Leatt do an all-weather flat pedal shoe as well. No idea if they’re any good, but they look the part. Had my eye on a pair for a while.

https://leatt.com/int/product/shoe-7-0-hydradri-flat-v23?selected-color=black

Is the Shimano system a better solution? The SRAM system is a pig to get off, for sure, but taking your cranks off is pretty rare and there are easy enough solutions (as illustrated by this thread!). Never failed to get one off, never damaged one.

On the other hand, I’ve seen quite a few Shimano cranks with snapped bolts and stripped threads. If it comes a little loose while you’re riding and you don’t catch it right away, you’re very likely to trash the cranks.

Although on reflection, every set of SRAM cranks I’ve used this trick on, the self-extracting bolt (and hence the allen key) are on the drive side, so I’d have the reversed pedal up against the bottom of the down tube.

Yup, been doing that for years!

Similarly, for getting tight pedals off, use a big workshop-style allen key and just rotate the cranks until the plastic body hits the seat tube. Easy!

La Thuile have known they’re getting the DH (and Enduro) for a while, certainly since the Spring. They’ve been working on a new DH track all summer. Let’s just say it’s everything you’d expect when you combine “La Thuile” and “DH”. Somewhat scared just looking at it.

It’s going to be very, very steep. The visible (from the lift / other trails) sections they’ve built  are very sculpted/bikeparky but BIG. Huge, steep berms leading directly into jumps that are going to require full commitment to the berm, massive G-force and unhesitating full-send into the gaps. Safe to assume there are also going to be steep, rooty, tech sections in the trees.

From chatting with the head trail-builder, there isn’t going to be too much new building for the enduro, mostly re-working of previous EWS trails, but still going to be some new stuff and, surely, a few surprises.

Our pool of clients might not quite be big enough to constitute a proper statistical sample, but if it’s helpful our current observed failure rate in the context of a week of Alpine riding is :

Trickstuff: 100%

Hope: 0.1%. Maybe not even that.

I’m not joking. Every single Trickstuff brake we’ve seen has spewed its fluid all over the trails within 2 days. Admittedly, that’s not very many. But still. We run Hope on our bikes….

Good luck! It’s a rough process, particularly for her and the emotional toll can be heavy if it doesn’t work.

We went through multiple rounds with no joy and had a tough time with it. Eventually went back for a “last chance” option and took a much more philosophical approach of “If this works, that would be great. But our life is pretty awesome right now as well, so if it doesn’t work the outcome is also great. It’s a win-win.” Might seem odd, but it did seem to help psychologically. My wife did also get quite a lot out of counselling.

I can hear the 18-month old bundle of trouble waking up downstairs right now…..

finbar – is egg donation an option? I found the idea of adoption difficult to process as well if I’m honest.

I’m using Oakley Holbrooks. Pretty happy with them.

I’ve dug a lot of snowholes, mostly for training purposes. This has mostly been in Alpine conditions, with a group to work on it and everyone has shovels. Even so, it takes a long time (like, an hour or more) to produce a decent 2-person shelter. Solo, in Scottish conditions, with an ice axe? Good luck.

You can pass an acceptable night in one if it’s well built and you have a decent mat, sleeping bag and bivvy bag. Otherwise, it’s going to be a very unpleasant experience.

In the Alps, everyone does generally have a shovel as you’re carrying it as part of your avalanche safety kit when ski-touring / splitboarding or doing some more “engaged” snowshoeing. In Scottish conditions, not so much…

However, if you can’t walk out because you’re injured, dealing with another casualty or hopelessly lost then yes, definitely, have a crack at it. Just getting yourself out of the wind will make a big difference in a life or death situation.

@mtnboarder

sorry, haven’t logged in for a while!

When it’s really busy, they run the funi more often / non-stop so the queues are never too bad as long as you’re prepared to get the elbows out. I don’t really go up to Les Arcs very often in winter though so I haven’t tried to fight my way up, e.g. at half-term. Never had our guests report big dramas.

We only do full chalet bookings at Nagano in the winter, we run it super low-key, so we just rent the whole place each week, there’s no catering or anything so sharing wouldn’t really work.

I’ve just done almost exactly this. Cardio-wise, easy. But a lot of leg and back pain in the first few runs. You could get round a 5k right now, no problem. I might be inclined to start with shorter runs, maybe with some hills in them to get you used to the impact.

I’m 45 and used to run a lot but that was many years ago. Now a full time bike guide in the summer with knee and back damage. Ran a lot this autumn to try to build up knees and back before the snowboard season. Worked out well. Could jog 5k right away, took a couple of weeks to go for a harder pace. Built it up to 10k after about 5 weeks, another couple of weeks for 10k to feel comfortable.

Winter is go in Tignes….

