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Yep, count me in....
I'll ask the missus now. If you don't hear from me again I've been killed
Nada - some early evening drinks will be consumed to help my 40 year old mate come to terms with not being a 30-something any more.
Enjoy and keep the number of mechanicals down this week please (mrbelowski - did you find your crank bolt thingy?)
Just realised that is was theglover who lost his thing - apologies 🙄
Yeah, my cranks are fine and so is my thingy
I'm glad your thingy is alright - you'll be needing that tonight 😆
I will be out tonight.
No can do, though I don't usually post anyway! And I'm not around for the following three Wednesdays as I'll be in sunny California 😀
Righty, I'm still alive and so I'll be there with all my thingies intact and firmly attached
my thingy is repaired but i wont be out tonight as going to pick up a new car for the wife (read: biking car for me).
Should be playing next week though.
Right chaps...
5 months later, I'm going to make it across to night, at last!
Keep an eye out for a white Primastar van, Orange Handjob....!!
Never ridden in these parts before so looking forward to the exploration!
Cheers,
Scott
Foiled!
Finished work too late - but headed over anyways for an explore!
Had no idea where I was going/nor a map or GPS so just parked near Swithland/Bradgate and rode around!
Looks like there has to be some stealthy singletrack around those parts....and the drive from Broughton only took me 25mins (instead of the usual mid-week 1hr Cannock slog!) ... so, looks promising!
Will make sure that I'm working 'from home' next Wednesday! Look forward to catching you next week!
Nice ride fellas. Shame about the gates, the bad shoes and the vomit 🙂
Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about throwing up! Bloody flies.. 😀
Yes another good ride last night, thanks to Dan for the guiding duties and local knowledge.
mrbelowski - The gates give one an all round workout. Who needs a gym membership...........
Rob, you were talking about buying a new rucksack/hydration pack. I bought this one.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/310888927153?var=610244264615&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649
It was a little bit more than I thought it was. Still 8.99 is not bad, free delivery, UK supplier.
lucabazooka - no worries, you know where to find us if you are interested(!)
Last night was great, gash cheapo Aldi shoes notwithstanding. And I contributed an obligatory mechanical as well, so all good.
We covered a pretty decent amount of ground as well - tracks firming up nicely (although the weekend might put paid to that).
No injuries, no unfortunate incidents involving badgers or grumpy NIMBYs, so another Wednesday night success.
See you next Wednesday evening (14th May), Woodhouse Eaves village car park ready to ride at 7pm 🙂
I've got a good'un for you on Wednesday night. A slightly different route around my 'manor'. One section in particular has absolutely brilliant views if the weather plays ball.
I'll leave it like that, tantalising. We could even have a pint in the Wheatsheaf rather than the Curzon as well......
Don't get too excited, mind. It is still variations on a familiar theme, but just a couple of bits we have not done before on a Wednesday......
I'll be there Daniel.
Wheatsheaf or Curzon...it matters not.
Both do nice ales...both extremely expensive 😯
I'll be there too!
Looks like the weather is going to pick up during the week, according to the BBC
BBC.CO.UK Looking forward to it. I just managed to finish a lower fork leg service this evening before it got dark! I'll have to give it all a good looking over tomorrow after work to make sure I haven't missed any bits out as the reinstallation of the fork into the bike was a bit hurried 😯
See you then.
I will certainly be there chaps. Wheatsheaf sounds great.
How complex is the service Danny? I was looking at getting my forks serviced today but was slightly put off by the £90 cost.
Could certainly do with it before I hit the lakes next month.
I'll be there i think. Sounds interesting. Lower leg services on rock shox are a doddle. The hardest bit is whacking the nut on the spring side hard enough to break the push fit seal without flattening the stupid Cheesium nut
Scandal.
It's not too difficult. The best guide I have seen is the MBR workshop guide on Youtube (Rockshox lower leg service). Yours is an air fork, so I think all you have to do that I don't is remember to depressurise the whole thing before starting.
Don't take it to bits unless you've got the fork oil already as a minimum - taking the lowers off loses all the oil in them.
Google the rockshox oil chart for year of your fork.
If you want to do anything to the dampers or springs (tops of legs) you will need a 24mm socket - not all that common in standard socket sets.
You will probably need for lower legs alone:
5mm allen key
15wt oil
Isopropyl alcohol (for cleaning - can get from Maplin)
Rubber Mallet
Tyre lever (if you are taking the seals out)
New seals and foam rings (if you are replacing them)
Fork grease (for the inside of the seals - DON'T use normal grease as it shrinks the rubber)
Lots of rags
Something to shove the rag down the lowers
Bottle brush
Don't wear decent clothes - fork oil is EVIL.
Follow the MBR guide and you should be fine - don't leave it until the last minute before your Lakes trip, though - if you find the foam rings have disintegrated then you will need new ones - everything else can just be re-used even if it is knackered.
Not difficult and you cannot really go wrong - the tolerances are quite fine, so if something is wrong, it just won't go back together!
Cheers Danny, sounds reasonable.
Think I might just order the seal kit and oil when I get home tonight and do the lot this Saturday coming, last thing I want is the fork malfunctioning in the lakes and I'm quite sure one of the chambers (+) may be losing air, I imagine new seals etc will remedy that.
See you Wednesday
Depends on which seals!
The grey ones you see in the top of the fork are only dust/wiper seals. The air spring compartment seals are (necessarily) much tighter(!) I don't know anything about servicing the air springs themselves, but suspect this might be a lot more involved.
My fork is a coil unit, so it is pretty crude and heavy, but the flipside is less to go wrong.
When people say their fork is 'losing oil' as they can see it on the stanchions all that is really happening is that the oils that sits in the lowers is making it out past the dust/wiper seals. This oil's only function is to lubricate the movement of lowers over the stanchions - it plays no part in spring or damping or anything else.
Best thing to do is have watch of the MBR workshop guide for the lower leg clean and service, then have a look on Youtube for the 'official' SRAM/Rockshox guide. This should let you see how much is involved in sorting the air spring - as I said, I suspect this is moving from 'just twotting it with a rubber mallet' territory into picks and seals and real precision(!)
I really am trying to avoid actually doing my work today(!)
I googled this to find threads on Singletrack about Rockshox forks losing air.
Apparently if the seals on the actual air chambers themselves have 'gone' then it will need sorting by a suspension specialist like TF tuned. What some people have said is that if you do the lower leg service and leave the bike upside down overnight afterwards, a tiny amount of that lower leg oil might moisten up the air chamber seals in the negative spring and this can mean they then seal better than if they have dried out - but it sounds like a long shot and temporary fix.
I guess your best plan of action is to do the lowers service, try this bodge and then stick a shock pump in your pack whenever you go out riding.
The seals on the air springs are just o-rings. They are easy to change once the air spring's been taken out - they just sit in little grooves and can be picked out with a pin / pick / tweezers / whatever.
I find that my seals start to leak a bit if the bike's not been used for a while - I guess they dry out. A quick n dirty fix that might help is to remove the valve cores and bung a couple of ml of fork oil into the air chamber, then pump it up to pressure and ride / bounce on it for a bit.
But TBH removing the air spring and replacing the o-rings when the lowers are off is pretty simple.
mrbelowski has trumped my (admittedly limited) knowledge of rockshox air forks - looks like you'll probably be fine.
My bugbear with jobs like fork servicing is do you just go to the effort of taking it to bits first, then order parts if necessary - thus potentially missing rides. Or do you order all the bits in first on the off chance, then take it apart and reassemble once?
Anyhow, you'll never find out unless you give it a go. It is quite a satisfying job in a way - there is no doubt when you put it back together - it either fits/works or it doesn't. Not like bloody rear mechs(!)
Oh and don't do anything involving fork oil on a nice patio - I did, first time, and my missus had me scrubbing it with a brush and washing up liquid like a naughty child................
Cheers both,
I will have a look into it this afternoon and see what is required. I had planned a service day on Saturday anyway so if it takes all day it takes all day.
Thanks
Hi Guys,
Been lurking here for a while as I live in Hugglescote.
The wife and I took up mountain biking about a year ago to get fit so we just bought a couple of secondhand hardtails, a Giant and a Raleigh for her.These are not up there with a "proper" MTB but we have got fitter and have done the Kitchener at Sherwood a couple of times now on them. We are now looking to upgrade to better kit soon but would like to get out midweek instead of just the weekend. Just wondering if we and the bikes would be OK coming out on one of the Wednesday rides?
thanks
Morris
Don't see why not - the more the merrier and all that. You'll need proper lights though as even with the longer evenings it's pretty dark when we finish.
