I beasted myself this evening. 30miles on the Flux. Misty sunset, greasy trails, slidey swervey heaven. Sweet tea, chilli and big nap in front of the TV.

Love my large 2013 raw. Running F120s spaced down to 110 and a long 120mm stem as I’m on the borderline of L/XL. It’s pretty light at 24.5lbs and I’ve raced it (badly) a couple of times. I didn’t like the way it climbed/sat at 120mm.

Autumn racing
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Any road mtb tyres that can manage a turbo trainer and aren’t super narrow?

Some of those swoops were pretty heart in mouth.

Cold – snot or a bit of phlegm but no temperature or bad sore throat = probably OK to ride but take it easier. No massive heart zone efforts at all which means no big hills.

Sore throat, feeling slightly feverish or recovering from flu – no riding at all for fear of it having been a viral infection. Very rarely virus’s can get to the heart muscle and cause irreversible cardio myopathy – ie kill/significantly weaken the heart muscle. 99.99% won’t but it’s really big issue if it happens to you.

Yeah speed really helped today! Anyway my bike handling crashing skills got a good workout. Running was faster in some sections whatever tyre you had.

Cheers.

Exlusive brands have to have a disproportionately higher price tag to remain so.

In fact there is a known psychological aspect to eye watering pricing – it increases desirability in the eye of the purchaser.

To charge exhorbitant amounts of money for a set of rims isn’t a rip off – it’s marketeering.

We all want them – it’s worked.

if the mud is sticky and has bits of grass in it, give up go home, there is no tyre that can really cope. If it is just clay mud, try and avoid any leaves/twiggs/grass that may be near and the narrow Mud X may have a chance.

Panaracer Trailraker country. No mud tyre so good (or so slow!)

Yep, I’ll likely do some of them, cement mny place in mid table mediocrity.

I resemble that comment! I am aiming for mid table mediocrity and it’s quite a stretch! 8O

Yup I signed up for the series and am gradually introducing the dates to the family diary.

Endura windchill is great from 10 deg down to around 4.

I sort of agree except for me it’s 4 degrees down to about -10. The fact that it really needs a baselayer makes it pretty darn hot.

In fact for changeable weather soft shells are a pain. They don’t pack down well they’re bloody hot and though the windchill is very well designed they’re still not that breathable. It’s possible to be hot on the bike, sweat then get sodding cold off it.

note I feel the cold but get very hot when riding so am hard to please.

At no point when I’m racing do I think to myself ‘I wish for the money I’d spent I’d got a heavier steel frame’…….

Then again the only thinking I do is ‘aaaagh I want to die’

I was there too and will be at Gorrick next weekend.

Last time at Banjo which was my first short course XC race I thought about HR and I didn’t go deep enough. This time I hid the HR and concentrated on effort. I never had any time to see the monitor except to check total time once when I was hoping I’d done 5 laps but could see I hadn’t.

Previously I was drawing off my experience of bonking/going into the red on long events which is a false lesson. This time I went as hard as I could and harder when trying to catch people. There were some tech bits where I could recover. That and my training meant I improved 75s a lap but still have a big problem on the first lap which I intend to overcompensate for next weekend.

I’m a great fan of Enigma and I like the idea of a UK based (I didn’t say built!) Ti frame but I wonder what level of ride testing etc went into it. I have this slight suspicion that there forte is road and the mtb is not their strength.

I put too much money into 26″ kit so can’t change without too big a hit. Also I like to be able to excuse my poor performance on riding 26″.

What question for push tuned shock riding

Winter bike = mud clearance and mud tyres.

A dedicated winter bike is likely pick up largte amounts of mud which needs clearance They also need to wear mud tyres which will mean 1.8s to 2.1 max. This removes a large amount of comfort so FWIW I’d consider something a bit more forgiving than alloy. I find the ride on a more forgiving steel soul pretty harsh with a 1.8 on the rear.

What has wheel size got to do with fit? Did I say he should change the type of bike? This forum never ceases to amaze me in how people misconstrue stuff.

My point was he’s spent a small fortune on high quality components and should ensure he doesn’t lose out just because the bike offered will be newer and have larger wheels. FWIW this is likely to be hard to achieve because the ‘value’ of his bike is likely to be low being used and the cost of a replacement to similar spec is likely to 2-4x higher to get a similar spec groupset.

