i struggle to get my HR particularly high on a corss trainer, always feel my legs are giving out way before my heard/lungs are, usualy only hit 170bpm before i cant go any faster.

I went spinning last night, now thats a cardio workout! Joged there an back as well. And by the time i got home i was dizzy/faint/collapsing while grasping at bannanas and hot chocolate (the real suff, cocoa, suggar, milk ) for some calories.

maxxis highroller, not quite as gripy as i expected but by no means a letdown, 8/10 grip 8/10 rolling resisitance

continental (all) you expect them to be sliding all over so its not a surprise when you find everythign sidewats

spesh enduro 2.2, very fast rolling, but drifty in the corners due tot he lack of big side nobbles.

maxxis swampthings 2.1, usualy my mud tire, but left them on for cannock chase and they loved it, didnt lose grip once and not to draggy when pumped up to 30/35psi.

on the other hand if it didnt go “tssss” the car would accelerate as if the throttle was floored (turbo spins up, compresses air, more air into cylinder, more air through turbine, more compressed air etc etc etc) untill eventualy the valves go off in search of extra terrestrial life.

serilising fluid made up fairly cocentrated with boiling water works. 1tsp with about 500ml water, and carefully let it run through the hose and leave for a a few hours to cool, occasionaly letting some fluid out the mouthpiece.

Usualy gets ll the gunk to flake off.

Rinse with mroe boiling water, then use orange juice the first ride out to get over the taste.

so what your tellign me is that 4 bars use some clever shock valving to stop them bobing, where IH, SC etc all rely on chain growth, giving them that unique/infuriating pedaling feel when climbing up rough slopes?

reminds me of an incided a few years back, when v-brakes were cool rather than retro.

crossing a field see some horses coming in the opposie direction (a good 100m away) so pull over and stop. Que a torrent of abuse for using my brakes (admitely it was wet and mudy so a bit of a squeek could be heard) and scaring the horses. Cant remember my reply but it involved dumfounded silence followed by my best monty python esque abuse (referances to their ancestors, hamsters and a butternut sqash).

Thisisnotaspoon, improving equine-cyclist relations since 1986 :)

pick a penny out of your wallet, just think how much something that size is going to ruin/improve the bike.

nothing to worry about, 130mm is becoming less common anyway, everything seems to be 120mm XC forks or 140mm AM forks

your not supposed to grease where things clamp (bars/stem etc) but it can help, as well as cleaning out any grit from the clamp area.

Most anyoying one on my bike was the pedal thread, took weeks to isolate that one! little drop of grease, problem solved!

could be the bars about to snap as well……………….. (look for stress marks in the anodising)

bikeradar have announced it, e-mail came in this morning, no spesh or cannondale :(

IIRC one of the 24hour races has a demo day attatched to it?

will go looking for a spesh & cannondale dealer.

milk in pan, boil and whisk? thats how i make hot chcocolate and it goes ridiculously frothy and stays that way if its full fat or you add a dolop of cream.

low and centered,

i.e. not stood bolt upright, with your weight right over the front/back.

keep your hips verticaly over the pedals and your arms bent to lower your CoG. Not slaming into things isnt hard, as has beeen said either bunnyhop (my prefered technique) if theres only one obstacle, or just let the bike do its thing, keep the lightest of touch ont he controlls and allow your legs to smooth out the chatter from the rear wheel.

build your own from an old road bike?

ive got a 80/90’s peugot, arround 58-62 cm and compact handlebars. Good ish condition, add some fixe wheels and correct chainring and you’r away.

£30 from Reading.

i don’t "work the fork" as much as i probably should, but then again i run my fork with lots of sag (33%, easily) and very (2-3clicks from open rathert han the usual 2-3 from closed) quick damping. I do however run a 90mm stem where most people use a 70mm one so my weights already foreward.

Learn to bunnyhop on flat pedals, then practice that technique over obstacles, even if its just to unweight the bike rather than take off over bumps. Once you have that mastered you’ll fly down trails (sometimes litteraly). Also try riding with the lockout on on some smooth trails (dont hit any big obtacles as it can blow the damper appart). That way you learn not to rely on the suspension at all.

As for weight distribution your hips should be verticaly over your BB, once there keep your weight low by leaning forewards to "work the fork". With practice you can ride steep rocky chutes that require you weight right back, at speed, on a hardtail, but it takes practice and confidence your not going to scrape your arse on the rear wheel!