Are far as suitable bikes go, there's nothing round here that needs a fancy dream-bike so don't worry about it. Some of the stuff we ride has a few steep bits that can be a little daunting if you're not used to it, but there's not much of that and there's always an alternative route round them.
The pace is pretty leisurely, with ample time given over to milling around discussing how rad we are, exchanging abuse, talking rubbish, etc.
Tonights adventures start at 7pm from the Woodhouse Eaves Village Hall carpark. I should be around if my poorly kids go to bed without screaming the house down. I'm still in the bastard-book from last week's turning-phone-off gaffe. I'll be on the Fatty I think so I apologise in advance for being sssllllooooowwwww
mrbelowski - I like slow, seeing as I've only one pace.
moslynne - Come along. As said, the more the merrier. I have to say you 'will' need good lights, I can say from experience. It's not nice, not being able to see where you are going at downhill pace.
So who else is out tonight? See you later 😉
I'm there this evening - it looks like being great weather. And a full moon - although I think we won't be riding late enough to switch of the lights and climb by moonlight.
moslynne. Come along and see(!)
I don't think we'd be considered a fast group - I guess it depends who shows up, really, but as I am there most weeks we deffo cannot be considered 'quick'.
Lights are a must - apart from the plum summer months we have been using them all year - a solarstorm X2 and a XML T6 combo won't set you back much more than £50 if you shop around - I wouldn't charge them whilst I was asleep or out, but then I don't leave anything charging in our house like that!
Bring yourselves, two bikes, two decent-ish sets of lights, some beer money and a cheery 'hello' and you'll be fine.
An open-minded attitude to arcane access laws and good upper body strength for lifting bikes over gates also come in handy.
If you could also make sure that you contribute at least one mechanical breakdown in your first few rides (nothing spectacular, just a puncture or snapped spoke will do) then that would elevate you immediately to accepted members. 🙂
Looking forward to this evening, should be a bloody good evening for it.
Don't suppose anyone in attendance would have a chain stretch checker thingymajig?
I have a chain wear tool - if I remember I will bring it.
You mean a ruler?
I don't have one of those either
Hello, I will be out tonight. You might want to bring some ear plugs as I still have a selection of squeaks!
That's OK bob, tonight I'm bringing a big hammer and will use it to fix your squeaks
I'll be there comrades 🙂
I wonder which one of you lucky punks will get the 900th post...beers on them tonight 😉
Chaps,
I'm in, see you later (in a pub carpark, at 7, somewhere up the M1?)...
Haven't packed the lights though - hoping there's an emergency helmet light in the van somewhere, otherwise I'll just use the farce.
Should be a good evening for it!
Cheers,
Scott (Orange Handjob!)...
lucabazooka.
7pm village car park in Woodhouse Eaves (next to village hall, scout hut, playground, tennis courts etc). It's on Main Street - shouldn't be a problem for you to find.
So this is looking like a good turnout:
Scandal
Bob
Asbrooks
Rascal
Mrbelowski
lucabazooka
Me
SEVEN!!!!!
What direction are you planning to head off in Dan? I'm still coming but having just picked poorly wee-man up from school early, he looks like one of those pathetic emo-zombies from that daft BBC3 program my missus loves so much (in the Flesh or something) who are all angst ridden about how undead and misunderstood they are. The whiny yellow eyed sissies. When I was a lad we had *proper* murderous brain-eating zombies on the telly with blood-lust and rancid faces, none of this 'ooo isn't life hard for the poor undead' shite.
Er, now what was my point? Ah yes, this evening. I may be a little on the tardy side, so if that's the case and I know vaguely where you're headed I might be able to catch up with my super awesome fat bike skillz. As you, Bob and Andy are coming I'll be guided by the dulcit tones of vomiting, squeaking, and chains chewing up spokes.
As luck would have it I was going to set off in the direction from which you normally arrive.
I.e. out of the car park and right towards the Bull's Head. Then over the road and down that lane opposite, before meeting up with the bridleway coming up from Loughborough - then heading up that lane to the crossroads with Deans Lane and Breakback Road before climbing up Beacon Hill on the horse/cycle track.
This gives you a pretty good chance of riding 'into' us as we make our way out of the village(?)