It's the path running out of Slig to the left as you look at it on an OS map. Passes Alltdearg House, over Coire na Circe and becomes Bealach a Mhaim. But best done from Glen Brittle forrest down into Slig. Ride report and piccies HERE.

That kind of confirms what I had suspected and heard (from you on another thread?!). Glad I went for the out and back option then. I'd do it again like a shot but then, the Fairy Pools path was much, much faster and more satisfying TBH… Also much shorter.

Kit – Member
More photos, less video next time

Yeah, fair enough – I'm wondering about the logistics of turning my old compact into a headcam tho – it does half decent videos and has VR too..

What was your return route to Sligichan BTW?

Cheers stuartie. The stills were shot on a Nikon D300 though, so don't rush out and buy a MUVI cam based on those :-)

The MUVI isn't too bad at all in reasonable light but as soon as it's even a wee bit overcast, the picture gets really shaky.

Also, it's a bit of a swine trying to guess where the lens is pointing – got it sussed now I think – as you saw, a lot of the footage is of the ground flying (crawling) by beneath, rather than of the trail ahead.

Tracker – do it. Mine fitted onto my Rebas in about 3 mins using the supplied velcro straps – never even bothered cutting them down.

I should have owned shares in Bolle – really have lost a dozen pairs in as many months riding :cry:

No more steamed up glasses, lost lenses, red-eye etc, etc. No relation to muckynutz BTW!

Well, those SS pedals took some major hits on grapefruit sized rocks and I fully expected them to be bejiggered but they're still tight as drums – reluctantly impressed. I've had Kona, Wellgo and V12 pedals fall apart with far less abuse. Off to check out BBs…

Cheers buzz – pics running through lightroom as I type. Skye was as dry as I've ever seen it – loads of huge dried up river beds. Still came back soaked though :-(

Also have two sets of SS sintered pads in my Juicys – hanging offence seemingly…

Team indeed!

Kind words…. It was a Boardman Pro but has since been bastardised beyond recognition (let's see what the swear filter does with that…).

Oh, and insult to injury, it has a set of Superstar-octo-porn-nano-pedals too!!

Rode for the first time with one ofTHESE TINY MUDGUARDS fitted on Skye over the weekend (pics and vid coming soon!!

What a joy! As per usual, lost my Bolle safety glasses after a half hour (bent my rear rotor in the same fall) but that tiny piece of plastic kept the crud out of my eyes all day – usually I spend a large percentage of my riding time crying my contacts out at the side of the trail. Big thumbs up.

Hope that works….

EDIT: B@lls.

Driving to Skye in a few hours time – stopping to pick up a passenger in Edinburgh. Should be interesting. Anyone around Perth way know what the A9 looks like?

Our cleaning lady when I was a kid was a jovi. She was always at me (I was 12) to join up or at least sit and talk about it for two hours…

I was eventually 'got at' and agreed to read some giant books which she'd brought for me. Unfortunately, I made a book maze for my gerbils to run around in and they decided that the biggest, and most expensive looking book was the perfect place to make a getaway.

They chewed right through the binding and pretty much destroyed it (I found the pesky rodents later, having a snooze behind the snake tank (!). She never offered to leave any more books………..

Agreed…

Was going to post a similar topic here but this thread came up on Google!

I ordered 4 sets of sintered pads from them and received 4 sets of kevlar jobs, complete with a note telling me I'd been upgraded for free due to stock problems. I'd rather just have got what I ordered TBH.

My understanding is that they'rs softer than sintered but offer increased braking power. I can already one finger brake with my Juicy 7s so power not really an issue – longevity is, and I'll be interested to see how long they last.

Aye – very good but customer service sucks big dogs' cox. Just make sure you go for the expensive (middle) postage option (not the super-pricey next day courier though!). This means you get a tracking number so when they lose your book you'll have a leg to stand on. They've denied all knowledge of two of mine now, claiming I had received them and was trying to pull a fast one… Grrr!

