great – thanks for all these tips. Wife at the in-laws this weekend so I’ll sneak the discs and pads into the oven then 😉

thanks – what does the copper slip do?

Snow and Rock giving it some with their sale – just grabbed some Burton Cartels for £119 (£200 retail). Then I forced my card back in my wallet against its will.

hardly – I was a pro! shoes off for maximum slideage when you get to the bottom!

What about going down? In my experience the quickest way down the Holborn escalator is to slide the bannister from top to bottom. How many people per hour would that equate to?

I tell you what, Gimlets – made the way Philip Marlowe drinks them in The Long Goodbye – are well nice. 50/50 gin and lime cordial. is it lunchtime yet?

it’s boring in the sense that there are much better OP routes in the valley – for my tastes anyway. The top is good but the long flat runout just spoils it for me, especially if the snow is slow. I’ve done it 3 times across a real spectrum of conditions and I’ve never got to the bottom thinking ‘wow.’

don’t do the Vallee Blanche though – boring as ****. Run off the mid station of the Aiguille on the front side is more fun, can’t remember what it’s called though.

rollindoughnut – I got one of these http://www.certifiedslammed.com/ from the US. Fits perfectly.

I love it. Got rid of the stupid inch high conical spacer under the stem and I’m planning to change the stock wheels in the spring (they are pretty weighty) but even stock it’s a pretty sorted bike. The combo of slightly bigger tyres and discs is really confidence-inspiring and suits the often terrible roads around here.

I bought mine (full bike) in July and have been riding it non-stop ever since. 28s fit no problem at all. No guards on mine though.

how do they work though?

I put my recycling through the dishwasher before putting it out.

what’s that D-Day like? one of the Never Summer ones?

rockered boards are on their way out of fashion now, making room for experimental / retro / weird shapes. I rode my 10 year old Trice cambered magnetraction board on Sunday and it was great. construction hasn’t moved on that much – a high-end 10 year old board will still be pretty nice these days.

shape though – the ‘new’ freeride shapes are a bit nice. I got a burton landlord for a 40th pressie from my wife. early rise (rockered) nose but camber everywhere else, tapered shape. DESTROYS powder and rails turns on the piste. There are a lot of these kinds of things about now, all in varying extremes. the landlord, burton Flight attendant, Yes PYL, lib tech Swiss Knife, Gnu Mullair… I think these shapes make a lot of sense for a lot of people. Going to get something else along these lines when the sales kick in soon.

it’s a troubling programme. As noted, her norks are quite tremendous, but the smugness is unbearable.

exactly 1 year ago today I was snowboarding in some REALLY tight trees in Japan. got to be confident in your turning but damn, was that fun.

just flew over my office (Edinburgh) at about 200 feet!

+1,000,000 for earplugs! I never ever sleep in a hotel bed without them. A bunch of Chinese chaps arguing at max volume in the room next to mine in a Moscow hotel taught me that lesson.

Serre Che is pretty good, I have a mate who has a few apartments in Briancon and we have been twice, with another trip coming this March. I really like the mountain (probably helped by having knee to waist deep powder for a week the first time we went, every day), but I can’t help on mountain places to eat – can never remember that stuff! Briancon old town has got some good restaurants though and is quite picturesque.

those dots on your knuckles are the problem? they will be gone in no time.

yes. hurts like nothing you can possibly imagine. works – but leaves a bit of damage. I gave up on mine after 4 sessions because of the damage it was doing to my skin (I’m white but fairly dark skinned and it was growing back without much pigment). 7 years later and there’s just a smudge there and a few faint lines, so I don’t even notice it any more. That one was all black, other colours might not be so easy to get off. Did I mention how much it hurts?

the only thing I was disappointed about was nobody lost an arm.

I’m thinking did they film more scenes with Max von S which they will use in EP VIII? He and Ren clearly knew each other – is he a figure from Luke’s failed academy and in EP VIII we’ll get a more thorough explanation of what Ren did and how Rey ended up on Jakku (maybe with MvS holding the map to her dad as protection).

Agree Captain Phasma was underused and the pre-bombing run sequence felt a bit rushed (‘We can’t blow this thing up – ok let’s blow it up!’) and a bit *too* much of a riff on EP IV, but other that that… excellent.

