In fairness, lost the GC yesterday after a judges decision, not had the normal plan work out, twice. Quite possibly reviewing/altering tactics. There’s a fair amount of general public pressure and expectation on them to take this one easily, and its not been the perfect start. Given their attention to detail may well be a fair bit of focus… Yeah sounds like they could ahve chirpier getting off the bus, but may just have their ‘head in the game’. We shall see today I suppose.

cleanish I would say. There’s a smear on the Post Office window…

Done, I will collect the soul that owed to me in the near future.

As above, to not end up in the rut, do not look at the rut. Look where you want your wheels to go. Very tricky, I still struggle.

If you do end up in the rut, look down the rut, and if you see an exit point, then after then look out of the rut. While you are in the rut, don’t think “Help I’m in a rut! Help I’m in a rut! Help I’m in a rut!”

Do think “I’m gonna ride down this rut now.”

Well I’ve read most of that.

OP +1, FWIW, was going to say more but can’t be arsed.

Marin is very old school. As said above it was one of the first. Climb fireroad, descend quickly with thrills on single track, repeat. You will spent much of your time tootling up a fireroad. Might not be such PITA with a dropper post as no/less need to stop at the beginning and end of each section.

20 minutes? Call that a trip to the pub? Giving the nation bad name…

Spent a week in Minehead riding a few years ago, absolutely loved it. Need to get back. Soooooo jealous of you right now… :?

I wasn’t wearing ankle protection today, and I very slightly hurt my ankle a bit. :cry: Can I get some sympathy???

Only really hurts if I do this #now does this# OWWW!

That and my perception of flow is in a large part correlated to my fitness, if I’m on an upwards trend then rides always feel flowy as any lost momentum is easily re-gained. If I’ve had a few weeks off it feels awkward and slow as every mistake is punished by being slow as I’m too out of breath to sprint between corners.

trail * (bike + fitness) = flow ?

Interesting… I’ve been working at a half written article for STA recently about what is ‘gnar’ and what is ‘flow’. Hear the flow argument a lot at Stainburn, and it’s always a bit contentious. I might steal your formula and a bit of your 2nd paragrpah if that’s alright.

Not really worked out what the conclusion is yet…

I assumed that was it. “I’M BRIAN BLESSED!” :D

i was up today. and with this thread in mind looking about with a critical eye. Certainly a few sections need some repair work, blue trail up to the 28 berms, first part of home baked, sandy berms before hully gully leapt out at me. But the two new sections of trail will both remove a fair amount of fireroad, both of which are quite descendy. And from working at stainburn I know its very easy to transform trail once the skeleton is there by patching and altering little bits. So if the guys turn their eye to that over winter they’ll make quite a difference very quickly (they have more people and equipment than us :mrgreen: ) I really should try and get over for a dig soon.

I like that it undulates , and doesn’t just go up for ages and then down for ages. Think I’ll like that even more once I get a dropper post for the hardtail. ;)

‘why don’t you turn up for one of the weekend trail building sessions then you whining git’

for what its worth, show up a few times and you find you’re helping to decide on how/what stuff gets built. It may sound a commitment, but half a day once a month, and Its A) rewarding B) a hoot and C) Exercise like no other (unless you’re a builder or do other manual work involving lifting etc in which case the novelty may not be so interesting for you ;) )

Don’t have to build, many trailbuilding clubs have a membership few that goes right into the trails/tools/materials. It all helps. For gisburn it PMBA. :D [/sermon]

Hope line is pretty tight, there is a new skills area as part of the blue extension that little birdies tell me will be opening soon.

I really Gis, but much prefer the bottom loop to the top one, not too fussed for roller coaster sections, prefer the natural feel of the wooded sections. It does get a lot of rain and needs some repair work along many bit tbh. But good outwieghs the bad for a the only long trail centre 1hr from my door. Off today, thought it might just be dry, but its soding rained all night hasn’t it. #massive grrrr# :evil:

EDIT: it is still a work in progress, they are nowhere near finished.

I wondered how sky didn’t just stomp it given the lead they got from the crash

Audio NSFW :D

ITV were busy shoving a camera in Cav’s face…

Did you ever find the pub open. We used to dream of finding the pub open when we were down there twice a year… never did. :cry:

Part of me will always be in machno, I looked, but I don’t find the chunk a v-brake boss ripped out of my leg when I binned it once in one of the earlier sections… Finished the ride though.

Last few sections of machno are some of the best forest single track I have ever ridden. Need to get back there.

8O

For once the usual “Will I Die” suffix would have been appropriate. As above, while completing a build, yeah to hold it together, to ride over stuff. No.

I’m really disappointed I grew to love the tyre (after a doubtful start), previously had MK supersonics on the XC bike, and loved those too, but if this happens all the time won’t get them again. I have a race king on the XC now as well, and that’s still fine… #throws cat over shoulder and touches some salt#

No I do know what you mean, I’ve been riding with people who have behaved in a deeply embarrassing way, deliberately unnerving walkers, passing them fast, alerting them to their presence (while barrelling towards them) with a harsh loud whistle. That to me is an aggressive and dominant attitude which is rude, unfair and ultimately does us all damage. Personally I’ve have red sockers move to put their walking pole through my front wheel, step deliberately in front of me (oncoming so able to see me) and make to hold and gate open and flinging it closed as I’m about to go through.

