If I have to pick between a bunch of kids with shovels who want to ride their bikes off a few drops and berms, and some old biddy plus the keyboard lawyers on STW, I think I know where I stand.
If you’ve never ridden a cheeky trail or popped off a badly done pallet drop, I feel sorry for you. They come and go, nature of the beast. 16 year olds with shovels are not going to go looking for landowners and the local council, that’s for us old farts.
EU should be hassle free but once in the Balkans you’ll need passports at every border. However, post-Brexit there’s a chance you now need an entry visa, probably best to email the embassies.
As for Covid, I don’t see things being much better by the summer tbh, it won’t be gone and people will be much more active as the weather gets better.
My current bike is edging towards 16kg, easily the heaviest that I’ve owned. That said, the only times I’ve ever really noticed the weight of a bike was when I tried an emtb and thought ‘holy $hit, this is too heavy’ and a friends’ light xc bike, where I was worried about breaking it going off a curb.
I totally bought into that whole ‘lightweight is better’ cult back in the 90’s til late 2000’s.
Recently met a bunch of 5 hunting dogs on a local trail and they followed me for a while, even blasting full pelt down a downhill track ahead of me. Was it safe? Probably not but it was fun as f*k. Have occasionly encountered cows, sheep, horses and goats on different rides, you deal with them and slow down or speed up as necessary.
If a (non aggressive) dog makes you nervous out on a ride, maybe you should just stop for a few seconds until the danger has passed.
If you’re using an Android phone Macrodroid is a useful app. I have a little macro set up to respond my gps location to a text containing the phrase ‘where are you’. The idea being that if I was lying,knocked out someplace, it would still respond. Best turn it off before you get to the pub…
I ran 2013 devilles for 5 years with regular services and they were great. i only switched because I went to 29″.
I will say that I rate the 2019 Lyrik fork above them, a lot more respnsive. I can’t see myself switching to Zeb or fox at this stage but would definitely consider Bos if they made something new.
Just to balance stuff. On sub 3 hour rides: phone and some cash for the pub. For a bigger ride I’ll stuff some food and tools in the bumbag which already has a few alcohol wipes and a piece from a roll of plasters. Other than that there’s just some tape and zip ties. I usually won’t even bring water so long as I know where the springs are.
Proper piece of pro kit, even the domestic versions. Look after it and it will last 10+ years easily. I’ve taken a few apart and they are really solidly built, and best of all, nothing that needs a microchip.
I’ve always treated group rides as an excuse to have a laugh and fart about. If you’re in a hurry it’s probably the wrong place to be.
The majority of what I ride is solo and tbh I prefer it that way. Had a shitty day – go full belt down the techy stuff; not on form – bimble along an easy path, nobody to slow you down or pressure you. Last thing I’d want to do is be stuck trying to match someone elses cadence.
I’ll be getting an ebike at some stage, once they drop the weight a bit. Doubt it will really affect how I ride though.
My advice, at least to start with is to keep it simple.
An easy dinner would be garden salad or pumpkin soup (with roasted seeds) followed by braised carrots and brocoli with a bit of olive oil and fried sliced garlic drizzeled on top. Roast peaches and coconut milk for dessert (you can thicken the coconut with agar powder to get a whipped cream consistency).
There’s currently an Evil Offering and a SC Bronson in the STW Classifieds. Either of those would sort you out by the sounds of it. I’d go for the the Evil but I’m biased and I ride a similar one.
They’ve survived a hard summer’s riding on rocky terrain and a few DH trails with no issues, I’m 75kg geared up, not really a heavy rider so your mileage may vary, but at €22 ….
Sorry OP, no idea about bushings for the Horizons.
Best results: Outdoor clay oven and homemade pizza dough, minimum ingredients (I prefer oven roasted tomatoes and fresh basil on top of mozarella). Garlic is a definite plus.
Cooking at home with a regular oven: Homemade pizza dough (sourdough culture) shape it and whack it in the oven at full blast for 10 mins. Then tomato and cheese and ingredients. Another 10 mins at full blast 200C more or less.
Can’t praise them enough tbh. I’ve been through Sram, Saints, Hope and these are hands down the best I’ve had. I like my brakes grabby when needed but with the first few milimeters being modulation, for me the Hayes fit the bill.
I have’nt ever used Magura or Trickstuff(how much!)
Beergium is great for trying out stuff from all over Europe and the US. Prices are decent and postage is good too. Cheaper than some of the UK options even including delivery. https://www.beergium.com/en/
Most skill: Freeride, specifically Red Bull Rampage. Because anyone can ‘have a go’ at all the other disciplines but I don’t think there many of us with the skill to face 20 meter drops and backflip 15m gaps in a desert.
Probably BMX second. The rest is just riding bikes.
The “commercial product” is not the forum, it’s the magazine. GoFar is not a forum provider, it is a publisher, the forum is a Brucie Bonus (and indeed it’s offered for free, you don’t even need an account to read it).
If this is what you truly believe then you’re in a worse state than I thought. Forum posts from here show up regularly in online (bike related) searches worldwide…take advantage of that!
Drac I get you and that’s fine. But the site is not usable for me due to the layout of the ads.
I love STW, but if you can’t sort out the way the ads show up, the site is unusable.
This may be because I’m located in Spain, not the UK and therefore not under STW control.
I will probably just subscribe again but I really believe the free experience should be a good one, right now it isn’t.
I posted, what I thought was, a constructive post about the ad placements with and without ad blockers and it was deleted within seconds. I basically put screenshots with/without adblockers.
I also stated that I routinely whitelist sites I use regulary so long as the ads are not intrusive.
I have paid for a digital subscription before and was genuinely interested in doing so again.
