They don’t call it ‘the stoker’ for nothing.

I have done a few trips up the ‘far end’.

Usual start is at Carlops, then take the back road, turn in at Stonypath farm, and take the track round Faw Mount. Take the left fork down then up to the road. Follow the road till it turns into ‘Thieves Road’, then continue on it till Cauldstane Slap.

From the Slap, if you carry on to Harperrig, the path gets very boggy with lots of railway sleeper ‘bridges’ over the worst bits. Not fast or flowy, wet with lots of pushing.

I tried taking a right at the slap up onto East Cairn Hill. It is quite a hike up there, maybe 30 mins at least of bike carry. Unfortunately, the top of the hill is very boggy, and seems to be like a sponge, holding water all the time. I have never seen it dry. I like the view and the cairn at the top, but others may not care for so much hike-a-bike. Going down to the Borestane side of the hill on the landrover track is also boggy and the path is badly eroded from water running down the landrover tracks. If there was ever a heatwave for 2 weeks, maybe it would dry out enough to be ridable all the way, and would be a good if fragile descent. Coming off East Cairn the other way (climbing from Borestane, descending to Cauldstane) is about the same, except much steeper.

The path from Cauldstane to East Linton (Thieves Road) is great for about 1k, going toward East Linton it is going down and quite fun, going the other way is up and there are a good few rocks to get over.

By cheep, buy twice.

Looks like you are going for buy cheep twice, buy three times.

Also, by cheeping out on the rack, you have knackered you panniers, costing ££ more? And the wheel? What is next, it breaks, fouls the wheel, and puts you under a bus??!?

Won’t someone think of the children!

Don’t fudge about, get the best rack money can buy, cry about the outlay, then forget about it knowing it isn’t going to fudge up on you, and is probably going to see you out.

http://www.carradice.co.uk/index.php?page_id=product&under=range&product_id=75

I find them too thick, I prefer a slimmer chamois and a proper lycra short that can be worn as either a liner or by itself.

I’m assuming 7hz never saw the GT Zaskar, GT RTS, GT LTS all of which were around 15-20yrs ago with polished the most common (if not only) finish? It may be cheaper/quicker/easier to powdercoat than polish and lacquer but check out retrobike or google image, a whole generation of us grew up lusting after polished bikes.

Fair enough, but these bikes must be lacquered or whatever – raw polished aluminium does react as I stated previously.

Polishing aluminium is a hiding to nothing, you’ll get it shiny as heck, then within hours / days, it will dull.

Aluminum is very reactive and will corrode very quickly. When it corrodes, it forms aluminium oxide, which stops the aluminium underneath from corroding more.

Anodized aluminium is basically specially corroded so the oxide coating is thicker and tougher.

This is why you never see a factory polished aluminium finish, it is always anodised or painted.

2 pages on a mountain bike website about a cheap second hand road frame with a stuck BB?

Seriously, £78 won’t buy you a decent set of tyres and inner tubes.

MTFU and **** it with hammer, then throw the whole mess in the bin when you break it, and learn the lesson that second hand components are minefields, money pits, and emotional roller coasters all rolled into one.

The Gorms are a very very big place and you only scratched the surface. You might want to work on your navigation a little before tackling anything more serious up there

Yeh, you don’t want to end up looking Gormless!

##groan##

Good write up and pics, glad that it is not only me that ends up getting lost sometimes :-)

List to all you armchair critics here!

Sorry, it’s hormonal. Middle age twitch.

£*%^ stems, I want to slam THIS:

The thing to watch out for is the map pocket is big enough to fit the map properly, this is dictated by the size of your frame, and you need to make allowances for the bag fitting in the frame, seams, openings, flaps etc. It may be that you need to specify an angled pocket if your frame isn’t big enough for a vertical one…

Nice stove!

I have a review of the framebag I used now up at http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/buggybags-custom-mtb-framebag

How did you smash them?

Oakley FTW.

It keeps me up at night!

Looks like his electric socket vomited onto his carpet:

Lookin good, go team power rangers!

What did the trees do to deserve this?

Wow that is a nightmare.

This has been going on for what, 3 months now?

I haven’t bought anything else from Chain Reaction since this incident (took me three changes of credit card!)

coastkid – yeh, framebag rideout anytime, gimme a shout! They don’t do seat bags AFAIK, but I think they’ll give it a go if you do them a design.

TJ – order one up quick, I think they may get busy with these framebags.

myheadsashed – were you the one that first asked Buggybags about this?

