njee – there was a normal mech in the M960 series stuff. I well remember buying one and taking long enough to work out why i couldnt get gears set up right.

M960 was metallic shiny slate grey; the M950 stuff was a matt brownish grey.

On cold turkey now, maybe I should get a packet of giant buttons without the caramel to bring myself down more gently….

The MTB I commute on has some XTR stuff on it – Dual Control shifters, discs and mechs and front hub. We had them in the house when I was building it up – stripped off another bike that was sold as frame only – so figured I might as well use them. It’s old 2003 vintage xt stuff (M960 series) so not worth a lot to sell on, but its done plenty miles and has a lot left in it hopefully.

Chainrings, chain and cassette aren’t XTR though – mix of what’s cheap. 2000 miles a year on an MTB tends to burn through that sort of stuff fairly quickly.

More info here – looks like the ferry is back on now.

If you look at the pictures linked from that page, it’s basically he whole hillside that has failed. I see a bridge over the narrows in the future.

http://www.highland.gov.uk/yourenvironment/roadsandtransport/roads/stromeferry.htm

Sorry Binners. But the fact they went to a sweet shop rather than a crack den sort of validates my point. :-D

Get the new Dirt magazine (the issue that is just out with the World Cup preview in it); it has an article (OTA#3) that talks about about year-round lift assisted riding in the Rhone valley.

Spesh SWORKS FSR 120, about 2005 model. Just didn’t get on with it, too isolated and magic carpetty I thnk. I came off that bike more than any other I have owned, it just didn’t seem to have anything in between “fine” and upside down in a hedge.

And they are gone….what was left was barely worth keeping. Definitely not buying any more. A moment on the lips is a lliretime on the hips…

Binners – could you do an experiment and give one child a bag of Caramel Nibbles and the other one a bag of crack rocks and see which one finishes first and goes looking for more?

The question is becoming increasingly academic…

Constipation (not necessarily a bad thing, short term, depending on predicament), exceedingly weird dreams (again has pros and cons), drowsy/woozy feeling, but they worked for pain. Sort of knew something was up but didn’t really mind, if that makes sense.

As soon as I could manage without them I was off them.

2 1/2 years. I was cougared. It’s ace.

Passats are huge, can get loads of stuff in back, but for a new driver maybe a bit bug. The 1.6tdi will probably struggle fully loaded in a car that size (it’s about 110PS I think).

Focus is a better shaped boot than a Golf; big and boxy with little intrusion from wheelarches – our last model focus swallowed a bathtub!

320 is meant to be a beautiful car to drive but isn’t really a load lugged like the rest.

Direct Line didn’t change; got a quote without disclosing the incident, then went back and put it in “hit by 3rd party vehicle/ object, recovery made” and made no difference to the premium. Happened in a car park I’d never parked in before, and unlikely ever to use again.

On no claims, my gf didn’t have no claims at the time (she had an outstanding claim that was never pursued due to absolute ineptness of Admiral’s claims handling team) but I did; basically they said she could piggyback on mine but if we had a claim we’d both loose NCB on a multicar policy.

Jon – don’t do it!!!!!! Seriously.

Multicar is another scam; we got a quote that was only about 50 quid cheaper than insuring two cars separately, but it combines your no claims history – might work for in person with 2 cars, but for 2 people/ 2 cars not so clever….

Does the outspoken person actually have to say stuff, or just type it?

I’d love to see a forum “big hitter” with a speak and spell up against Nigel Havers.

New shop, looks like its one of the ground floor units in Exchange Place (west side of Semple Street between Morrison Street and Fountainbridge), so diagonally opposite Macdonald Cycles. Will be good if only for “ship to store” for mail order stuff. Would imagine it will be head-to-head with Bike Coop.

I’d imagine a couple of the smaller nearby shops will be worried, but how they are still going mystifies me (and has done so for years).

Probably a good thing imo if they recruit good staff (the people in the Glasgow one have always been very good in my experience). And it’s only 5 mins from work instead of 20 to get to the Bike Coop if I ever need anything.

If its outside rush hour should be ok – come in Calder Road and West Approach Road, rather than A8. But train might be easier as avoids need to find parking in town.

I’m sure there is space for another player, given popularity of cycling in these parts.

Where are you starting from?

This is current car (2007 Passat) partially packed up – you can see the back wheel of one bike and the other one under the blue sheet. Two road bikes then go flat on top of luggage, and we also managed to fit in almost 10 cases of wine.

[/url]
25 July – Packing the car[/url] by Stu_N[/url], on Flickr

Barely use the PC now, web browsing, twitter, arsebook, games, reading magazines, photos. Basically 90% of what a PC can do but way more portable, and it is much more natural to use for reading stuff.

Probably road, the east side of the islands are very rugged and almost trackless (huge maze of lochs, bog and mountains especially north uist, more mountainous further south). West side is sandy and windswept and maybe perfect for a fat bike but not much else…

10 years ago I remember it being about 40 quid a head for a team of 4. If Pat has held it to 55 a head ten years later without Red Bull sponsorship that’s pretty good going.

If you go to the subs page it only has an annual option for print; monthly one is online only.

Monthly print doesn’t make sense as the mag is less than monthly. Some mags do quarterly or six-monthly, don’t know of anyone that does less frequently than that.

I just use it for backups (which must back up settings and profiles etc rather than all content) and to sync contacts, bookmarks, notes, calendar and photostream between iPad and iPhone. You get 5GB free storage which is probably OK for photos but not music. (I’m using less than 0.5GB for that lot)

I’ve stuck with Flickr for sharing pics.

