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I come from a long line of quantity surveyors so was raised to believe that all architects are wankers.

Looks like this debate has petered itself out.

What do you do Ordinata?

My main worry is how to make decent coffee though. I need my coffee.

If all you need is coffee, have a go at making a beer-can stove yourself. It's not difficult and it'll boil a few cups of water tolerably well.

What's your preferred outdoor coffee? I go for the cheapest instant coffee I can find, pre-mixed with brown sugar and full-fat dehydrated milk, in a film canister. Water in mug, empty contents into mug, boil off the giardia = tastes like shit, but it's hot and sweet and convinces me to do a shit before we get moving - nothing worse than turtleheading on an exposed ridgeline.

I made a plate out of stainless that sits nicely on the pot holders of my Trangia set that supports my Bialetti Kona perfectly. That and my Zassenhaus Turkish grinder follow me and the beans whenever I go camping these days.

That does sound wonderful, but how far from the car do you venture I wonder?

I have wondered about making a cafetiere that sits on my stove.

Some sort of spray on nikwax type thing normally does the trick. I think there are different ones for old ripstop and new silnylon.

Yip, or you can get the wash-in stuff. Nikwax techwash is pretty good.

I call the wankers wankers.

No, you call them all wankers. Read the post above and hopefully you'll understand why they're not wankers.

Lae, you mentioned you were a recent graduate? Do they teach this idea that you can be a specialist in aesthetics above all else and then let the engineers figure it out? Genuine intrest.... It does really concern me that they would teach you to have "no time to fuck about making functional objects"....

Here's your box, don't go outside it - way more fun that "woah, do whatever man, just make it pretty" There's already enough wastage on the planet without having specific "aesthetisticians".

No, they teach engineering and ergonomics modules in industrial design, but it becomes abundantly clear come internship time that those companies seeking stylists aren't too interested in the all-rounders. This used to frustrate me but since graduating and moving to a larger company I've come to understand it - see below. Stylists do have to be able to work within constraints, but they certainly don't often generate those constraints themselves (which is why their portfolio is full of useless objects until they've had some real-world experience), and that's fine.

My perception is that design companies are more productive when they're comprised of a large number of specialists plus a few all-rounders rather than vice versa, which is at least part of the reason why there are so many students who focus on styling (the other part is that styling is perceived as a glamorous profession). I work for a mid-sized product development studio with around 30 design staff - we have a handful of engineers, a handful of graphic designers, a few ergonomicists, and a few all-rounder industrial designers (like myself). Then we have two people whose job it is to do amazing sketches and sculpt forms out of modelling clay, and two people who sit on their computers with headphones on making CAD models of the clays. These last two groups of people don't really understand engineering or ergonomics, but that's fine, since they know to work within our constraints.

Most of my job is to inform the back-and-forth discussion between these people and the engineers. We discuss with the client, I give it some thought and come up with some emotional/affective specs, the engineers give it some thought and talk me through some physical specs, together give it some more thought, I give it to the stylists so they can make it more beautiful than I could, then I say (for example) 'this radius needs to change because of the tooling', we get the all-clear from the engineers and then go on to iterative testing and production.

I've worked for design companies before and during my studies, always in places with 5-6 staff, and although everyone had their specialism, everyone was also an all-rounder. Most of the time these companies would outsource a stylists for a few days a week as their in-house efforts resulted in very banal looking objects. Since some parts of the design process are quite introspective I think the ability to completely zone out and focus solely on one part of the problem, be it engineering or aesthetics, is very useful. So these extreme specialists certainly have their place.

I agree that aesthetically speaking the bike is a bit vapid. I don't know how old it is. Ten years ago it would've got you a job at Alessi or Jaguar... now, maybe not. In the context of this debate I don't think it's important. What fade said about cycling having its own set of semantics is definitely true.

Incidentally I think the best way to teach design, engineering, and ergonomics would be to have all three courses interacting - it would benefit everyone and might even create some genuinely successful products. It's a real shame to walk around degree shows seeing a bunch of products that are desirable but unworkable and another bunch of products function beautifully but that nobody wants or needs.

Oh the road? Maybe once a year, slip on ice in winter, or on a wet slippery something.

