Call the tourist info and speak to Berni. (She found you some better digs last time)
She should be able to find you something.

Just spoke to sheldon, he’s going to call Berni t’morn and try his charm on her (so that’ll be me f-cuked then 😛 ) , i stayed at someones private house just up the road from the pub last time?, they knew Pat adams and that crowd somehow, i can’t think of their names though but i do remember they were very decent folk, big house set back from the road with a steep drive and long garden at the back, couple of young kids at the time and they were bikers as well….they set up a futon bed for me n’ jules in the spare room and made us a fantastic meal and everything….bloody annoying that i can’t remember their names, but i guess it was 5 yrs ago and we were all rather drunk at the time, although not as drunk as sheldon.

We may have a solution Somafunk, looks like there may be some spare beds going at our accommodation. More as I get it, in fact I’ll text you when I know more!

Cheers tollah, Doesn’t even have to be a bed, empty out a drawer or cupboard and i’ll wedge myself in somewhere – Wohoo…..i’m off to wales 😀

Woop Woop. 8)

thats a cracking bike, credit to you 😆

Cheers zanelowe, i think this build may be a stw first – i don’t think anyone has criticised any part of the build yet?, and no mention of the untidy worshop either?….has stw gone soft in the head? 😀

And good news, (for me at least) I’m going to the “Real Ale Wobble on 16th & 17th November, Woop-Woop, not had a bikey/beery/mates holiday since SSWC 2007 at Aviemore, to say i’m chuffed is an understatement.

Whoop whoop Somafunk joins KõN shocker 🙂 the legend is back

Hey,
Long shot but would you sell the Juan solo frame? A year now I’ve been trying to find one that somebody will sell 🙁 I very regrettably sold mine for the cash 🙁 pm me badabing0077@live.co.uk thanks

emailed you ononerider – sorry but i don’t want to split the salsa, when i advertised it on here for £400 i did get offers for the frame and parts but i wouldn’t consider splitting as it rides far too nice to split up.

I’ve been lusting after a hummer for a while. How’s the setup and ride somafunk? Any advice for building up from scratch, sounds like main issue was with seat tube shim, is it easily overcome if you know how? I’ve got a pace 325.5 which seems to have similar geommetry at least and it’s by far the most fun ride I’ve had in nearly 25yrs of mtbing.

Any advice appreciated!

Have just read your saga in full, painfull in more ways than one! I see that Ben in Glasgow did an amazing job of correcting a few issues – I guess I could cope with that, given the price that merlin are selling these for. at least I know where to go if i buy a frame and it turns out the same…

That’s lovely that is 🙂

Cheers superfinlay/stevied 😀 , this how it looks t’night after a strip down and clean at the weekend after abusing it by ploughing through muddy tracks in the Galloway hills over the past few weeks.

The ride is just fantastic, with the talas wound down to 110mm it handles real sharp and the front end can be made to dig right in and the back will just flip round – you do need to ride the front and place faith in the front traction but once i adjusted my riding style from my previous bikes it’s second nature now, it climbs far better in the lower setting but thats just to be expected, wind the talas out to 140mm travel and it just hoons down trails/hills and over anything in it’s path and i don’t mind admitting i’ve been caught out a few times when at speed as my response with regard to controlling and allowing the rear to float underneath me has almost spat me off a few times till i reign it in a bit and compose myself – purely rider error or too fast for my skill level you could say 😉

I’ve not bought a complete mtb package from a shop since my Marin Pine Mountain back in 1992 as every mtb since then has been a case of pick and choose what parts i want or what will work best for my wants/needs and build it up myself (apart from a bit of reaming help fae ben up there ^ )

Yeah it’s a shame i got the response i did from the original shop or salesman/mechanic where i bought the frame as it was obviously not in a condition to be built up and to be told i was inept was rather annoying to say the least – i was practically born in an engineering workshop wi a silver spanner in my mouth or at least brought up in that environment and worked in one from a young age but hey-ho, it’s their loss of a customer, i guess i’ve spent countless thousands over the years as i’ve been using them since the early 90’s for all manner of bikey stuff and always had excellent customer service from them beforehand untill this one time. I’d have thought the shop would simply ream out the headtube on the original (1st) frame i received from them rather than sending it back to Cove as that’s all that was wrong with it, it doesn’t take a genius to take a digital vernier gauge and measure the ID of the headtube but i guess it’s immaterial now.

