Yep turns out that you cant get them!…can anyone recommend a cheapish sleeping bag please? It wont be used in silly cold temps.

Which type would you recommend though….the balloon style one or the self inflating type?

Right guys I’m going to get myself some budget bikepacking kit….I think that I’m going to get the cheap Gelert 1 man tent (I don’t much fancy the idea of a bivvy bag) I’m also going to get the tesco down sleeping bag. What sleeping mat would you recommend? I’ve seen both the alpkit numo and dirtbag…that is about the top of my budget tbh-I’m not a great sleeper so I’d like something that favours comfort. I’ve read all 56 pages of this thread today-best thread on stw!!

Shall I take it that you haven’t ridden a race then?

Thing is though craig, these guys/gals ride the downhills just as hard as the uphills, sprinting after any slowing down etc. I raced last year in the sport category (mid pack at best) and even with my crap skills and average fitness, I can’t remember a race where on the decents my heart rate dropped more than a couple of bpm.

Have you ever raced an xc race?

I can’t believe that people are daft enough to say that its not technical when they are judging it by the tv pictures…..we all know how much the camera appears to flatten terain out. Whether or not you find it boring is irrelavant though really…..what’s more boring than watching a TT-everyone was pretty chuffed for Brad though!

Don’t see the problem with selling it myself-he won it fair and square, and to my mind is free to do with it as he pleases. If he gets 10k for it, then that is a serious amount of cash isn’t it-not life changing, but would certainly make life more comfortable…

OK. There’s something very wrong here;

Mr Hazell previously went out with Tia’s mother Natalie Sharp, 30, and is now living with the girl’s grandmother Christine.

OK, it’s the Mail, but needed to quote source.

Seriously, WTF?

8O Some kids really do have shit lives :(

http://singletrackworld.com/members/alexandro/ This seems to be the guy….

Where is Bens Pies off too? I know that he posted on his twitter that he was leaving a few weeks back, but it was removed shortly after….will he stay in GP? or back to WSBK? It’d be a shame to see him drop off the radar imo

It’s actually quite embarassing that a man roughly the same as my dad has managed to get himself a lifetime ban from an internet forum

:lol: My dad is 57….not sure how old TJ was but I’ds love to hear my old mans view on arguing on the interweb!

He’s o.k in real life.

The sad thing is, that he probably is…..people always said that about elfin-the fact that they are often very nasty on the interweb and spoil peoples enjoyment of it is what people on the interweb will judge them by though isn’t it.

haha is it TJ? I’m not on here enough to really notice his loss, although I have seen his quite varied approach to the law…from black and white re dogs on leads through to grey areas re jumping red lights!

Does he have fanboys like elfin did? Will other big hitters be calling it a travesty as he ‘brings something to the table’?

Can’t see him leaving Sky myself. I certainly can’t see a brit winner of the tour next year…

His conduct at the tour didn’t really strike me as being as bad as everyone else seems to have found it…..anyway, do people really think that he is going to beat Bertie?! He was insanely strong in the Giro last year after he had tested positive, and the cycnic in me thinks that even if he is technically clean at the Vuelta, he’s probably been training for the last twelve months juiced up to the gills….I can possibly see Froome as best of the rest if he isn’t too fatigued, but I genuinely can’t see him being within 5 minutes of El Pistolero.

You want to average 320w….how long for? that is quite a lot tbh!

Feel sorry for him really. He looked great at the Tour, now he’s knackered from riding the Tour and will be coming up against a returning Alberto Contador.

I mean more is it a problem that people have different perceptions of ‘better’?

Perhaps its an issue if you aren’t a footy regular but fork out £30 quid and then have your evening spoiled by racist foul mouthed louts? This happened to me at possibly the last Stoke match that I will ever attend.

I was chatting for about a hour to the majority of the 30 Valencia fans that made the trip to sunny stoke in the pub before the game earlier this year. As soon as they entered the stadium people chanted ‘Greasy Barstewards’ at them…

I don’t have kids either mate…..my wife can’t stand bad language though!! I’ve never been to see boxing (really not my thing) or greyhounds. I’ve been to a fair few horse racing meets, massive mixes of social groups there, from people whom have gambling issues through to the bloke in front of me who won £10,000 on one race at Wolverhampton last Novemeber (made my £5.60 seem rather in significant!) There was certainly a more testosterone fueled feel that night, including a few blokes getting chucked out for fighting….

You’ve obviously never been to somewhere like Wembley, Old Trafford, Anfield, the Nou Camp or Griffin Park if you think you can get much better atmospheres at other sports.

I’ve been to Anfield once. YNWA at the start of the match was awesome…..the continual foul mouthed abuse of players/refs/etc was one of the most depressing things that I’ve endured.

The last time that I went to Twickenham I sat with my wife and my parents between a group of Ospreys fans and a group of Leicester fans. Loads of great friendly banter was had. Some one behind us said the F word once, and was told by several people to watch his language as there were kids sitting nearby. There was still a very lively and vocal atmosphere, just not abusive.