On the MTB... crumbs, at least once a fortnight. It's usually just a slow stumble though. Last month I slid about thirty feet down a wet mountainside on my arse, that was fun.

MDCC - You're like a broken record. Every time this topic comes up, you say the same thing. Performance/engineering, usability/ergonomics, aesthetics/styling - to make a successful product, you need all three. Yes, pretty sketches do not ensure good cars, I never said they did. Dyson's engineering was great, but without the styling it would never have become a household name. You may not understand why aesthetics are so important, but they are - as someone who does this for a living I have tried to explain it to you many times.

Besides, did you even read what I wrote? It doesn't matter that art-school bikes don't work - they aren't supposed to work, they're not real bikes! The bike's just an arbitrary vessel for their aesthetic talent. Like I said, criticising art school students for making impossible bikes is like criticising engineering students for not making their turbochargers pretty enough. These people are specialists, they don't have time to fuck around making 'functional' objects when nobody is going to hire them on that basis.

You may think that 'art school wankers' should stay well away from cycle design, but every big company in the cycle business (or any other product business) disagrees with you. You are welcome to disagree but I'm not sure where the substance of your viewpoint comes from.

Edit - and stop being so rude about art school students. Every time you post in this thread you call them wankers. You're entitled to your opinion but there's no need to be a twat about it, is there? There are a fair few on LFGSS. Sorry they touched your precious bicycles.

Surly make loads of options. Cheaper and heavier than Salsa's offerings, I think.

Sorry, I should've been more precise. It's not about perception as 'ugly' or 'beautiful', the important part is that Shimano employ stylists whose sole job is to focus on the aesthetics of those components. You might not like the direction they've taken and probably the stylists don't either, but if there were no stylists involved they'd sell far fewer, because the engineers and ergonomicists aren't experts in styling (a hundred years ago the engineers did all three but people have become specialised since then).

The majority of the time when a product looks 'functional' an industrial designer or stylists has been consulted, because 'functional' is a look just like 'curvaceous' is a look. People who buy functional products want other people to know that they buy functional products, and therefore stylists are employed to make stuff look more functional than need be. I remember working on some farm communication device and the engineers packed their magic in the smallest, slimmest cases they could - well no blokish farmer is going to want that, so I directed the stylists to redesign it with chunky case that was bigger than needed. The feedback we got from trials was 'it's functional - no fucking about with fancy styling'... heh. They were actually less functional than before because now they didn't fit into normal pockets, but the farmers preferred them because they looked tough and workmanlike.

So there are very, very few 'unstyled' products - like I said before, even the defence industry employs stylists to make their gun and tanks and attack helicopters to look more aggressive. Even tools and medical products are styled. If you want something that's purely functional, look inside a cheap vacuum cleaner or something - the two of us might find it fascinating but the majority of people will say 'it's ugly'. Now, add some fancy cutouts to the moving parts, some big red bearings, some selective anodizing, and make it look all 'engineered' and people will say 'that's a functional but beautiful vacuum cleaner, the engineers have paid a lot of attention to it therefore I will buy it because I like functional things' - in reality the engineers haven't touched it and it's no more functional than it was before. This is what Dyson have done - they've made engineering sexy without people realising it, and they've made a load of money from it. Dyson's PR claims that they don't even have a styling department!

I suppose the bottom line is that we all like to think that we buy things solely because of how well they work, but in reality we (cyclists especially from my experience) tend to buy stuff mainly because of how it looks, how it feels, and most importantly because of what we think it says about us (even if, ironically, the message we're broadcasting is 'I buy functional products') *cue cries of 'not me!' from anyone reading this.

How about sleeping bag stuff sack full of clothes? They're nice and soft and just the right size. And lighter than the Montbell one, since you're already carrying it.

They're made by a guy in his garage - email him, pay via paypal, and he'll post it to you.

The Tatonka seems to get some poor reviews there... most of them say that it's slow and it leaks. By comparison, my Trangia doesn't leak and has a simmer ring. The RUCAS doesn't have a screw-top but in reality this doesn't bother me - it doesn't have a simmer ring either but I only use it for rehydrating food and boiling water. It's not the most stable stove on uneven ground, but I sit it on a wooden coaster which helps. The RUCAS also burns quite a bit hotter than the Trangia, but not quite as fast as the MSR canister stove. The RUCAS is by far the lightest.

