So, whose going to make the call on where the ride is headed?

I’m feeling pretty lazy just now sat at work so not sure what I can be bothered doing. Will see how the commute home goes, might just chuck the bike in the car and head down for a look at the Glentress 7 route for Saturday.

Now I’ve got no idea at all what to do!

Yep think I know what you are talking about now joins where the old green skill area used to be?

That’s the one.

Doesn’t matter if it’s a TTer or a commuter whose been caught out by the conditions, everyone has to drive/ride to the conditions.

If it’s foggy and the visibility is really poor the cyclist should probably be moving around the same speed as the rest of the traffic. No one should be going faster than a speed they could stop from if they come across something unexpected.

I get what you’re saying about the event organisers should have looked at the conditions but not being there can’t comment on whether it should have been run or not.

But, drivers having to swerve because they never saw the cyclist through the fog is p!ss poor driving and not adjusting speed to conditions.

I actually think a quiet stretch of dual carridgeway seems like a decent place to run a TT, gives drivers somewhere to go to overtake.

Fairly sure I’ll be riding tomorrow night. Not bothered if it’s Pentlands or Inners. Got room for one or two more in the car with bikes if it’s the Inners option.

Another thought:

Get it up on the STW classifieds and your local Gumtree for a straight swap. A lot of people will want to swap something Fiesta sized to Focus sized when kiddies come along. Better deal than you’d get at a garage.

At those kind of prices you’ll probably have to be prepared to lose £1k in the deal with the dealer. They will give you a swap but it will definitely not be something equal in value.

The new car is now worth £1k less, the values will get closer the older it gets but there’s always going to be a negative value for the new car.

Guessing there’s about 10-15mpg difference in your two cars. Petrol is still a good bit cheaper than diesel. Presuming you do half your miles each year in each car that’s 7k. My poor maths brings the focus out at £1072pa (@32mpg and £1.30) against £812pa (@45mpg and £1.38) please note my maths aren’t great and this only includes fuel!!

Diesels notoriously don’t like short journies (guessing by the poor mpg of the focus it does a few of them) as they take longer to get up to temperature so more likely to have problems.

If it was me I wouldn’t make that swap although it always seems like it’ll be cheaper when the petrol car is at the fuel pumps more often.

If you’re into biking you can never have a big enough car – must be easier for you to get bikes and gear into the Focus?

Up towards the black where the red and black split at the freeride area and zoom or bust is down on the left. Very easy to spot.

Woah, this took a very sudden turn on the OP and escalated as soon as the admission of a fake user ID came out….

As others have said get on with the week to yourself and see just how much you can enjoy it. Image spending a whole day biking with no time limits, coming home, eating exactly what you want and having as many beers as you fancy. Now mutliply that by 6 (leaving a day to tidy up!!).

As much as you want to do these things with your son it doesn’t sound like he’ll have the chance to see the GC or fly to the States in a good few years. It’ll hurt to hear him talk about how good it was but I’ll bet you’ll also be happy for him.

And 50/50?? What thread were you reading? A few people said they understood where you were coming from but could see both sides! 90/10 at best….

I’d say that all depends on the trade in you’re getting offered.

If it’s poor you’re as well hanging on. The Volvo’s don’t depreciate as bad as some of the cars out there. I think the 4wd D5s will still be sought after in years to come so if you don’t put a huge amount of miles on it it won’t drop too quickly.

Sounds like you should keep hold of the T5 until until something goes properly wrong and isn’t worth fixing. It could be a long time until that happens with the mileage these things get up to!

Keep it, keep it, keep it!! The D5s are nice and do sound a bit V8ish when driven hard but it’s no substitute to the lurvly five cylinder petrol (I’ve got an 850 T5-R that I keep thinking would be sensible to sell on but it’s still here).

Also, there’s nothing to say a younger car with c.100k less miles is going to be more reliable. Might be worth looking to see if you can get a newer T5 wagon with LPG. They tend to be cheaper than the D5s.

Thanks SBZ, worked perfectly for me.

Would have thanked you at the time but laptop was hooked up to the TV!

Cheers

My bikes need cleaned. Two and a half done so far, two and a half still needing done, plus both cars need washed, polished and hoovered – £20 to do the lot?

Seriously though, maybe better to say where you’re based and how far away you’d travel for the work?

Bit smaller than the Galaxy from Ford and gets good reviews, S-Max.

From your criteria I’d say the Volvo V50 would fit the bill perfectly. Focus sized estate but a bit more ‘premium’ while still pretty much being a Focus.

Other one I’d have a look at is the Alfa 159. There’s a huge amount of different reports online whether the reliability problems are sorted or not but they’re soooo damn pretty!! Extended warranty should give you a bit of piece of mind too.