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0Oqr13Iu9y/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

madhouse – can you just run a tap down the inserts on the Capita?

Little late to the party, but as a slightly quirky option, I currently have a bottle of Aerolite Lyndsay on the go, really enjoying it:

https://www.masterofmalt.com/whiskies/the-character-of-islay-whisky-company/aerolite-lyndsay-10-year-old-the-character-of-islay-whisky-company-whisky/

If one skipped the booking, and just rolled up in the car park of a mountain, is it not possible in Europe just to buy a lift pass on the day and ski?

Yes, very much so. Much easier than in Canada, in fact (where day pass prices are generally ludicrous and everyone buys cheap early-buyer season passes).

The main difference is probably that most European resorts have loads of accommodation and very developed resort villages right at the base of the lifts, which is often not the case in Canada, so it’s much more common to stay somewhere ski-to-door than to drive to resort each day. Parking is a nightmare in some places, easy enough in others.

Nah, it was a big hit, any board would have taken damage.

The Milligram is a rad board, been riding one for 3 years now. It’s worth getting a few piste runs in on it to get a feel – the carbon core has a “snap” to it which feels a little different to a wood core. Not better or worse, just different. It can feel really poppy out of the end of the turn which can be off-putting if you’re not ready for it or can lead to powerful, snappy turns if you are!

Given how light they are, I think they’re actually pretty robust, but you need to be a little careful when touring not to “bridge” the ski across a gap with your full weight on it and not go out of your way to abuse it on the way downhill.

I did break one of mine, but it was pure rider error and I have no complaints. Had an invisible (under the snow!) rock at full compression in a high-speed toeside turn. Blew the edge out! Amplid were great and helped me out.

Yeah, you can use the game analysis on tournament games. Only once per day though unless you’re a Chess.com member.

Eat less than what? And do you mean eat less calories?

As simon concisely puts it, less than what you were eating before….

And yes, eat less means eat less calories. The same source was pretty clear that, in weight loss terms, a calorie is a calorie. A calorie of protein is the same as a calorie of carbs, of fat, of whatever. That’s in pure physics terms of course. Psychological and other effects of different foods may affect how successful you are in eating fewer calories. You will feel a lot fuller after eating 500 calories worth of salad than after drinking 500 calories worth of coke for example.

There’s some pretty convincing recent research that suggests that the role of exercise in weight loss is marginal at best. The only way to lose weight is to eat less.

The reason being that the body compensates well both for exercise and for lack of exercise. If you exercise a lot, you will (generally speaking) sleep better, recover better and rest better. If you don’t exercise at all (and bear in mind we evolved as hunter-gatherers and endurance hunters so our bodies are expecting to exercise A LOT) then your body also compensates through things like fidgeting, poor sleep, over-active immune system, inflammation, etc. IANAD, I may well have mis-stated some of those mechanisms. Therefore, while going out for an hour’s ride may well burn 600 “exercise” calories, the idea that this means you have now burned 3100 calories for the day instead of a sedentary 2500 is flawed. Yes, you have a spike of calorie burning, but it evens out substantially over the other 23 hours of the day. Averaged out over any significant time-scale, active people and sedentary people burn more or less the same amount of calories. The study which really nailed this down was a study done on a tribe of present-day hunter-gatheries who are still covering many miles each day in seach of food. Averaged over a month or so, they burned about 2500 cals a day, the same as sedentary western office workers.

In short, you should exercise for the myriad other health benefits that it brings, but if you want to lose weight, the only answer is to eat less.

I came across this initially via the Infinite Monkey Cage podcast on a nutrition-themed episode back in May this year or thereabouts. It seemed so unbelievable that I did a lot of reading and googling and even read some of the research papers involved. The science does seem to be solid.

This has totally blown me away. I have a ridiculously active job, but I do like cake and the odd beer. We had a baby this year and I put on a couple of kg of dad-bod which took me up to my “do something about it number”. Based on the above, I ignored all the exercise that I do and just watched what I ate properly, including REALLY cutting the cake. Also recognising that it’s OK to have a blowout sometimes (e.g. go to Italy riding and eat pizza and ice cream), but don’t then, for example, compound it by having a big dinner after. On days like that now, I just have some fruit in the evening. I dropped 10kg in 3 months. 3 months on from that, it’s still off. I haven’t been this light since I was a teenager. I feel amazing for it.

Had my first turns of the season today, took the splitboard up to the top of the funicular at Tignes. Nice snow all around, lots of grooming going on on the pistes. Lots more snow forecast.

Quick pano on my insta story if anyone wants a look, didn’t get any riding shots.