DickBarton / cruzheckler – these type of bags are established and tested, as meikle_partans says, they add no more cross section than panniers, and it is all low down. Most wind effects are on the human riding the bike, that is the biggest cross section. I rode out last weekend in approx 20mph winds, and it was no problem.

Like the way the protagonist throws his bike against the wall at the end, front wheel mashed. What an utter idiot. Bus must have rolled over his wheel, and missed him (on the deck). That is one quick way to die, as evidenced by other reports in this thread – you don’t live through being run over by a bus (or a car for that matter).

Interesting to see the traffic / cyclists in London. Here is a breakdown of the cyclists in that video:

1 – fixie, no helmet, no brakes (crashes)
2 – util
3 – ?, no helmet
4 – ?
5 – fixie, no helmet, no brakes
6 – fixie, no helmet, no brakes
7, ?
8 – fixie, front brake
9 – util,
10 – fixie, no helmet, no brakes
11 – road
12 – road
13 – road

So thats:

13 cyclists
8 with helmet, 5 with no helmet
5 fixies, 4 with no breaks or helmet

Clearly, 30% of cyclists in London are fashonistas with a death wish!

I swear by my Rapha Merino long sleeved base layer, it is comfortable, warm when it needs to be, and cool when it needs to be (roll up the sleeves). Short sleeved version is good as well, but less versatile. Long sleeve works under a Gore windstopper down to freezing temps when there is not too much wind or rain. Get the black one, the cream version stains horribly is you use it off road and get it covered in mud.

still s8tannorm – Is the Tarp Tent yours and how do you find it?

Heather Bash – How was the Scarp / where did you purchase?

The Tarptent Scarp 1 http://www.tarptent.com/scarp1.html is my tent, yes. I got it direct from the manufacturer in the states. Forgot to put the tent on the ‘things that work’ list!

I think it really needs tried in winter with lots of snow, or with lots of wind, to truly test it out, but it was fine for the trip.

Was quite a bit of dew in the morning, but only on the outer, inner was bone dry. It had all dried by the time we broke camp. I really like Henry Shires designs, would like to try one of his more minimal 1 man tents as well, but I felt for Scotland a proper inner / outer tent configuration is the safe bet!

Anthony – 7hz that looks great, nice photography too.

Cheers mate, I was using an old Pentax Asahi Super-Takumar 50mm f1.4 on my Panasonic GH1, just getting into the legacy lens manual focus thing, but I am liking how it renders things, although wide open at f1.4 is has a ton of ‘glow’ – you can see that most pronounced on the ‘Last rays of sun on the packed bikes’ pic… it gives everything a fuzzy warm glow, quite good fun, but I may try to baffle it down a little.

Factor in the duty, and suck it up and pay it, or buy whatever it is you want in the EU and don’t pay duty, your call…

Cost as in postage or what?

Never ever use washing up liquid, it is full of salt that will rust your chain and other ferrous components of the bike.

Did the first bikepacking trip of the season on Friday.

Last minute overnight stay in the Lammermuirs.

Loads of fun, really easy and quite comfortable. All the kit I have been accumulating worked out really well, happy with it all!

Outside the Spar in Gifford for beer, crisps, and sweeties ( the main 3 Scottish food groups!)

Sun setting, time to camp at the top of Hope resevoir

Last rays of sun on the packed bikes

Best. Campsite. Ever.

Local flora

Above the camp

Rush hour in the Lammermuirs

Fresh water, as much as you want

Best seat in the house!

Visiting the local hippy woodlands on the way back home

Stuff that works:

Bikes – old and new.
Less gears.
Alpkit titanium spoon and drybags
Revelate (Epic Designs) handlebar harness and pocket
Buggybags custom framebag (review coming soon!)
Old man mountain rack
GoLite 3 season quilt
Spare cotton T-shirt and boxers to sleep in.
Using one pan for everything
Readybrek + powdered milk + sugar premix breakfast fuel
Brandy

IMHO current gearing is for racing more than anything – I think for recreational riding, 1x(n) is just better.

Chainring can be altered to suit terrain / riding fitness.

I think some people are put off by the overcomplicated 3x(n) standard setup. New riders are confused by it, and always in the “wrong” gear. Better to have 30 (or even 28) chainring and 11-34 (9 speed) in back to start with, then up chainring as required. I know no-one will do it… more is always better, right?

geetee1972

There are many points for 1×9:

About 400g less weight which is significant if your bike is 31lbs before the change.