BMW 3 series, possibly the touring variant for you, is still the market leader.

Instead of carrying part of a toothpaste tube I find that a used energy gel wrapper does the trick and more likely to be in a biking bag than the toothpaste tube!

4 sets of pads for £25 (or less for sintered) will take a lot of beating!

If the tubes comes through the hole again and bursts you’ll go from 100+ psi to 0 in a fraction of a second. At the speed a road bike goes that will not be fun. Guessing you’ll see speeds 40mph+ fairly often?

Mtb instant punctures can be tough to hold with nice big rims. A skinny flat tyre, skinny rim and fast speed on a roadie are really not going to end well.

Guessing hitting a drain was either fairly slow or not instant (or just lucky!).

Not worth taking the risk on a roadie IMO and I try not to spend money whenever possible!

Tried Superstar?

One of my mates (who really doesn’t drink) swears by one lager after really tough exercise as a recovery drink. I have felt better having one after exercise but not if I have a lot more!!

Having someone hand you one after finishing 10 under the Ben, necking half of it when pretty much ready to fall over doesn’t help anything though…

I’ve never had a problem with them, ordered a few things now.

At least you know they’ll be watching out for your order now – just put a note on it to make sure they know it’s linked to this thread and you should get a quick delivery!!

Why would you do Carbisdale when you could do Balblair twice? It is a very short (think warm up) trail but there was just nothing there that made me think I’d ever want to go there again.

Two threads on the front page about north of Scotland trails, how much does this make me want to ditch work right now!?!?

If you can fit it in, a ride around Balblair would be well worth it, especially if you like rocky trails.

Seriously surprised me how grippy the rocks were. It’s a fairly short trail but worth a quick spin round if you have spare time. There’s one it’s kind of paired up with across the other side of the loch, can’t remember it’s name, but wouldn’t bother with it – very easy and a bit of a non-event. Two laps of Balblair would be much more rewarding.

Definitely pick up a Golspie trail map, it’s a very easy one to navigate but some of the shortcuts mean you can session bits and pieces.

I did it on a DH weekend and didn’t really find it too enjoyable. Not sure if it was because I was geared up for the WC course so the red felt a bit tame or it was the wet boardwalk (it was still very grippy) but it just didn’t really make me smile. Was a good break from the big course to allow my body to recover a bit!

If you are looking for uplifty style riding I’d suggest that Laggan and the Landrover uplift would be more rewarding and give you a much better variety of riding for a full day. Each uplift is £2 if I remember right.

If you are heading to Nevis Red I’d suggest you don’t go this weekend if you want to get on it!

Like others have said you’ll probably be fine without. If you ride without normally you won’t find it much different, presuming you’re used to trail centres and not just road/canal rides!

I wear knee pads around most Scottish trail centres but as I’m used to them I tend to farour landing on my knees. Can hurt when I don’t have them on. Took a while to get out of the same habbit with elbow pads.

Only reason I’d advise towards them is because you’ve got a week of riding and you’d kick yourself if you hurt your knees on the first day.

If you’re not doing a huge mileage then a big engined petrol car would give you a decent choice for £500.

There are a lot of people buying at this price but most will be after the diesels, the big engined turbos will be a lot less economical but should be better cars for the money as less people want them. Something like a T5 Volvo or a turbo SAAB would be my suggestion.

Yeah, that was a great ride with plenty of new trail for me. Definitely feeling all the climbing today but well worth it.

Any updates from MrK mkII on the injuries and migrane? Two pretty nasty looking falls, especially the one into the ditch.

Never made it home with my puncture, in fact only made it about 100m along the road!

Is there much difference between the tubeless and the USTs? I never realised just how expensive the UST were and am hoping tubeless is a viable alternative.

Suppose it should be cancelled out by the fact that each tyre I use probably gets through at least 5 tubes through snakebites in it’s life!

Standard times are 6.30 Cargo then whoever meets there will meet the rest at Bonaly at 7. The 6 o’clock is an earlier option tonight.

I may not be at Cargo now, trying not to get roped into football from 5-6 but if that happens I should be able to make Bonaly at 7, probably absolutely knackered!!

Sorry, I meant riding on the road on road bikes or riding on the road on mtbs?

102 miles round Athurs Seat off-road would have been a level above the superhuman effort you’re already doing!!

Would have come along for a few laps but doing Glentress 7, can’t remember when it finished but might pop along after to offer some support.

Good luck anyway, even just 3.1 laps seems like a lot to me!!

Are you riding on road or mtbs?

I’m intending to head along tonight. Will be at Cargo for 6.30.

