Their problem is that their only real strength is the driving experience and “bang for your buck”. They have to be considerably cheaper than cars with equivalent performance from larger manufacturers, because they can’t level the playing field on specification. If you take their cars against the equivalents from Porsche, usually you’re heading towards the top of the range Porsche until you reach the performance figures of the Lotus. Unfortunately for Lotus nearly everyone will drive the base-spec Porsche and decide it offers nearly all of the performance in a much better package.

There are lots and lots of problems there and I can’t see it ever being properly sorted unless it all implodes, someone buys up the name, etc. And starts from scratch.

That seems to it, they’re a niche car maker who has really overstretched themselves.

As good as your current products, or your products from 20 years ago?

There are a lot of rumours going around about this, the SELOC forum seem to get regular factory visits and the last one I read said that they had improved their QC to the point where they were rejecting full batches of parts, and then falling out with suppliers.

Obviously they are in trouble financially but I can’t see how their ideas are 10 years out of date considering the performance of their cars relative to the competition.

Thanks Stoner, I will get those books ordered.

In equipment terms, I started off looking at small tractors/front loaders, having spent too much time this winter digging out my business premises. I have a mate who had a disaster with hire equipment recently, and I have paid landscapers to do work that I would happily do myself. We had that work done with a 3.5 ton digger and they seem to turn big jobs into small ones very nicely, and they’re obviously better for building trails.

Hopefully we’ve seen the last of the snow now so I have plenty of time to weigh up options.

Thanks Shibboleth, I would like something fast-growing. Variety is definitely a good thing, its featureless fields at the moment and it would be a shame to just plant it out in rows of the same species.

The soil is a decent loam, current use is grazing/silage. The relevant grants are likely to be the Woodland Grant Scheme and Farm Woodland Premium Scheme. We’re in County Down so I will look for a local forester.

I have done some research with Woodland Trust, Dept of Agriculture etc. There are grants available for creating and maintaining woodland on agricultural land. I have looked at coppicing willow but it can be quite intensive in terms of equipment required and the grant structures are more complex.

I am leaning towards broadleaf but I have had recommendations for and against birch, oak, etc, which gets confusing. I’m also a bit unsure of which way to go with equipment.

No reviews as yet, the geometry is all on the Nukeproof site. They’re quite long in the chainstay for a 160mm bike.

Mid-late May is the latest date from Hotlines.

I have always used Burton boots & bindings, aside from the odd toe strap snapping after a lot of use I’ve had no problems. Ratchet bindings and boots are pretty well evolved at this stage, I think its still worth considering matching boots to bindings to avoid pressure points.

I think you need to look at length, stiffness and camber/rocker together as they will all affect the way the board rides. I wanted a fairly stiff, twin shape board in a 161 wide or bigger. Once you make a few decisions like that the list of options gets a lot shorter.

I bought a Slayblade at the end of last season. I’ve had a mix of stiffer freeride boards and softer freestyle boards in the past. The Slayblade is a very good balance, stiff enough to hold an edge, with a twin shape and flat profile to keep it versatile. It depends what way you want to go, if you want to learn more park then get something more forgiving. If you want to ride switch all over the mountain go for added stiffness.

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There has been a Constructors title for more than 50 years.

The new rules necessitate a more tactical approach which is clearly difficult for some people to understand.

Webber could have put Vettel into the gravel, but he didn’t. Horner got his 1-2. Next time Webber might decide to put Vettel into the gravel and leave Horner with no points at all. Unless Vettel thinks he needs to take every possible point off Webber its a really stupid move at this time of the season.

I haven’t taken the time to watch the race or understand any of the rule changes over the last couple of seasons, but I’m 100% convinced that Vettel is in the right.

I was visiting my wee sister in Largs last year and somebody went past us on the seafront on a DH bike – I was wondering where the trails were!!

I would imagine in that case Superstar will attempt to wash their hands of it all and blame KS.

Hopefully KS will find a professional distributor. I was keen on the Lev but the idea of Superstar dealing with the warranty put me off.

Is it also illegal to show a group of your mates round, or is it only a problem if there’s some element of being paid for a service?

The issue is that the tour operators offer up staff with local knowledge for a guided tour of the pistes. They can do this on the cheap because the staff are happy to be able to ski all day for next to no pay.

The ESF see this as a significant amount of lost revenue for themselves. In practice a very small proportion of the casual skiers who take these tours are going to be prepared to pay ESF rates for something that used to be free.

Edukator will be along in a minute to tell everyone how wonderful the ESF are.

It depends what results you want, and how much effort you are willing to put in.

Something like Starting Strength or Wendler’s 5/3/1 will give you the best results for outright strength. Strength can be a bigger limiter than you might think, even in endurance sports.

If you find routines or programmes boring, then they might put you off training. If you are just training for the enjoyment and stress relief you may as well find kit and exercises you enjoy and just go for it.

Get some really wide skis.

I had one the V1 Spitfires. There were problems with it and Freeborn were very good about sorting it. It was a really good wee bike, low and stable but still a lot of fun. I’d be interested to try the V2 with bearings and a little bit more travel. Its interesting that they’ve made it 650b compatible, you couldn’t have blamed them for playing it safe after the V1.

I really like Sombrio but the quality is pretty poor.

The darker blue ones are a far denser foam and last longer.

I used to do a fair bit of touring on MSR snowshoes and on skis with touring bindings. If you’re fit and have decent snowshoes I don’t find snowshoes much tougher than skinning – they’re only really a pain on undulating or very flat routes.

Set the board up duck and let him find out.

Its a dog eat dog world when you’re trading bikes.

I’m just over 6’2″ and mine is a Large with a 50mm stem. Its a great bike for the kind of riding you’re describing, with the right fork it will build into a very stiff light frameset that will take a lot of abuse and still pedal well.

And Humans are the only creatures who consume the milk of another species

Maybe other animals just haven’t figured out how to milk each other yet…

Is that one of those legally-binding Youtube videos? These chumps are embarrassing themselves. They got the guy to sign something to say they would form an agreement, then they failed to come to an agreement.

You could try looking at http://www.mobilitywod.com. There are a lot of basic mobility exercises on there, you can take things at your own pace and a lot of the exercises have a “test, re-test” element to encourage you to understand exactly what you are freeing up.

Please somebody help this trader find another frame.

Your bike sounds very nice, losing 4lbs off it might give you more hassle than its worth unless your tyres weigh a ton.

You will probably get more out of working on your fitness and doing some big days in the hills where you concentrate on speed over the ground, kit and nutrition. At the end of the day you are trying to make yourself faster, that means trying what work for other people and seeing what works for you.

The Pine Marten is nice.

There you go folks, Cesar Rojo and Mondraker Bikes are officially stupid. Sad to think they could have avoided this disaster if they’d asked for advice on here.

Or maybe it just rides well with a tall front end. The one Barel is riding in this video is still pretty high.

Is that some kind of mudguard arrangement to stop the back end clogging?

They seem high in the front end as well as long?