@ RV – surely that’s because you buy 1 set of pedals, then service them more than once? They do need more work than XTR or Time, but for a while they were way lighter than anything else, and if you grease them regularly and change bearings/seals/busshings every so often they’re fine. I’ve had one fall apart on me in the middle of Russia, entirely my fault as I forgot to service before setting off.

@OP – If you need the float, eggbeaters are 15/20 degs depending on which was you put the cleats. I guess it depends what you don’t get on with on the speedplay?

US ebay or amazon for ‘thorn proof’ inner tubes, 700x whatever your tyres are, they weigh about 3 times a normal tube but work well. Two or three brands, they all look the same. That plus a liner will almost completely eliminate pinch and thorn flats. You might even be able to fill them with slime or similar! Not light though, but fine for normal cross riding and especially good for ‘using cross bike as an MTB’, just not racing.

Berm – but that has nothing to do with ‘old boy’/’old school tie’ stuff, which is when someone from the ‘right’ school, having a) applied, b) been predicted the required grades, and c) been interviewed, is given the place instead of a state school applicant with the same grades (i.e A+ grades from private school were judged to be better than those from a comp). Your sons case seems to be that he was put off by the perceived ‘poshness’ I guess – did he mention what was alien about it? I guess it depends who you meet/are shown round by, what course you are looking at, and which college you visit. I visited a redbrick one i.e. not one of the centre of town ancient ones, was looking at engineering so we got shown round the engineering department, had an example lecture and lab i.e. just the same as at every other uni! I guess if you’re looking at english, sitting in a professors posh office with leather chairs, tweed, booklined walls etc having to discuss one on one the merits of a writer or book is pretty different to the comp school experience. And fair play to him anyway, if he got the best A grades at comp school and knew he didn’t want to go to Oxford, nowt wrong with that! Just interested what it is that puts people off, and if that’s something that could be or is even worth changing?

I like how their XC routes are all 25 or 25 & 3/4 miles long, regardless of if they are 30km or the ‘killer loop’ 40km in length. Ooops.

Thanks for all the replies!

epic – I’m probably being too paranoid, problem is we’re planning a tour from Newcastle-up the east coast-Orkney-down the west coast-Newcastle, obviously some places will be busier/sketchier than others. I’d thought most places we will be should be pretty quiet/safe, but then some might not.

Steve – we did wonder about doing that!

All – so if we get a bike rack with the camper, there should be somewhere to lock the bikes to on the van, or just to the rack itself? A few decent locks, some cable some D, and a tarp or cover seem like the right idea. And from the sounds of it, that might work better than having them inside if we leave them and the van for the day…

Problem pointed out with the report was that ‘similar average grades’ didn’t take into account number of A/AS/whatever they’re called now-levels done or the subjects, just the average points number. I think the points can be from different numbers of A/AS levels i.e. 3 A* full A level or 8 Bs at AS might have the same point score. (Would need more info to judge if that was correct).

Secondly, anecdotes from reports of the study suggest that subjects chosen count for a lot – traditional subjects more likely than non-traditional to get in. But comp schools often offer non-traditional as they are likely to get better overall results for all pupils (which is important for the school in their league tables etc). Balancing the overall results of the school against the needs of the top achievers is difficult.

Thirdly, training for Oxbridge interviews, tests, application etc and setting expectations of kids seems to be v important too – lots of comps offer no help with any of this, some seem to actively discourage kids from applying, some kids from that background are put off by the perceived poshness etc; conversely private schools coach, train, offer extra hours of teaching, encourage lots of applications as they are judged on oxbridge acceptance rates rather than i.e. government league tables etc.

As far as I can see, it mostly comes down to:

There probably is a small amount of ‘old boy’ stuff but not that much, the best private schools have the facilities, money, small class sizes, knowledge to get a good proportion of their pupils a) the best grades which are needed to get an interview, and b) encourage them to apply and practice interviews etc. Until the state sector can match that, there is always going to be a bias against it in admission rates.

The Irish system looks like it gets rid of one probably smallish aspect (who you know, old boys etc) but wouldn’t help bright kids in bad schools to a) get the grades and b) set their expectations higher, which I suspect is by far the larger problem.

Disclosure – I went from an average northern comp to Oxford. Moderate help available (1 practice interview I think and someone read the application cover letter), and there was a trip to Ox/Cam to see what the unis were like, I think supported by ox/cam outreach programs. Did a little outreach work while I was there, would still be doing it if I wasn’t abroad.

