I hardly ever watch TV (because most of it is shite), but I got well and truly sucked in to The Wire at New Year.

Just finished Season 3 (no spoilers please!)

Absolutely superb programme, brilliant characters and some of the storylines are Shakespearean in their scope (Frank Sobotka, the Avon/Stringer Bell dynamic…). Lots of comedy too – Bunk and McNulty have me pishing myself.

Steve – AVOID Strath Nethy!

From what I remember of it, it’s unrideable (I ran down it once, knee deep for much of the way). The line that is shown as a path is basically through a bog and you will lose the will to live.

Much better is to go directly N from Fords of A’an (which looks like DrT’s pic above) and follow the trail to the E of Bynack Mor. This is partly rideable before a short, sharp carry, a nice descent into Coire Odhar, another short carry onto the ridge leading to An Lurg (rideable if you’re very fit…) and then a superb descent down the obvious ridge to Bynack Stables (no stables now…).

Sanny, Grumm – cheers guys! Nice to get feedback.

I just love getting out on big hill days and sharing it with others.

We should all get together for an STW ride in the spring – maybe one of the Glen Clova circuits? (Clova – Prosen – Kilbo is a beauty)

I’m happy to organise/”guide” if anyone is interested…

Good book with lots of classic rides, but you’ll need OS maps as well.

Suggestions… where to start?

Do the Ben Alder circuit from Dalwhinnie. Lots of great singletrack and a mean mofo of a carry at the furthest away point.

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Ciaran Path circuit from Kinlochleven. A big day out which leaves the toughest riding til last:

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A variation which starts in Glencoe and is a bit less committing but packs in a LOT of great riding. There are three superb descents which will take you to KLL – this shows the Ciaran Path, but following the pipeline will get you to two others which are equally good:

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Not in the book, but another cracking day. Very hard.

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An obscure one which will test your patience (lots of puushing) but rewards you with possibly the best descent in the country…

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Lots of photos:

Ben Alder[/url]
Ciaran Path[/url]
Torridon[/url]
Devil’s Staircase[/url]
Loch Lochy[/url]
Glen Feshie[/url]

These are some of the “must dos” – there are lots more. Email if you want .mmo files or more info.

SC

Practice – noun

“My dental practice”

Practise – verb

“Practise your 50-foot drop-offs”

Both?

“My dental practice told me not to come back until I had practised my 50-foot drop-offs”

Yeah – it’s worth trying, but don’t give up on tubeless if you find that it’s not holding pressure. I was pretty ambivalent about the whole thing until I tried the Stans sealant – now I’m a disciple.

I wouldn’t bother with Super Juice; you might as well use French Onion Soup.

It will not seal punctures and it is pretty ineffective even getting the tyres to hold air. Best thing to do is to throw it away (or use it as stock for soup) and use Stans sealant instead, which actually works (i.e. it means you don’t have to pump the tyres up every other day and if you get a puncture, it’ll seal straight away, unless it’s a tear).

I’m using Bonty Jones ACX and Revolt Super X tyres which are great with Stans, but a pain in the @rse with the Bonty stuff.

Also bear in mind that most kit lenses are pretty poor at the largest and smallest apertures. They usually have a sweet spot around f8-f11 where the centre and edge sharpness is best. Wide open (eg f4 for most kit lenses) the images look pretty ropey, shutter priority mode will have a bias towards these larger apertures to match fast shutter speeds.

Not a problem if you have a decent lens.

Pogues

Here.

It was exercise.

Basically, fast shutter speed and/or high ISO setting.

eg. 1/1000th of a second should freeze any action, if that’s what you’re after. However there might not be enough ambient light to allow this, so you need to turn up the sensitivity, say ISO 800 or 1600.

Try shutter priority which will let you set ISO and shutter speed – the camera will find an aperture setting to match which will allow enough light for a proper exposure, if it can (it’ll let you know if it can’t, in which case you need a slower shutter speed or higher ISO setting)

Alternatively, use a flash.

Hi Mike.

I rode this as part of a huge loop a few years ago. What I remember most about it was being utterly f***ed most of the way with a burning sensation in my thighs for mile after agonising mile. Don’t let that put you off though! It was in March and I think it was my first ride of the year.

The Strath Rusdale route is part of an old road, so it’s basically a mix of LRT and overgrown tarmac. All perfectly rideable in a beautiful, remote part of the country. I think it gets a bit rougher as you get towards Glen Calvie and there’s a lot more up and down, but it’s all good LRT as far as I can remember. I’m not sure how it would be on a touring bike cos I’ve never ridden one, but you’d want sturdy-ish tyres and strong arms to cope with the jarring.

Definitely worth a go.

:wink: indeed.

Tongue firmly in cheek, I give you….

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8O

What is the Caberston route, Smee?

You’ll find a GPS download of the Gypsy Glen circuit here (minus the first bit along the road where I forgot to press the “start” button).

