Tony Harrison

@Ross McArthur thanks for the suggestion, I'll check it out. People warned me about buying direct - the nice thing about going through a shop is you're more likely to have decent customer service. I think the Capra was around £4700, but I'm tempted to buy a reduced price 2018 model of something and do some upgrades.

Some of you may remember I bought this absolute animal of a bike, and what an absolutely insane bike it was, until in August I found this crack (the holes are where a plastic cable clamp/guide screws on)... Immediately I contacted YT who said I'd need to send the frame back for inspection, which I duly did. Weeks passed, eventually I got a response to say the frame needed to be replaced, and that would happen 'soon'.More time went by, I watched the last few weeks of summer weather go by with no bike...Eventually I got it out of YT that I'd be waiting for a subsequent batch of frames to be sent over from the factory. I pointed out that bikes were still available over the website, with an estimated delivery date earlier than the vague estimate for when my replacement frame would arrive. The weak - very weak - response from YT is that they didn't want to take any frames off the assembly line as most (yes, most, not all) were already purchased.This royally irritated me, after all, as an existing customer am I not worth more? I loved riding the Capra, had gone to great effort to buy one, and could see myself being a customer for many years to come. I really respected the story behind the brand and how the company had grown. In deciding to buy a Capra I chose to ignore those around me who mentioned rumours they'd heard about bad customer service - and quite rightly. Pick any company and there'll be sob stories on the web...Again and again I was fobbed-off and not given a proper response. In the end I got legal advice and wrote to YT to say they had one day to get back to me or proceedings would begin, and that all I would accept now was to send the rest of the bike back and have a full refund on the original purchase price. This seemed to get their attention and late October finally I was able to send the rest back.Another MONTH and I got my refund... : / So now I'm back to square one, time to decide what bike to buy. The Rocky Mountain Altitude is a strong contender, and a 150/160 travel bike will suit my needs I think. I stepped up my game at Morzine in the summer, outdoing what I'd done on a DH bike the year before, but plenty of people were absolutely throwing down on shorter travel bikes so I'm not convinced that 180 is necessary.

That's a decent length line!

A rare level of mastery right there.

I am an Adobe CS subscriber so I do have access to Lightroom. But I tend to edit shots one by one in Photoshop. Is Lightroom really that much better in terms of managing workflow etc? Is it worth my while having a committed go and getting to grips with it?

It's amazing how - with years of having not ridden - after a few sessions the muscle memory starts to come back.

Anyone here had experience with Metabones adapters, like this one? https://www.wexphotovideo.com/metabones-adapter-nikon-f-to-fuji-x-1591247/ I want to take my Fuji XT2 on a trip, but might need a tele lens. Thinking about taking my Nikon 70-200. Don't want to take a Nikon DSLR and don't want to buy a Fuji tele as I won't use it enough!

Disk space is an issue (I have used MacBook Pro laptops for the last 4 years, and no longer have a desktop) but I can't say I've tried Lightroom running off an external drive. I'm sure you could use it though. I tend to edit just the pictures from a given day/trip and then back them up to external drives and also Dropbox/Google Drive. One very important feature to consider is the screen. Laptop screens are far far better than they used to be, colours are better, contrast ratios are good, but they are far from all being equal. The screen on the MacBook is great for a laptop, as was the one on my old Sony Vaio. I think some of the later Asus ZenBooks had good screens to but if buying a PC one then you really want to get in a shop and try them first.

The same with so many industries though isn't it. We all wanted cheap, cheap, cheap, and this is what we get.

Yeah I hear you, I can see where Toto is coming from. It's one of those, too hard to call really and of course for them the pressure must be massive.

Given that, if they'd swapped back places at the end, Lewis would still have a 43 point championship lead, I was surprised they didn't do it. Bottas worked hard in qualifying and it was his race to win, at a time when he's obviously keen to prove his worth to Mercedes. Did seem unfair.

"TF is dying" "Trials is dying" Got bored of hearing that about a decade ago.

Belting win from young Lewis today...

That's an interesting concept Dave, liking it.

Certainly for kit that's aimed at advanced amateurs and pro users... two slots or GTFO.

It's worth looking at the Fuji X-T2, really really good camera. Very impressed with it, despite not using mine as much as I should've by now!

It's got to be Marmite, no butter.

$9-12m, but look at it... https://rmsothebys.com/en/auctions/MO18/Monterey/lots/r0073-1966-ford-gt40-mk-ii/692159

Put a cloth round that top tube when it's in the bike stand!

Why the f'ck did they ever call the company that...

Great photos, the captions are a little 'wooden' though...

Typically the right-leaning prominent figures (or at least those labelled by the left as being right) seem outcome-independent and secure in their viewpoints, they offer them up and shrug off criticism. More and more it's the tactic of the far left to try to censor and shout down anything they don't agree with, or just get violent about it, convinced that somehow they're justified. Pick your f'cked up dictator or tyrant and they all thought that they were right, that their vision justified the means employed. There's so much about the far left that comes across as downright hypocritical (or simply pathetic).

So much of the far-left protesting is just lame because the targets don't care - in fact they get a kick out of seeing how much other people do care. Trump is probably thinking "Oh look, they went to the effort of making a balloon effigy of me! Awesome! I really must be stirring shit up..."

Unfortunately I can't take the credit as YT did all the work!! I went to a Forest of Dean test day and rode the CF Pro model, which was everything I'd ever need (good spec, although 170mm f+r rather than 180mm), but alongside this one (the CF Pro Race) it just didn't look half as good. One of the YT staff admitted they go all out on the top spec so that people go for it - worked in my case anyway!