The seatpost shim?, I had trouble finding a shim in the correct size so i got in touch wi Lynksey who made the frame for Cove and they agreed with me that it should not have such a short shim installed and they couldn’t figure out why it had such a short shim in the first place so they machined me a new shim of the correct depth and sized down to 27.2mm to structurally strengthen the area due to increased shim size and i can now use a dropper post 😀 , so as soon as the 27.2mm Thomson appears i’ll be removing the existing shim and fitting the new shim (see pic below) along with a Thomson dropper.

FWIW : Lynskey (Don) were amazing, fantastic level of communication and they machined me a shim to whatever ID size i desired free of charge and couriered it to me free of charge as well so top marks and a big thumbs up for their level of customer service, nice to see that a company that has absolutely no obligation to deal with my problem went to such lengths to sort me out with a shim.

Very happy with the bike and current build, extremely nice to ride and so quick it just puts a smile on my face, my current fitness does not do the bike justice in any way shape nor form but i can work on that………i can’t use the old excuse that “my bike’s not up to it” can i? 😳

Is that the standard middleburn spider on there? Have you ditched the pauls chain keeper?

clobber – Member
Is that the standard middleburn spider on there? Have you ditched the pauls chain keeper?

POSTED 9 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST

Looks like a hope ring with intergrated bash plus chain guide. 8)

So the original question still stands… 🙄

Is that the standard middleburn spider on there? Have you ditched the pauls chain keeper?

Sloggo’s got it right, Hope IBR and Hope chain guide on original Middleburn spider to replace the original Renthal ring and Pauls chain keeper, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the Renthal and Pauls set-up as it worked perfectly fine without issue but being a bike tart i wanted to try out this setup.

Thought so. how is the wear compared to the rental one?

Reading your post i was sure to ask Merlin to fit headset before posting. Silverfish confirm that Lynskey do not provide longer shims and waiting on feedback from Lynskey / Cove re retrospective modification of seat tube cluster, on a new frame and in the absence of any crack like indications – I don’t expect much on this to be honest. They have confirmed by email that they would mend anything free of charge in or out of warranty, which I have kept in a safe place, just in case. Have almost completed build and looking forward to riding it!

new hummer is going to be 650B apparently ! 😯

Cove Hummer by http://www.sussex-mtb.com, on Flickr

I love my Hummer!

Mint

https://www.dropbox.com/s/r94fuzcksc1yco1/Photo%2031-03-2013%2011%2011%2006%20%281%29.jpg

We sure are showing the love for a Hummer with this thread 😆 , i do like the battleship grey of superfinlays.

The final saga in the tale of my Hummer : I bought a 27.2mm KS Lev dropper post so i took the bike up to a local specialist race engine machine shop to get them to remove the old seatpost shim which wasn’t as straightforward a job as originally planned, their first idea of using a slide hammer and diesel injector reverse thread remover tool screwed into the soft alloy shim wouldn’t shift it so we decided to carefully machine it out .1mm at a time, 30 mins later the shim was thin enough to enable us to peel it out of the seat tube, the titanium seat tube is surprisingly thin as the pics show but there is no deformation or blown welds in the inner tube where the top tube and seat stays are welded so thumbs up to who ever at Lynskey did the welding.

The shim is out

I used a brass brush in a dremel to clean the inside of the seat tube

Much tidier and you can see the welds of the top tube and seat stay inside the seat tube, nice neat welds with no blown areas.

On advice from the machine shop i used a liberal coating of Double Bubble inside the seat tube to bond the new shim in place.

]

And Voila!, a 27.2mm dropper post fitted to my Hummer that originally took a 30mm seatpost, so if anyone needs a 30.0mm Thomson Elite seatpost or a 34.9mm Chromag QR in as new condition then click here

So i now have to remember to change gear, drop my post and use the CTD remote for my Talas fork…and avoid trees. It was so much easier when i rode a rigid singlespeed 😉

Whats the mountain king Protection like?

Terrible, they took weeks to seal properly despite me degreasing the release wax from the inside of the tyre – they would piss sealant and lose pressure mid ride from the sidewalls and tyre carcass on a daily basis despite using the Conti Revo sealant and they were very sketchy on roots, rocks and utterly useless when their was a bit of mud on the trails – i tried pressures from 20psi up to 30 psi. I now have Schwalbe Hans Dampf trailstar on the front and Schwalbe Nobby Nic pacestar on the rear and they are far superior, popped onto the Stans Crest rims without any hassle and with 100ml of sealant in them i’ve not had any probs or lost pressure in over a months use.

I’ve always used Schwalbe tyres but thought i’d give the Conti’s a chance as everyone was raving bout’ them, but i’ve avoided Conti’s for the past 20yrs+ for a reason – they’re crap!.

Oh, that sounds pretty crap. might have to try specialized butcher control and purgatorys instead…