Myself and a mate both have GoPros, and we think they’re ace. Totally waterproof, and being able to change options without taking them out of the housings is a definite plus.

With regards to customer service, I had a part of the handlebar mount break for me, I took a picture and sent it to GoPro customer service. Within a few days they’d sent me a replacement part in the mail (from the US) no questions asked.

I’m not going to say they’re perfect, but the fact that they’re essentially completely waterproof goes a long way in my book.

I don’t have anything as epic as what’s come before, mainly because I get terrified when my wheels leave the ground. Should probably work on that. Still having fun though :)

Rolling in at Swinley Forest

First ride out on the shiny new P7, back in 2006

Myself (at the back) and a mate on the Corkscrew at Swinley.

Done!

I live in London and ride in Swinley, and I’m on a 140mm hardtail. Although I did buy it while I was living by the Lake District…

17-25 for me. I’m one of the 7% who cycles 5 x a week. Except for this week, as my hub gears on the commuter exploded on Wednesday and the mtb is still in bits awaiting a new chainring after cleaning all the sand out from Swinley the other weekend…

I’ve got 28mm Continental GP 4 seasons on my commuter, and the difference in grip between those and the tyres that came with it was night and day. Plus they’re practically bulletproof (I’ve stopped before and pulled out shards of glass as big as the nail on my little finger which the tyre just ignored). Highly recommended.

Just made this modification myself. Originally had a 22/32/44 triple, removed the 44 and replaced with a bashguard, adjusted the limit screw for the front mech, and picking up a 36t deore chainring this weekend to finish it off :)

I’ve found the road tyres on the commuter easier to deal with than off road tyres. Still, shouldn’t be that hard if you push the bead down into the rim as you seat the tyre, right…?

Rain, sun, rain, then hail. That was how my Saturday at Swinley went :)

I’ve actually got as far as taking the big ring off a Race Face Evolve XC triple (22/32/44) and putting a bash guard on it (my calves feel safer already). I’m should be able to replace the 32 with a 36 no worries right? The only thing I’m mildly confused about is that Shimano seem to have 2 suitably cheap/hardwearing 36 chainrings that are the same except for the model numbers.

M532 and the M510

They’re obviously not the same, so what are the differences and which one should I go for?

Thunder, lightning, monsoon like rain, and then to top it off, hail at Swinley. Only my second time there and we successfully found the corkscrew :) good times…

I’ve just done exactly the same thing. Race Face triple with the outer ring removed and a Hope bash in its place, then the limit screw on the front mech adjusted.

Taking it out for its first proper spin around Swinley today in fact :)

So forgive my ignorance, but it was essentially

‘have your day in court with the chance to prove your innocence or be brutally crushed by our evidence’

OR

‘walk away and accept our punishment’

It’s a shame personally to see him come apart like this, as he was winning the tour when I was first getting into watching it with my Dad. Back then I had no idea all this kind of thing went on, heh. To be honest having read David Millar’s book and knowing more about bicycle racing, I’m not really surprised anymore.

Although regardless of whether he did it or not, the whole ‘guilty until proven innocent’ thing seems a bit off.

EDIT: They’re talking about it on ITV4 right now…

Got some clear/black photochromic Split Jackets, and they’ve been perfect. My friends have all expressed jealousy at their stylishness and effectiveness, which let’s be honest is at least 75% of the battle won.

I’ve never ever noticed the transition wearing them mind, only when I take them off…

Not the fastest but not the slowest out of my riding buddies (all 3 of them are FS, I’m HT). So long as I don’t have to sprint or anything I can generally keep going for a while. Helped by my 12 mile round trip commute, otherwise I would definitely not be as fit as I am now (not that I’m uber fit for that matter). Dieseling was the word used before I think?

As for technical stuff, I can *nearly* trackstand/ride extremely slowly to check out obstacles/lines, and I can handle rocky/rooty stuff ok, although probably not as fast as most people. I tend to take it at what I see as a decent pace and let the bike do all the work soaking it up. I don’t race downhill, I let gravity do it for me. If I can roll a drop then all good. I’ll generally try and ride anything so long as it doesn’t involve the wheels leaving the ground at the same time. Which leads me onto…

Fairly terrified of getting airborn and can’t jump for toffee. I went off a jump on the black run at the top of Cwmcarn too fast by accident and caught some air for what I think was the first time ever (meant to roll over it).

