All of the above.

I’m a crap rider, but I still love it :D

no

yes

5’9″ 31″ inside leg

Currently own

16″ KHS hardtail
17″ Orange Clockwork
18″ Cube AMS100
18″ Orange 5

Have owned

17″ Orange Gringo
18″ Orange 5
17″ Scott Peak
and plenty of other frames ranging from 16″-18″

They all fitted me with some degree of tweaking to the saddle position and stem length

Top tube length & standover are both important measurements too

[/url]
side on 3[/url] by thecycledoctor.co.uk[/url], on Flickr

Is it wrong that I noticed the Mint Sauce poster in the background before the bike?

Arthritis in my spine & chest

Right shoulder always aches (possibly related to my Arthritis)

Painkillers & anti inflammatories twice daily, nothing else can be done apart from MTFU

I know there is a Cube rep on here, dunno his user name though & if he’s a prolific poster or not

yup, 40 deg wash, non bio, no softener & do not dry on radiators or in a tumble drier as it wrecks them.

I just stick mine on my bars on the bike to air dry, the brake levers hold the gloves open to help air circulate inside them and help dry them

Howies for casual wear

Endura for cycling wear because staff discount make it an easy choice and the kit is pretty good too, except Specialized for gloves and shoes, they just fit me better than any other brand I’ve tried.

Technics & Panasonic for AV stuff

VW group cars (owned VW x1 & Seat x2 out of the 5 cars I’ve owned)

Hope XC are my all time favourite hubs.

Ok they’re not as versatile as the ProII

But they’re better built, just as easy to maintain, steel or Ti freehub body so no issues like there are with the ProII freehub body gouging with pretty much any cassette, a little quieter than a ProII, but still have a lovely mechanical click to them when freewheeling

Shame some twunt stole the bike they were on or I’d still have them :(

Hope XC hubs with Mavic XC717 rims and DB spokes are my all time favourite wheelset, I did see some come up for sale a few weeks ago, but my damn boiler decided to pack up, so I couldn’t buy them :(

I have a ’07 5 Pro with performance pack & X9 instead of XT

28.2lbs

I love it, excellent bit of kit…

But

I demo’d a Fritzz and it is bloody awesome, superb value for money and very well built. Excellent back up from Cube from what I know too.

I’d be hard pushed to shell out for a new 5 when the Cubes give it a run for it’s money in the handling department and it’s better value for money.

I’ve used the WD40 trick plenty of times in the workshop, it has never turned to a sticky glue.

The old grease in shifters does sometimes turn to a sticky glue and prevent the pawl from engaging, giving very similar symptoms to the OP’s problem.

similar issue here, fixed with WD40: http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/broken-alivio-shifter

What Shifter?

Spray the internals liberally with WD40 and see if that helps (no need to take shifter apart to do this!)

Halfords have been dropped by GT

Mark Peterman, US-based General Manager for GT said:
“Choosing suitable GT distribution is done on a country-by-country basis. Paramount to every search is strong partnership relative to the fostering of the brand image, growth opportunities and a thirst for driving GT to the top of the market.
“We felt that, for the UK, a full corporate commitment to the tremendously strong IBD channel is our best solution. We thank Halfords for all their support over the past decade and acknowledge the effort achieved.”

Piece of piss to fit and remove a KMC Missing Link, saying that I’ve never had a problem fitting any new powerlink/missing link etc…

Occasionally have a little bit of grief if the chain is caked in crud, but even then it’s off in under 30 seconds after a little jiggling of the link to remove some of the cack

only if you don’t have a rock nearby

Top tuneage from Toots :D

A Worcester Bosch ZWB 7-27 HE Combi boiler has just been unceremoniously removed from my house, utter pile of crap, new PCB last year ~£300, needed a new pump this year £250 for the part alone as no other normal pump will work with the damn thing, noisy, large, parts are a rip off, utter garbage.

I cut my losses and have a new Logic+24 boiler (small house, no bath) so far so good it’s smaller, quieter, the fella who installed it has installed lots of them and had no issues at all with them (he’s been out family plumber for years, so well trusted), got a programmable thermostat so I can drop the room temp over night and whilst at work, it’s a very good bit of kit.

