Sat am for circa 4hrs/Surrey hills. Any shops rent decent hardtails?

Going to camp there. 🙂

Demo bike from Pedal & Spoke or Head For The Hills seems easiest solution

Nirvana in Westcott have a fleet of Konas I believe, and then may also have some demo bikes, which have a demo fee. I borrowed a Turner 5 spot and a Giant Trance X from there for comparison once, for example.

Pedal & Spoke may also have some demo SC, and Head for the Hills (curse their eyes…) will def have demo hardtails with various types of hub gears, as that is one of their specialities (whereas building/straightening wheels is not, grrr).

Is this next Saturday? If all else fails I have a voodoo wanga in decent shape I could lend you, only thing missing is a 27.2 seatpost so you might have to put up with a USE XCR post. Plus it has conti MKs on, although they are black chilli.

whereas building/straightening wheels is not, grrr

That’s piqued my interest as I need a wheel build done (Alfine). Nirvana for wheel builds then?

Nirvana are no longer a Kona dealer – the available demo bikes are…

Nukeproof Mega, Lapierre Zesty (think its a 314), Lapierre Spicy (think it’s a 516), Transition Bandit, Intense Carbine & Intense Tracer

There is a cost to take one of these out

The also do Cube hardtails as hire bikes – give them a call on 01306 740300 – you’d probably need to book one of the above demo bikes a few days in advance – could also see if they’ve got anything else you could take out

Lapierre? bandit? helllllo

Thank you turnerguy 🙂

Nirvana for wheel builds then?

I had a wheel rebuilt at Head for the Hills after a collision with a dog folded it up – new crest rim and SP spokes.

After the rebuild I noticed it didn’t sit straight in the forks, turns out it was a few mm out of dish.

As I live in Woking and didn’t want the hassle/cost of going back over again I redished it (I bought a tool to measure the dish error!).

I then took it on holiday and someone lent their bike against it and took out a spoke, maybe with their pedal (actually snapped the nipple).

I took it to HftH for a new spoke/nipple and to also replace a nipple that I had accidently rounded when redishing the wheel – I don’t have any nipples at home…

Got the wheel back and it had a big flat spot, which they had mentioned in the email (I thought that maybe the journey back from holiday with the bike on the roof might have damaged the rim further), but I also noticed that they had failed to replace the nipple even though the request was on the order form.

Back home my plans to use another wheel tomorrow that I bought from ebay have fallen through, so have just been trimming the other wheel and the flat spot is now gone and it is almost spot-on now – just got to even up all the spoke tensions tomorrow morning.

I also think the remains of the broken nipple are also still in the wheel behind the rim tape, so I am going to have to rip that off and replace…

The owner of Nirvana’s wife used to do the builds and she had a good reputation. The last build I had there is still true (717 on Hope XC) but actually the spoke tensions don’t measure as for Parks guidelines for a well-built wheel.

Therefore I would buy Roger’s book and learn to do it yourself, especially as On-one have good Alfine prices:

http://www.wheelpro.co.uk/wheelbuilding/book.php

That’s what I am going to do, and I certainly will not be going to HftHs for anything again…

Yep, you are probably best off with a demo bike, and maybe join up with one of their rides or a Diary of a Mountain Biker ride.

But the offer is there is everything goes pete tong.

Interesting. Not certain who dealt with your wheel but I thought Roger had a decent rep for wheel building.

I do have the Wheelpro guide but just haven’t had the time to sit down and read it…maybe something to do now the nights are starting to draw in.

Good luck getting your wheel sorted

I thought Roger had a decent rep for wheel building

as did I but I couldn’t see why he left a flat spot when I was able to get rid of it, maybe he couldn’t because he didn’t replace the nipple I asked him to replace, which I can’t use either until I order some nipples…

Or maybe he has an allotted time for wheel trimming and this fell outside – the wheel was very straight apart from the bit that stuck out.

And the dishing error?

Basically it is not his wheel so he is not going to spend as much time perfecting it as you or I.

And that rim had only had a couple of rides on as well, as I had another shoulder injury and then was training on a road bike for a sportive that I never did in the end, so I haven’t been on the mtb much this year 🙁

nipple remains weren’t in rim, it was tho open presta valve tip making a noise 🙁

Wheel done now, pretty straight and very little vertical movement, much less than before, and spoke tensions pretty even.

If you don’t here from me again on the forum it is because it folded on me this afternoon and I died in the resulting crash…

Singletrackworld school rent HTs (spesh last week) and delivered them, well maintained to Holmbury last week. I watched them prep them as was impressed with the professional way that prepared everything. HTH

Saw several white genesis cores outside pedal and spoke in peaslake, and some being unloaded from a van.

Plus pedal and spoke sell maps of the trails in the local area.

My wanga might not be a good idea after all – like my flux it has shoulder-width riser bars, 110mm stem, BB7s, 2×9 gearing, and might not be slack enough for hora.

The cores had shorter stems, wider bars, and are probably slacker.