you have to ask yourself “what is the problem we’re trying to solve?” and be VERY clear on the answer before you start introducing tools to solve it.

If your answer is “communication”, then a) you need to work harder to find a more specific answer and b) you’re probably looking to solve a cultural, not technological, problem, so new technology is unlikely to be the solution.

Well put. If people can relate to that defined problem, they will buy into – and possibly even get excited – by that solution.

I must confess I don’t really understand all the love for Slack. I use it occasionally but I can’t figure out what it offers that is notably better than email. Is it simply that it *isn’t* email and that people can “collaborate” internally without external distractions?

If you believe/feel that photography should ‘just’ record reality as accurately as possible then you’re probably not going to like heavily post-processed images as they’re not ‘truthful’.

This is where it gets interesting. I remember travelling in the late 90s with a compact camera (film, natch). I took lots of sunset photos in Africa which, when printed, looked great. However, they didn’t accurately depict what my own eyes saw; the photos recorded reality within the limitations of a film camera. Arguably they looked even better than reality.

It’s a bit like the old hi-fi argument, where “true” hi-fi should reflect the real experience of being there as much as possible. Well, to be frank, I’ve been to lots of live concerts where the sound quality was pretty dire and I’d be gutted if that’s what I had to listen to on my hi-fi at home.

and posted it on a biking website

…and emailed it out to representatives from across the spectrum, including the Chief Executive of the Peak District National Park, councillors, county councils, various media, horse riding groups, disabled groups, access officers etc

Great comments. Keep ’em coming.

All of that looks like XC to me

Some XC racers were telling me that the scene is losing quite a few competitors recently because courses are getting too technical and people are having accidents. This also explains the growing popularity in cyclocross as those racers move to a different discipline. Not sure if other racers are seeing that.

I thought this thread was about the post-processing that you *couldn’t* do in-camera. I’ve misunderstood.

Flaine? It’s been a few years, but I seem to remember that having a lot of wide-open blue pistes. I seem to remember La Plagne being a good call for big, wide pistes too.

Avoid Les Deux Alpes at all costs. The descents back down to the village are either steep or flat-as-a-pancake roads.

It comes in cycles (pun intended). I’ll have a spill and hurt my knee or elbow, then wear pads for months as a result. Eventually confidence gets the better of me and I stop wearing pads….until I have a crash and hurt myself (again).

Currently I’m only wearing knee pads for more technical riding, but not general XC. I hardly wear elbow pads at all.

“I want to do everything in the camera and Photoshop is cheating”

If that’s what your mate is trying to achieve through his/her photography then that’s just as valid as someone who makes their photo in the post-processing. They’re different branches of photography, but both still photography.

“I want to earn my DH and uplift is cheating”

[tenuous analogy]Still cycling though[/tenuous analogy]

It was cup and cone. Cones knackered :cry:

The best part of the Peak District is in Staffordshire :-)

Seriously, as a Staffordshire resident I like to remind people that the Peak District is not just Derbyshire. There’s a huge and very impressive swathe of the Peak in Staffordshire. Why don’t you do a return trip to the Staffordshire Moorlands Peak District from the NE Peak? Best of both Worlds.

Bravo :lol:

Elbow’s new album out today :-)

Anything by Tim Harford.

Saw a lecture by him last year; very good. I must try his podcasts.

Get to the Staffordshire Moorlands. There’s some cracking road riding on roads that I’ve never seen busy. If you’re coming on a Sunday you might be able to tag on with my local club.

I’m already anxiously waiting for the new issue since it seems like ages since the last one, so I’m a bit disappointed about the move to fewer issues. Reading the mag is what inspires me to ride my bike and I need regular inspiration at this time of year.

I said it before on a previous thread, I would have preferred to see more issues but on lower quality paper than fewer issues on high quality paper. As the price of an individual magazine goes up, I feel less inclined to recycle it as it feels less like a disposable item. I understand that’s what some people love about the mag, but I find it a pain. I still have copies of Privateer lying around the house that I can’t bring myself to putting in the recycling bin, nor can I give them away. That’s not what i want from a magazine.

All this will be promptly forgotten if, as Chipps suggests, the quality of the content gets better. That’s the true measure for me.

A question for Mark or Chipps if they’re on this thread: what magazines *are* doing well and why are they successful? I love Top Gear magazine, for example. It’s not fancy paper, it’s full of adverts, but the articles are – in my opinion – very well written and there’s plenty of variety. Is that an example of a mag where car makers are willing to splash the cash on adverts still?

Just take a good few spare tubes, even if your tubeless as the drainage ditches are brutal.

Good advice. I dinged a rim on one of the many drainage ditches, meaning my tubeless tyre no longer kept air in.

nip it down town

It might come to that, but this is one job that would be quicker – and cheaper – to do myself….if only I knew what size bearings I needed :lol:

I’ve heard that they might be de-badged Formulas. What bearings do yours take kimbers?

I was thinking Sunday morning, but I’ll take what I can :lol:

The Coffin Road from Kenmore to Applecross and back (or the other way round) is a superb piece of “natural” single track and not too big an outing, although I was very lucky with the weather :-)

This was a superb day out too, finishing with the famous 7km long Annat descent. Let me know if you can’t see it on Strava.