As TJ says, nice route, great views, superb descent at the end. He must be fitter than me, cos I found one or two of the climbs a bit tough!

Some photos here[/url]

Not clear if you’re talking about disc or rim brakes.

If it’s the former, it could be a warped rotor. Spin the wheel while looking edge-on to the disc and it should be obvious if there’s a wobble. You can fix it by clamping a clean adjustable spanner over where the warp is and just bending it out.

I have a blog.

It’s called “Stuart and Dave’s Transalp Blog”

It’s all about Stuart and Dave’s feckless/hapless/witless approaches to training for a bike race in the summer.

You can read it here[/url].

Crank Bros – form over function.

Avoid.

I say public trial followed by execution

Do we go with “guilty until proven innocent” then?

I have no problem with that in this case.

Better yet send in a troika and get the job done with minimal expense to the already beleaguered taxpayer.

So what are the chances of these guys being indicted on fraud charges?

(Sorry if “indicted” is an American term – I’ve been watching too much of The Wire)

Yes – the “Rights Issue”.

Am I right in thinking that HBOS raised £4Bn from share-holders right at the time when it was all starting to go tits-up? It’s inconceivable, surely, that The Masters didn’t know what kind of shitstorm was about to hit when they swindled their share-holders out of this money.

I know this is similar to the “peerage” thread, but the focus is a bit different (before anyone starts!)

Leacann Muir Road is a good route.

About 1/2 hour South of Oban if you start at Ford.

MrNutt,

What software do you get in the box? Does it come with PS Elements?

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Cheers Andy.

Got it now. All regreased and running smoothly again, though the play is still there. None of the other pairs have developed this play and one set is 10 years old (never serviced!)

There is no weather whatsoever in Fife.

Buzzard.

Nice pics. I’ve never thought of Ayrshire as a riding venue – must make an effort sometime.

Is that Fairlie near Largs? :wink:

Question for Beej…

I’ve had one of these scanners in my Amazon basket for a while, but I’ve hesitated to buy it until I knew it was what I was after (got around 8000 slides to scan!). I’m not looking for ultimate quality, but something that will give decent archive quality at around 5Mpixel resolution.

Question is: how does the scan above compare with the original 60’s slide?

In terms of sharpness, saturation etc.

I know the scan looks a bit under-saturated but is that due to faded emulsions in the slide, or is the scanner not picking up the full range of tones/colours?

Plan view?

(Only remember it from techy drawing at school)

Not sure if this is any use to you:

MotionBased

You can download routes in various formats for subsequent upload to a GPS. Lots of cool features, but I’m not sure if it handles Memory Map-friendly formats. If you do a search for “worksop” you’ll find loads of stuff which can be viewed on Google Maps.

Let me know if you can get MM formats or if you can convert the files easily (I’m pretty sure it’s all based around Garmin file formats and I’m not very clued up on the compatibility issues)

Cheers,

SC

This guy might be yer man.

Hungarian chap from MTBR forums – seems like a nice guy.

“Blood Meridian or, The Evening Redness in The West” by Cormac McCarthy.

Not sure it changed my life, but I don’t think I’d currently be working as a bounty-hunter on the West Texas/Mexico borderlands if I hadn’t read this book.

Internet access is a bit patchy, mind…

Seriously though, a stunning book if you can deal with the graphic violence and McCarthy’s sparse punctuation.

Matt,

I’ve got a 3 year old Motolite and I’m thinking I need to do some of the bearing for the second time. The swinglink bearings take a lot of stress and mine are just beginning to show signs of wear after a lot of use (last replaced about a year and a half ago). These are easy to do, but the main bearings and the HL bushings are trickier, though they seem pretty robust and need infrequent attention.

The lower shock bushing needs pretty regular attention (every 4/5 months?) but it’s a 5 minute job.

Great bike.

what Stuartie C said apart from Ben Alder.

Never again do i want to do that miserable hike a bike.

Aye – but don’t tell anyone about it. :D

Cindy of the Thousand Lives by Billy Bragg – Cindy Sherman

Torridon – Coulin Forest circuits (lots of variations)
Cairngoms – lots to choose from, but Linn of Dee – Glen Derry – Glenmore – Lairig Ghru – Glen Luibeg will put lead in yer pencil
Glencoe – Devil’s Staircase – Blackwater – Ciaran Path – Devil’s Staircase
Ben Alder – circuit from Dalwhinnie via Culra and Ben Alder cottage.
Glen Clova – Bachnagairn to Loch Muick and return via Capel Mounth OR Minister’s Road to Glen Prosen, Cateran Path over the hills to Kilbo and back to Clova by the Kilbo Path.

I could go on… but they’re all in Scotland. Maybe I need to broaden my horizons :wink:

Chelsea Hotel by Leonard Cohen – Janis Joplin