See you there.

What a great weekend. Nearly gave up after stage 2 as I seemed to have forgotten how to ride a bike. Thanks to Colin who slagged me off for considering quitting and chatted to me back to the top! Stage 3 almost felt like I knew how to handle a bike again.

Was a lot quicker on Sunday with mud tyres on and contact lenses in – vision can be pretty useful!

Looking forward to the next one as I feel I’ve got a lot to make up for after Saturday!

Great event and lots of really nice people out and about. Seemed like one of the most friendly events I’ve been to in a long time.

Why should it bother you if I use the bike for commuting or not? I’m perfectly happy to commute on a 17 year old mtb so like to save the good bike for the weekend. Don’t really see what the difference is.

I would like to see people getting forced to cycle in so many days over a year if they use the scheme but as long as it gets more people getting healthy on a bike I’m not going to complain.

In my workplace I’d say it’s about 50/50 of people who are using the scheme for a play bike or never cycling in and people who would never have riden to work before and now do,

Doesn’t help your ‘chat’ on Monday but the C2W scheme has to have benefited us, the cycling community. More people than ever seem to be getting bikes which means more on the 2nd hand market, more people using trails meaning more gets invested, and so on.

GT can cope easily with Tweedlove and still have room for everyone else. Godd events there too if any fit in to your trip.

Wow, I’m amazed at how many people are having a go at the OP.

I’m in the same position, I signed up for my last bike thinking that I’d get it at 40%ish off. As I understand it’s just tax/NI savings so not really something that hurts others considering how much we all pay anyway. The rules changed half way through the year meaning it was nowhere near as good an offer as it looked at first.

As per the OP, if I realised how much the end cost would be I’d have checked out the sales first. Still waiting to see my pay slip when the cash comes off as I never really got the way the letter was worded.

I completely agree with Blur’s advice, GT is easier than Inners so I’d head round there first, do the red, get the confidence up, enjoy lunch at the hub – actually I don’t know if the new centre is open yet but bound to get good food at either.

Can see why people are saying about the hidden trails but for your first time at GT Spooky Woods is a must for me. It’s the highlight of the red and well worth heading back up for another loop (ones you finish spookies head down the fire road to the right for quarter of a mile until you see another fire road heading right up a steep hill, can’t miss it from there).

Think the enduro will close down the part of the Inners red before Caddon Bank. You’ll probably be diverted down the fire road but if you head up the hill instead of down you’ll get to a crossing of the downhill tracks on the fire roads, Make or Brake is very similar to the red and takes you back to Caddon Bank, better than a road diversion.

The enduro might be a good option though, plenty of time to get up the hill between runs meaning you can push if you have to.

I enjoy DH days and seem to find it fairly easy to get faster and faster all day.

That is until there’s a race number strapped on the handlebars. A few of the practice runs tend to be half decent but I don’t think I’ve ever had a good race run. Far too many seem to end in big crashes.

I’ve decided not to attempt any more DH races as it takes all the enjoyment out of the weekend for me. If I managed to relax for one race run it’d probably all come good but just got sick of the pressure I put on myself to be faster on the race run which either resulted in frustration for days after or pain from crashes.

I am pretty competitive and do ok for other events but DH racing (and golf medals for some reason) seem to have a hugely negative affect on me!

I’m booked in to do it and will be going from and to Edinburgh both days. Give me a shout if you’re stuck, email is in profile & I should be able to help.

Well the bacon sarnies were all mine! Not getting your hands on one of them!!

Not sure what happened to the cups of coffee, the order went into the chef but don’t remember them being passed out – I’ll have a word and make sure he does better next time!!!

Did offer you the use of the pressure washer though, in those conditions I thought that was FAR better than a wee bacon roll (I’m lying to ease my guilty concience, the bacon roll was awesome!). :D

Nigel (imonigel) – take it that you in the big motorhome in the area over the track near the transition area, especially once I realised what the IOM part must stand for!! I was one of the guys from the caravan next to you (the only one still going after 5 hours!!)

Lovely looking bike and impressive the way you kept going lap after lap. Great effort! Cheers to you and your mate for the words of advice at the start!

Born – Scotland
Parents – Both Scottish
Grandparents – All Scottish
Great grandparents – All Scottish I think.

Think the Scottish line goes back a long way, possibly back to Norweigan decendancy back in the Viking times, or so I think someone told me from the Orkney side of the family (probably pulling my young leg but I did like that possibility!!).

So probably about as Irish as Pres Obama!

What is beyond a shadow of a doubt is that my heritage certainly makes me a better person than most! Can’t get any better than a true Scotsman (this is a proven fact so no point in arguing 8) ) :wink: