bikeperson45

It's something where if a Flea was going for £100 and you're happy knowing it's not the best it could do the job for a while but it's probably worth holding off for something a little more modern. I love the Inspired's but they are pricey new, can find a few on eBay or on here, might be worth setting up an eBay alert just incase a good'un comes around. I quite liked the Zoots (with the seats), if you found one of them going cheap I'd recommend more than the Flea for sure.

Yep, affordable entry level new bikes seem to have gone out the window.. For a beginner I would recommend the value of second hand bikes, but if you're a beginner you porbably don't know what you're looking for too well. I started on a Saracen Flea years ago, was £100 on eBay sixteen years ago and even then I struggled on it, I found the brakes were a struggle to get right, it was pretty heavy, and I struggled with the horizontal dropouts and lack of engagements on the rear hub. If I remember correctly, even at the time the geometry was outdated with a very short wheelbase and, dare I say, a bottom bracket height of 0mm. After 4 months, I upgraded to a second hand bike only slightly more up the market and instantly made a tonne of progress on my first ride. I am talking about the most basic model, I think there were four of them, the highest value had some better parts like an HS-33 for the rear brake but can't recommend them honestly. Take it you're looking for a 26" to get you started?

Managed to finish my 200 mile loop around York on Saturday and still feeling chuffed about it, more of an exercise in planning and strategy than fitness. I always feel like Strava's moving time is a bit too generous, took me 19 hours which worked with my strategy of avoiding cramps and not fully exposing my lack of fitness for this. Also happy I managed it on a Decathlon bike I bought 10 years ago for £200, nice to have pulled it off on ol' reliable.

Oh it is all south, 200 miles with around 2000ft feet of ascent and descent, if it were anyone else trying it I would say it doesn't count

I've had a very loose goal of riding 200 miles in a day for a few years now and have finally booked a stay in York to see if I can make it happen. Picked York as there's an incredibly flat 200 mile route in that area so will see how close I get... Did a practise ride yesterday and managed 105 miles without too crazy an effort, glad to find I can still manage a slow pace for a good 10 hours without much issue so optimistic, nice to have an 'event' lined up.

Thanks for posting these, I'm still relying on TF for my trials content. Good interviews, will have to listen to the Akrigg one in full another time. Danny Mac in the thumbnail does remind me of everyone putting 'Danny Macaskill' in the youtube titles in descriptions in 2009

Great video, the editing, angles, transitions, were top notch and that pedal up is bananas.

I'm very up for this, got caught up at work scrolling through FB Marketplace so hopefully will have something to thrash about on soon

Amazing pictures 👏

I'm basically the same @Phantom87, had a few too many injuries in my late teens to really want to push myself to progress. I ruled out a lot of spin moves for myself after tearing my ACL doing a 180, and I realised that because of some hypermobility I spent half my time between 18-22 being semi-injured basically. Hard pill to swallow but I just ended up making peace with the fact trials isn't worth sacrificing that much injury time for.

Tried to go into Across The Spider-verse knowing as little as possible and it was great, actually got excited about what I was looking at in a way that managed to make me feel like a kid again. I have some nitpicks, but the art of it alone is worth seeing, even more so than the first.

Great video, such a good ratio between great clips, fails, and editing stuff.

Covid's brought me to the angry thread on Christmas eve... I'd had a flu a few weeks ago and on 13 December I started isolating to be on the safe side, just didn't seem fair to go into the office if I didn't need to and risk getting people sick before Christmas. I've been fine the past week and came home for Christmas not thinking much of it, was going to go out with some friends a few days ago and did a test to be on the safe side and got the positive result, so I've been hiding away in a bedroom and wearing a mask in the house. My family are angry at me for being OCD about covid and are reminding me legally I don't have to do anything, but I just can't shake the idea that if I know I have it I should isolate before I get a few negative tests back. Obviously don't want to spend time with my parents because they're getting on a bit now, but they're angry with me for not joining them downstairs. Waiting for a fight through a door tomorrow about not wanting to join them for Christmas dinner... I don't think I'm being over the top about it but I think I'm just fatigued on the moral scrupples of the last few years.

Nice job with that, can't really go wrong with a seatless silver trials bike

Sorry mate but I actually shotgunned the next Heatsink tensioner back in 2015 so you're after me

Now I'm reading up on energy savings for different temperatures, doesn't sound like as much as I thought it was... I assumed I'm just a smelly boy but maybe going up 10 degrees will help - much to learn, I guess. Flatmate's still a tool.

That's what I wanted to hear :p I haven't had a need for the longer cycles so far, 40 minutes at 30 degrees seems to do me just fine.

Am I being naïve for thinking that in a flatshare there's no reason for a washing machine cycle lasting longer than an hour? My flatmate better be going somewhere real special to have warranted this two and a half hour spin... We've been without a washing machine for 11 days so my logic was we should all do some quick spins but guess he had other ideas.

Glad this got a bump, missed it when it was posted but great video - always cool to see riders putting longer edits together and great clips in there. That gap to the little slant on the vertical wall near the start was top notch stuff.

These bloody train strikes... I'd been training and getting ready to break my longest bike ride record the past few months and the plan's out the window now. Really resent the weekend strikes.

School shooting stuff... I feel like the media's focussing too much on the police response rather than the inciting issue of why kids are getting guns so easily. I get that people are angry with the police, and rightfully so, but it just feels like a bit of a deflection to me still.

Taking this is a sign to get aero bars for my roadie this summer, they do look fast

On a basic level, it was funny to go out riding and have more people approach me asking if I was trying to do what the Youtube guy was doing, and even having people name Danny Macaskill was a fun change compared to 2008. I went from being a lone trials rider at school to seeing 3-4 more trials bikes being locked up in the school bike shed, mainly Onzas and those guys were trying to whip like Danny Mac. Since I've gotten more involved in climbing it's funny to see the similarities with how some purists don't like how there's a slight free running influence making it's way into bouldering. Seems like those splits in styles are bound to happen in individual sports that allow for creativity in ways that group sports don't.

I'm always impressed his ability to make these videos that ride the line between fun and gimmicky so well, and the Hans Rey part was great.