Derby: head for John Thompson Inn, Ingleby, (just south of derby) and explore the Robins wood, Repton Scrubs and Foremark area, some singletrack, a few climbs, enough to fill a few hours

Sheffield: Start at hunters bar roundabout, head through the parks, up porter colough, over to stanage, back up the road to blaka moor, down blaka to dore, then back to hunters bar

Cannock: trail center, just north of birmingham, signposted route is 50-min to an hour, 2 or three laps will get you sewaty and hitting 95% of the corners off the brakes.

mud at cannock? was frozen last tiem i went there, but didnt see anything other than sand and gravel.

tires: maxxis swampthing 2.1 on a mid width rim. Best tires ever!

I’f youve not been before, just remember there are no corners that actualy need the brakes.

coil springs in big DH forks are linear, in smaller forks they tend to be a little more progressive due to the lower air volume arround them, but not by a hugely noticable ammount.

air springs tend to have a S shaped curve, beign initialy hard to compress as the seals get moving, easier to compress in the mid stroke and ramping up at the end as the volume runs out.

In the context of forks linear can mean anything from "not progressive enough" to regressive. Thats what you get when the editor at MBR has a crucade agaisnt flat bars/linear shock rates/long stems etc etc etc.

IMO as long as the damping is adequate and stiction is low the rest is compensatable for by a good rider. My favourite 2 forks ever were some 2002 z1’s and some 2007/8 magura menja’s. Both very quickly damped, progressive at the end, and almost zero sticiton. but the magura is a typical air fork, with a very active mid stoke (i.e. its regressive once it starts moving in the first 70mm or so) whereas the z1’s were the same all through the travel.

I never quite believed the idea of air pockets, surely the results would be excruciatingly painfull, like the bends?

The physio said that 95% of noise from knees/any joint is tendon rubbing on bone, mostly harmless unless its becomes inflamed/painfull, which means your doign too much excercise/not flexible enough.

So when you knee ‘pops’ its often the ITB or kneecap tendons settling back into their groove. The noise is because the load on the tendon/ligament is often several times your bodyweight turns it into a very thick, damped, stressed guitar sting.

never tested it, but out BT conection in sheffield could run DT vision streeming the football, an internet phone, skype, and 5 computers, without being too slow (could still streem porn, but no downloads).

clay porter stuff is good for clips, hypnosis f1rst and synopsis i think were the titles, all good, and its raceign so no silly cliffs. Just show them Sam hill cornering!

any argument about raw materials cost is a bit misleading.

The scrap value of a frame isn’t £600, so any raw material cost will be nowhere near that. Its nearer £2-3 per frame. So saying the cost of alu trebbled, would add £6 to your frame.

Ditto carbon, although tooling for carbon, especialy monocoques is hideously expensive, hence why a lot of carbon frames are still made from individual tubes whereas alu is often made into big hydroformed (in all its meanings) monocoque strutures (old old spesh enduro, intense etc).

I’d sell you my DX moded ones

500 lumen, spot and flood,
runs off AA’s,
aprox 1 hour per 250lumen per AA (can take upto 8)
splash/shower proof, fully waterproof unless your being silly.

If anyone wants some i’ll do all the buying/building/modding if you offer a good price. Comes in 240lumen multimples

240 adequate for singletrack
480 scare wildlife shitless
720 comuication with ET?

but wouldnt be able to post for the weekend.

next door to the airport/M1/A50/A38 is hardly the middle of nowhere is it? comapred to siverstone anyway which is on a country lane in northamptonshire.

And im only guessing but the stands may be being replaced soon…………………..

ohh and the reason ive not jumped straight on the bandwagon,

derreilieur 200g
cassette 250g
hub 400g

shimano alfine 1.6kg!

Thats got to make braking bumps a nightmare surely?

gearing would cross over, but no more than normal, only the last 3-4 gears are “new” each time you shift the front ring. But with a straight chainline there’s no reason (assuming the hubs can take the torque?) that you can’t ride in the theoretical 22 on the hammershmit and be in top gear at the hub. Giving a propper low range set of gears for climbing and normal gears for elswhere.

aches and pains this morning were no worse than after a hard ride. Although i think i may have slightly strained a few things as stretching seemed ineffective, flelt like the muscle/tendon wouldnt give, but the same range of motion if that makes sense?

square for XC, isis for everything else.

use the other way round and isis will wear out and tapered ones will snap.

my basic understanding of hydrodynamics says that will be planing at well under 8 knots surely (about 6.8?) ?