Overall I like to think that I’m a reasonably competent rider, although certainly not racing material. I’m sure I have plenty of bad habits that I’ve taught myself though.

Got my tickets for the Paralympic athletics, and I’m looking forward to it rather a lot. Disabled or not they’re massively better athletes than I will ever be.

Button prompts (should) appear on screen, press them as they arrive (along the lines of ‘press x to punch’ or whatever), and the unpleasant sort should soon be dealt with.

footflaps I might be interested.

I was more trying to mention the apparent attitude of the athletes rather than whether people in sports are cheating and if so how much.

VGA is an analogue signal that can only be converted to DVI-I. HDMI is just a repackaging of a DVI-D picture signal. That’s why to convert it you need to purchase an actual box to do it rather than just a cable. A quick google gave me this.

To be fair, if that’s the case, why don’t the “actions of the few” People at the Olympics who failed drug tests “outweigh the many” who didn’t.

Maybe down to the media coverage? If a footballer cheats on his wife and the tabloids get hold of it then it’s seemingly everywhere. When they take out injunctions to prevent it, it just gets worse. I haven’t seen the same level of exposure given to the Olympic cheats.

Don’t get me wrong, none of this actively annoys me. If people want to watch it (and they clearly do) then fine, I’m not going to campaign against it. Instead I’ll watch the new Cycle Show that ITV4 have got going.

EDIT

Drug cheating in any sport is just that, cheating.

I absolutely agree. It is possibly one of my favourite things ever that drug cheating in professional cycling seems to be on its way out.

I think that after the Olympics and the conduct of the large proportion of the athletes there, the attitudes and actions of some footballers are now shown to be wanting slightly. The amount of money they earn (fairly obscene in my opinion at the top level) and their conduct is just so far removed from the athletes that have been filling our TVs for the past few weeks. Contrast the US relay runner who’s leg broke half way through his section and who carried on running, with the footballers who fall over when someone looks at them funny.

That’s not to say that all footballers are like that of course, but the actions of the few outweigh the actions of the many I think. That and the fact that when the season starts, it’s totally inescapable.

I do a 12 mile round trip in London no matter what the weather’s doing, and I have Hope Tech X2s on a Cannondale Badboy. Overkill perhaps, but I’m very glad of them on occasion. I wouldn’t ever go back.

I think it was Tuesday when I saw one cyclist stop for a red light, and another a few yards behind him couldn’t stop in time and had to swerve around him and partway through the crossing. He didn’t stop particularly suddenly or anything either.

Toy Story 3 got me both in the cinema and again at home. The very end of Blackadder Goes Forth as mentioned before is also a bit of a ‘am I really starting to tear up over this? oh god I am’ moment.

4) If you don’t have a reservation, nobody knows you are there so the chances of being over-carried are significant – a reservation ensures that all parties are informed. Train Managers and Station staff have notification that you are there. (I expect someone will be along in a minute to state that they had a reservation and this happened anyway…..)

I’ve got off a train at Lancaster with my bike, to be informed by the station staff that someone at Euston should have told them I was there, but didn’t. Which seemed odd to me because one of the members of staff at Euston instantly jumped on me and asked me for my bike reservation when he saw I had a bicycle.

In any case, the biggest pain in the arse for me is actually getting hold of a bike reservation. As far as I can gather, you have two options. Option 1, going to Euston station and sorting it all out at the ticket office in one go (not all that convenient for me and I live in London, and significantly less convenient for others I’m sure). Still, this is what I’ll be doing next time, as before I went to option 2 and it was much harder than it should have been.

