Yep, although I can’t not watch them as they will be passing my office window at ~ 11:50am on Tues morning :lol:

Normal tyres will always degrade over time no matter how they are stored as the oils in them evaporate. Obviously darker and cooler atmospheres just delays the process.

You will first notice that they have a blueish tinge on them, (like oil on water), then they will start to crack.

If you’re really desperate you can buy some fairly obnoxious fluid that motor racing use to temporarily soften the tyres for a few more ‘laps’ :wink:

School House B & B Traquair
Glede Knowe B & B Inners

How much sag is your current 550 giving you with no pre-load on it? If you’re getting sag of 25% – 30% of travel then you don’t need a new spring.

If you’re only getting 20%, then get a 500, less than 20% get a 450

Not everyone yet, but keep up the good work :D

I’ve been using Ultegra abd Dura-ace cassettes on my MTB’s for years without a problem.

Just put 10 more in :twisted:

Voted 15 times today…think I’ll do a few more :lol:

Nth America have a fantastic Monster Energy flavour – ‘Monster Java’, it’s like rocket fuel, turns mere mortals into DH gods :lol:

It does let you vote more than once too 8)

MBR have a review too, although it looks like they just plagiarised Dirts review :wink:

Nth America are getting stock for November.

Have you seen this from the Nth American launch at Whistler?

http://www.t2r-distributors.com/blog/nico-talks-through-design-commencal-meta-am

http://www.t2r-distributors.com/blog/north-american-launch-commencal-meta-am

I’ve had that problem too? I’m not sure if it will only show a limited number of courses (4 or 5) as I deleted some superfluous routes from the 800 folder and the one’s I wanted then appeared :!:

Ticket2ridebc.com had the AM on demo over in Whistler and 4 guides I know out there who’d all given it a proper ride out on the trails just said one word first – Awesome! They all have Meta 5.5 and 6’s for trail use and all of them said the AM was way better.

I’ve just ordered an AM1 as I trust what they say.

Apart from Stge 4 which had a couple of V short rock gardens, I wouldn’t have described Eastridge as ‘Seriously Rocky’, I used my 4.1 rimmed Hope Hoop wheels with 2.1 fast rolling XC tyres at Eastridge and they’re still round!

Full list of annual foraging;-

Mushrooms nearly all year round
Elder flowers – cordial & ‘champagne’
Elder berries – pontact sauce
Crab apples – makes lovely spiced jelly
Most fruit we forage goes into jams, jellies, chutneys, alcohol infusions or wines;-
Sloes
Blackberries
Redberries
Blueberries
Raspberries
Rowan berries
Haws
Rose hips
Plus;-
apples and pears
Sweet chestnuts
Samphire
Nettles – makes great pesto

The River Cottage ‘Hedgerow’, ‘Edible Seashore’ and ‘Mushrooms’ books are excellent carry anywhere for reference.

As I always say to people who give me funny looks, ‘You can’t knock free food!’

I started to dislocate my knee when I fell off my bike years ago and bought the cheap neoprene jobs and as it still dislocated I bought a slightly better one, but they never worked.

I finally splashed out and bought a custom Donjoy brace and haven’t had a problem since. Hindsight is always a wonderful thing and my knee certainly wouldn’t be in such a wrecked state now if I’d bought the Donjoy in the first place.

They are also guaranteed for life, after 2 years use, I just got a brand new one a couple of months ago when the frame started to crack due to a rock / knee brace interface.

Commie Supreme V3
Commie Meta 6
Commie Super 4
(I get Commies at trade :wink: )
Forme Vitesse
Brompton
+ Commie Meta AM on order for collection next month :P

x=n+1
where x = bikes required & n = bikes owned :P )

My Uncle had 3.2 kw panels fitted first week in June, he’s already had a 3.7% return, on his ‘investment’ in 11 weeks, it’s a no brainer!!

I’m just in the process of getting mine

Did a 1 week cycling holiday in the Lofoten Islands 2 years ago, beautiful scenery, V friendly people but ridiculous prices!!

2 course meal + pint in a bar / restaurant £45 – £50 each 8O Went into a supermarket to buy some ‘cheap’ stuff and even normal day to day shopping is expensive. Everything is about 2-3 times more expensive than UK.