NIce one Chris! We’re heading back for a wedding in 2 weeks, (actually it’s Pam, our MSc supervisor from your ‘first’ masters!) and staying for a week, we likes Brizzle too… Currently working out if I can sneak a singlespeed onto the flight, so might be up for a ride one eve if you’re around? MIght even be the bonty if I have time to fix it. Drop me a line…

Agree with the general opinion on here, good idea, flowery/**** language overdone even if the website is being pitched at HR/CEO level rather than employees. We are all cynics though…

3 main things I’d be concerned about:

– Nothing about showers and changing facilities/storage, most places have at least somewhere to lock a bike to a fence but without showers and changing rooms and lockers or similar, only the hardcore (read happy to strip off in the loos after a 15mile commute in the snow, wash their armpits with cold water in the sink, throw on yesterdays shirt with a liberal blast of deodorant) will be OK with cycling in. This is usually harder to sort in small places and is exactly the sort of thing they should be helping with.

– I’ve obviously only seen the website not the actual package, but the cycle storage all looks geared to internal space, something about locked and covered sheds and cctv would make most folks happier than outdoors bike racks when internal space is at a premium (lots of places).

– Possibly very importantly, there seems to be no mention of the cycle to work tax break scheme at all – do you actually assist with that, as again it’s a great incentive but lots of companies big and small don’t want the hassle of setting it up and need to be guided through the process. Maybe you could employ Harry-The-Spider as an example of premier class objective leveraging of MD level clients to facilitise envisaging and achieving goal led targets going forwards for the intangible and tangible benefit of multiple hierachichal stakeholders (or in plain language sorting out the c2w scheme to get more folks cycling for the good of everyone).

And you do come across way better on here than the website.

Don’t really get how I’ve ended up with nothing, applied for up to £1400 over the whole time, for 1-5 different people across events from blue riband to morning qualifiers in stuff no-ones heard of, mens mtb for both price cats (how can they limit standing around in a field to a small size?!) and womens MTB which is one of the ones they’re saying has loads of tickets left! Pretty bemused, may have to look into the EU ticket thing…

Pigface – postdoc at University of Helsinki Institute of Biotechnology. Are you in Helsinki or elsewhere?

Hans – sounds interesting, know any good places in Lapland? I’m hoping to head to Levi ski resort for a 24 hour race in June (www.levi24.fi), there’s a bike park there so I might either take my ‘medium’ bike (5″ travel Nicolai) along with the XC race one, or hire something, if I can get away for more than the weekend. Not done too much downhill, might be fun though! Toolo should be a great location, central, near beaches and the city, very close to the start of ‘Central Park’ (I had an article in singletrack mag a few years back on riding there, some shore stuff in the woods v close to the heart of the city!) etc… Don’t know much about buying bikes in Finland I’m afraid, a lot of my stuff is from the UK as even with postage it can be cheaper, and larger orders are often post free. Quick shout out for my mate Eppu’s bike shop in Tikkurila (http://www.tikkurilanajomies.fi/), he sold me his Nicolai when my frame snapped 2 weeks after arriving!

molgrips, agree the lack of big hills is a pain, but like you say the few places you can get up and into the open it makes the city look like Endor from Star wars, green trees as far as you can see apart from lakes, the sea, and the odd building or water tower, love it!

molgrips – wow you were in the posh part! Yeah, have done the Reitti 2000 lots of times, full thing, parts, camping over a few days with the wife, adding all the singletrack running close to the track which makes it really long, difficult, and great fun etc… When were you here?

Snow – hah we’ve struggled at times with too much snow this year, even over here in Finland! Still over 60cms in the back yard and a metre deep a few km north of here, the city has run out of places to dump ploughed snow, and the sea is freezing over too quickly to just stick it in there! Last years snow pile just round the corner was still there in August, I suspect this year it won’t melt before the snow comes again. Skiied past it last month, it was impressively tall even then!

molgrips, no car here either, haven’t skiied Nuukiso but after a fresh snowfall I’ve got a 1.5 hour roundabout route door to door from home (Oulunkyla, just south of Paloheina) to work (Viiki) :-) Though am looking into whether skiing the Reitti 2000 to Nuuksio from home is possible…

Ha ha sorry Molgrips, were you over here at some point then? Just getting things ready for a weekend of cycling to, and camping in, Nuuksio National Park, might be a little cold though…

Another vote for Finland here (Helsinki, for 3 years now). Very much agree with HansRey about the lack of ‘village’ feel, even in towns and suburbs around Helsinki. It’s all so relatively new compared to the UK, which means lots of concrete shopping centres and no real town or village centre feel. That’s probably the worst thing over here to be honest – my Finnish wife didn’t know different until she lived in Bristol for 5 years, and now missed that side of things very much.

Anyway, where are all you guys in Finland, and would anyone be interested in organising a Helsinki or surrounding area expats ride (or XC ski if we don’t leave it a month or two given the ace winter we’re having!)?

Ian

I think on my old Vista (v old!) Garmin UK charged about 50 quid (just looked up and it was actually £36.66!) for a replacement which came with a 1 year warranty – excellent service! It may have been a refurbished unit, if it was the case, screen etc were brand new, I was v happy!

