I love double-meaning headlines. Like ‘prostitutes appeal to Pope’ and ‘red tape holds up new bridge’

On holiday in Italy we were staying in an old town house on the 3rd floor. The lift was barely large enough for two people. On the way back from our meal my then girlfriend (now my Wife) was walking unusually quickly through the streets with me struggling to keep up. We’d both managed a fair few drinks. As soon as we got in the lift and the doors shut she let an enormous one go. She’d held it in all the way back from the restaurant so she could release it in the confines of the lift for my enjoyment only. It was then I knew she was a keeper!

My personal favourite was when the commentator called him Tim Podcock

Flat bar gravel bike would probably be the better option out of those two especially if you’re eyeing a fast time.

Top right corner of the home page – there is a small (Click Here) entrycentral link. Its a bit obscure

Or you could just go to the entrycentral/honc website

Not a food as such but too much coffee. Which is such a drag as I’m bloomin addicted to the stuff.

In terms of food; any quantity of onions and over-eating of anything at all

That’s a good point, I’ll remember to get my feet in the correct position too on the right hander. With right foot forward it’s trying to turn my hips away from the corner which is totally the opposite of what should be happening. I had a session with you Jedi years ago and you taught me that, funny how difficult bits of trail can make you forget how to ride properly

@igm this is definitely a big part of it. Always been better at lefts than rights on both bicycles and motorbikes. Can’t seem to get such a natural relaxed body position going right. Used to think it was because right was my throttle hand on the motorbike but must be more to it.

Anyway I’m definitely guilty of overthinking just about everything in life which I’m also doing now.

I’m going to practice the steep bit by setting up with a nearly straight run in, get that bit taped before trying the right hander to lead in

I’m going to break it down as ayjay and sharkattack have suggested. Hadn’t thought of that. There’s a small ledge the other side that will give me an almost straight run in to the really steep bit. I’ll try and nail that bit first I think. Cheers I feel more positive already!

Bird Aether 9c – long and fairly slack so ideal for steep stuff, although a bit of a barge to steer round the tight right hander on the lead in. Flats – have never clipped in on an MTB.

I like the ‘set myself up with a straight run in idea’ – that’s good, I’m up for that.

Ha yeah, its definitely a section for getting super low on the bike, not off the back!

And like that… he’s gone

Definitely – our whippets go all silly and playful when they see any other sighthounds

Indeed. I’m hoping this will sort it for a good while now. The only time my old Spitfire got creaky was when the pivot bearings were overdue replacement, entirely my fault.

Cheers. Just took the cranks off and checked the various pivots. All very dry and graunchy on the way out so cleaned and greased them. Torqued back up hopefully this will have sorted it. The BB shells weren’t torqued in fully either.

Ah nice one good info flatpack. However, and excuse my ignorance, which bolt do you mean? I will check them all and grease pivots etc anyway

Cougar I’ve been drinking and I’m susceptible to hyperbole after a glass or two. It seemed like an awful lot more 36 years ago

Another shout out for Manic Miner, also the sequel Jet Set Willy with the weird coloured code card and about 6 thousand software bugs. Ooh and Jet Pack.

Some good stuff around Stroud. Currently Randwick/Standish Woods has quite a few DH runs. Not hugely long but in recent times the tracks have multiplied in numbers and there’s a pretty good selection to suit all abilities

Coming from my Banshee Spitfire to my new 9C I have noticed a few extra pedal strikes which isn’t surprising. You soon get used to it and after a while its not even an issue. The bike is great and capable of just about any trail, I think the marketing about smashing trail centres is misleading and potentially damages the bikes image. 110 miles in and to me it seems like the perfect hard-hitting FS 29er trail bike, the limitations to its capabilities are with my abilities and gonad size.

However there’s some significant creaking coming from somewhere around the pivot areas which I’m not happy about and haven’t had time to try and diagnose yet. Think I’ll contact Bird direct to see if they’ve got any ideas or heard of it elsewhere

Crikey, RIP Sabine.