But yes, other than that, very good.

Just do it. On a slightly smaller scale…. I took a job in Inverness on spec. Knew no-one, slept on the floor of the clinic I was setting up and managing. Had a microwave, a bike, a guitar and not much else – loved it!

Spent most evenings in the local beer garden reading books, listening to the local folk dudes doing their thing and chatting to the regulars. Made friends with a few of the tradesmen who were in doing work at the clinic and had a few good nights out with them.

And the riding was fantastic (on my one day a week off)!

Did it again when I came to Sunderland Uni about eight years ago.

At John Ridgeway's adventure / bad-boys-borstal summer camp thing, we lived by three rules;

Self reliance
Leave people, places and things better than you found them
Don't fall into the abyss of self-pity

Had that wee 'holiday' foisted upon me back in my wild teen years and pretty much still live by those three mottos… Or try to.

Photium[/url] are pretty good for an off-the-shelf solution. Especially good for folk like me who need their hands held at every turn of the internet maze.

The templates are all fully customisable and don't look rubbish. Importantly, the service is literally second to none. Questions are usually answered in minutes rather than hours.

Payment is through paypal but as mentioned above, it would be easy to link to another site to take payment…

Have a look at mine if you like – link in my profile (or just click my user name).

Mostly for editing. That is, if I come home from a wedding / event with 1500 photos, I need an easy to use prog which will allow me to sort them out in the order I want, label them, weed out the rubbish, rename them, add metadata / keywords etc, etc. Then I need to resize them all for web use and sharpen according to size – it's all automated so I can go have a cup of tea.

You can do as much or as little as you want to the images in whatever bit of software you have – if they look 'false' then that's because you've overcooked them – it's the user's choice…. I do add a little 'pop' but that's about it.

Ah! Just got an automated response telling me that Orange are "currently working very hard to resolve some email issues". Grand.

Cheers Glen – on hold as I type……

Go to your local police station and ask for some free shed alarms. The output isn't enough to rupture eardrums but it will wake you (your giant Rhodesian Ridgeback) up.

I have two on my cheap and cheerful up-and-over garage door – they take three AAAs which last for a year or so, given the odd test activation.

EDIT: I don't actually have a giant lion killing dog; I have a fluffy white lurcher but he sounds fierce….

MrSalmon – Member
I'm baffled by how negative some of the responses are here.

I'm baffled that there are any at all! One hippyish dude (assumption) and his father in law build a hobbit house. Then they start building another. What's the big deal?!

It looks amazing and saves valuable resources. I honestly can't see the problem. Nowhere does he suggest that EVERYONE MUST LIVE LIKE THIS, YOU FASCIST OPPRESSORS AND RAPISTS OF MOTHER EARTH.

Sounds nasty – suppose it's a good job it happened on the road rather than on narrow, wooded singletrack 8O

Haven't any previous info on which to pass down a judgement, so I'll just assume it couldn't be any worse. Ergo – it must be better.

It's almost all in tune – the backing vocals could do better – they seem to give up after one note.

Less of the rising to meet the correct note though – listen to the original and note how the notes come out of his mouth at the the right pitch rather than 'sliding' up there. Learn to open your gob and hit the note first time*

* I couldn't, so stuck to stringed instruments / harp / mtb

You have to have a passion for your work – I do and it works well for me. Even if that passion is just the thought of the pay cheque it'll work out….

I spend all day every day working at home – I don't do any of the whole, 'Wake up at 7 a.m. and put on a suit' codswallop – I just write myself a list of things I'd like to get done, prioritise it, and get on with it. Said list also includes; housework, dog-walking and bike-riding (usually No. 1 priority).

I do end up putting in more hours than I should – Mrs. Removed often has to tell me to stop working at 10 at night, as I'll be sitting there google street mapping tomorrow's client's house. I love it though, and wouldn't have it any other way.