Imagine a doctor that will never tire, never make mistakes...

"Imagine a jetliner with a pilot that never makes a mistake, never gets tired, never shows up to work with a hangover..."

We all know how that worked out.

Oh I see. Yeah it's not a race bike or an aggressive ride, it's definitely got a bit of spring in it when you push hard. Everyone I ride with is on a full-suspension so it out-accelerates all of them, which is good enough for me. We crawl up and bomb back down (well, they bomb back down... ) but that's the local terrain for you.

At 75 quid it's a bargain frame.

Is this also the hiking/backpacking/camping thread? Can I join in please?

I am thinking of getting some trail runners for walking in. I have Asolo TPS boots but they're unnecessarily heavy for groomed trails in summer. Summer pack weight for an overnighter is 5-6kg so no ankle support needed, right? What should I be looking for? I see some trail runners are advertised as waterproof (or shower-and-wet-grass proof)... I am not sure what I think of this.

Anyway, thank you for reading, here are some photos of nice places I've been recently:

Going up to Big Hut, Rock and Pillar Range

Somewhere on the Routeburn Track

Devil's Staircase, Silverpeaks (Jubilee Hut is on the first clearing to the left of the river valley. The second valley to the right contains an cave that some awesome chaps built a sleeping platform in)

Yours truly in full park ranger regalia, on Swampy Summit. The westernmost ridge of the Silverpeaks is in the middle-distance and the farthest range is the Rock and Pillars from the first photo.

I have some absolute stunner photos but they are all on film. I will get around to scanning them all one day.

Today I also bought some Icebreaker merino boxer shorts. They were thirty quid down to a tenner, presumably because they're XXL. Strangely they fit me perfectly, I suppose they're sized to be tight for that killer bulge.

Fracap Scarponcini boots.
http://www.fatbuddhastore.com/images/products/zoom/1383742244-36542700.jpg

Yay or nay? I really like them. Weren't in stock all winter though, now reappeared in window round the corner.

I have these which are a little more subtle and a fair bit cheaper.

Merrell Wilderness Canyon. Be sure to get the Canyon - the Classic model is an actual hiking boot. This is just a winter/walking in the park/DM-alternative boot.

But it looks like shit.

Well yeah, but you can't deny that it's very fashionable. All it needs is some faceted surfaces and it'd be perfect.

Fucking facets. Every fucking client wants fucking facets.

I'm (now) an industrial designer by profession so I'll attempt to give a bit of an explanation behind designs like these.

Essentially these concept pieces don't 'work' in the traditional sense because they're not meant to - they're made to advertise the creator's sense of aesthetics. These creators are called stylists (which is a loose subset of industrial designers), and they are employed to make stuff look/feel nice - in the same way that engineers are employed to make stuff work properly, ergonomicists are employed to make stuff that fits us, marketers are employed to make sure the public want to buy the stuff etc.

Concepts like these are generally made either as marketing pieces by the very few design houses that focus solely on aesthetics, or by the very many design students who want to be employed by these design houses. These people are closer to artists than to designers, and they're certainly not engineers or ergonomicists. Car bodies are styled by hand - they always have been and I imagine they always will be. They're scribbled on paper, then made (first in quarter-scale, then in full-scale) by sculptors out of clay. Asking that bike's designer to work on the ergonomics is like asking the clay sculptors at Ferrari to design the engine. Or look at it the other way around - it's like criticising Ferrari's chief engineer for not making the turbocharger pretty enough. Of course there is some overlap - engineers have a sense of aesthetics, ergonomicists sort-of know how stuff gets put together, and industrial designers tend to combine a bit of all three etc.

If we didn't have people like this, most consumer products would look like shit, and I can tell you from experience that (with a few exceptions) ugly products, no matter how well they work, simply don't sell. It happens in the cycle industry (and the wider sports/recreation industry) more so than in most others (automotive being another style-driven industry) - I mean, do you think an engineer designed those graceful curves on your rear derailleur? No, your derailleur would work just as well if it were made from aluminium rectangles riveted together, which is what functional prototype derailleurs look like. But if they were released like that, nobody would buy them. Like I said, there's some overlap, so your average engineer could make a somewhat handsome product, but big companies can afford to hire these super-specialists to make a very talented team (and industrial designers tend to be the people who knit the team together). Even arms companies employ stylists, which demonstrates just how important they are.

