Wed night from the Lewis in Tongwynlais is still going, 7.30pm usually or a little after. It can go through erratic phases though, if you want to be sure pop into the Bike Shed and get a phone number from one of the regulars. *Loads* of trails in the area. Don’t worry about ability, group standards vary from week to week and that’s the nature of it – sometimes quite a hardcore ride – other times not at all.

yep that was another thought i had, can you get in though? it says priority to those who have booked on the website, does this mean waiting 5 minutes or 2 hours?

Yes. Which of the above (5 minutes or two hours) is anybody’s guess though.

I had lots of fun on reds and blues on an inbred, and it climbs nicely. Plus in this weather the mud on the black trails will destroy your new full susser.

So what rolls faster out of RQ/TK and MK? Am I right in thinking TK?

@ratherbe – because I’m after an allrounder and presume a specific mud tyre might be too much of a pain on roads, rock etc.

@Northwind – thought the Baron was more of a downhill tyre, this is for a 29er hardtail xc bike

From the grip patterns I’m thinking MK will have the best mud shedding ability but TK will roll better on roads. XK is lighter than either, will roll better than either and will grip worse than either. Any more thoughts?

I recently made one from two layers of old inner tube + cable ties. Don’t know if it will work yet. Yes, the chain will slice through the inner tube but I’m sort of hoping that by the time it’s cut through two layers of rubber the link will press sideways on the rubber too so pressure will be spread over a wider area. And the chain hopefully jams before it cuts steel.

I have in the past parked up in one of the small layby/pull-ins on the minor road that runs around the ‘back’ West side of Derwent water

Ah yes, that would be Catbells quarry. Back in 1999 me and a bunch of mates climbed a load of (fairly insignificant) routes up that and named them in sequence, it’s, not, f**king, rocket and science. Don’t think they were ever written up though the middle one was worth E3 probably.

@Mark90. I know it’s nice to help a fellow vanner but I would question the wisdom of popping info like that up on the internet. (Though I might send a private message to the person who asked). I know this one is a popular van spot already but maybe the extra publicity is what tips the scales and next thing you know, it’ll have a ‘no overnight parking’ sign up like 99% of other laybys in the Lakes. Anyway van spots can be found in the Lakes but finding them is all part of the adventure and I wouldn’t recommend publicizing too widely.

All (my) curries are the same at heart. Fry some spices in oil. Fry some stuff in the spices and oil. Simmer for as long as you can be bothered to, so long as the meat is actually cooked (longer is tastier). Either cover or don’t, and add a bit of water or don’t, depending on how wet you want it. Near the end, taste it. Add more spices or salt to get the balance right. This approach generalizes to most curries ever.

A simple chicken one might use chilli, ginger, cumin and garam masala as spices. The stuff you fry in oil might be (in order of adding) chicken, onions, peppers, tomatoes.

For two portions I would use maybe 2 teaspoons ground ginger, 1 of cumin seeds, 1 or 2 of garam masala, chilli to taste, as much chicken as you want to eat, one onion, one pepper, two to four tomatoes depending on size.

Oh look, it was just a big game of hardball after all

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-24671184

Generally pub carparks or wild. Use your OS map and guesswork to find a tiny road with enough room to park on that’s not going anywhere much. All part of the adventure. The more you get into the back of beyond the less people seem to mind (this does not include the Lakes). But don’t freak people into thinking the travellers have moved in. Some intuition plus common sense doesn’t go amiss.

Over on the continent, pretty much anywhere though I have never tried French aires (apparently some are dodgy) and once got busted in a Slovenian national park (avoid).

FWIW I found a HT fine on the reds and blues

Yup.

And another one is the maturity of the development ‘community’

Agreed. </hijack>

I agree with you about 50%. BPW’s advantage is it has a mix of natural and minidigger style trail. The natural ones (particularly Dai Hard) were pretty messy after the rain on Saturday. Very sandy sandstone mud as well – I vowed never to take my poor full susser there again in such conditions! You’ll have bucketloads of fun though so long as you’re happy destroying your seals and frame bearings :) The more constructed trails will be fine of course.

Oh and about your PhD. PhDs are very self directed and you have to guess the unknown to channel your efforts into something you personally think worthwhile while staying within the remit of a funding application which is probably bollocks and bears little relation to what you will eventually produce. If you knew what you were doing it wouldn’t be research would it! On the plus side until your 3 years are up you kind of have a blank cheque and a carte blanche to do this. And you are the customer so you get to work how and when you choose.

If you’re unsure about it with 3 years to go still, and you can’t address your problems by something simple (like more communication with your supervisor and maybe a program of learning on some specific topics), then you’re right it’s probably not for you – get out sooner rather than later.

chambord – depending on what you did between undergrad and PhD, and especially if you can blag an MPhil or MSc out of your abandoned PhD, then you’re not too late to get on a reasonably salaried graduate training programme with a big employer.

Has anyone here used stackoverflow careers, you’d think that might be a good place to look but I’ve never had the occasion to.

Definitely there are good and bad companies; ones that pressure their employees vs ones that train them. If you are lucky enough to have your pick of job offers then ask around as much as you can to dig up the dirt on them. In your situation I imagine being in a good company on a lower salary beats earning more in a bad one.

