grumm,

out of interest, why shouldn’t you be using the front brake hard? Most effective way of stopping quickly or scrubbing off a lot of speed in my experience.

I agree that I need to gain skills (although 90% of my riding is in the wyre forest which everyone local knows is a mudfest for 363 days a year), however, I am the same person that found the Kenda Blue Groove front and Nevegal rear to be very good, never found them draggy even when riding tarmac at 30psi, found they gripped well in mud up to the point where I genuinely needed swampthings or similar. I have tried to like these tyres but just don’t seem to get on with them.

I like constructive criticism but was wondering if there was a set up secret, as after all, the only thing that I have changed and found not to my liking is the tyres, ability and how I ride is kind of irrelevant as I am doing a direct like for like comparison. If you get on with them then that’s fine, I don’t so it must be the tyre not suiting my riding style (jey core mince lite) then

I’ll be there, if my tickets arrive today!!!

Am quite near the back too but hey ho, better than missing them on probably their last tour (can’t see them doing another after this one but you never know)

I must be the exception then :D

My experience was a bit different to SigmaF above, had plenty of friendly banter on the course with other riders and spectators including the pros.

Did any one have any tyres that actually rolled through or over the ‘plasticine’ mud in the woods in the second half of the course?

Overall thought the course was quite good, will always be a compromise, and also a very enjoyable event.

The credit crunch was noticeable though with a lack of freebies and tradestand bargains :wink:

Mince route was straight on at the top of the 3 arrows descent, left down the descent, straight on and down a very fast grassy slope and don’t forget the sharp right hander at the bottom, woohoo!!!

Scratchings are just what you need with all those muscles then, plenty of protein

Looks like ‘buff’ gilles will be doing the run then in his T back vest :wink:

lol@Mick

Have got him a large bag of ‘traditional’ pork scratchings, complete with hair and everything :D

hora – where do you get this about Porsche? They are THE most profitable car company around at the moment, no one else has enough cash to buy big brands like VAG, where are they on the brink of collapse?

Gilles,

what size T-shirt?

lol @ DB

My life is full and complete so I don’t moan about anything, maybe my thread title is a little misleading :D

The Langster and the Hybrid are identical, little white square with a red cross in it :D

Wonders about the tape measure :?

Cool, something to chill out to between laps

uplink

might set up close to you then, save me fumbling around in the dark between night laps

What tunes you taking?

No carbs?

Pure orange juice contains 56.7g CHO per 500mls so quite a lot of carbohydrate there then

Whats wrong with sugar puffs and strawberry flavoured milk? Guarenteed to kick start anyone in the morning, a bowl of that and you should be able to knock 1/2 hour off your commute :wink:

My bike is fettled but not test ridden in anger, spare wheels have been ghetto’d and I’ve got some of my food. Supermarket run after work tomorrow then a mad panic to get it all together and loaded in to the car ready to go straight from work Friday lunch time, preparation and planning are over rated :wink:

Not keen just want to get a camp site big enough for our ego’s

FAIL!!

Eastnor isn’t big enough for your towel rail riding ego :lol:

Been running short cage on my 5 for 2 years with 3 rings up front and no probs

Saw my first few gigs with my dad, Iron Maiden at brum odeon, Monsters of Rock at Donington, took my eldest to see McFly 2 years ago at the NEC, taking him to see AC/DC at Wembley next week, will be like old times as my old man is coming to see them too, 3 generations of votchy rocking!!!

Who rattled your cage sheldon???

Can’t recommend anything to listen to but having seen a guy hold up loads of riders because he couldn’t hear them behind him (including one of the Giant team riders who to his credit remained very calm and polite in asking if he could pass) remember to think of others.

So from all the responses above it seems that this is an example of an over enthusiastic instructor. Will check to see which scheme it was.

Get a Met :-D

Has the course been mapped out yet?

After all the advice above I ordered a pair of the rim strips, neat washing up liquid on the beads and hey ho, inflated them with a track pump.

Thanks for the help guys (and gals if applicable)

Does the friction material stick to the backing plate though? :twisted:

Why drop the travel, never got anywhere near 130 let alone 140 on my Floats

Work shy fop!! Does this mean the new frame has arrived ;-)

bump

Mine is nearer 32lbs, 2007 pro Hope with the following changes:
140 RLC upgrade
Thompson stem
Monkeylite carbon bars
Gravity dropper seat post
Moto V2 brakes with vented rotors
Dr sludge tubes
Wire bead single ply High rollers

Drops to around 30lbs in race trim, Thiompson seat post, standard tubes and Panaracer Razor tyres

I also no longer take too much notice of metcheck, just posted it looking for a rise, after all, they forecast sleet for the early hours of last saturday morning for my postcode.

Don’t really care what the weather is like, am only there to enjoy myself as the only way I’m likely to win anything is if stw do another spot prize thing for wearing one of their jerseys (DVD, waterbottle and a mug with some torq gels last year)

Blackadder – he’s pretty cool
Billy Connolly
John Cleese
John Wayne
My wife – must be cool to put up with me
Ali G

metcheck showing showers Friday night then cool and cloudy sat and sun so looks like another muddy one

Always wear one, just seems a bit pointless not to. Also, the more that wear them the more acceptable it may become to those that don’t that they should, seems strange that the coolest kids at our local bike park ie the ones that can do pretty amazing things on their bikes are also very often the only ones wearing helmets

I only managed one lap last year due to a fall, however I believe the worst bit was the off camber bit through the night as it was very narrow and very slippy, heard of a lot of people having spills or walking that bit. Looking forward to it this year and hoping to make amends for last years first lap off resulting in a couple of broken ribs.

Do you get free dwarfs in a fire engine chasing you with buckets of shredded paper or just the usual comedy water squirting flower and red nose?

Service in my experience has always been good, however, as mentioned above they are now not as competitive on price, Merlin seem to be much cheaper and their service has also been excellent