Loved the interplay between Rey and Ren when he’s trying to break her and she just gets stronger and stronger. If they slow EP VIII down and head off in the same style but with the (mostly) new cast and a new direction… it’s going to be incredible.

Just home. worth the 30 year wait! Rey is a Skywalker – the clue is in the music!

$80 (real) seems high to me. Might go lower than it is now but $50 could be a fair price for a while longer. Emerging market demand growth is nothing like it was and in the west (I think) we’re at or close to peak oil demand. Not too hard to see a scenario in which emerging market demand growth is no longer enough to offset shrinkage in the west – global peak oil demand. On the supply side I think OPEC have backed themselves into a corner. US unconventional oil is suffering now but works at a lot lower prices than OPEC were hoping. Could ultimately see a price ceiling at US tight oil levels – as long as demand stays weak.

Luke won’t go to the dark side, but I reckon he could be in exile somewhere, consumed with (or trying to balance) both sides of the force. He’s a Skywalker, his dad would have been the most powerful force user ever if he hadn’t turned into a cyborg. Imagine what Luke would be capable of!

Luke is wigging out in a cave somewhere, being light and dark at the same time. That’s why the force is quiet i.e. not awake, when this movie opens. Something happens to change that balance and it all kicks off.

I also bet that someone loses an arm, and either Han or Luke says ‘I’m getting too old for this.’

nothing wrong with duck stance – been riding that way for 20+ years!

loving my CAAD10 disc, takes 28s no problem, upgraded the pads to some nice SwissStop ones and lost the inch-high conical headset thing and its ace. Wheels are a bit heavy but fine for winter. No guards though.

re. the beach query above, I have a beach at the end of my street and thought it would be ideal. Great fun, but the sand gets everywhere and every iron-containing part corrodes instantly. If you want to do serious beach running you need an air compressor or something and thoroughly clean after every session. and put all the electronics in sealed bags.

Also, every dog in 200 miles will chase the car.

you can get pretty respectable completes from online shops like Route One or London’s famous Slam City Skates. I’d go for something about 7.5″ wide at his age, maybe 7.75″. I was going to say £100 or thereabouts but you could go a lot cheaper – £80 or £90 for a branded deck and some generic trucks and wheels. Google complete skateboards.

selling my road bike a few months back I had a bloke who was going hot and cold on the purchase. I finally called him to ask whether he was still interested, only to have the phone answered by his missus. It’s fair to say she was entirely unaware of the proposed transaction and somewhat displeased by the idea of the chap buying another bike.

Sketchers, wide fit shooos. Rock out, in comfort.

I’ve been getting back into it now my kids are picking it up (I’m 40). Apart from the reluctance to jump down stairs any more I think I could actually get ok again. Ok I’m starting again from a low base but I’m fitter now and maybe more patient in actually learning correct foot placement for flips and that.

Still, the most fun thing I did the other day was a fast 4 wheel FS 180 powerslide followed by bombing the rest of the hill fakie. Oh yes.

also I think Boba Fett is in this one, perhaps as an uneasy ally of Han Solo in some way.

Is Kylo Ren a Skywalker? Did Luke collect Vader’s mask etc after the fire burned down at the end of ROTJ and take them off with him somewhere? Later He has a kid who is Skywalker-powerful in the force and Luke can’t control him (maybe because he’s still struggling to control his own powers…) and the kid gets obsessed with his Granddad, nicks the mask from Luke and off he goes.

They got rid of the clip thing that locks the highback into place because it doesn’t really do much and I think also contributes to baseplates cracking and highbacks getting whacked by chairlifts. You can run a bit of forward lean even without the lever if you put a short screw in there instead (think they are 5mm or maybe 4mm) as long as you have the plastic spacer bit still. or just get some new HBs but the EST ones won’t fit your baseplates.

Also eat non-stop at every restaurant you pass. There are a ton of really good places around the railway arches near Yurakucho (I think).

take an empty suitcase and a fresh credit card and go shopping. I hate shopping but not in Tokyo. Tokyu Hands in Ginza is good for posh trinkets and artfully designed bits and bobs. Shinjuku has loads of great shops. Skytree is good during the day. Akihabara is a visual trip, probably the most ‘Tokyo’ looking area. And you must go to the Robot Restaurant. Must.

we keep it in the house! only buying a couple of bags at a time these days.