Some pics from my trip on Flickr[/url] if you want inspiration. We stayed at Kinlockewe hotel which was great.

Google turns up this old thread which is worth a read http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/applecross-area-route-advice

I’ve been more impressed with Aldi’s £7.99 “waterproof” gloves than my Sealskinz. Neither are completely impermeable to water, but the Aldi ones tend to keep me more comfortable when they do wet-out.

bout 5mm/km when I had the useless (Hopeless?) Hope QR seat clamp on it

I thought it was just me underwhelmed by the relative ineffectiveness of those things

Been tubeless on the FS bike for 3 or 4 years now, but recently went back to tubes on the rear due to a ding on the rim. I never thought it was a night and day difference when I went tubeless, and now I’ve gone back I still don’t think it’s the revelation some people claim it is. That said, I will eventually go tubeless again because I hate fixing punctures, no matter how infrequent.

i had to put my headphones on and listen to something else

:lol: at JoB

You like this but you don’t like Elbow? They’re poured from the same musical mould to my ears.

Lots of talk of weight in this thread, and I have no doubt that my climbing would be improved if I didn’t weigh 80kg. However, the techniques involved in climbing – or indeed riding – off-road should not be underestimated. I’ve been out on my MTB with fellow roadies who destroy me on the roads on anything with even the slightest uphill gradient, yet throw some rocks, mud and even a bit of snow into the mix and I’m the one waiting for them.

when you need 30 seconds of extreme grunt to get up something steep, he can’t find it.

I think this is probably very true. I can’t climb for toffee on the road and I’m not that great off-road, but I can usually find that extra udge to overcome short, hard sections.

In summary, don’t listen to me; I can’t climb at all :lol:

Unless you’re an out-and-out downhiller, the best bike for the UK is the one that makes climbing the easiest whilst still being more bike than you need on the descents. Unless you have uplift everywhere you ride, most of your riding will have some climbing to do for your thrills, so why not make that bit as much fun and as easy as possible too. The ideal bike for you will therefore depend on your descending prowess and I’m not sure a load of strangers on the internet can advise on that :-)

As many have said, get a demo bike and ride it on the kind of trails you usually ride. If the Five feels like something you’d soon reach the limits of, maybe the Alpine 6 is for you. If – like me – a 140mm bike never feels out of depth for the riding you do, why go bigger and heavier and make the climbs a (literal) pain?

Do I like riding muddy trails? No, not really, but if I didn’t ride them I’d ride even less than I do now.

Sometimes it can be fun, especially downhill, but there’s nothing worse than being defeated on a climb because it is too muddy for any traction.

Another plug for Peak District MTB’ Roaches Estate survey. Please let us know your thoughts on the riding there.

The Roaches Estate covers the Roaches and Gradbach woods and is close to some fab riding in the south west Peak District including Three Shires Head, Cumberland Clough and Macclesfield Forest.

Peak District MTB website[/url]

or

Direct link to survey

Thanks

any pointers so I don’t neglect anything?

If you have anything in Apple’s proprietary software such as email downloaded to Mail, or your precious photos in iPhotos or Photos, you might have some work to do. For example if you’ve simply adopted the Apple way of handling your photos, the actual JPEGs etc are buried fairly deep inside the OS infrastructure (Photos and iPhoto are just databases in effect). You might need to export the pics to regular files that you can copy to your Windows machine or upload them to a cloud service like Google Photos so that the OS becomes irrelevant.

Is your problem that the ads or targeted or that there are simply too many ads? You can probably resolve the former but, since you can’t resolve the latter, I’m not sure why you’d want to sort the former. Surely it’s better to have relevant ads than irrelevant ads*

*or is the relevancy what’s causing the issue ;-) :lol:

antique Mmmbop

Antique? They’re not that old are they???

Since we’re doing this, I was Dan on the awesome orange Bandit. 26″, so I guess also an antique :lol:

clean your bike

I gave it a wipe down at the car. That’ll do.

Sorry I missed you all for a pint but I had a deadline to get back for.

Shame, cos I was going to promote the Roaches survey[/url] I’m doing for Peak District MTB Hint hint ;-)

Baz even has a photo of Chris riding!

EDIT you’ll have to take my word for it

Did hora make it?

He made it out, but whether he made it back or not….

Hora on Hayfield Pootle
by stilltortoise[/url], on Flickr

Audis? Octavias? T5s?

Can a Beemer join that exclusive club? I’ll drive it like an idiot if that gets me in :lol:

Like being able to use an SD card, USB stick and CD/DVD drive.

Only the very oldest MacBook Pro has a CD/DVD drive and some of the other MacBooks have no USB drive or SD card slot. Ask yourself if you really REALLY need these since it will limit your options, even with the Windows devices.

Macbook Air

Love them as I do, the screen quality looks poor compared to the Retina displays. That might not seem like a problem, but you might regret it if you ignore it.

As for photo editing on an iPad, I decided against it and got a MacBook. The main reason is that I’m well ensconced in the Mac ecosystem and use iCloud Photo Library. The Apple Photos app for iOS does not include many of the features available on the MacOS version, such as tagging. If you’re managing a big library this is an important consideration.

Have you filled in the survey scruff?