On a lighter note...

[Apache]

Here's my new bike, after I've blinged it up a bit with lightweight stuff. Weighs 10.2Kg, nice.

Notice things like the red aluminium schainring bolts, aluminium bottle cage bolts, Hope skewers, sexy red alloy jockey wheels, red magnesium pedals etc etc. Has Formula RX hydraulic brakes which are unbelievably powerful compared to the V brakes on my old bike!

[JUDWAK]

nice job dude
like the bike too i miss mine

[lord_flashart]

That's sexy! I have a general XC bike for training but my main disciplines are DH and Trials;




I have 5 bikes and a unicycle in total, a bit greedy but I like 'em!
They have both been upgraded since but those are the only pics I have so far.

[Apache]

Can never have too many bikes or too much bling

My lad would probably kill for that lower one. I just gave him the full susser I built so now I just have the two hardtails. Your DH bike looks really really short. Is that normal? I suppose your ar5e is over the back wheel most of the time though...

I'm converting the other one ( a steel Sunn) as my winter commuter with mudguards, road tyres etc. Have just cut down the bars a bit and put some ski bend bar ends on it so I can get lower and more stretched out for a bit more speed on the tarmac. Been thinking about fitting some rigid forks to it and flogging the old Manitous it came with. Save a bit more weight...

[lord_flashart]

No, it's not short, it's the angle it's at.

The pic also looks a bit odd coz the forks are Marzocchi Monsters which are huge along with 3" Nokian Gazzalodi tyres front and rear!!

[DaveHMS]

Don't forget your crash hats everyone. We've just had the pics mailed through of the car that collided with son Nik when he was out cycling. The helmet almost certainly saved his life.

[Apache]

###### hell Dave, he made a mess of that eh? How's he doing now? Any criminal charges against the driver?

[DaveHMS]

No charges. The accident investigation boys didn't want to apportion fault since both parties had suffered enough in this bump. The girl driving was a 7 week novice & may have been unaware of Nik, but Nik was crossing the road concerned & may have failed to notice her car. We'll never know.
The important thing is that no-one was badly injured - the twisted metal is really of no consequence.
Nik will have his thumb wired up for the next 4-6 weeks, the stitches to his jaw & forehead come out tomorrow & the scrapes/bruises are healing fast.

Back to the reason for my reply to the bike thread though:HELMETS everybody.

Dave

[lord_flashart]

Jesus! At least when it happened to me my helmet made a 'Ray shaped hole' in the wind screen. I had a head ache for a bit but was generally OK.

That looks like it sucked big time!

[Apache]

Yep, nasty. Good to hear he's getting back to good health though. I have noticed though that in general, drivers show a lot less patience than they did 15 years ago. I ride a lot more assertively these days, sticking myself in the middle of the road if necessary to stop someone squeezing past and cutting me up.

I much prefer to be offroad, though when its very wet it makes much more sense to use my winter bike with its mudguards and road tyres so I'm not so much of a soggy mess when I get to work.

[Mrbill]

Better with one of these, they got a back brake and everything!