A small lip on the edge of the discs is nothing to worry about. Easily removed with an angle grinder if you want, but I wouldn’t bother.

as above, I’d change the pads now whilst it’s on the stands

It makes sense to put a new chain on when you fit a new cassette imho

Euro/Alpin – different people learn in different ways, some people can self-teach, some need to see a technique being demonstrated in order to learn, others need hand holding through how to. If you are a natural sports person and can visualise how to do a skill and then do it after a bit of practice then that’s great, but many (most?) people aren’t like that.

Like most things in life, there is an easy way to learn and a difficult one… Common sense usually promotes the easy path, which is getting someone to show you how to do something. Whether that is via a skills course or via a mate who knows already what they’re doing, showing you how during a ride.

Irrespective of sport most athletes use coaching throughout their careers. it’s the most effective way for them to improve. It may not be on the basic skills, but the principles are the same, just at a different level.

To suggest a skills course or coaching is not worthwhile for a rider who wants to improve their riding is utter bollox.

1-1 session with Jedi
T-Rex and NW chainring
Pair of five tens

Iain1775, thanks for the feedback ref the OneUp 16t shifting, much appreciated. In that case Lawmanmx, I’ll take the 16t cog, thanks, can you please mail me your details and I’ll send payment.

Thanks Lawmanx, I’ll pass on the OneUp as I want to try and get a M771 specific 16t so the indexing is optimal

Sorry, but can’t help but chip in here guys….

A bike isn’t faster than a car, all things being equal.

If we take an example, Cadwell Park circuit has a good selection of corner types and is regarded as being one of the best circuits in the world to drive by many riders/drivers. Parts of it are like typical UK B-class road (Mountain section etc) the rest is like a very fast country A-class road.

A Radical SR8 Sports car will get round in circa 1min 22 secs (lap record)

Shayne Byrne riding his ZX-10 British Superbike race bike lapped and set a new record for bikes at 1min 26 secs

Not willie waving, but FWIW I drive a race/sports car and it has beaten fairly powerful race bikes in motorsports competition (Racing on public roads isn’t clever). It’s circa 450bhp/Tonne, but is only 500kg total weight, has corner weighted race suspension, limited slip diff, AP racing brakes, Pagid pads, soft compound Avon race tyres, etc, etc. The key point isn’t just how fast it will accelerate, it’s how fast it can brake and how well it can corner. Usually a competition sports car will easily outbrake and out-corner a bike….and on a track, or a real road, that’s what matters more than raw power.

Quick update (Spectral AL6.0 delivered in May 2014)

– I replaced the Fox 32 140mm forks with Rockshox Pike 150mm, has made a massive difference for the better to the front end.
– I added a medium sized volume reducer spacer in the Fox rear shock, which has improved rear end travel.
– turned the stem upside down to lower the bars a bit
– went tubeless
– I’m replacing the pivot bearings this week, as the main pivot (down near bottom bracket) has started to develop some play. I’ve done 720 miles on the bike, mainly in wet and very gritty conditions, so aren’t too upset about having to do this.

@ Julians – yes, the original/older MET Parachute chin-guard could be removed, by undoing 4 x external bolts (with a coin?) the new model is sold as having a non-removable chin-guard, although as per posts above a user could still remove the chin-guard.

Met’s website says

Our integrated fixed chin guard

and all their PR highlights that the chin-guard is fixed and non-removable.

I wonder why MET made this change? Perhaps something to do with approvals ratings?

You wrote

Does it work well as an open face? Comfy? Secure? Cool?

I haven’t tried it, but the helmet with the chin-guard removed looks very much like the Bluegrass Goldeneye, so it should be good.

Thanks for explanation Northwind.

It’ll be a while before I’m at UKGE events with my current skills level, but it’s obviously a valid point for others to consider.

@ peteimpreza – Good point, thanks. The chin-guard is indeed removable by removing some plastic bungs and then undoing four bolts with an allen key.

