After a bit of an abortive start, riding with a horrible cold, being 5 minutes+ slower than all my mates up the hill and the fact that riding round Hayfield in the ice isn’t much fun. I wasn’t in love with my new bike, I was holding out home that, when I got home and checked there would actually be a 34t chainring at the front rather than the 32 I hard ordered. You can imagine how deflated I was when I looked 🙁

Anyway, fast forward a couple of weeks, Llandegla in 3 inches of snow and having got the BOS suspension dialed in a bit better. Slowly building confidence in the snow and corners, wheels off the ground a bit didn’t lead to immediate death, bit more confidence, bit more speed, rinse, repeat.

Before I knew it I was clearing tabletops, in the snow, that I wasn’t clearing on my old Mega. Last night I did my local loop, again, in the dark and snow and I’m setting PRs on strava.

It’s bloody marvelous. Can’t wait to get out again. I love my bike.

It’s a lovely looking bike. Saw the strava run – good work!

i was at Degla last weekend, on Sunday in all that snow! it was wall to wall sunshine in the morning and we were were cutting some of the first tracks on the top black! howling with laughter all the way down! contender for fave ride of all time i reckon! immense.

holy slack head angle batman. Is that what bikes come with these days?

The B line was a bit sketchy in the snow, Moz managed to destroy the genius with a massive crash and had to walk back to the van. Still an awesome ride.

It is a bit slack, I’ll give you that. I’ve never been a whippet up hill though and techy climbs dont seem too bad with it.

Nice bike

I’ve still not ridden in the snow this year, was too wet around here

if i had that bike i’d love it too… 😉

My new bike love interest 😀

[/url] P1020765 by john_henry_mtb, on Flickr[/img]

I got a new bike just before xmas, took it round llandegla to get a feel for it, felt great, took it round again a couple of weeks later, started to get cocky, going a lot faster than I would have been able to go on the previous bike, ended with a massive crash, and broken ribs. But its ok, the bike was fine apart from a bent wheel.

Nice bike , it was effectively a toss up between a YT capra and an orbea rallon for me, I went with the rallon in the end.

Know what you mean re speed, having to relearn how to ride! Had my old Kona for 10yrs….. Nearly got caught a couple of times today trying to go slow due to the snow and ice in places
Rode ‘degla for the first time last Aug on a trip with some mates. Snowdon on the Fri, Coed/MBR on Sat and ‘degla on the way North on the Sun, brill weekend 😆

Nice new bike there, John!
Look forward to seeing that out on the trails.
That new bike feeling is great. 😀

One of the guys I ride with discovered a crack on his Capra today, at the mech hanger. I know everyone goes on about how strong CF is supposed to be, and I’m sure it is when done right, but I’m not convinced the QC is strict enough. It’d be interesting to see the amount of CF warranty returns vs Alu warranty returns across the industry.

EDIT. Sorry for being a downer on your chuffed with new bike thread! 🙂

discovered a crack on his Capra today, at the mech hanger

Is it the known issue with the first drop-out design?

old design (complete with crack):

new design:

Yup, that’s it. Looks to be fairly common.