I tried a little fart experiment the other day

I’d just finished a bottle of Oasis (other fruit based beverages are available for the purpose of this experiment) and felt something brewing

So I unscrewed the top from the bottle & held it against my twitching sphincter

A rather loud fart rattled it’s way from my chocolate spider via my boxers and work trousers into the bottle.

I quickly screwed on the lid, giggling out loud at the noise that’d just emanated from my arse, my other work colleague had witnessed the entire event and was almost wetting himself at the sight & sound of a bottled bottom burp

I left the bottle on the side near the sink for a few minutes, before checking that my experiment had worked. Having studied chemistry I knew how to smell the contents properly by wafting my hand over the now unscrewed bottle. Woah! it worked, I couldn’t believe it, awesome!

So after rolling around the workshop for a good five minutes my colleague and I returned to our jobs still quietly giggling to ourselves.

The next person to enter the workshop was the gaffer!

I was busy serving a customer at the till when my colleague said to the boss that I’d been a little unwell after lunch and got him to smell his untainted bottle of Oasis, then pointed at the other bottle near the sink. You can guess what happened next can’t you…. yup, the gaffer took a hearty inhale of the contents of the bottom burp bottle…

…”Woah bloody hell” he exclaimed “that’s a bit wrong” whilst everyone else in the workshop was wetting themselves laughing, he still looked a bit bemused, until my colleague told him about the actual contents of the bottle.

Laugh, I’ve not laughed so hard in years, my sides were aching, tears were streaming down my face, god knows what the customer thought though…

Yup, Clubber’s spot on, you can have a train of cars running faster than a single car due to the aerodynamics

Then there’s bump drafting, whilst drafting the car ahead give it a little nudge, the car in front’s speed increases as does yours as you’re in the tow

Bump drafting can also cause the car in front to lose rear end grip and spin out @ 200mph. muhahahaha….

Some are the same, some are not

9/16″ is MTB compatible (3 piece cranks on a BMX)

1/2″ is not compatible (one piece cranks on a BMX)

Beautiful pictures of nature doing what nature does best, eating and shagging…

Pumpy’s Bear is very tall…

Whilst we’re doing the freebie thing

£75 worth of kit (Crud catcher set, Oxford ultra 9 lightset and a Rav-X basics kit) with any adult Cube bike from here: http://www.cubebikeshop.co.uk/

All 4 on the back

http://www.pendle-bike.co.uk/shopping/Wheel-Support-Behind-the-Ball-4-Bike-Rack.php

Or kids bikes on the back & adults bikes on the roof?

http://www.thule.com/en-GB/GB/Products/BikeCarriers/RoofCarriers/Thule%20ProRide%20591.aspx would need roof bars to go with these as well

http://www.thule.com/en-GB/GB/Products/BikeCarriers/Towbar/Thule%20EuroRide%20941.aspx

I know his latest music hasn’t been a patch on his early stuff, bit culling Seal is a bit OTT don’t you think…

It’s steel so you can cold set it (just bend it back very carefully with a dérailleur alignment tool)

What tyre pressure for a tyre on the wrong way round?

Similar height/leg

18″ but it doesn’t give that much stand over

Inline post and std 90mm(IIRC) stem

Tried a 16″ but it felt too cramped for me

Just about to sell mine, started an ad here: http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=135632&highlight=

Haven’t advertised it on here yet as I’ve been too busy

wrightyson I think I remember seeing your group, but didn’t take too much notice as I was trying not to get run over..

I’d not worry about your bike getting in the way, we probably got in the way of a few riders too :oops:

There are a few skip monkeys over at Retrobike, so hopefully someone has made use of your mistake! Yup you cold have flogged pretty much all of the stuff off the bike and possibly the frame & forks too, XT is a favourite of Retrobikers, but it all depends on the model of XT as to what it was worth.

The Retrobike National Event Series is new this year, we’ve been having quite large single events for a few years and the powers that be at Retrobike Towers decided to make them into a series, the events are great fun.

If anyone on here has a Retrobike sign up to the forum an join in the fun, we even had a celebratory beer at the end as one of the lads is a brewer and brought a mini keg with him!

I don’t do it, I mean I’d be sending a card to my right hand written by my right hand, so my right hand would know that my right hand sent it in the first place, so pretty pointless.