Agree with most stuff on this thread apart from the people who said coding is boring. If you agree with them don’t go into software :) And VB isn’t that bad, it has its place for some tasks (if you want horror try coding in visual lisp!). Language is irrelevant really it’s how you use it.

chambord: sounds like it would suit you well. Speaking as a PhD who has done both industry and now academic software development. You have (even if you quit the PhD) a very academic skillset not a technology oriented one. You need to find agents or directly find companies that value and will nurture your intellectual skills and capacity for learning new tech in the long term, rather than ones that seek candidates with a long stream of Java or AJAX buzzwords on their CV. You need the ones that will get you scribbling code on the whiteboard in the interview. These do exist but are in the minority. Quite a lot of them around Cambridge, though the mountain biking there isn’t up to much! It’s likely to mean a permanent role not contract work.

Good industry software development is IMO ahead of academia and I learned a lot from it. If you enjoy both learning and getting things done then it is a very deep and satisfying world to get into. Few academics work on projects with tens of thousands up to tens of millions of lines of code. PhDs on the other hand can be trying but do be sure before you quit, I nearly quit, but have since made academia work for me and glad of it.

I wasn’t being sarcastic when I said mega coincidence!

Got an official reply to the query about safety as well. Posted here for all to see.

Any extra stress the frame would recieve would be due to the slight increase in stack height (as if fitting a larger fork) and not reduction in head angle but this is only by a very small amount – imagine running 5mm less sag on your fork and this would be the equivalent to the extra height.

In over 5 years of retail, including making some pretty wacky 3.5 degree options for the Giant world DH team and Dirt Norco DH we have not had a single report of a head tube failure linked to one of our headsets and we have had our headsets in some bikes that have done over 3 seasons of full DH racing.

More worried about my bowels being voided than my warranty fwiw :lol:

Mega coincidence they just replied this moment from a month back :)

if it handles better you might end up riding faster and harder

That is the point I suppose :D

Good point, hadn’t thought of that. Presumably a slacker lever is likely to take some bigger hits though? As the vertical force on landing a drop will have a greater component in in the levering direction, so to speak, and a lesser component in the compress-the-fork direction? I suppose if this was really a problem people wouldn’t use 63 degree bikes for freeride mind!

I know of one off piste segment they previously used for the enduro, it’s not as hard as say GBU including the drops but is lots of fun and definitely harder than the blue run. More natural, muddy, rooty, and with some optional jumps.

And count yourself lucky if you see any wild boar :)

I’ve never done an event like this before btw and it sounds interesting but 45 quid is a lot! Does anyone know what you get for your money apart from a race time?

Imagine overnight the trail pixies came out and did a miraculous amount of work such that all your familiar local trails are rebuilt into something exciting you haven’t ridden yet.

That’s what getting a 29er is like :)

Fox will feel better out of the box. Reba will feel better after a winter of riding and gagging for a service.

Won’t take you up on that sorry cos they’re nearly that cheap new in Evans atm. Is there any reason for the sale, were you not getting on with it..?

Odd this table says it is http://www.conti-tyres.co.uk/conticycle/ti%20MountainKing2.shtml

Ah well my high roller and minion are folding, perhaps the wire one is tougher. Lovely tyres apart from the pinching – if I ever buy those again they’ll be exo or dual ply!

@traildog really? I have had the opposite experience, I pinch flat my single ply maxxis all the time but not the nobbly nic (haven’t ridden the latter much yet but when I did it was nan bield pass – quite rocky). Or when you say standard high rollers do you mean the original dual ply version?

I tried running tubeless on a maxxis high roller + stans flow, first ride, got a 2mm hole from a sharp rock that the sealant couldn’t fix. Since patched the hole but can’t get the tyre to seal tubeless with all the old gunk stuck to it. Stuff that! Was great while it lasted though.

Thinking of grabbing some conti MK2 Pro-tection now so wondering how sturdy that stuff is.

How does continental PROtection fit in with this picture?

Ooh, confused now. All I know is I have ridden some schwalbe nobbly nic’s with snakeskin and am very impressed with their pinch flat resistance compared to my single skin high roller/minion. So whatever I end up getting I want something comparable!

I’ve only once cut a tyre sidewall but I pinch flat them all the time.

camo16 – Member
“We’re not horses”
I am. :(

Why the long face?

Cool, nice one. Yes, that figures. In any case the surface contact area of the clamp is tiny compared to the post.

Ah, looking more closely you can’t get steel clamps can you.

Presumably clamps don’t get stuck like posts due to electrolytic things going on between steel and alu then?

edit: oh look, replies ^^^ cheers :)

If anyone else needs to know, canyon replied to me :-

“Beyond the top tube means beyond the “middle” of the top tube.”

</topic>

Re “as much as you can” that’s an odd view, I set the post to a comfortable height for pedaling and if it’s not inserted enough then the bike is too small for me. So the question of course is how much is enough?

Very funny. Of course the warranty wouldn’t apply to me as I’m not the original owner, so I don’t risk being disillusioned on that front :)

…or failing that has somebody else in this area got an Enduro large I could try for size?! cheers

Anyone know how to contact people from this forum? I can’t figure it out

I’d like to take rhysw up on his offer (rhys if you’re still around!)

Ah no worries mate – decided not to bid on one this weekend so the urgency is off :) Cheers tho’!