There have been documentaries on lions taking healthy, fairly large elephants when not desperate too – the whole pack pretty much hanging on to whatever they can bite hold of on the elephant. Seems to be a learned behaviour of a single pack in one location, but apparently 1 in 3 or 4 attacks is successful, and the elephants that escape can’t be in that great shape I’d have thought…

molgrips – exactly! Although according to the only source of info on this on the whole of the ineternet as far as I can see, it may have been a paper mache whale in the reconstruction (but still, 50 live bears!)… there is a a very droll cartoon about it:

Oh and the best roman colosseum related trivia I’ve heard – they once caught a whale, put it in the arena (dead as far as i know), and filled it with bears, then released some prisoners/gladiators into the arena. The prisoners/gladiators came out, saw a dead rotting whale, thought they’s got off luckily, then the bears appear… Supposedly because some emperor or other either saw a beached whale with bears coming out of its mouth, or had a dream about it. This was from the official dictaphone-type thing at the colosseum in Rome, so as far as I know has some basis in truth!

Can’t answer that one specifically, but I saw a documentary about someone trying to capture on film the moment when a tiger captures its prey/makes the kill in the wild for the first time. In it, an indian tiger discovers a bear in a cave – bear runs out, rushes the tiger which backs off, quite a lot of growling and standing off each other, but it was the bear that was the most aggressive, and eventually chased off the tiger (straight towards the cameraman who was sat on the top of a very high chair filming, which made for some v scary footage as the tiger runs straight towards you!). The bear didn’t appear to be defending cubs or territory as it ambled off in a different direction after, so on that note I’d go for the lion!

Ps – some knowledge from my professional that may be relevant – tigers and lions are so similar, it’s pretty much impossible to tell them apart just from skulls or fossils…

Yeah just had a play with some bits and it looks like I’ll lose about 1/2″ ride height going from 2.35 Rampages to 3″ 26″ gazzas… only problem is the tyre is now slightly in the ‘wrong’ place in the fox forks, with the widest part of the tyre where the slightly narrower bit of the fork crown is. I have some Pace rigid forks but they are a fair bit shorter than the fox, and the ferrous has a sharp angled headtube and is twitchy as it is, and slooow steering in snow is good… we’ll see. New snow pretty much every other day over xmas and new year, must get this sorted!

The Salomon 9 series stuff in those packages is close to Salomons top of the range though… i.e. they have 5,6,7,8,9,10 in most of their ranges, 10 being best or most expensive. Admittedly in the bad snow winter a couple of years ago, we got Salomon 5 series skis, 6 or 7 series boots, basic profil bindings and some cheapo poles for 2 of us in the sales for about €150 euros all in (all new but on sale, boots 20 euros, skis about the same etc). I’d liken the 5 series stuff to something like a specialized Hardrock bike – the current models are damned good value for money, and will do pretty much all the stuff that 90% of people would want, but obviously nicer/lighter/’faster’/shinier options are available, but compared to the same spec level of 15 years ago they’re basically brilliant!

Have since bought some better poles as they were heavy and the baskets not replaceable once one snapped off, but that’s fine for the kind of tracked skiing I do at the moment (couple of times recreationally a week plus lots of ski-commuting, there is a lovely 1hr route to work that on a fresh snow morning, I can get door to door from the garage to work without stepping out of the skis!). Might retire these skis as a beater set for commuting and look into some non-wax, scaled, ‘crosstrack’ type set (yep niches abound in Xc skiing too!) i.e. something that fits in tracks but is good for a bit of backcountry too…

That was ratio not ration obviously… Nice work cooper, the top of the line models in lots of the ‘big’ or biggish companies seem way worse than the midrange ones at the moment… How much did yours cost in total in the end?

Oh and we have 50cms of snow here in Helsinki, you’re welcome to pop over and take some home!

Hmm, are those nokian gazalodi 3″ tyres? Was going to run one up front on a 26er with a 2.7 or something on the back, might now see if they both fit in my 29er… What size 29er tyres can you normally fit in the KM? I can just get some Panaracer Rampage 2.35 (though I think they are pretty big for a 2.35) in the back of a Fisher Ferrous… And do they lower the height or are they the same height as the weirwolfs you took off (hard to see from the pics)?

Almost certainly this guy:

http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=656281

13lbs (well 13lb15oz but still!) and from the photos it gets properly ridden – he’s not the lightest guy and he’s hitting some decent jumps. Oh and he runs a 22:11 ration IIRC!

Thanks! Hopefully off to Stockholm in Jan, v useful!

noteeth – Chris, if you’re back in academia, presumably you’re accessorising the dungarees with the classic elbow patched tweed jacket for the Royal Society lectures? Under or over the dungaree straps?