I’d give my right hand to be ambidextrous, then I could send a card from my left hand to my right…no wait that wouldn’t work either…

Damn my being single.

wrightyson Cheers! I guess it doesn’t really matter what bike you ride, it’s a bit of a nutty sport anyway getting lathered in mud, hurtling down trails shoulder barging trees and scaring yourself sh!tless as you do it!

There were all sorts of bikes out today from fully rigid with canti & U brakes to hardtails and retro full sussers

I was on my 1993 KHS Montana Pro with some rather slow rebounding RS Mag 20 forks and a chain that had so many stiff links I gave up trying to loosen them off and just rode the damn thing :lol:

Were you on your bike or in your car?

Edit: Some pics here if anyone is interested http://www.flickr.com/photos/59509646@N08/

Yup badlydrawnbiker there were around 40 Retrobikers doing the Monkey today, including myself.

It was pretty slippery all the way round and by god those braking bumps are some of the worst I’ve ever seen at any trail centre, mind you it did add to the fun two wheel drifting whilst being bounced all over the shop on the braking bumps…

I think pretty much every rider had a mud related issue, limited working gears, mud in the gusset, brakes than just ground your rims away rather than stop you any time soon, a right good laugh!

Some of the sections on the Monkey (section 8 is awesome!) are really good they flow so well you hardly have to put a pedal stroke in, but those sections that have been hammered by those who cannot brake properly or take the right lines are in poor shape at the minute.

Around 1986

Raleigh Mustang

Nothing spectacular, farmtracks along the coast to the next village, pull a few wheelies and jumps en route then return along the same route home, much fun was had.

[/url]
1993 KHS Montana Pro[/url] by thecycledoctor.co.uk[/url], on Flickr

[/url]
side on 3[/url] by thecycledoctor.co.uk[/url], on Flickr

[/url]
the bikes in colour[/url] by thecycledoctor.co.uk[/url], on Flickr

560mm flat bars on retrobike no1
680mm risers on retrobike no2
685mm risers on AM FS
710mm low rise on XC FS

This week in the post I have

Handlebars (retro)
Stem (retro)
XT Wheelset (retro)
Formula Mixmaster clamps

I believe that it’s only the ‘All Travel’ versions of RS forks that can be travel adjusted.

How you know if your fork is an All Travel fork (without stripping them down) is beyond me though.

Some OE forks are chopped down to one length and cannot be adjusted, some regular non OE forks also cannot be adjusted.

Unless you buy from new and know the exact spec you won’t know if they can be adjusted until you strip the forks down

There’s no such thing as a wrong bike (apart from a BSO), just the wrong terrain…

from Ragley’s site

All Ragley Bike parts are warrantied for FIVE years for manufacturing defects (except the Ti frames that have a LIFETIME warranty for manufacturing defects). That is, should a product fail within five years because of something we did wrong, then we’ll replace it. The warranty does not cover normal wear and tear, improper assembly (such as crossed bottom bracket threads), poor maintenance or installation of parts and accessories not originally intended for, or compatible with the frame.

This warranty applies to the original owner and is not transferrable. However, due to the very fluid nature of some customers bike purchases, and the resale of second hand, partially used parts (you know who I mean), we’re prepared to stand, if not behind, but slightly to one side, of second hand owners. Seriously – if you bought it off Ebay and it snaps, get in touch and we’ll see what we can do.

Of course, we all know that stuff happens and things get broken. And if we made frames and parts to cover all eventualities, and tested for “crashing into car-park roofs at high speed” you’d never lift our stuff. So, on cases where a genuine accident has caused a frame and/or rigid fork to be damaged beyond repair, we would like to make this offer in recognition of your support.

Depending on the age of the frame or component, we will replace the part with the same, or nearest equivalent, at a reduced cost of the retail price at the date of claim on the following scale:

* In years 1, replacement cost will be 50% of retail price.
* In year 2 and 3, replacement cost will be 75% of retail price.
* In years 3 and over, any discount will be at the discretion of Ragley Bikes.

This offer is a gesture of goodwill.

The owner will be responsible for the cost of carriage in returning the frame/forks to us or our agents