I’m guessing this is for damage repair, as well as initial helmet assembly. I wouldn’t class it as ‘removable’ from a user point of view, whilst out for a ride etc.

Maybe MET intend people to do this at home and alternate between open and closed face? However, I’d of presumed they would have implemented a easier fastner system if that was the case.

fwiw the Met parachute with the guard removed is a different helmet design to the Bluegrass Goldeneye.

@ wobem, I saw online that

Justin Leov (Trek Factory Racing) already used the new MET Parachute HES helmet at the Enduro World Series Races in Scotland and France

what makes you believe it isn’t already ok to use this helmet in UK/EWS? (is there an approved helmets list?)

Ahh, ok.

You could leave the rear adjuster set and gently force your head in I guess, but I’ve preferred so far to slacken it off and re-adjust it each time (easy and quick even with gloves on)

@Northwind – I’m sure i’ll try my best mate… hopefully part 2 of the review won’t be from bed 8 in the local A&E… 8)

The chinstrap retainer is a D-ring system, like a motorcycle helmet. You feed the strap through the two D-rings and then back under one of them, pulling it to the correct length as you do so. It’s a different approach to using a snap-latch system usually found on MTB helmets, where you adjust it to length once and just snap close the latching connector each time.

I can’t fasten it with gloves on and do find it more of a pain in the a$$ than a normal helmet.

(I don’t know whether the approvals ratings it has, mandated a D-ring system?)

I’ve discovered the delights of using ‘Halo’ washing liquid on my cycling gear and it really does stop the festering.

If you can remove the padding and wash in water/Halo it may help?

Oh, I can email you over the ‘extended cut’ version if you like :-)

I still find Cragg quarry a real gem to ride round, although I agree a bit better signage and TLC would be welcome.

Last time at Lee Quarry I made the mistake of following the MTB pathway down to the car park and finding myself riding back down through the travellers caravan area….Thinking I might get shouted at, my fear of human interaction was quickly forgotten when two dogs roaming about on the loose decided I was fair game…luckily I was already warmed up from the morning’s ride and managed to set a new strava segment time across ‘pikey’s hollow’ :D

I also think you need to look at your life and find the things that make you unhappy and do something about it

+1

Life is too short to just exist and be unhappy. If your marriage is a mess, either sort it out…or get divorced. If your job does your head in day after day, sort it out…. or get a new job. If you have a friend who continually lets you down, talk to them about it and try and change things… or move on and find new friends.

Sounds drastic perhaps, but often the things we endure and complain about are within our control to change, if we want to. Short term pain versus long term gain.

Perhaps being content is a better goal than being Happy all the time.

To a large part, It’s all about perspective and realising that getting wound up about trivial things is a waste of your time and energy. It also helps to be able to let go of things and appreciate that you can’t influence or change everything you would like to in life and realise that it really is ok to accept that.

Have a watch of this video, IMHO it makes some very valid and helpful points.

We’re hoping the sport riders will stay on sunday to heckle, or ride one of the many routes from the centre.

that’s exactly what I had in mind already. Do the Sport event on the Saturday, bask in the afterglow and copious pints on Sat PM whilst camping and then enjoy some spectating and heckling on Sunday, with phrases like ‘I nearly did it as fast as that’ ;-)

I like the idea of the Sport event Joe, as it gives us lesser mortals a chance to have a go and have some real fun – and I’m guessing that it will also have the side benefit that you’ll be able to take more entries over the two days and enable more people to attend ‘Ard Rock 2015

Just realised the brakes adaptor was upside down….duh! :-) all now sorted….

They are both post mount.

The adaptor that was on the Fox 32’s has 40mm PM written on it.

However, the mounting lugs on the fox 32 fork are far longer that the mounting lugs on the Pike fork, so if i try to use the old adaptor off the Fox fork on the pike fork, it is far too short and will not reach the caliper.

Can’t comment on the bikes themselves, but the eBay accounts they are being sold under may be hacked.