Fortunately I’ve always remained calm, but angry. But I find a well structured articulate fast spoken 5 minute rant before saying its the decent walkers you feel sorry for because they all get tarred with the actions of the stupid irresponsible few, and then riding away often results in a smirk from other members of the group. :D

Have to say not had any of these incidents in this or last year

Loving the sense of entitlement. Of course walkers should make a big effort to clear the way for cyclists because cyclists have right of way on bridelways? Oh, we don’t. In fact technically we have to give way to walkers. Oh…

But on a wide path there’s no need to block someone else’s progress intentionally, and knocking a cyclist is dangerous and contravenes the right the public right of way which is for ‘responsible’ use, not to go and be a dick

Every single walker I came across in the Alps was extremely polite and helpful, and they all seemed far more aware of their surroundings than most walkers here.

I bet this has something to do with the fact that in the alps the consequences of not having clue what the chuffing hell you’re doing are a lot more severe.

I met some very nice walkers today, and stopped to talk to some of them about their dog. I also scared some clueless ones in a group who were climbing out of a field they had no business being in (and making mess of the fence as they did it), then just stood about in the road, I was too busy wondering what they were doing to give the usual hello and nearly hit one who was too busy looking at her phone. Also it was road, not BW, so felt less obliged.

On the “i know my rights” palava, many of them don’t. I’m constantly explaining to them that public rights of way are not, and cannot be, closed for shooting on the moors, only the ‘right to roam’ is restricted. Last time someone demanded to know when the shooting days were I deliberately misunderstood him, and started explaining to him how he could join a local shoot if he wanted, who he would need to contact, how he could by a ‘gun’ or a ‘half gun’ (a space on a shoot) and they would let him know what days the shoots were on, but they were private enterprises and it wasn’t possible for members of the public to just show up and shoot things, and I was very sorry to disappointing him.

“I don’t want to go on the bloody shoot”

“Then why did ask when it was on and who organises them?” #gleeful inward smile#

There are some times I like talking to the public, I really do. :D

Given that we’ve always been told to save weight on wheels first, because of rolling resistance

I think you probably mean rotational momentum, its uses more energy to change the speed at which the wheels rotate (accelerate and brake)

ToB isn’t a big race though. I thought it was OK. I like the prankster attitude of the organisers – “SurpriseNarrowBridgeWhereYouLeastExpectIt!” what happened to the dudes with yellow flags at the hazards. Or is the ToB more hardcore, “MTFU and take your chances…”

Still, nice to see an unexpected get a win. I thought David Millar was racing in Garmin. But seems he didn’t start… anyone know if he’s injured?

Surely as a bike snob you should be aware that it is a crunching drive train the chain is merely part of the bigger parcel that is doing the crunching!!

No it wasn’t the crunching of a full power shift. Its was the mangled crunching of 50 bikes with uncared for drive chains searching for a stable gear to get up the high street.

This was the start of the shorter family/amature event. Team colours ‘pros’ went out of town a different way. Has to be said the first of those guys back into town made a very respectable time given the brutal steep climbs on the route.

Can you move the compression control by hand? And does it spring back if not attached to the cable? It could be the cable is full of cack.

On the plus side, you won’t want to lock your forks out on the alps, and Poplocs don’t stand up to much abuse (killed mine on first alp trip), I would advise removing it for the trip anyway.

Nice!

The event is in Nidderdale to be honest its in the middle ground between sportive and fun ride.

Middle age Men in Lycras

Just looked at the route, that ‘breakaway I mentioned did make pretty good time…

It would be good if the police you see on cycles were actually proper cyclists, not people that had to work their way through the ranks. Then they could chase down the red light jumpers and pavement users and fine them.

this^ why not? They would also be ideally positioned to do ASL infringers on the spot.

I think the ‘breakaway’ just went passed, team colours etc…

For a small town the GMSR gets a pretty impressive turn out to be honest easily 100+ riders. But yeah, the serious roadies are amusing. Wonder if they felt over dressed when on the start line between a 6 yr old on a BMX and the Flinstones fancy dress bike… :D

acutally I don’t think they do any timing in this one. The longest route is 25 miles, still loads of lycra clad guys doing warm up climbs etc this morning… The crunchie ones were the shorter routes, families etc… (bikes probably not been out since last years event. Funny watching all the day tripper traffic getting held up by too many bikers for them to get ancy with though.

see if MSE will install.

Yeah any USB can be turned into a bootable, be wary moving it to another PC if it could be ‘infected’

Too nice a day, I’m just gonna assume the internet is on this one and my presence is not required.

where abouts?

Have you another device? can you create a USB linux disc? avg and avast offer linux products that can scan windows partitions and sort them. OS not running in windows means the virus can’t stop them.

Could the dropouts be bent out of alignment?

If its full suss, could be the chain is too short and pulling the wheel down? Doing it on all gears or just biggish ring combos?

Yes, you will need to remove some links to make it the right length for your bike.

Go go Gadget internet! :P

Porridge
Coffee
Edwina Curry on R4 (have now left the room)…