monkey_pork

What's Exeter like to ride then ? I've never found too much there, but now as I'm no longer licking my wounds and seem to have a working foot again, I'd really like to get back to actually doing some trials riding (won't be this week though as sunday is xc race fitness ride day).

As an old bloke coming back from a foot injury, it's taken me months to get back into riding my trials bike, and I suck. I was pretty rubbish before, but it's taking me ages to get the confidence back to push it, as I keep wondering if them bones will go *snap* again. I've been riding my playbike to get my fitness back, and to try to get the strength back in the foot, but trials puts additional demands on you I find. Being trials fit is a different thing to just being kinda generally fit (or might just be that I'm old and creaky). Plus you actually have to ride the bike, and not just ride through things with it ...

Mine are like this. I end up using PTFE tape on my crank bolts, to try to keep them tight, and using a bedding compound on the inside of the taper to try to take out some of the play. It works for a bit, and then they start clicking again ... and everything gets stripped down and cleaned up, and off we go agian. I guess I should get new cranks really.

Me ... now as I know when it is ! (Y)" How does it work again, more points is better right, that's it isn't it ? ... I hope so anyway as that's how I've based my approach to the earlier events. (Just in case it didn't work - I'm only joking about the points thing).

£20.00 'll get you a set of Gusset Inca's. Big, grippy, and mine seem to have lasted pretty well (apart from the odd pin), plus they are cheap enough not to get sentimental over.

We need to step outside the trials world to find the answer to this, as in here the arguments are skewed by the unusual level of mechanical ability. This is just part of supporting local sustainability, and promoting local cycle advocacy. Eventually, who is going to be left to fit that bit that you have bought cheaply online ... A decent lbs will support and co-ordinate riders on local cycling issues too, stuff like access, bike lanes, hosting rides, stuff like that. More pragmatically, whilst I, and I dare say you and a fair number of other people who ride, can fix their bikes as well as, if not better than their lbs, and therefore don't need to worry about if there is a lbs or not - there are what: ten, twenty, a hundred times as many people who can't. I was out riding the other day and a lad had come down heavy on his rim, and on top of all the other dings that rim had, this last one had pushed it too far to be ridable. Now, we were only maybe a couple of miles out, so no big deal, but this kid had no idea of how to straighten a wheel and really wasn't looking forward to dragging his bike home. So what does he do ? - sure, he can learn, or get his mates to help him (if they can) - but not there and then, and big mail order stores aren't going to help him out whilst he does learn ... his lbs would pull out the worst of the damage and only charge him a few quid to do it ... and yeah, I fixed it for him, but showed him what I was doing, so he could start to learn about it. Lots of people aren't going to have the tools either - how many people have a headset press - ok you don't need one every day, but when you need one, and the block of wood trick just isn't worth it - you need one. I'm not saying that I never do it btw, just something to think about ... On the other hand if your lbs is rubbish, then they don't deserve the custom. Start your own riders collective, and help each other out. That's why ... :D

This is from Parkhill X I guess. I could be a real pedant and come in on one of the back roads, just to test that out you know ... :P Last question (probably) - Time ? 1000 I guess ...

Ok, inviting hassle here I admit, but *tisk* - shouldn't you people be supporting your LBS first ? (Y)"

Err, talking of the 25th - where is Hetor Farm btw ?

Yeah, I'll be there as long as my damaged foot is ok. Actually as it's not exactly going to make the difference between my normal rubbish standard, and being rubbish because my foot's bad I'll almost certainly come anyway.

It starts here with the BitTorrent Frequently Asked Questions

TS has been a great resource and I think it's worth spending a bit of time to reflect on that. It's a shame that it's come to this, but you can understand why. I really hope that this isn't taken as ill-judged and callous by mentioning this now, but is it time to ask the bittorrent question (and maybe host the hash files here ?). I'm sure a fair few people wouldn't mind seeding to get things started off ... Good luck Simon, so long and thanks for all the videos.

[Edit: fixed now] Argh ! - sorry about all the posting here, I dunno why this got posted as a new reply and not just an edit to my original one like I intended ... :)

Thanks, I'll go off for a look now ...

Grrr - that's a bugger then, my geocities bandwidth allocation has been exceeded. :) I'll have to see where else I've got a bit of space. More on this in the next hour or so ...