Ian in Helsinki

Oh yeah, only minus 9 today, worst we’ve had this year has been -18 overnight, -30s predicted between Xmas and New Year though…

We’re struggling to cope in Finland! Last year the government sent people to Russia to work out how to keep the trains etc running as we had record snowfall and cold temps (most nights below zero in a row, longest continuous snow cover, deepest snow in helsinki metropolitan area etc for 50 odd years or so). We also ran out of storage space for snow! They have huge snow pits within and around the capital, all full (and so full that there was still snow in them this September!). Then they started dumping in the sea, but if you have too much it accumulates and freezes and you can’t keep the ice hole open. Then under bridges across rivers, as the ice is thinnner and the river takes it away, but again it accumulates and freezes. The we ended up with huge snow piles everywhere, on roundabouts, roadsides, railway platforms etc… (2 or 3 times my height).

Last year it only really started snowing and settling around this time of year – first XC ski was exactly a year ago today, and there were quite a few thin or bald patches. This year we’re already up to nearly 50cm snow depth, continuous for 4 or 5 weeks now, with pretty much minus temps all that time too, so who knows how we will cope by March!

It’s great for skiing though, I can ski to the shops, to the XC ski tracks (which are everywhere), and after an overnight dump of snow before they get around to ploughing everywhere, can ski door to door to work over about an hour through forest and on frozen rivers. Love it! (Need to get a fat bike though as biking has been severely reduced).

XC Skiing unless I can bodge a snow bike by then, we’re close to 50cms snow depth here in Helsinki now! But then they celebrate Xmas on Xmas Eve here so Xmas Day is more like Boxing Day…

Around -18 over here I found that even having spikes (proper Nokian 300 spikes per tyre jobs too) didn’t work cycling over glass like iced over lakes, rivers and streams. The clarity of the ice and water was incredible and incredibly scary in some places, you could see the thickness of the ice you were on but also right to the bottom of some of the shallower streams. Just like being on black ice even with spikes…

Stans 355 on XT. Was a bit worried about both, but the rims have held up fine to a lot of abuse on a fisher ferrous hardtail, and the hubs seem to be lasting better than previous XT ones I’ve had without either the freehub going or the bearing surfaces being destroyed… Not hugely light but got a very good deal on some hardly used ones compared with the price of similar specced new wheels.

well obviously not now as I’m slacking on STW but you knew what I meant…

Dr SSBonty, Evolutionary Biology, married to Dr SSBonty (nee Ms SSBonty, well obviously not but you get the picture), also Evolutionary Biology. We shared an office at the start of my first postdoc (she was writing up), things are a little easier now she is on the other campus! Am now working more on the developmental part of Evolutionary and Developmental biology…

Wasn’t the reason for peace(ish) from 1850s-early 1900s that a lot of the bigger euro nations either a) did their fighting with each other abroad or b) were tied up with fighting ‘their’ natives in relatively recently conquered lands and ongoing landgrabs?

Great gloves, love them down to about -15 here in Helsinki, at -18 or lower you still get nippy fingers when riding to and from the trails in the open… However, my pair have one where I can’t get the damn lining back in place no matter what I do, which is dead annoying cos they’re in great condition and were wearing well despite a reasonable amount of usage. I prefer these with a decent amount of palm padding to the less padded sealskinz ones, but then I prefer more to less padding for most of my bike gloves. If anyone has any ideas how to get the lining back in place I’d be very grateful, I can invert it, get my fingers fully into the inner lining, and wear that like a glove, but trying to push my hand and fingers back into the outer fingers just doesn’t want to go for some reason, are there actually 3 layers or something? Will be ordering another pair even despite this if I can’t get them to work…

agreed, DGOAB is pretty much the best I’ve seen on the web.. can’t tell from the shot is it an arm or leg?!

ps Dalby is ace, great work, wish I still lived in Pickering sometimes, will have to get up to see the folks and hit the trails sometime soon.

Tim – are there any local quarries that could be contacted to ask about donating stone/subsidising prices in return for sponsorship of the trail or sections of it or their names on signage or similar? In Bristol we used to have some sort of an arrangement with the local quarry – true, some of the trails backed onto the quarry so it was slightly more in their interest, but it worked well with regular lorryloads of stone dumped at access points to be used for building and maintenance…

Conti GP 4 seasons 25s for me, but that’s mostly cos I only have an old peugot racer as a touring bike, would go a little wider if they would fit. Need replacing now but have done many 1000s of kms on them, including 1200km without a puncture around Russia where the roads were, um, interesting! (Lots of gravel roads, tarmac with huge holes or places where the road was more hole than tarmac, and then some nice long sections of cobblestone…). Will probably go for the same until I get a new frame with more clearance.