Did you have it strapped to your back at a stag do? Oh, sorry, midge…

The difficult thing about taking one for a test-ride is finding one! There's none anywhere close to me in Halfrauds that I can try, it seems that they're only available to order.

They won't let you try their bikes out – very frustrating and off-putting!! I was on the verge of spending £700 in my local store, some years back and couldn't believe I wasn't allowed to have a bimble round the car park. Walked to the nearby LBS, test rode a couple of bikes, and walked out with a brand new bike.

I do have a Boardman Pro HT now though – insurance reasons. It's easily the best bike I've ever ridden, after a few small adjustments / replacing bits and pieces. I've had it perhaps eight months and have given it a really hard time – no major problems yet….

Whoops – forgot to check – sorry!

Cheers for all that info – off to check out the Ben Nevis. Might see you there Grumm :-)

Errrr, no actually – I'm exiled in England these days and never bothered much with the beautiful game anyway…. Should I be expecting running battles and streets of blood?

sp – did you read any of this thread?!

Got a Hope one fitted to my pro – got lucky second time around and still have the first one on my workbench :(

I'll have a look in the morning and let you know what size is needed.

Got married last year and realised that despite having heard about 300 groom's speeches (I'm a wedding photographer), I had no idea what to say.

I did write mine down, then reduced it to bullet points with keywords – sounds a bit clinical but will stop you looking like a d1ck, or losing it and crying (very common!).

Best tip I can offer is don't get pissed before your speech – it's very easy to just accept loads of drinks from family / mates and then be unable to speak let alone make a speech – nowt wrong with a few stiffeners though!

And enjoy every second of the day – it'll be over before you know it – really!

Video it on the phone too? Especially good if you get the woman issuing the command to attack and releasing the hounds (Smithers).

I know where you are coming from and theres no way I'd take on two Alsatians.

Doesn't sound like he's being given much choice….. If they're not actually attacking him, I suppose it's not so much of a problem.

EDIT: when I was a kid (like seven years old) my uncle's alsation used to chase me round the garden barking and growling. I was rescued from a tree more than once by my laughing uncle who assured me that the dog was just playing….. Seemed very real to me!

If someone was deliberately setting their large (dangerous?) dogs on me, I'd have absolutely no hesitation in defending myself with whatever came to hand.

Quite a lot of riders have a Kryptonite U lock on their frame…..

By this, I mean dogs and owner.

I had one of those bulb horns ^^^^ on my old Trek commuter when I lived in Edinburgh. It was lots of fun and yes, it did get a smile out of walkers on the disused railway lines.

Unfortunately, when used in anger on the roads it was useless – if you squeezed it too hard (and I always did, cos I was ANGRY) it made a pathetic wheezing noise, inaudible to anyone but me.

Last time I was at Beamish Museum gift shop I was this close to lashing out £28 on a massive version of the same horn – I parped it in the shop and caused several people to have heart attacks. Or at least drop their novelty pencil sharpeners…

Like many of the above, I'd be willing to pay a few quid. The real momey is that which we, as riders put into the local economy.

Need a campsite / B&B / hotel? Look at the number of threads on here asking just this question.

Follow this with restaraunts, cafes, pubs and LBS's and there's a fair whack of cash being spent.

Trail centres are good business.

Peak imaging. Every time.

That's absolutely horrendous. They don't expect you to go down there do they?! 8O

Dagnabbit – genuinely thought the steering wheel spike was an original and brilliant idea. In fact, I've just fitted one to the wife's car to make her a safer driver. To compensate for the 'fore-mentioned fact that this will not, in actual fact, make her any safer, I have taken the precaution of not telling her.

It will just have to be a lovely surprise.

Not riding at the weekend, but Tuesday, GT, Wednesday, Inners if the weather's not totally grim and if our legs and hangovers let us.

How about if the cameras could launch missiles instead of post fines? How about if we replaced speedy bumps with hidden, velocity sensitive IEDs.

OR…. Instead of an airbag in the steering wheel, there was a two foot long steel spike, designed to shoot out on impact. Everyone would drive at 20mph forever. Copyright user-removed.

Hal – Member
I know a downhiller who drilled his rims and his wheels buckled on his next run, and this was at the Fort Bill worlds, he was a French man.

Not planning on doing too many 30 foot gap jumps…..

I've actually not bought particular full bikes cos they've got a presta valved wheelset….. I hate them that much. Also very glad to hear that I'm not the only one who has problems blowing the b@st@rd things up.

Aaaaargh! The way all the air starts p1ssing out as soon as you touch them with a pump.

Phew…

MUST…..NOT……FEED……TROLL

Don't want to be messing on with any more adaptors if I don't have to. Can't say I've ever snapped a vavle but they are such daft, fiddly wee things I can see how it might happen.