I had a similar situation last month, where someone hacked my account and ‘sold’ a 2 grand metal cutting machine.

JimJam…tut,tut :-)

Liked (Loved) the car, there is some serious money invested in that. Don’t know how much of the car is actually a mustang though. I’m guessing it’s a space frame chassis with WRC-style drivetrain and a mustang body shell.

After seeing the other Block videos previously and really enjoying them, they do get a bit ‘samey’ after a while. It must be hard coming up with new ideas to impress the masses, especially when he has set the bar so high previously. Fwiw he seems to have invented the genre.

In saying that you’ve got to admit he is good at what he does in terms of the Gymkhana stuff (to do well in WRC is a big ask) …and as per posts above, he does seem to have a pretty good lifestyle and enjoy himself, in part funded by the business success he had with DC shoes. Big Kudos to him.

For those interested in cars, here’s one of my (woefully club-level) attempts.

It wasn’t a wheelie, he was manualing…

Can’t beat kitchen Lino (the decent quality thick padded type) for light-use workshop flooring.

Go to your local carpet shop and the will usually have a decent sized offcut you can use

yes

Madison and MT500’s both are good choices imho, although I’m unsure of which is the most robust under heavy use.

I’ve just exited from a exec level job with a plc, in part due to the BS and lack of teamwork. Life is too short.

If you can make a leap over to something totally different, that you then love doing, that is great.

Not really what you asked in your OP, but it may be that you can find best happiness by using the talents and knowledge you already have in your existing sector and just finding a better company to work for. It may be worth looking at other (possibly smaller) companies in your existing sector and trying to find one with a great culture that gives you the colleagues, role and flexibility that would make you happy. Maybe a self-employed consultancy in your sector would work? If that doesn’t exist then time to find something very different.

Good luck – kudos for taking control making your choice. The future usually brings better things for those who seek them.

fwiw I gave up trying to get a Conti Mountain King to seat tubeless onto a Mavic Crossride rim, even when using a compressor. No problems with a few other tyre types on the same rim.

Respect.

Going down in a few weeks to see them and have ordered a poppy online.

I intend to put the poppy on my great-grandfather’s grave in 2 years time, on the 100th anniversary of his death.

If you are interested in WW1 and have a spare few minutes, you might find this interesting

Over the past few years I’ve done some research on my Great Grandfather, David Carlyle Taylor who died fighting in France in WW1. Following the research I then visited his grave in France along with my mum and went to the actual location where he finally died. His story is probably not dissimilar to hundreds of thousands of others, but some of the story is interesting (unique?) in terms of what I managed to find out and see.

My Grandfather had asked me before he died to visit his Dad’s grave in France, so years later with that goal in mind, I visited the Public RecordsOffice in Kew and from looking at some of his service records and his units war diary, I managed to piece the following together. David was born in Carlisle, Cumbria in 1883 and after a spell working in one of the local cotton mills and living at 24 Bridge Terrace in Denton Holme, Carlisle, he joined the army as a soldier in 1901, well before the Great War. It appears he may have served in Ireland during the early 1900’s and met his wife Nancy there, but there is no way of knowing for sure. He joined The Royal Field Artillery (service number 14213) and at the outbreak of war was 32 years of age. Unfortunately, many service records from WW1 were destroyed during the blitz of London in WW2, so it’s not possible to trace David’s complete service record in WW1. However we have a clipping from the Cumberland News, where his brother gives a report on David’s travels and exploits and notes some of the battles he had taken part in, in France. He comments that David had taken part in fighting near Arras in France where ‘His unit’s artillery guns had been fired continuously for 4 days solid without a break’. What we do know for sure from his records, is that by the late summer of 1916, after serving for a full three years in France, David was serving with The Royal Field Artllery as a Bombadier. He was in the 35th brigade, 25th Battery of the RFA. 25th Battery was an artillery unit consisting of 3 or 4 horse drawn gun carriages, a train of ammunition limbers, tradesmen, blacksmith, gunners and officers necessary to operate the battery and keep horses, men and guns in working order. The battery worked alongside several other batteries, thus forming a brigade unit. The main purpose of the RFA units was to serve as a cover for infantry in battle. In essence they would lay down sustained artillery fire on a target, village or trench system, so that infantry could then advance on the position, minutes after the barrage had stopped.