Option 2 is to ring up Virgin and book it all over the phone (no bike booking is available online). However, to do this the ticket agent had to take all my details, then go through and talk to the back office to make sure there was a bike space free, then come back to me, actually book my train, then go back and talk to the back office again to finally book the bike on. However last time, the bike spaces actually ran out in between her checking and booking the train for me, leading to somewhat less convenient journey times. I know it’s all first world problems etc., but I wouldn’t mind having to have a reservation if it wasn’t such a PITA to acquire one.

K-Edge make a few, such as this one[/url]. I’m considering one myself as they look somewhat beefier than the plastic GoPro jobbies.

Hope you had fun making it because there’s a reason that it didn’t come out looking like Ian Rankin shot it and it’s nothing to do with gear.

We did have fun, although I must admit I don’t follow the Ian Rankin reference? Are our skills not up to it, because if so then I’m fully aware that I’m not the worlds greatest mtb rider.

Thanks for the constructive criticism guys. I think it’s going to be a case of less slo-mo, better and more interesting angles, better riding, in fact just generally being better all round. Oh, and we’re definitely going to keep making them for ourselves…

What’s with all the slow-mo? Just made it very boring to watch IMO. Quality’s good though, nicely edited too

The slow-mo helps with the fact that once you speed everything up the picture becomes significantly harder to watch as it’s bouncing around everywhere. Also (IMO) it provides a nice contrast when you do go back up to real time. Really I need to find a better way of filming off bike.

And thanks :)

If you had fun filming, that’s all that really matters.

That we did.

Mine showed up yesterday as well. Unlike the bits I ordered from a certain large online bike retailer last week mutter mutter grumble…

Heh, I did indeed. Just as well they’re not too long huh?

The music in the first is the track ‘Flying Home’ from the soundtrack to the movie ‘Kick-Ass’.

One of the reasons I’m going for this is to reduce the chance of a tooth/leg interface.

I’m also not really however the most gnarrrr/airtime is king type of rider, so will probably start without the Blackspire and see how I go. The rear mech is only long cage rather than super long cage or whatever anyway to start off with, so I’ve not got yards of chain flapping around back there.

Cheers for the advice, I’ll grab a bash once I’ve been paid and then see how I go!

Ok, sounds great so far. Final question, what size bash to go for given that it’s currently a 44/32/22 triple? The one I’m looking at comes in 3 sizes, 32t – 34t, 36 – 38t and 40t. I’m thinking that 36t – 38t would be the most sensible as it’ll let me change up my middle ring from a 32 to a 36 steel Deore when it wears out.

I was wondering whether a chain guide would be overkill. It’s an Orange P7 with a Hope BB, it doesn’t have any chain guide tabs on it and dropping the chain on the front is a pretty rare occurrence. On the other hand, if it makes it look better then I’m mostly sold on it.

Good call on upping the tooth count on the middle ring, although to be honest I’m so rarely in need of gears higher than what’s currently on the middle ring that I’m not sure it’s necessary (hence the bash guard in the first place!).

I was considering the Hope guard (not sure on size yet, haven’t counted the teeth on the largest chainring), any idea on whether I’d need new chainring bolts?

As said above…you’re on the right track. You may also want to consider removing a few links from your chain now that you won’t need the length for the big ring?

Yup, that makes sense. So will make the adjustment to the high stop mean that the front shifter will only go one click each way rather than two?

Cleaned my commuter at the weekend in the vague hope it’d stay nice and clean for the summer. Goddammit.

I went with a GoPro Hero2 because now I don’t have to worry about whether it’s waterproof enough, it’s always going to be fine. A friend of mine got a Contour initially, but swapped it for a GoPro when he saw mine. We use them at 720p/50fps mode. Here’s something we made with them last weekend…

Drive?

You can park at the Discovery Centre which is the main entrance to the forest. You can get a map which points you in the vague direction of the good bits as well (or at least the section they refer to as the ‘Expert Mountain Biking Area’.

I rode there for the first time on Saturday with a mate, and I’m 100% sure we didn’t find all the best bits. Still, we had a great time just diving in and exploring anyway, and we’ll definitely be back for more.

Running Juicy 5s on the P7 and have been problem free for near 6 years or so. Granted I’ve never attempted to bleed them myself…