EDIT: just read scottyjohn's post, and it rings true – you will need to keep up interaction with other humans – I do it by working a few shifts a week at the local dry ski slope – sounds like you (OP) will still have a few days a week in the office to stave off the cabin fever.

This winter I've been using a pair of Reusch waterproofed leather ski gloves – probably horribly expensive to buy, but mine came out of the unclaimed lost property box at the dry slope where I do the odd day or two :o

They've been brilliant – yes they do get a bit wet (probably sweat) inside, but the inners don't rumple up in the way of some other gloves, so you can get them on again without a ten minute fight.

I get really cold hands, very quickly – maybe due to smoking? So they've been a Godsend – clart some money on top end ski gloves if you want to stay warm….

Right enough, so they are – cheers for the linky. Couldn't manage without those… Well, I could if the exposure compensation wasn't buried deep in a sub menu, which is the case with my current compact (Pentax Optio). It does have M, AV and SP modes but they're very, very limited.

Does look nice but I'm a bit concerned about the lack of a Manual / shutter speed / apperture mode – or are they just called something else?

You want a 10.5mm Nikon fisheye if you want a bendy lens on a crop sensor camera. I quite fancy one myself for the odd whacky wedding shot…

Sigma also do a true fisheyes at 8, 10 and 15mm but don't know much about them other than they use rear mounted, tiny, gelatin filters and will be cheaper than the above. They are also slower than the Nikon.

A regular Nikon 16mm (made for 35mm cameras) just ain't gonna give you the distortion you want.

EDIT: just been having a quick gander on ebay and there's not much in it price wise between the Sigmas and the Nikon.

That is very impressive – especially the tree removal and the panorama fill…. I need a copy of that but my bank balance disagrees – will have to struggle on with CS3 for a bit.

Walk in clinics exist for just such trivial matters – five minute wait to be seen.

Here's the sh1zzle:

Don't think I've ever typed / said shizzle before – sorry…

The Cannondale was a recent acquisition – swapped for an air rifle. The Kona came from ebay for £50 – plus another £30 to courier it up from London.

WTF – Member
It will rain.
Guaranteed.

You're going mountain biking – what do you want to be comfortable for?!

Heading back up to visit the folks at Easter – most definitely taking the bike again :-)

Going to do the Slig out and back this time. Staying at my parent's cottages SHAMELESS PLUG, SKYE HOLIDAY COTTAGES[/url]

Around this time of night, I often start thinking that those cottages would make a great base for mountain biking guests who might be willing to pay a little extra for guided rides round Skye / longer tours round the locality…. Unfortunately, my mum seems to think that bikers are sweaty, smelly, muddy people who will mess up her nice cottages. She's almost certainly right :-(

Who buys 'em? Me, sadly…. I have an old, rigid Kona Hahahahahahana and recently also acquired an old, rigid Cannondale singlespeeder which is lovely to pedal about. Took me a while to get on with the stretched out feel, but it was well worth the effort.

I suppose I just like the immediacy of fully rigid bikes.

My sister had it done about eight years back – no glasses, no problems, but she claims her night vision isn't what it was.

The guy who assists me sometimes at weddings also had it done a few months back – it was a requirement of his job as a beach lifeguard. He's a surfer too and he reckons it's a lot easier without contacts.

Watch out for open plan kitchen / living room arrangements. My mate has one and half the time you can't hear yourself think for the dishwasher / washing machine / tumble drier…

And agree with all the above. Don't be scared into being polite – have a really good rummage when checking structural stuff.

Especially agree about driving past slowly at unscheduled times. We asked our sellers what the neighbours were like and they obviously said they were fine. They were actually total and utter b*s*a*ds – now moved on, thank God! The sellers must have paid them to go out whenever we visited pre-buying…

Hmmmm – I do use it on my chain and mechs, but don't let it anywhere near anything which should be greased…..