Phatmike

I was just about to post as to why it got locked - I thought it was a f**king classic! :lol: Fair play Dave. And James, you were ugly! Glad I didn't speak to you! :lol: Mike.

Oh no, you have to be kidding: "Special design double wall for drill. Lighter yet strong" Classic! Janson: "Deng Make Learn Write Deengrish For Easy Sell Part, Must Use Capital For Make Up Bad Wording And Spelling" Good stuff. Anyways, they do seem to be interesting, I think I might try one out, to see if the strength and stiffness of them is any better than my mavic was. :lol:

I used to say this, but I can safely say they are not as strong as the rest of the chain. Don't bother with the split link, take a little while longer, and use the tool. :lol: Yeah, but it's bedded in now, so it's fine. (Y)

Turning the chainring around will help slightly (presuming you've got one of the middleburn style ones). :lol: I'd do that and then just keep riding, it'll wear in fine within a few days riding, mine did the same on my pro bash, on my super pro bash, and again on my super pro bash with the KHE chain i'm currently running. (Y) Mike.

Video? :'( And I've seen had rims a lot worse than that. :'( Least you're largely ok.

I reckon most trials riders can do one hell of a lot more on their bikes than they can on their feet! I for one don't plan on doing massive gaps to rails etc on foot! Can't remember any time I've been blazed ( :P ) for riding trials, although whilst riding along, I did get a "aah mate, your wheels are spinning round!". Dumbest comment ever! No point getting annoyed about it, there are lots of sports where you could say exactly the same - "why hit it with a golf club, when you can just throw it", etc etc. Mike. :)

From worcestershire, we have: Me Matt Burrows Steve-a Ian Evans (Flipkickbs) Samwize Ad and ross. Will see you lot tomorrow. :blink:

Anyone else? :(

Your king should be fine, to be safe, you may aswell take it apart, and clean the driveshell, especially the helical splines untill they're spotless, clean the inside bearing in the shell, and the driverings with a clean toothbrush if possible. (Y) For future reference, a quick and fun way to take apart a king, see here: http://tv.isg.si/site/?q=filebrowser/Fatmike Bottom file - it will open with Realplayer (Y) Mike.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/5day.shtml?id=1643 Methinks it'll be pretty dry by then! Me and hopefully a few local guys will be heading up to bracken, if anyone else cares to join us, go for it. (Y) Mike.

Really good video Phil - one of my favourites you've made. Riding was great - obviously from such a high level of riders, consistantly good moves, and didn't get boring. :shifty: I like the way the riding was really highly "saturated", to give a really fast, densely packed content - shweet. Music was great too, worked really well with the quick editing, and mint riding to give a fast action packed vid. Nice one. (Y) Mike.

Wow, had some treats to night vid-wise! (Y) The video was awesome Mike, definately the best damnation vid by far - your editing's improved loads! The 1st 40 odd seconds worked really well - nice one! The riding was also mint, great to have an awesome mix of styles, loving the 90 gap to Smith (thanks steve :shifty:), as well as the spinney line onto the bin (~3:28), loved the way the bin bounced you off. Also really impressed with Danny, from Scotland. I'd never seen him ride before, and he's got a really nice, natural style. The 180 front wheel drop off (~4:05) was very nice too. ;) The filming was a little shakey and cut people's heads off at times, but the vid was a beast nonetheless - music worked really well too. How is Kev doing? Is he out of hospital yet? :D Mike.