Fenred

Overall the 29er offers way more comfort, largely due to better fit. I find I have to ‘muscle’ it more through the trail but in other ways it flows much better and undoubtedly rolls over stuff the 26er would have stalled on and thrown me otb. It’s really difficult to articulate how a 29er feels as a direct comparison to the same breed 26er, to me it just feels ‘right’ looks, feel, ride, grin factor…And surely thats all anyone ever needs

Only negative I can say is the 29er doesnt seem to have the same ‘spring’ that my 26er had, which tbh I miss, but as I say its early days and the frame might liven up in time.

That’s pretty much my experience too – Cotic Soul with 120mm Revelations vs Scandal 29er with 100m Rebas. I only got the Scandal as I was 29er curious and had some Bonty forks (used on Soul as a rigid) and wheels from my old roadrat and was able to nick the running gear off the FS bike my girlfriend was replacing.

A few things to add – the speed a 29er will carry through a sweeping corner always impresses me (hence my comment on page one about loving mine at Glentress). I like the way I am more “in” the bike than on it too.

The biggest downside is on a 29er, but if you have to scrub off speed it doesn’t get it back as well. It’s much more than the difference in “snap” between light and heavy wheels on a 26er in my experience. Like I said, next bike may well be a 29er – ideally would swing a leg over an ASR5, SB95, Suoerlight 29er and Tallboy for starters but that may be difficult to arrange.

Not really.

There’s a wee bike shop – very basic hire bikes – in Portree which had very basic spares but I wouldn’t rely on it for anything more than inner tubes. A reasonable number of shops do a bit of outdoor kit as well but no specialist shops as far as I know.

Nearest bike shops and kit shops will be Fort William.

I reckon if more cyclists appreciated how difficult they were to see when filtering/ lane splitting through traffic – even when drivers are activel looking out for them, which most aren’t – they would be a lot more cautious. I drive into Edinburgh one day a week and doing that has made me think long and hard about how I ride in the rest of the days.

The biggest vehicle I have driven is a long wheelbase Sprinter. The restricted view out the side and back of that was scary, even compared to a large estate car. Can’t imagine how little yo can see out a truck; I’d be a nervous wreck trying to drive an artic in a city.

One of my colleagues bought similar from Groupon. How we laughed when she thought she was getting running tops but what arrived was pretty much 20 bin bags with arm and head holes in them. Don’t think hers were even stripy!

Yes – done easyjet internal flights on photo card licence, should be grand

Z doesn’t want extra competition. They may see you as a competitor now or down the line if they think you’re likely to set up as a service centre.

It’s really up to company X isn’t it? Whather what Z is doing is ethical or not depends on nature of complaint, surely? (as brakes says).

this has where these people are now
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-447223/Oxford-1992-Portrait-classless-Tory.html

Well that’s 8 of them. Most successful, one dead, two doing jobs open to any bright graduate who works hard (journalist and mgmt consultant).

The other 12 – if Mail can’t find them, do they have no public profile? In which case likely to be working in the City or something like that.

the bullingdon club photos remain as pertinent as ever as it shows in a simple and straightforward way the way these people get their positions by patronage and privilege

Out of interest, do you know how the fate of everyone in that picture? How many have “made it” in politics or industry or civil service? How many are dead? How many in prison? How many just doing “normal” jobs or not a lot?

A lot of individuals on self-assessment make their return for 2010-2011 and pay final instalment of their tax. Also get VAT from the pre-Christmas period coming in, and January is one of the months that most big companies make their third quarterly instalment payment of corporation tax for 2011. Chuck all tha together and you get a spike in government income. Government expenditures will be fairly even throughout year – so income up and expenditure flat = monthly surplus. Simple.

How exactly does a one-month surplus make Osborne the worst chancellor ever?

You can only pay into one cash ISA in a tax year (6 April to following 5 April ). A transfer, provided done through the proper route between institutions, doesn’t count as a “pay-in”.

I don’t entirely understand your question, but I think I am answering what you are asking here.

If you have paid into “A” this tax year, you can transfer money from “A” into “B” and keep paying into “A”. You couldn’t put anything into B other than by a transfer until the nex tax year.

I am not an expert but did look into this from point of view of putting something from my existing ISA into a fixed rate fixed term ISA.

My Scandal is good for longer rides and trail centres. Glentress red and blue are ace on it. Do a lot of commuting on it as well.

I took it to the Alps in October as well, which was ace. Bottled one step-down and one switchback I’d ridden on my Prophet, and had ti take stuff a air bit slower, but otherwise all good.

I still love my Soul, especially for a quick blat through local woods and the Prophet definitely has its place. If anything it’s replaced the short travel FS 26er.

A risk of turning this into a showmeyours thread, here it is.

[/url]
2012-01-22 Big Pink after red route[/url] by Stu_N[/url], on Flickr

Oui, my old old baby blue one was definitely 27.2, like every other MTB I’ve owned

For Fort William world championships, they had fenced off a lot of off-road routes into and out of Leanachan Forest and had people selling tickets at some of them. (we found this not cos we were trying to get in for free but because where we were staying it was a lot quicker to walk in to the bottom end of the XC course than go via Gondola station end).

You could get in for free – some friends walked over the Aonachs from top end of Glen Nevis and followed the DH course down, but they were more out to do some munros than see DH practice.

While the tour climbs are busy, they are all pretty remote and it’s only really the top couple of km that are mobbed – and there is a lot of them over a 3 week oeriod. With Box Hill being Olympics, UK having a strong team and being a kick up the hoop of That London Place, I reckon there is every chance there will be more people trying to stand on Box Hill than you’d get on Alpe d’Huez. I know I would if I lived remotely close to it….