She flew past me in the ring taxi with 3 passengers when I thought I was gunning it on my superbike round the Nordschleife many years ago, super talented driver

Webuyanycar and keep quiet about any issues ;-)

On 90s UK – there was some great stuff – I think it might be labelled ‘Britcore’ but I don’t like that title, at the time it was just UK hip hop. Gunshot, Silver Bullet, Hijack, Hardnoise, Son of Noise, Caveman, the Kold Sweat stuff eg Pointblank, Prime Rhyme Masters. Spilling over to slammin dub beats and samples style stuff from Depthcharge, WBI Red Ninja etc the UK had some great contributions to the era.

There’s a good trail that holds up well in winter high up in Penn Wood through to Selsley Common, it’s a great bit of single track. There’s 2 or 3 DH runs off this trail that can be quite steep in places, but these are better when it’s dry.

Enjoy it you’ll learn so much. However it won’t be until about your 3rd or 4th bike build before you have everything you need to do it in one go. Well in my case anyway, there is always some goofy little thing you forget about, but the posts above have covered most of this off. Couple of extras:

– make sure you have the right brake caliper adaptors for your frame/fork and rotor size
– yours is a hardtail so this won’t apply – but worth knowing anyway for future reference – if a full suspension frame has a lot of chain growth through its travel you may need to get the right chain length with the suspension fully compressed. I only learnt this after bending 2 XT rear mechs

I think you can say one thing for definite – you can prove pretty much any theory if you look hard enough. Especially with the wealth of information available on the web, written and published by anyone from highly respected professors all the way to batsh8t crazy conspiracy theorists.

Tiny bit forecast for Friday morning here in Stroud

Back at it like a crack addict, me too Sharkattack

Currently have Spirit World Field Guide by Aesop Rock on repeat – best album this year for me, but not his greatest work maybe

Good work! I’ve got one on order too and took ages configuring it. Since the order I must have changed the specification about 4 times, each time Ben and Dan have been great and modified it no bother at all.

Any idea how many trails are clear? Haven’t been for a while, about two months ago quite a few were blocked from felling activities.

Nice one, YT do make some lovely looking frames

Same story over on the Primrose Hill / Pillowell area Sir hC. I was going to head over there a few weeks back but I hear most of the trails have been destroyed due to an MTBer knocking over a dog-walker and not stopping

These are the Joys Green trails. I haven’t ridden there recently, used to years ago and then they sort of dwindled away a bit. Now there’s plenty and the gradient is typically a bit steeper than most other FoD stuff. Park at Speculation picnic site. My mates were up there not long ago I’ve got a good .gpx starting at Speculation if you’re interested

Robbo just been through the same scenario, two of my kids though have woken up with a fair bit of coughing. Pretty certain its a normal coldy type thing but have been trying to get tests sorted all morning as they won’t be allowed back to school etc. I put in all our details and got to the ‘Choose a test site near you’ screen. Keep this window open and every 5 minutes or so put in your postcode again and hit ‘find a test site’ again. They are adding slots all the time at different test centres, they just disappear really quickly. Eventually something will appear. I got a test site 36 miles from us. Bit crap having to do this but this is what we’ve got to work with so got to make the best of it for now.

hodgynd :D

Just had both our lurcher’s teeth cleaned. Luckily didn’t require any teeth out this time (last time one of them had 4 out). Ours are 7 and 8, and the anaesthetic made them very lethargic and even more sorry for themselves than usual for a couple of days after. One had a little gum disease too which has cleared up now. If money isn’t the issue then I’d take the Vets advice, if he/she thinks it won’t harm your dog and will improve its lifestyle/well-being why not go for it? Cost £580 for our two dogs….

Think I beat you to it with my ‘On the wheels of steel’ post by a few minutes! However, I agree, its great with some classic Hip Hop breakbeats. Shame you can’t cut back the cross-fade when scratching though :wink:

Rode from Pau, south of France to Gloucester one day, on a 2004 R1, mostly in the wind and rain. The least enjoyable biking day of my life I think. Luckily the day before we’d done a track day at the Nogaro circuit in the sunshine, so the two days balanced each other out.

Big off-piste ride in FoD this evening, can’t bloomin wait

Awaits a STW copycat thread – bloody knocking shops