitting an 8 metre table with a partially unsighted landing I hit a guy who had traversed under a rope and onto the downslope. I don't give a fiddlers how it compares to the piste rules. I just said that there was nothing I could have done about it.

I have never, ever, been in a supervised snowpark. Since you won't give a single example I will surmise that you are still talking shite.

I think you are becoming slightly paranoid here chief. For starters I seriously doubt if anybody gives a fiddlers what your name is…

What I have said here is that in my experience (of turning over millions of euros of business) with ESF their standard of customer service is worse than the independent schools in the Alps. I haven't listed a string of horror stories because the ESF are not all bad, plenty of good people make their living with them and I have made plenty of positive comments about them too. The independents have introduced competition and dramatically improved the standard of teaching across the board so they deserve credit where it is due.

All I said on the other thread was that sometimes collisions are unavoidable. Everybody tries their best to avoid them but sometimes they happen. You then started ranting about dangerous behaviour, prosecution, "suicide is legal" and all that shite.

You are the one who is stereotyping here. You have assumed that I spend my time ducking ropes and jumping small children. In fact I have learnt my skills like anyone else, done a couple of Avalanche courses, and toured on skis and snowshoes/board pretty extensively around the Chamonix valley. I stick to my limits and I've never endangered my life or anyone elses.

I am not even British, I'm Irish. I lived and worked in the Alps for a number of years and I have nothing but respect for the French. Like the Irish, they have certain unique "national characteristics", some positive and some negative, which make up their national identity, and are something to be celebrated. Most of my French friends are happy to have a laugh at the differences between the two cultures. Its when you start taking things too seriously and judging people on sight that "xenophobia" kicks in.

Life out there is pretty much like anywhere else. You can choose to get wound up and judge people, or you can give the benefit of the doubt and treat people as they treat you. The British tourist thinking that their money entitles them to a week of subservience is just as much of an asshole as the Frenchman who relies on tourism for his income but hates f*cking tourists!

You'll forgive me for objecting to unfair generalities about the ESF

I dealt with the ESF for 1500-3000 lessons per week, for several winters. In my experience they had a much higher level of complaints than any other schools. That is not a generalisation, its a statistical fact.

Ranger I didn't mean to wind you up, I was just pointing out that some taller gents think that a longer board keeps things in proportion. Going by weight alone is pretty vague, most boards have at least 20kg ranges on them. Height and weight are both considerations.

Edukator I worked for TUI (Crystal/Thomson) and they are a terrible, terrible company, kept profitable by having enormous bulk buying power. The way they treat their staff and suppliers has to be seen to be believed. How about taking €48 off somebody for 6 days boot hire and giving the shop €8 euro, or taking £800 off a chalet guest for Christmas week and spending €40 per head on food and wine for a week?! I have no love for British tour ops!!!

Dunno about that Ranger, I'm 6'3" but only about 80kgs and I'd be more like 162-165 or so. Plus, bigger lad, wider stance and you want a bit of tip and tail for stability.

Grumm you will only get that level of arrogance with the ESF. I used to process anywhere up to 3000 sets of lessons a week and they had by far the worst record for customer service and refunds.

I would say those kind of instructors are a dying breed though, some competition has made the ESF much more forward-thinking and there is a new generation of instructors who don't have the same sense of entitlement and are a lot more patient and focussed on having fun.

I used to book a lot of lessons, ski hire, and lift passes. I would advise anyone wanting to book in advance to go direct to the provider. Everybody from tour ops to transfer companies is offering pre-booking services these days, they make healthy kick-backs on it all. The providers have got wise to this and will offer decent discounts on direct business rather than paying a middle man.

Edukator if you wind me up on every snow-related thread its going to be a long winter, but anyway, reasons to dislike the ESF…

The ESF have recently been forced by EU competition laws to recognise other countries professional instructor qualifications. Prior to this they had a cosy brown-paper-envelope relationship with the local politicians, justified by the assertion that any other schools would be a safety hazard.

For years their qualification included a speed test, on skis. Obviously you have to be pretty tidy on skis to pass the speed test. This ruled out a lot of out-and-out snowboarders and means that ESF's instructor base is full of ex-skiers with and emphasis on euro-carving, hard boots and dodgy pony tails.

You will still see plenty of their instructors teaching people to turn their board by swinging from the upper body. This is fundamentally wrong and causes all kinds of problems with progression.

I know that the ESF is improving and there are a lot of very good instructors, especially on skis. For snowboarding you are better going with one of the newer schools as their instructors will be more likely to teach you sound technique from the start.

Good point Stripe, its probably best to take somebody with you to the shop if you are unsure of anything, my 6'5", 17 stone mate came back with a 157 one year.

Peachos I feel your pain, the Volkl Wall Pro I bought in NZ lasted about a fortnight. Too many rocks out there!

As suggested already, the type of riding dictates the board.

For UK indoor snow you want something shortish and easy to spin, reasonably soft for forgiving landings, blunt edges for rails. Basically a freestyle board.

For the Alps it depends what you want to do. If you ride loads of park in the UK and find you like to cruise about spinning/jumping off things or hitting a bigger park then a freestyle board will be grand, but you will want to sharpen your edges. If you start to go off-piste or get a taste for speed you will want a stiffer board, possibly with a directional shape and/or core.

Don't get too hung up on an expensive "do-everything" board, something mid-priced and multi-functional from a big manufacturer is a safe bet. I would also try and find the boot manufacturer that best fits your feet. Let the boot dictate which binding you go for, they are designed to work together and it reduces your chances of foot pain.

The final and most important bit of advice would be to try and save money to get some lessons or at least a sharpening-up session out there. You can work on technique much better on proper pistes. Its very easy to get to the stage where you can razz about and stay upright but you'll need good fundamentals once you try anything more technical. Avoid the ESF like the plague, some of the stuff they teach is about 20 years out of date – look for UK/N America/NZ/Oz qualified instructors if possible.

Why oh why oh why oh why bother riding through a stream in November?!

It sounds like they need a new importer.

If you have a lid, bring it with you to try goggles. You'd be surprised how incompatible some of them are. Any gaps will really frustrate you when its cold, windy or snowy.

I have been waiting until I have enough money for one!

What are you getting and get any sort of deal?

The children are our future.

Children should be seen and not heard.

For the love of God, think of the children.

They are a real pain in the ass at 3am when there is nobody on the road.

OK so I have never been blamed for hitting anybody in ten years and five seasons on snow, but I'll bear in mind that if I suddenly lose the plot and cleave an innocent child into two pieces I might get into trouble for it.

I can see why you prefer to keep your location secret. Being such a gaping asshole has obviously left you slightly paranoid. There is also no point in quoting French law as they will ignore/apply their laws as it suits them.

People hit each other on the hills of Europe every day. Most of those incidents don't lead to legal proceedings because most people are prepared to take some level of responsibilty for their own stupidity.

I have ridden parks all over the world and even in the States I have never come across somebody standing around with a clipboard and a whistle, commanding the troops.

Edukator I would suggest that there aren't many of them about and that you are, in fact, talking shite.