Personally I think 400 grams (in fact it is 460 grams saving if you don’t add anything) is significant no matter the weight of the bike. As a percentage, the lighter your bike, the more the percentage weight saving it is. Also the lighter the bike, the more you usually have to pay per gram to save weight… and the £1 per gram threshold makes a 460 gram saving worth £460… not bad for free!

geetee1972

Greater simplicity; you’re always in the right chainring and it’s therefore easier to get to the gear you really need.

Agree, it is a step in the direction of singlespeed simplicity, but with geared benefits.

geetee1972

You can run an effective chain guide which is probably the single most valuable attritbute.

The front always flopping onto the granny on rough DH sections aways annoyed the heck out of me, it is certainly a positive point in favor of single chainring.

Scienceofficer

Oddly, my climbing seems to be better than it was with a triple. Having 1:1 as my best ratio seems to even out the torque spikes during my pedaling cycle and I seem to spin out less on loose and steep stuff.

I agree, it makes me think more about my climbing. For me at the end of the day, it is about efficiency. I don’t think spinning in granny is efficient. I think either putting full controlled effort into 1:1, or just getting off and walking, is a more efficient way of riding. I’d like to see some studies on it TBH.

As always, choice is a good thing. It is fun to play with what suits you- standard 3×9, singlespeed, Rohloff, fixie, 1×9, 2×10, Sturmey-Archer, whatever! It is all good, vive la différence!

Dunno if you would ‘feel’ the weight loss, but you’ll save about 400 grams if you go with a lightweight bash and chain catcher, rather than a full on DH chain device. I am running with a ramped chainring ok, but unramped I imagine is better. 1×9 feels better, front derailleurs are the work of the devil.

I’ve not got a problem with road cycling, just the term ‘darkside’ to describe it seems a bit… juvenile?

I guess it is a forum meme, and that’s ok, just something about it bugs me.

You need a boat you can carry on your bike:

Guaranteed 30 blokes will turn up next week hoping they’ll be “the only one” :-)

Kinda funny you all chickened out coz it was a bit windy… and all the girls stuck it out and went for the ride!

I’m out of the wed rides for the time being, doing kayaking stuff that evening for the foreseeable.

Knee has almost recovered after TJ made me hurt it :-p

My bike is either inside with me, or being ridden.

Occasionally, it may be on the back of the car outside a petrol station, but only for a couple of minutes, and usually in plain sight.

On holiday is sometimes tricky, but I’ll do everything I can to secure it.

I had 3 MTBs nicked in the mid 90’s. Locking them in a stairwell just does not work, sooner or later they will be nicked. I’d be very wary about sheds as well, bolted and locked or not. Secured alarmed brick garages maybe more or less ok.

I have got a secret longing for a Delica, think they look ace when kitted out properly. Or a Landcruser! Got a Toyota Surf at the moment, which is a great vehicle, can carry 5 people + bikes, I have a towball 3 bike rack. It isn’t tall enough to get bikes in with wheels on standing up in the back, I guess you could get 3 or more bikes in the back with wheels off.

Have to say I think the VW vans are boring as heck, got no idea why anyone would get the hots for one, never mind about spending silly money on it!

What year is it?

Try not screwing the shock pump in all the way, try just screwing it in enough to open the valve an no more, then try pumping.

Also check the valve is in tight.

If you do all of that and there is still a problem, then I’m afraid it is off to the service centre and you are looking at £150 plus.

There is a new invention that saves messing about with cups of white fluid.

Instead of the jizz, it has a “skin” of pre-solidified elasticated material that is self contained in a “tube”, if you will, that holds all the air in. Maybe you want to check it out?

Like that?

:-)

Ok, I got a couple of ‘Pod Sacs’ straps from Tiso, I’ll see how I get on, they seem fine TBH, and cost about the same as just the postage on the ‘Fasty Straps’.

-Woah!
-Were going to Tiso
-Woah!
-back to the sho – op
-Woah!
-Were gonna buy some straps
-Woah!
-In the outdoor retailers premises

Also, https://www.roofbox.co.uk is wanting £5.25 for posting a few straps… anywhere cheaper? Do any shops sell these?

Thanks folks.

toe clip straps, uber strong, but not that long?

The only thing about the Fastys is the buckle is metal, right? Wondering if that is a chaffing / rusting concern. Wouldn’t like it to rub a hole in my nice new tent :-(

Liking the look of the Fasty Straps.

I have a feeling that straps are better than bungee for tying stuff to racks / the bike, right?

Cargo net sounds interesting as well, I take it it is something like this http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_220871_langId_-1_categoryId_165547 ?