As above, my issue is with the fact that I always seem to have to fully unscrew the locking thingmy, then screw it up again by an indeterminable number of turns before I can actually get any air in. Pain in the neck – rather not have to deal with it.

Cool-o, cheers for the help. I'll get the drill out tomorrow and probably end up with loads of neat little 9mm holes in my hands :o

dobo – have to disagree – sorry. I've had several mini pumps and maybe I'm just a f£ckless twunt, but I almost always seem to have trouble geting air into presta valves.

On my recent Skye jaunt, I wanted to put a bit more air into both my tyres as the first section was all on fire roads. I managed to let more air out of the rear than I got in. The front one went up after a bit of removing the pump and screwing / unscrewing the valve lock thingy.

And I also like to be able to use my car pump on my tyres as I always seem to forget my track pump…..

That last one with the grafitti of the family is so sad :cry:

Cheers for the comments – it's the Sima 10-20mm lens. It does do funny things to anything at the edges of the frame but it seems to be my lens of choice for cycling photos these days – donno why really.

Do wish I'd taken a proper flash with me though – I used the wee pop-up onboard one for a few of the shots (last one had spot of flash) but it's too weak to touch anything really.

Meant to add that we did the blue loop last and had the only rain of the day. After the rain, it felt like we were riding in an oil slick with flat tyres. Absolutely lethal!

Aye – the place was empty – we saw perhaps five guys all day!! Two of them were also staying at Scotswood site. The joys of working shifts (two of my mates), being unemployed (another two) and being self-employed (me!). It does make a massive difference….

Amazing photo – how well I know that feeling of just gripping the bars and hoping for the impossible…….

IMHO, reviews are mostly a massive load of old tosh. How a bike feels to ride is a very subjective thing – one guy's 'harsh' is another guy's 'springy'.

I got a GT i-Drive (the souped up Halfrauds one) after reading loads of glowing reviews all over the net, and it was horrible.

I now have a (Halfrauds, sorry insurance reasons) Boardman Pro and it's probably the best bike I've ever had, or even ridden. Strangely, it also got rave reviews…..

As has already been said, the only real way to judge whether a bike's going to suit you is to sling a leg over it and check the componentry's up to whatever you're going to throw at it. Shame Halfrauds don't offer test rides!

But then, I still enjoy riding my '92(?!) Kona and feel more comfortable hopping over stuff on it than I do on the Boardman, so my opinion is perhaps a little confused…

No worries man – the above was quite literally two mins work – don't mind helping out where I can! Off to check email…..

EDIT: photos deleted as requested….

Aye, photoshop is the way forward if you don't mind splashing the cash. I've also heard a lot of good things about Gimp, which is free. Just had a quick play in CS2 (I'm bored!) and got this – not perfect but a wee bit better.

Before:

After:

If you'd like me to sort out the hi-res file, just email it through to me (address in profile).

Cheers man – I'll see how they fare on the blue loop and go with the flow……

Cheers for all that – sorry – been designing wedding album with incredibly buggy software for the last coupla hours. Laptop / wall interface narrowly avoided………

Parkedtiger – is that loop suitable for mincers, and does it incorporate much (or any) of the south loop or blue loop? It looks amazing and I like the way it finishes at a pub :D

Grumm – got the message and will deffo do the blue loop at some point in the day!

Looking forward to this a lot more now, than I was two hours ago – weather looks alright too!

I had two paper rounds and got butt all in the way of pocket money. I did get paid for doing jobs round the house, but they were always the ones that my mum hated.

Usually things like cleaning the oven or valeting the cars – mum was very pernickity though – everything hoovered and polished – all the windows cleaned on the inside etc…

Stepdad once paid me a fiver (untold riches!!) to climb into the tiny spaces in the attic and fill them with fibreglass. My hands itched for days but I spent the cash on a couple of Miniature Russian hamsters, one of which immediately killed and partially ate the other.

[/Monty mode on]Oh the joys of youth[Monty mode off].

Yup – there's a two channel cable guide under the BB – have you got a hole drilled to take it?

Just for the record, here's mine – sorry, no pics of the underside…

Stem now replaced with something a little less, ahem, obvious….

Good on ya. My Pro frame is grey by the way – think it might be the 2008 model?

I'm surprised – I spent a couple of winters shooting the BUSC and BUDS races (uni ski teams), usually in Xscape venues, or in the dark at Hillend.

In year one, I was using a D200 with an 80-200, one-touch, non VR lens. My hit rate was pretty good – shooting skiers at full slalom speed coming straight towards me. Year two, and I'd upgraded to a D300 and the 70-200 VR lens – no discernable difference, apart from much better white balance under tungsten lighting….

I've always used continuous tracking – don't know what it's like in the OP's camera, but would have thought the predictive tracking in the D300 would have trickled down by now….. I've always found it to be spot on – even when the subject disappears into the bottom of a dip before a jump.