Not that new and revolutionary, plenty of very similar looking concepts on sailing dingies, imagine a cross between the current generations of moths and a laser vortex. And the tunnel idea was sumbled upon by the vikings to give longboats some stability.

always ahd various bikes, mainly kids type MTB style ones. Then started riding singletrack and sliding all over the place (and loving it!) on a 24″ wheeled diamondback.

Progressed to my dads raleigh maverick, and used it to get fit on, riding local cyclepaths etc.

Got my first “propper” mtb, a saracen rufftrax, christmass 98 and rode it till it broke (gears worn to the point that the chain just slipped, wheels bent, tires shreaded etc). Got intorduced to propper mtb’ing on that one, including nightriding with no lights (just sit behind/ infront of people who can see where theyr going)! but had to take a break as no cash for a better bike when it was termianly knackered.

Graduated to a carrera fury, good spec (sub 30lb, full deore, ritchey RockShox etc) but rubbish geometry. Rode ti till it was almost no more, then added bomber z4’s, hope disks, XT/317’s, big raisers, etc and took it to the peaks when i went to uni (sheffield)

That lasted till about 2006, when i began the new build arround a DMR switchback frame, handled like a pig but was better thant he carrera in the peaks. Crashed ont he second outing and was off bikes for nearly 2 years. Rebuilt in 2007 after my knee op, with new forks/tires. Now handles liek a dream. A proper ballance between point an shoot, but changes direction as soon as you think about it!

if theres adjustable geometry (by moving the shock mounts) then set it to low/slack with the long shock, should mimick the tall/steep setting, but with about an 2/3 inch more travel.

If no adjustable geometry BB will be 3/4 inch higher, and HA steeper.

I found the enduros realy struggle for cornering grip and washed out on every corner, currenlty running 2.1 swampthings, survived cannock chase with hardly a slip which was nice, didnt feel too draggy pumped up to 35psi on mavic en321’s, they are very round though if you run them on anything narrower than that (eg 717’s). And they do come with a warning not to use on environmentaly sensitive trails!

Avoid 2.1 high rollers, they’r very narrow for a 2.1 and the grip was consistent, but not spectacular like the swampthings, did roll quickly though. Got some 2.35’s but not tried them yet, fitted they look slightly wider but not as tall as spesh 2.2’s.

Tempted to cut down some 2.35 swamthings for the front come the summer and run the 2.2 enduro on the back as its quicker rolling.

MG midget, lap of a greasy insustrial estate, most fun you can have with trousers on!

cheep to insure, and fairly reliable as well. Things tend to wear out on classic cars rather than blow up.

I sold a sunn UN (63mm corrected) frame for about £95 i think, that was the disk only 3lb XC frame. The XCircuits a more basic frame so was after about £50 i think including headset, seatpost and forks.

hair conditioner keeps mine at an acceptable level of softness, without it it it feels scratchy all the time!

had a conversation the other dayabout house prices in Reading with a coleague.

He was saying how he thought houses weren’t loosing value localy, as estate agents were still advertising the same prices as they were in the summer. I pointed out that the same agents havent sold much since the summer! So if he actualy wanted to sell he’d have to do so for less than the ones that aren’t selling (at the summer prices), so prices have droped.

fingers crossed rates stay low and prices keep droping, at this rate I may actualy be able to buy a house in a few years!

still sat in my parents shed in fact. The chrome one i bought while drunk.

It was shiny!

Might still sell it, but it may finaly get built into a commuter if i get time.

KSB’s are cheep from SoccerWorld or whatever its called on the high street, abnout £25 and lasted a good year of walking 4 miles a day before i ended up walking on my socks! Not great grip on flat pedals though, even cheep skate shoes beat them.

I’d go for etnies as they have a stif sole for riding, and something a bit better than v12’s which will hurt your feet after a few hours. Quite a few 300g pairs of magnesium flat pedals arround at the moment (superstar/diety and NC-17).

Skate shoes wont grip as well in the mud/wet grass, but should be fine everywhere else.

porridge rocks my socks!

Best bet is the plain stuff and flavour it yourself, the “oats so simple” and readybrek stuff is full of thickeners and sugar.

3 heaped tablespoons of oats, and enough milk to cook in 3 minutes

if you use less oats (say 1 spoon) and cook it then let it stand for a few minutes before re-heating its just as thick, but less calories.

cannondale gemini DH