If you don’t like fish or lamb then you may struggle to eat :lol:

The kind shock has issues in the winter as the external reservoir starts to freeze up and stop working!

I’ve had a Gravity Dropper since 2008 and still going strong.

That ‘ping’ is usually a spoke destressing, but as an extra check, squeeze each sides parallel spoke together quite hard after each truing ‘lap’ as this should stop any individual spokes from ‘pinging’. I’m also in the lube the spoke nipples gang too :wink:

You need some of those new bugs that eat Japanese Knotweed :wink:
I can’t help but think that in 10 years time we’ll be looking for a ‘pest control’ to deal with all these bugs that are now eating our crops because they’ve eaten all of the knotweed :roll:

It’s not a black art really, just tighten the opposite side nipples to the way the rim is out of true, as they tighten, possibly start slackenning the ‘ding’ side nipples as they could be tightening and stopping the rim from straigtening.
The hardest thing to remember is the way to turn the key to tighten the nipple.

Give it a go :wink:

The BB’s may offer no better performance, (unless it’s the larger BB30), but the actual frame is stiffer where a lot of stress is put through the frame, as the BB tube is wider. So the benefits to the bike as a whole are great.

As far as fitting and removal, they are a doddle compared to screw in BB’s, you can install and remove them without any special tools, (hammer, blocks of wood, vice & drift!), just like you can for a headset or suspension bearings.

The thickest normal lock on grips are Oury, but as recommended above I run Ergon grips on my xc bike which have the bar ends integrated into them and they are the comfiest grips I have ever used and solved my aches and pains from using normal grips.

Had a brief chat with one of the organisers (Can’t remember his name) and he was saying that the idea was to keep Enduro racing generally as a mostly ‘wheels on the ground’ type thing, rather than moving the the more downhill end of the spectrum – sort of promoting a form of competition for everyday MTBers, rather than DH mentalists or XC whippets. It’s brilliant fun – give one a go!

Whoever you spoke too has got it spot on. I ride DH for my team and one of the whippets from the XC side of the team was racing this weekend too and we were only 2 seconds apart overall, (thankfully in favour of me :lol: )

Anyone tried a Lazer Oasiz?

How to the results work then? 5 stage times but the “Finish” time adds up to more. I thought the seeding run didn’t count. Where has the extra time come from?

I think it’s rounding up, as the 5 stage times do not show decimal places.

Ha, here’s the route with all the short cuts :wink:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/104704585

Have Singletrack given up on the Gravity Enduro, 2 no shows now??

Yeh great use of a small venue, logged it on my garmin and chuckled at the number of loops on the plot – ha!

Also would a 20ml syringe be big enough to bleed in one hit or should I get a 50ml one?

Depends how much air there is in the system and where it is. A little tip to get the air up to the lever, (and effectively bleed it), is to use a velcro strap or zip tie to lock the lever on and leave it over night wheel side down so the levers are uppermost.. Even better is if you can ‘vibrate’ it a bit, like take it for a drive in the back of your car or van.

:roll: OMG!!! :roll:

TBH I’ve always found them a doddle doing exactly what the instructions say, even using the bottle.

Just make sure the pistons are fully pushed back and hold the hose on the caliper bleed valve to stop it coming off when you’re squeezing the bottle.

I bought one of these, draws water from a container in the back of the van and starts a queue of people on the blag everytime I get it out to wash mine and the rest of the teams bikes.
http://www.jet-wash-direct.co.uk/pressurewashers/independent1900.html

O’neil do a jacket ‘Magnetic protector vest’ similar to the POC with the same vpd spine board.

You can also buy just the back protector that has shoulder straps and waist belt that can be worn under anything.

The one thing that did upset/anger me was the ‘have’ and ‘have nots’. For a supposedly communist country where every one is supposed to be equal there are a lot of people with nothing and then there is the ‘elite’ that have everything.

Also try and get the average man talking about politics and Mao Tse Tung, it’s very interesting how they have been tought/brought up with a restricted concept of the world as a whole.

Oh and never tell a chinese person they are wrong, they are always respectfully ‘less’ right than you :wink:

Another thing to check is the water supply. A lot of power washers need a mains pressure supply and won’t ‘draw’ water from a container, even if it has a slight head from the back of your van.

Also, not sure who you are flying with, but we went with Air China and their in-flight entertainment was pretty dire, so take your own if you can.