Bugger the wheel size make sure you get XT cranks and XTR shifters, mechs and cassette etc.

You didn’t mention wheels – make sure you get as good as you had on them too.

Seems I’m not alone then.

The lorry driver stated he overtook because ‘I’d been following for some time and the cyclist hadn’t moved over to let me pass’ he got driving without undue care and attention and 6 points for choosing to nearly kill me rather than do an emergency stop.

The mirror brush was a youf texting – no proof but that’s all it could have been. Primary and I’d be dead. Police did nothing.

I do all the quiet roads bit but unless you want to get bored out of your mind on the same loop you need to link them with other roads.

Luckily I live in the Chilterns so I can get to miles of offroad.

I knocked an hour off my time in this years Isle of Man end 2 end on a 29er. I know I’m a bit fitter, the course was slightly shorter and it was not as windy, but still went from 5 hr 15 on a zesty, to 4 15 on a hardtail stumpy 29er.

I’d say the reasons would be more to do with the underlined.

Yes and helps fight the taste of mould.

When it’s hot I find electrolyte tablets a life saver – without = ride stopping cramp.

Has anyone ever got any new grease in and old grease out?

Pipe clip, 2 x top hat washers & M4 bolt = v. cheap alternative.

Not for me – I’d like to think that an amount of research and testing went into the design of the factory mount including what happens when you crash badly. An M4 bolt an inch from the skull sounds crazy

FWIW it works very well indeed, doesn’t drop or wander off.

When I do long XC training loops (5hours) I use 2 x 750 bottles on the bike (king cages – really good) and stash a refill halfway. I carry a pair of tubes, a multi tool, lever, quicklink, patches and glue (no way am I going to gamble on only getting 2 punctures and being able to clear my tubeless set up of all old thorns etc) and a phone in a pack under the saddle. On me is 3 pockets of food with enough space to ditch the arm warmers if required.

The king cage allows you to take much bigger bottles. When I do the ridgeway double I’ll be taking a standard 750ml bottle to drink from and a 1.5l to top up with.

I hate the noise, sweat and shoulder ache of camelbacks for longer distance.

Deployment is an issue in that they depend on seperation from the x10 heavier and relatively immobile quadruped to go off.

Many offs on MTB don’t seperate the rider from bike much at the injury stage so not sure how they could reliably deployed.

I am really at risk of sounding a c@*^t here but……

From the writeup I thought there might have a bit more emphasis on minimising blood loss even at the expense of increasing the victims alarm/unease.

I wasn’t there, it’s a great write up and hats off to all.

Good enough for fun and only being disgraced through lack of fitness then.

Got to learn to go out too fast and suffer through blow up as my short course XC MTB lap times are very consistant (within 40s over 15mins) but too slow.

Me shimano 46 and Northwave celcius boots 45 allowing thickish socks.

The best way to avoid going to fast is…….. to go to fast on a ride and remember the agony.

I’ve currently got the opposite problem after training for 6hr events and now doing 1hr ones. Y’day I let the pack go thinking I’d catch them and I never did :(

Doesn’t the trailbuilding chainsaw toting bike need the fast rolling properties of 29″ wheels?

Get the dremel out (after the dictionary) and put a similar mark on the other stanchion to prevent the inevitable differential damping issues this scratch will cause if not so treated.

Throw it under a lorry, take a photo and use it for the CRC replacement and the insurance replacement.

A word of warning – cheap tow bar installation can cost. I had a Witter fitted to my Octavia by Indespension. A short while later I had elusive electrical problems that were finally traced to a ham fisted removal of a plug in the loom.

I now have a Suberb (similar floor pan etc?) with factory detachable and once I got the knack have found it really good.

Getting your LBS to replace a spoke has significantly weakened your case. They could have got the spoke tension wrong etc. Where are the spokes breaking?

Perfect – it’s dry and I want to sort my new race FS on small bumps :D

No – goes from side to side just as much

^ my exact set up. Do you run a standard left lever or a triple specific one? Mines a 2010 standard veloce which is OK but the trim on the middle ring is a little finicky.