managed to arrange a month in the South of France just north of Beziers, brought bike and have been putting in lots of miles in amazing Languedoc scenery and predominantly good weather. not really looking forward to going back to flat, wet, grey UK in 10 days. maybe I should find a job somewhere nice?

might be worth getting the frame faced if you have been chomping through the shimano ones. I used to get through one about every 3-4 months, frame faced and problem seems to be sorted. Currently on a Hope ceramic since early Oct with no bother, although can’t say I’ve noticed the reduced friction from ceramic bearings

I have some red hubs, black spokes and ZTR Olympic rims (nice light wheels), sorry but no piccis.
Also have a matching red Hope bottom bracket
The bike is a Rocky Mountain ETSX with yellow / black flame effect paint job, effectively giving me a bike in the colours of the German flag, not something I’d considered when blindly purchasing.

Remember red goes faster…

anyone got the danglies to go up the western side of Taiwan? Don’t think it would work to to be honest but could be interesting
– “bigger stronger faster harder”

no wife, no kids, gardening leave, riding A LOT!

keep thinking about test riding one, but then one thing will lead to another and before you know it……

my Rocky Mountain ETSX is about 27lbs in ‘race mode’ with lighter tyres / olympic rims on proIIs. in all day / training mode its about 29lbs. really notice the difference with the lighter wheels / tyres on it. Could probably go a bit lighter if I swapped the coil revelations for something else and found a different saddle that agrees with my arse (currently on an SDG bel air) but its deminishing returns for here on in and in its current guise its pretty bomb proof. Keep thinking of an anthem X but can’t justify spending £850 on a new frame when I’ve got a hand made canadian one which does everything
Not sure how much my soul weighs, probably around 27-28lbs but its not built up with anything swanky

anyone know anything about the dirt climb mentioned in the pezcycling article? I’m going to be down there until early Feb, might see how far up I can get on the mountain bike I’m taking with me, I’m anticipating snow at some stage

for the next 4 weeks I’m a senior programme manager at a mobile manufacturer, however I’m on gardening leave pending the bullet in the back of the neck and shallow grave in the woods along with 999 of my collegues across europe on 4th Feb.
since I get a ridiculously generous payoff I’m trying to train in the manner of a pro until i get another job (will probably take a while) to see what happens and what might have been if I’d got into racing when I was young. Until the 4th I’m taking the company motor and fuel card down to the south of france to see how many miles I can put on it and also some (hopefully) warm weather training having sorted out some free accommodation, hurrah!

super – its great to ride, the bearings get changed when they get wobbly (18 months from last set) so I’ll not worry about it any more and keep flogging it.

here you go, I’m trying to keep my money in my own account at the moment

GUFG6-5HNRM

apparently you have to spend over £25 to get a fiver off