I’m in, been missing longer format games! stevo_mcd

@charlie.farley yeah, it’s an outrageous deal. I’ve got the Death Star one:

https://rollersnakes.co.uk/products/element-x-star-wars-swxe-death-star-pre-built-complete-8?pr_prod_strat=copurchase&pr_rec_id=02a138d7d&pr_rec_pid=7027153469619&pr_ref_pid=7027153600691&pr_seq=uniform

Mike at Rollersnakes is a top dude. I’ve met him a few times and ridden both bikes and snowboards with him. He’s good mates with Rab, who guides for us. As if Rab’s bike skills are not depressing enough, he’s pretty impressive on a skateboard as well. There’s a whole old-man skate crew centered around Rollersnakes. The Groans Brigade. 60% effort, 100% of the time. They run a contest called the Voltarol Open.

Action shot! 🤣

https://www.instagram.com/p/CwURZPIoVpL/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Got the Oakley Holbrooks mentioned above. Prescription transitions. Go from fully clear to a light grey tint. They’re awesome, best riding glasses I’ve had.

Big issue for me was wearing prescription sunnies, which were great on the trail, but then I’d go indoors for lunch or go into the garage to fettle bikes and I couldn’t see a thing.

Just got into skating at 44 (and just turned 45….).

Loving it. I didn’t really skate at all when I was a kid, but I guess it helps that I’m a very experienced snowboarder (18 seasons, full time instructor/guide for the last 7!). 

My initial ambition was just to be able to cruise laps of the pump track, but I managed that within a few sessions, so I’m now upping my sights to being able to ride the bowl without looking like a total kook. Still don’t really have any intentions of learning any tech tricks, just like cruising transitions.I initially bought an Arbor cruiser complete, which is great for the pump track. Now also got one of those Element Star Wars completes (thanks to the awesome dudes at Rollersnakes!) which is better in the bowl.

Entierement d’accord avec ce mec. Top.

Curious that 3 people (myself included) have mentioned Renthal bars! I think that’s firmly in the “anecdotal evidence” camp for now, but interesting…

FWIW, I’m currently really liking the OneUp carbon bars.

I’ve suffered with this at times. I’d look at your bars – grips – brakes setup before blaming the bike geometry.

I had some very nice Renthal bars a couple of bikes ago which I think just didn’t suit me. May have been the switch to 800mm width too.

Tignes

Sainte Foy

Areches

Grimentz

Sainte Foy

Georgia

Sainte Foy

Norway

Tignes

😄

There’s a lot of chat about the incredible Irish “conveyer belt” of talent. Why then is fully half their starting back line, well, not Irish?

This is purely mischievous by the way. I am mostly Scottish and therefore have little leg to stand on on this one. The other part of me holds an Irish passport! I thought Ireland were incredible at the WC and was disappointed at their loss to NZ. Is it acceptable to support 14 of the Irish team and still be happy to see Jonny Sexton get pumped?

Living in the Alps, pretty much every day. Public transport is pretty non-existant outside of the ski season, so loads of people hitch around the valley. Have done myself a few times, mostly due to either car trouble or to go and get an uplift van back when the logistics manager (me) has really screwed things up.

Only time I remember hitching back in Scotland was after hiking the Aonach Eagach, to get back along the road.

I’ll pick most people up if they don’t look psycho-weird (fun weird is fine…), especially if I know there’s no buses running.

I very memorably picked up a very drunk group of the local equivalent of the Y0ung Farmers. They were trying to hitch from Bourg Saint Maurice back to a party at the Foyer Rurale in Seez at about 1 in the morning. I was driving an empty minibus and I don’t think the could believe I stopped. It was mostly because I’d been away racing and had a very, very long journey home and wasn’t sure I could keep my eyes open for the last couple of km. Having raucous company helped!

At the inauguration of the Scottish parliament in 1999, there was a flyover by the Red Arrows in formation with Concorde. They took off from Prestwick Airport (where Concorde was tested out of) and flew up the west coast, over the islands, then turned and flew up the Firth of Clyde before crossing the Central Belt through to Edinburgh.

That turn up the Firth of Clyde took them directly over my parents’ house, at very low altitude.

Holy. F%£#.

Give us a shout, we might be able to put something together for you.

We have a size large Rail, 2022 model (?). I think it sizes really, really small. I’m 5’11” and I think it’s small. My two guiding colleagues who are about 6’2″ think it’s tiny. If I were you, I’d definitely take an XL. Hell, if I’d sat on it before buying it, I’d have bought an XL myself.

First of all, every case is different and it very much depends on the stability of your knee, which will be different from everyone. It can be improved substantially with rehab and muscle development around the knee, but some people will always have an unstable knee without an ACL.

I ruptured my PCL, MCL and 50%+ of my ACL in 2019. Bit of meniscus damage too. I was advised not to have surgery at the time (by different top-class knee specialists) but to monitor progress and potentially consider surgery again a year or so down the line. I was 40 at the time and I’m a full-time snowboard instructor and bike guide.