By September 1916 the war had been a slow stalemate of battle for both sides for several years. It was decided that a major offensive would be carried out by the British Army on September 15th 1916, along a long stretch of the British lines near Albert in France. As well as being a huge advance, this was to be the first day in history that armoured tanks were ever to be used in battle. David’s battery was ordered to advance and wait to the south of a small villlage called Longueval. This area had a horrific reputation as next to the village is Deville woods, where in July that summer, seven thousand South African commonwealth troops entered the woods and were ordered to hold ‘at all costs’. After only one week’s fighting The commanding officer marched out of the wood to the pipes of the Black Watch leading two officers (both of whom were wounded) and just 140 other ranks remaining, they being the entire remnant of the South African Brigade, with over six thousand troops lost. My Mum and I visited the South African monument at Deville wood where ther is a huge bronze frieze depecting the march out of the woods and where you can walk around Deville woods which have been preserved as a living memorial to those who died. A very moving experience. I can only imagine that by September, the area was a wasteland of bodies, shell craters and tree stumps and must have been Hell on Earth.

On the evening of 14th Sept the battery was in position and resting to the south of Longueval. Near the men on the road to Flers, armoured tanks had been lined up by the roadside and were due to be deployed for the very first time in history. On the next day, David’s battery were due to advance to a position just to the north of Deville wood and the village of Longueval and start an artillery barrage which would then provide some cover for the thousands of infantry who would advance accross the open ground in an effort to take the village of Flers a few miles to the north and the surrounding trench systems.

The Battery’s war diary for15th Sept reads; 25th Battery began to advance about 08.00 but were held up South of Longueval by order of The Officer Commanding 35th Brigade, who had gone forward to reconoitre the positions, seeing very heavy barrage on the selected position (T7a31) (Note – This is the map reference of the position where the guns were due to move to and start their artillery barrage) At 11.00 25th Battery (David’s unit) received orders to contimue the advance, the Battery eventually arriving in action about 12 noon. The Ground they traversed was a mess of intersecting shell craters and the guns were only dragged into position with the greatest difficulty and under still considerable fire. During this action the Battery suffered numerous casualties of men and horses and Lt. Benningfield was wounded. The 12th and 58th batteries (The other batteries in David’s brigade) followed and came into action on each side of 25th at about 3/4 hour interval. The 31st battery (A heavy howitzer battery in David’s brigade) came into action soon afterwards under a bank about S12 b65 (map reference) All Batteries suffered casualties both from shelling in the Longueval-Flers road and also in the valley itself. Battery commenders were soon able to engage several excellent targets including batteries and infantry in the open. Fire was observed from switch trench T1d12.

David was wounded that day and died the next day of ‘wounds’. He is buried in Grove Town cemetry, Meaulte, France. I managed to get a copy of a WW1 trench map from Sept 1916 and by using the grid references and a modern map, pinpoint the exact positions described. Visiting the field in France with my mum, the area described in the war diary is very small. The road from Longueval to Flers is only a mile long and the bank described in the war diary is still there to this day. It is possible to see where the three gun batteries were positioned at ‘on the selected position (T7a31)’ and also where the heavy howitzer battery was positioned by the earth bank. The field is now a farmers field full of wheat and other crops. We visited on a lovely summers day. With the sun beating down I re-traced on foot the route the battery would have taken, out of the village on the Flers road, alongside Deville wood and then over the field to a shallow valley where David’s battery was tasked to deploy. The walk is only 400 yards or so, yet it took over an hour that day. Kicking the sandy soil, I saw the surface was littered with debris including dozens of small lead shrapnel balls scattered around, perhaps some of them left over from that day’s fighting. Later, talking with my mum we tried to imagine what it must have been like that day. With horses dead and dying and the ground in the rough state it was, the guns would have been disassembled then dragged by hand and using rope, block and tackle to cover the distance and then re-assembled for firing, all whilst under heavy fire from both troops and enemy artillery. Did he suffer his fate on the way accross the field or did he live until later in the day?