In other words, the bike's not designed to be ridden, it's designed to show off the maker's sense of aesthetics to potential employers - and to hang on the walls of client meeting rooms. It'll remain an obscure bike and almost nobody will buy one, but that's okay because it's probably all over pinterest and on the pinboards of industrial design houses everywhere, which is an amazing thing for your portfolio - think of it as a CV that says 'I can take your ugly but functional prototype and turn it into something that is viscerally attractive and therefore easier to sell'.

When I was a student I filled in a summer job application form on which one of the questions was 'Can you clean an oven and do you mind' - it was a yes-or-no tick box... I didn't get the job.

Finally, we can go out and buy a 531 Mixte frame off the shelf rather than waiting six months for one to appear on ebay.

The Inbred felt long and very sluggish, you should really see if you can borrow one for a test as personally I was so disappointed.

What fork/bar/stem was it running? The long top tube means you can get away with a really short stem.

When I got mine I built it with parts from the parts bin - 80mm suntour fork, 100mm stem, 680 bars, and it was a bit rubbish. Then I built it up with 60mm stem, 780 bars, and 100mm fork and it felt so much better. For touring, back to the long 100mm stem and much narrower Mary bars, and it's nice and stable.

It's not a nimble bike by any means, but it's definitely not sluggish, which is why I'm so happy to recommend it as a commuter/bikepacker/casual XCer bike.

As it's always difficult to compare riding conditions, here's the tightest track I ride regularly - the hairpins start at about three minutes in.
Nicols Creek Swtichback Track - Hemet Cam - YouTube

Human appreciation, like appreciating the way a male or female looks / sounds / acts / uses their intellect etc. I used the word human so as not to specifically identify either sex.
I don't know, maybe where I live attitudes in general differ from those in UK.
I just asked because i don't want the ban hammer to come down on me for something I think might be perfectly reasonable.

I live where you live, and no they don't.

The Inbred's more suited to general, all round riding. Better for use with a rigid fork too.

The 456 is more of what I'd consider a ''chucking about'' bike.

Agreed - and the 456 is designed around a 150mm fork (from memory) - you'll be unlikely to find a rigid fork with an axle-to-crown length that won't upset the geometry (perhaps a fatbike for might work?). There is a 650b version of the 456 which might be something to consider... I think it still has rack mounts and eyelets. I can't advise on the 26" Inbred because I've never ridden one, but I'm sure if you ask around you'll find someone who'll let you borrow theirs for an afternoon.

All Inbred frames are designed with 1 1/8 headsets rather than tapered headsets, which is a bit of a bummer if you want to fit a modern top-end fork - I test-rode a Niner ROS9 with Pikes the other day and Christ it was good.

Neither of which prevents you from riding XC. Especially if you consider the straggler will happily take a 42mm knobbly.

Good morning. I assumed you were being sarcastic when you said "let's have a stupid discussion about what proper mountain biking is" but now I'm not sure. Let's forget the whole thing.

Anyway, I think an Inbred 29er is the perfect bike for your (dakin's) needs for the following reasons:

1. Cheap, tough frame.
   
2. Rack mounts and eyelets.
   
3. 2.4" tyres if you want them.
   
   

I use mine for commuting, XC/trail (although I do get off and walk the big drop-offs because I'm using a Ritchey carbon fork) and off-road touring and I think it's pretty bloody good. I just swap the cockpit out if I'm touring for a few days (from 60 Thomson/780 Crank Bros Cobalt bar > to > 100 Cobalt shallow rise stem and On-One Mary bar). I have a Surly ECR fork for that mythical 3-month off-road tour that's probably never going to happen.

Beware that the Inbred frames are not very well finished and need facing/chasing. Also commuting on tacky tyres wears them out very quickly, unless your commute is off-road (which mine mostly is n.b. this is not me, nor is is the trail I commute on, although it is on the same hill with the same view every morning, which is awesome).

The Straggler's a great bike for sure, it just won't be as comfortable on trails as (for example) an Inbred. Bah humbug. I'm going to bed.

Well I suppose if you ignore the geometry and the tyre clearance, yes.