(Sorry for quoting the pics again!) Thanks for the feedback Chris, maybe you could post some of your favourite pics up, would be interesting. :P Like I said, all of these images hadn't been edited, I'd just got back from a long ride, don't have PS on this pc, and just wanted to get them up with minimal effort! Obviously I'll be playing with them digitally eventually, but for the large part, I'll be making my own prints of them to go towards my Photography A-Level... I also much prefer having the photos "raw". These days you're able to push manipulation as far as you want, even create images from nothing! I'd rather keep them as they are, and if I feel the need to make improvements, I'd think about them on my next few films. I could definitely improve the images, digitally, but having them un-edited doesn't make them a bad photo! I'm happy with the way they are for the purpose of posting them here - if they were going into professional print, then yes, I'd take the time to edit them! It would also be good to see why you like a particular image, rather than just say "Good", and then slate it offer constructive criticism, it is helpful, and appreciated, but I'd prefer to hear your opinions (and same goes to everyone else too!) on what I'm doing right in an image, not just what I'm doing against your taste. :) Unfortunately, without sneaking into the buildings behind, a higher viewpoint would have been impossible! Personally, I like the fact I was close, and didn't zoom in from far away, it adds to the largeness of the object, and helps convey a feeling of it towering over you! Something definitely less achievable from further away. Unfortunately, a faster shutter speed wasn't really much of an option for the shot, I was using the smallest f.stop I could, and a shorter exposure would have meant less light and saturation reaching the film. I agree that the foreground is a little too cluttered for a perfectly clean shot, but that's another thing to think about in the future... As you said, a shorter exposure to increase the intensity & contrast of the clouds would have been nice, but due to the poor lighting that day, would've made the rest of the photo glaringly too dark! I'm happy with the angle of that photo aswell. Too close, and I feel the photo would have lost the size of the move... Not sure what you meant by: "and it's gotten the important bit!" :P Yeah, this was a shot Ben (Rowlands) got whilst he was having a play with my camera. He had to get very low on the floor, & has trouble focusing normally, so it was a bit tricky for him! I wouldn't call the framing of this photo a mistake. Getting tighter into the person would have meant losing lots of interesting aspects of the photo. The fact you are distanced from him, and he's looking off into the distance for one, wouldn't have worked if I was closer in. Also the random hand at the bottom, it adds another interesting point in the photo, again, might've been lost with tighter framing. I'd disagree with your comment about the background not adding anything to the image entirely, it's one of the main reasons I like it! Especially the red staircase running beside him, and the colour of the building complimenting his skin and teeshirt tones - I like it. I'm not entirely aware of the rule of thirds, (I can kind of imagine...), and in what way doesn't it work? Again, conflict of opinions, you think Peter appears too small. I like the rail (albeit slightly out of focus, but I'd wouldn't say it hinders the image greatly!) and it's mix of textures and colours, and that it leads the eye to a faint rider in the background, it sort of works. Do you prefer this image?: I fisheyed this to add to the (already impressive!) height of the jump. It's impossible to tell exactly how high up he is! Just stating "the back of a rider" doesn't really say much, I just presume you don't like it? There are loads of photographs around taken from the back that I like. This one of Peter again (albeit an aweful use of the fisheye!) I like, and wouldn't have been possible to take from the front, due to the light. And yeah, I definitely agree with you about the flash, maybe not too bright I could just do with a flash I can aim, rather than ontop of the camera! If it was directed at the rider, it would have boosted the photograph alot, and provided a nice effect between the light of the rider and dark of the ground. Again, something to experiment with. :) Hmm. I was quite pleased with the composition of this image, the way Peter's body is (to a trials rider anyway!) shows that he's putting in a lot of effort! The fact that a large part of the foreground is nicely in focus I think goes well with the very distorted part of the wall in the foreground! Yeah, obviously there will be a narrow depth of field to some degree, as I'm using such a low aperture (3.5 I think for that photo) to be able to work with a high shutter speed needed for the photo. (Obviously) getting an even narrower depth of field would have meant getting further back and zooming in more. This would have lost some of the angles in the plant pot gained by being close to it, and also led the risk of hand-shake! Still I could just blur a lot of the background on photoshop. :turned: definitely agree with you here. This is the image that struck me most about being able to convert it so many ways by cropping. A tall, thin frame, like you said works, as does cropping it to a landscape at 800*500px sort of dimensions. There's lots of scope for improvement in all these pictures, and it does help to hear what can be improved... :) Thanks for the comments from everyone else too. :) Mike.

