kerradoh

Agreed, rubbish! although i have fox suspension, it must work - Ive never had issues with this over the past 3+ years

Hey Man, my 2 cents seem to be mirrored by the fine people above: I was in a similar situation to you a few years back, and the advice I was given, and took, was just ride the bad boy you have until it cant anymore, then cross that bridge when you get there. The risk you run in selling now and getting something a bit beefier is that you just may find that that beefier is not beefy enough, next you'll want a fox 36 or a Pike and 150mm at the back, and carbon wheels and at least gx spec and a full face lid ect because that marketing machine really is a fine piece of work, you justify it because you hitting all the A lines and you've run out of bike to comfortably go faaaaast on. Or you decide, after hitting that A line a bit too fast for your skills and nursing some broken bits and bobs, that actually this isnt for me and a nice meander on the jeep track with some flowy single tracks is actually all you want in life.. Or you start to shave your legs, invest heavily in bum cream and knock out 600km a week and decide to ride a epic..You just dont know until you know, and ideally all these options require a different setup of "beefiness". If i was you, i'd ride what you have now, (fit a dropper post though), fix what needs to be fixed when it breaks (i'll bet on that nx derailiur going first) and once you know where you want to progress too then consider your options. That scott 970 is very capable as it is in its current form and you shouldn't be too worried about stantion size (thats what my wife says anyway :) is my opinion. Unless of course the trust fund just kicked in, then completely ignore my 2 cents, pull into your local bike shop, and let the marketing machine work its magic. good luck

Hey man, nice work on getting a bike and getting out there. Ive just been down the new grips road, and as with everything bike related, so much comes down to personal preference. Do you like a thicker feel or a smaller feel, do you want lock ons, do you want some more surface are for your palm like the Ergons, ect ect. I persoanlly never got on very well with the ESI's, i like them and all but because i like to crash a lot, they never lasted long. Tried a pair of the "DMR death grips" and really liked them, lasted me a year and a half. Now trying the spank spoon rubber grips, which i like. Seems like pricing on everything is crazy, including grips. My advice - pick something you think you will like and ride them till its time for a new pair, that day will come, sometimes sooner, sometimes later. Good Luck

But have you tried with TT bars yet that'll really piss em off.

From my understanding you then have to then start and stop your ride from the strava app, not from a third party app linked to strava, but i could be wrong?

Out of Interest, where in Claremont and was it locked to your bike rack? I often transport my bike around the s burbs on my rack - and have heard of bikes getting stolen, interested in the m.o.a. for your case. Ps - sorry to hear, hope it all works out ok.

Ya, agreed, seen 2 different chiro's and i didnt get much joy at all from then, not saying they dont have a place but made me uncomfortable that they would do some "re-alignment" without having a look at a xray

Shot - saw this, but didnt wanna hijack his thread for my own questions

Thanks for the input - surgeon is talking about going in through the stomach for the fusion, and taking a bone graph off the hip simultaneously to wedge inbetween the discs, then fuse them all together, do you reckon this is low risk?

Hello Guys, Likely a well versed topic, but couldn't find a current thread, interested in others's experience. Ive been having severe pain on and off for the past two years at least concentrated in my lower back, and eventually had MRI's done to get to the source of the problem. The scans reveal a severe disc degeneration l5-s1 and the orthopaedic surgeon reckons i'm a good candidate for an anterior lumber fusion. This op scares the daylight out of me, but truth is I cant carry on the way things are now. I can ride mtb still currently, but have to keep myself dosed with prescription drugs to manage the pain. Cant surf anymore for fear of spasms and drownings, can swing a golf club for 9 holes max, only on heavy anti inflammatories. I cant play ruff house with the kids or pick up anything too heavy, and Im constantly in some form of pain. Im mostly a desk jockey at work, and constantly having to manage the way I exist around my lower back issue. Ive also realised that i fall into the "lazy" category when it comes doing the daily exercises set out by the bio-kenetisist and hang my head in shame. Different medical advice from different professionals can be confusing, my childhood doc is of the opinion that the discs may fuse themselves over time, and we can manage the pain with some meds and cortisone injection every 3 months or so in the interim.. Or they may not.. The Biokineticist swears by getting the core strong and activated, and def no op required, the surgeon reckons lets cut you open and fuse those bad boys, hey Tiger Woods had the exact op and look at him now (jokingly..) Do you guys have any advice on a plan moving forward, has anyone tried other options like pressure release therapy ect? Has anyone else been down this road, and what did you do, was it successful? I realise that at the end of the day is probably a personal choice on how to mitigate the situation, but any pointers or advise will be most welcome. Thanks for reading

Hii guys - 29 days for me today, no ciggs! Im a junkie and an addict for ciggs, started young, around 15, and tried to quit a few times over the years, which turned to decades. Turned 40 last year, and vowed to myslef i was done, I tried everything over the last 2 years, allan carr (book and seminaar) champix, hypnosis, cold turkey, but every time i went longer than a day or so my mind would completely freak out, couldn't concentrate, couldn't think, couldn't work.. it was bad. In Jan this year gave one of those twisp e ciggs a try - so far so good, started with a high nicotine content, weened down to a middle content, and now onto a low dosage, the plan is to ween the amount of nicotine out completely, then just leave the e-cigg alone entirley. Its working for me so far, im not convinced that im a non smoker, but at least im not smoking ciggs, dont smell like a asstray and ive broken some of the crucial habits/routines that needed breaking, like the first one in the am. To all the others out there, well done and keep it up.