All the money in the wouldn’t wouldn’t get my wife or parents into a football match, and I can’t even begin to imagine wanting to take kids to any of the stadiums (Anfield, Ewood Park and Britannia that I’ve visited…..

there’ll surely be racism, sexism and homophobia too.

Is it just me, or when compared to the standard of other sports, is top level football pretty average? I don’t watch much, but when I do, I’m amazed at how inept at shooting most of the players are!

Anna Watkins lives about 10 miles from me….but more impressively, one of my fb friends is friends with her on fb and tagged her in a post to congratulate her on winning gold-I AM AWESOME!!!

What Junky says…..Realman really shouldn’t be the benchmark for either how you go about running a business or how you deal with a dispute over payment of goods/service!

TJ baiting. Whoever gets the most pages out of him before he’s banned/flounces wins the gold medal.

As we all know though, in that sport there really are no winners :-)

Dire thus far. As above though, they’re going to have to bang on about Wiggo and the olympics this week.

I’d like to see him at Omega Pharma Quick Step-great team with good DS’s but no real sprinters (yes they’ve got Boonen, but is he really going to figure in a bunch sprint at the TdF anymore?). They dont really have a GC contender to look after either.

2* Daupnine
1* Paris-Nice

Wiggo was third in 2011 and Tony Martin won as I recall

Wiggo is the first person to win Romandie, P-N and Dauphine in one year though. You’ve missed plenty off his palmares….. he won the Prologue of the Giro in 2010, finished 3rd at the Vuelta last year etc

First Rainbow jersey to win a Tour stage?!!!-you’re having a laugh mate!!

Frenchman rdes for Astana for 1 year a returns as a doper :D

I can’t Cofidis pulling out tbh…..I can see Remy having some spare time on his hands for the next 2 years though.

Remi di Gregorio has been arrested as part of that raid. Year long investigation apparently…..Cofidis to pull out?

Cofidis hotel has been raided by police today and Remi de Gregorio has been arrested.

It’s unusual that Wiggo finished without a bottle. Most TT frames are more aero with an aero bottle in the cage rather than an empty cage.

Whilst on the subject of bottles, Evans reached down for a drink after only 3km of the TT, and sweat was pouring from him after a very short time. Yes they’ve done a few hours of hard riding prior to the actual TT, and yes they’re giving it the beans, but reaching for a drink after such as short time shows that he wasn’t feeling great from the off.

The final TT should be interesting…..doing a big TT after 3 weeks of hard GT racing is a very different thing to riding a normal TT, and I’d say that an on form Evans is about the best in the business at it.

Sorry, USADA not UCI…

UCI have confirmed that no one has currently been given a 6 month suspension. The leak appears to have come from Bruyneel as he writes for the paper that printed the story of Hincapie et al getting 6 month bans…..just further distraction tactics from the Lance camp.

Thats not to say that they wont be getting the bans at some point in the near future though. (I’d imagine that they will announce it after le Tour though)

Yup I wear one….neither my Dad or his Dad have ever worn one and I was very sceptical, but my wife insisted….I wear it 24/7 now and it feels weird if I take it off.

Got my 1st wedding anniversary coming up at the end of the week too :D

Better guitarists than john squire? Your suggestions please? A better drummer than Reni? Really? Who exactly? And Mani’s right up there as one of the best bass players ever!

Lol @ Mani as one of the best ever bass players…..I’ve never seen him in a top 20 bass players type run down in any bass mag etc (they normally do pick most of the best ones too!) He wouldn’t be in my top 50! John Squire is a very iconic guitarist-hugely talented and a unique sound….’better’….technically, every guitarist that graduates from a music conservatoire each year plus literally hundereds of others.

Gutted that I didn’t get tickets to see them though, and they’re amongst my favourite bands of all time

I’m pretty convinced that he doped, too much of the evidence is too damning….as for the ‘never failed a test line’ he was positive in the Tour de Suisse but donated rather a lot of money to the UCI around the time and it all got sorted out for him! As for the ‘everyone else was doping’ line, well not really……lots were, most of the top 10, but there were riders of the time who were pretty consistent ie Cadel Evans and Carlos Sastre whom imo got cheated out of numerous titles.

As people have said though, its all in the past now and you look at the top 10 in a couple of the years and its pretty tough to find a winner if Lance is DQ’ed….just put an asterix next to each of his wins to confirm that they are ‘cheated wins’ al la Riis’ and lets try and move on….If Cadel wins again this year then I for one would be pretty confident that we’ve had two years of a clean winner-that hasn’t happened for a while!

If I had a choice between going out on the town for a ‘laddish’ stag do or sitting infront of a log burner reading and drinking fairtrade youghurt, the latter would win 10 times out of 10….

Each to there own I guess!

Sweet Jebus!! Why?!!