A .wav file?! Thats a windows audio file! You really want to try and export it as uncompressed AVI. See if you can do that 1st! Then, head on over to www.tmpgenc.net, and get the latest version, when the wizard comes up, find the video. Then select PAL VCD, then just follow it through. That'll compress it to a decent quality, at around 10mb a minute. :D Can't wait. Mike.

Hey guys, just got a load of films back (more than £50 at boots! :D) and here's my favourite selection of photos. ^_^ Let me know what you think. :P The bridge in Bristol. Tic. :P Peter Backgarden in Birmingham. Peter again in "Gap to Bash Action"! Me in Bristol, taken by Ben Rowlands - thanks. :P The other Swindon James. Ninja Ian, in the car. Peter again, in Birmingham. Peter again in Bristol, with a huge static gap! Ian again, with a massive air! If you really want the full size of an image - let me know. ^_^ These are all completely unedited, so no cropping (apart from Pauly's face), and no changes to light etc. ^_^ Mike. (More to Come - stupid tf!) Porter in Bristol. Peter again!! in Bristol. Pauly - haha. :- Seb JT. Matt Burrows, with a cool 90 gap - one of my most favourites. Ian again. :P Ian again, with craaazy compression! Pauly, with an up. Mike. ;)

Oh god, a gold BB - what's the point. :blink: Gold axles? Hmm, really visable. RaceFace Signature DH bb's suck, I managed to kill mine in a matter of weeks, same goes for the FSA. The only ISIS bb which has lasted me (my current one's going on for 1 1/2 years), is the Truvativ Gigapipe DH. http://www.allterraincycles.co.uk/product.php?pid=101008 http://www.leisurelakesbikes.com/ProductDe...ategoryID/45/v/ Seriously, don't spend more money, or sacrafice having a worse bottom bracket for the sake of it being gold! Truvativ. >_< Mike. (Y)

Print Screen. Paste in MS Paint. :D

Urr, no, it's like 2.5% tops. :D Japan's got a population of well under 130m. You're possibly thinking of China? Which holds about 20% of the world's population. :$ Janson is correct - the metal backings do rule. (Y) And the one I've heard most common is to take a washing up glove, and, leaving a couple of inches at the end, roll it up in a small towel, then fold then end of the glove back over. Bang. One hole. Mike.

I was tired + busy. :P What Edd quoted is all you need to work it out, since I wasn't very helpful the other evening, I'll help a little more now. http://www.sheldonbrown.com/rinard/spocalc.xls Get that. Enter the hub measurements. (Easy to find, should be in the spreadsheet) Enter the ERD of a mavic X517 (It's in the spreadsheet :D) Then, (like Edd correctly quoted) under offset spoke bed, enter -11mm. Just realising now, looking back at my post that I forgot to mention it is a minus, as you'll want the spokes to cross over (like a sand timer), not for them to not cross over, (like a trapezium). :D You should be sorted with that. :P Mike.

Yeah - pretty much. :P You can't just have the two rims & lace them up, the tyre would just blow them apart. :P You have to bolt/weld (bolting is a million times better) the two rims together. Full topic about it Here. Some cool pics Lee, nice one. Shame about the top ones, just me cocking up ups to manual...! I really like the one of Peter doing that little down gap from the round thing, got the blur perfect. :) Shame about the composition of the rest of them. :P Mike. :P

Message from (Not so) Handsome, Bäckgarden, Shedman & Hobbit: "We are around at around threeish, riding the new Buyall Prototype bike" I guess they'll see you there. ;) Mike.

Hey guys, dunno if you've missed Porter's topic (who's not going now (Y) ), but the ride in birmingham on saturday is indeed fancy dress. I have my idea lined up. :) Best get your thinking caps on (if you're going as einstien or something)! Mike. :)

Loving those to pics Ian, lucky to get that one of Steve - held it for a nanosecond. ;) Zoomed in on Sam & Ollie when I made that up: Speechless. ;) Mike.

+ one more! ;) Some mint pics tom, nice one, really lovin' the one of Ian doing the sideways gap, shame you just missed out his head! :) Ace. ;)

Porter's gay. Still going to be a mint ride though. ;) What's everyone going to be dressed as? Mike.