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Hey guys,

I have recently had my Specialized stump jumper commandeered from my home. I have the option of replacing it with the same bike or to go something a bit different. I am weighing up between a Rocky Mountain Instinct 950 and the Giant Trance Advanced

http://www.bikes.com/en/bikes/instinct/2014#/mod...

http://www.giant-bicycles.com/en-au/bikes/model/...

I was wanting to get some advice between these two bikes if anyone has ridden them and can give me a bit of advice. The bike is mostly for trail riding.

Cheers

Nicko

Looking at my past results I realised I never updated my race results for last years race. Thought I should add them in. Was so close to the hour mark.

With all these new fangled purpose built trails popping up I can't help but thinking I like the old stuff better than the new stuff.

Sure bike park style trails are fun and there's a lot to say about modern sustainable building techniques but old skool trails can be sustainable, challenging and so much more rewarding.

Take the mount York trails. Purpose built for horse and cart in the early 1800s by convict labour and still some of the best mountain bike trails in the country.

Coxes rd, Built in 1813.

sxcracing.com
http://sxcracing.com/2014-stm-round-1-kiwarrak

After a couple of months or so, of intense marathon racing, I was looking forward to the more social Chocolate Foot SingleTrackMind Series to come around.

What a great day out.
Was apprehensive to say the least after never doing more than 50 km on dirt in one day before.
I had entered the event to raise money for Cystic Fibrosis so had that pushing me on through out.
That and my best mate hunting me down on the downhills!

I was very pleasantly surprised at the quality and variety of the terrain how cool was the single track!

Well, where do I start? Talked into doing this by Stephen back in November last year, chucked in the entry and then settled down to procrastinating about training for it.

Roll forward to the 3rd of May, managed to rack up around 1500k's of training between January and now, both on and off-road. This included some WSMTB clubbies along with one of the WSMTB summer series 4 hour rounds. The road riding really helped me learn the power of spinning as well. Living in the Mountains with Anderson's in the backyard means no shortage of hills to climb too.

Like they say in the classics Life is better with a partner.......

After hearing about the wonder that is the Convict for years and years I finally succumbed and got an entry for Dad and me. Dad's 70 and last year his independence was curtailed by events outside his control, so I figured I'd take a bit of control for him, do an N+2, and get a tandem bike for the two of us to race.

Henry at Maxadventure was great and created a Tandem category in the 50 km race. Unfortunately we had to follow doctors' orders and Dad hasn't been able to get on the bike yet.

I arrived at Minter's house at 5pm on Friday where a take-away dinner of spaghetti and meatballs was waiting for me. We loaded the car and headed off into the peak Sydney traffic, chatting and laughing away and sharing memories from both our younger years and friendship we have developed over the past 4 years.

Some mates had kept us a camping spot and had the fire going, and soon we were tucking into Dorito's, chocolate brownies, and caramel koala's.....and talking a whole heap of shite.

I've ridden bikes on and off most of my life, but just for fun. In 2010, with the arrival of my first 'little one' and moving into mid 30's I decided I needed to get back into some sort of fitness regime. Went out and bought some running shoes... Ran 7k's on a bush trail... Then came back bored and went and bought a bike instead; the trusty 2010 Trance X2.

Decided to take the plunge and enter my first race and thought if i am going to do this i am going to do it properly and go straight for the 100km race. So on Friday my mate and i made it up St Albans and get ourselves ready.

We set off on the Saturday and decided to stay together until we got to the first climb and wow what a climb. I tried to ride up part of the hill but as soon as i saw people unclipping in front of me and decided to join them as i didn't want to kill my legs on the first hill. After that my mate and i went separate ways and ran our own races.