The next day I bought a book in a local bookstore in Albert and by a wierd co-incidence it had the following text which partially answered our question. — A Sergeant Carmichael (from an infantry unit fighting that day) lay wounded by a rifle shot to his leg on the morning of Sept 15th 1916. He had sought shelter under the same earthen bank described in David’s unit’s war diary at S12 b65 (map reference) (called Rideau des Filoires by the locals) next to the Flers road and witnessed that morning’s events unfold before him. This is an extract from his personal diary that day. —- And now the stage was set for as thrilling a sight as I ever witnessed in the war. On the crest of the ridge appeared a team of cantering horses, dragging the first gun, followed at regular intervals by the others. the enemy was now fully alive as to what was going on and redoubled it’s shelling. Still the leading gun drew rapidly nearer, seeming to be miraculously immune. But it was on the crossing of the trench that the Boche had concentrated his barrage of grey-bursting H.E. mixed with shrapnel. When they came to where the roadmending had finished the horses were put to a gallop and the gun and limber bumped and tossed over the shell holes. Once or twice it appeared as if the force of the explosion had blown the whole lot over, but by some miracle the gun wheeled round beside us in the shelter of the bank – that is shelter from H.E. not from shrapnel. The other guns were not so fortunate. One had it’s limber hit, but somehow the gun was brought on. The four pieces were pushed round, the limbers unloaded of their shells and the horses spurred on for a hell for leather gallop back through the barrage up the road to Longueval. As one of the teams was just starting off, a shrapnel burst a few feet overhead. The front four horses fell and the remaining driver reeled in his sadle and came tumbling to the ground. To our suprise he scrambled to his feet, unhitched his two horses, remounted and went tearing off towards safety. Then the ammunition limbers began to arrive with their loads of shells. they suffered more than the guns had done. One team was knocked completely out of action at that fateful corner and the wreckage had to be rounded by those following. But wonderfully the guns were supplied with their stacks of shells and the empty limbers were off again, bouncing about like made things, with artillery men clinging like limpets to their precarious perches….Later on in the war I have seen field artillery going into action in the open and iin much greater numbers,…but never have I been so thrilled as I was on that memorable day in front of Deville wood. —

Had one, too hot for my liking.

Swapped over to a Bluegrass goldeneye helmet, far better imho

48 and use Lynx, it makes me feel like the hunk I am….

FFS what’s wrong with Lynx products? Sounds like a few of you need to man up a bit and stop caring so much about how you smell to the laydees.. Jeez.

Ref OP, she’s stayed over and dabbled so there can’t be much wrong with you or your Lynx products… So, she’s just trying to assert her independence, chill and enjoy your relationship (hard sex) with her.

Any chance of some photos btw? (Videos even better)

I showed it to her in my room and she replied “it’s ok I have my own toothbrush”

she doesn’t want to be lookin at toothbrushes in your room, fool

Monkey child

It appears to be missing: the RAF Regt generic banter book,

were you a rock ape by chance?

Le Mans and it’s primitive toilet facilities….This one had me in stitches

http://www.lemans2006.co.uk/socks.htm

I used to have a mate called ‘tintin’ who worked at Rowntrees inYork, operating the drum polishing machine that polished smarties (when initially sugar coated they apparently had a matte finish).

A legend in York canoe club, his claim to fame was coming fast over a drop on a flooded river in the Pyrenees, to see ahead a hump backed stone bridge with only a 18″ air gap left due to the flooding. Tintin failed to react quickly enough and a dentist in York was kept busy for some time rebuilding tintins dental features….

My other half uses and recommends innov8 Roc trail 246 shoes