The injury happened in January and I was able to see out the rest of the winter season without missing any work, but I really wouldn’t recommend that. I was really struggling and in a lot of pain at times. Fortunately, I could snowboard a lot better than I could walk. I wore a surgeon-recommended knee brace while on the snowboard. I was able to guide on the bike that summer without any real problems – the knee really felt pretty good on the bike, but still struggling to walk properly. No brace on the bike.

The main issue was getting my leg fully straight. Despite constant physio, it took me 6 months to get full leg extension and therefore stop walking with a pronounced limp. Fortunately, both snowboarding and mountain biking are best if you don’t fully extend your leg!

It took a full 2 years for the knee to feel “decent” and 3 for it feel good.

TL:DR – it’s doable but it might take a long time for the knee to feel good.

Morocco is cool, good surf that time of year. Did a trip years ago with Surf Maroc. They have a few different accom options. Food and accom were great at the place we stayed. Villa Tagazout?

<p>Dre Val is decent, but pretty tame. There’s a bit of fireroad, but it’s mostly natural singletrack which has been tweaked with a few jumps and berms. There’s an optional black section which is proper steep and tech. The bottom section is fun in a « remove brain, go fast » kind of way. We never really ride it as there’s much better trails nearby.</p>

Easy routes:

Route 66 and Canal (Arc 1600 – Arc 1950) are uninspiring in the extreme. Both on fireroads in the woods with views which are good when you can see them, but often obscured. On the north side, so damp feeling unless it’s scorching hot.

I have taken my parents (in their 60s!) on a fireroad descent from the top of the Transarc (highest lift accessed point for bikes) all the way down to Peisey and eventually back to Bourg. This is easy enough riding for anyone used to riding bikes but who isn’t necessarily a mountain biker. Some road lower down if you want to go back to Bourg, but easy enough to come up the lobster pots and Vallandry lift, then back to the funi. To/from Transarc can be done either on fireroads or easy blue runs. The blue runs might be easier than the fire roads! Flat (ok, not totally flat!) fireroad option back / forward between funi and transarc on the route des espagnols. There is a great ice-cream stop down in Nancroix.

You can also make a nice loop for beginners taking the blue from Cachette to Transarc (Legend), up the Transarc, down the green (Tranks, pretty good green), then following Canal back to the funi. Legend is rideable for anyone who has tried mountain biking a few times. Sketchiest bit is the gravelley stuff below Arc 1950 to pick up Canal.

For restaurants in Bourg, Petit Auberge or Arsiban for posh food (Arsiban seems to be in some kind of semi-retirement where they open when the feel like it!). Petit Hibou as above is great too. The big bike descent I suggested above goes right past it. Also Beliou la Fumée below Arc 1950 (just off Canal). Spendy but has a pool you can linger at for the afternoon if you go for lunch.

We work with Gravity Lab for bike hire. €89 per day for a Specialized Status, €109 for a Pivot Firebird. That’s pretty much the going rate these days and they know what they’re doing so the bikes are always in good nick.

Other activities:

Rafting is great fun also parcours aventure (Go Ape) – La repaire des ecureils in Seez is the best one. Wave, you’re looking at my house from there….

5 Lacs walk up from the Fort de la Platte is cool and easy to turn around on with kids. Not much doing at the fort, all closed up these days. Go up to Sainte Foy and walk to the Monal with beers / food at 1580 before or after. It’s a nice, easy bike ride too. Rent ebikes from Colin at Evo2 in Sainte Foy to make it a family ride. Awesome singletrack around there if you can ditch the family….

My Mrs got me a complete box set of the A Team a few years ago. Re-watching the odd episode from it is just as you would expect – pure 80s childhood nostalgia.

What really weirded me out though was that it included a pilot episode which is played as a totally straight action-thriller. No slapstick comedy, no daft lines, no contraptions. Totally serious!

Really sad.

I walked the Aonach Eagach solo back in the day. A great day out in fine summer weather. I don’t always have a great head for heights, but found it pretty straightforward as long as you stay on the right line. Easy to get off the usual route and get into trouble very quickly, even in good vis. On the other hand, Clachaig Gully is grim. I’d done it before and remembered it being not too bad, so happily went down it again after doing the ridge and it was very, very unpleasant. Much more exposed feeling than the ridge. Nothing difficult, but all the rock is downward sloping, exposed and, on the day, covered in loose grit that felt like ball-bearings.

Back when I did my ML I remember the AE ridge being frequently talked-about as the absolute bleeding-edge of ML terrain. In good conditions, with confident clients, maybe OK. In non-perfect conditions, no.