We were out of the bottom end at about 6am thing morning and was riding through lots of axle deep puddles. These were trails that most people don’t ride though. The main forest singletrack was fine.

How much punishment does your bike get?

For XC use I think the Ritchey WCS headset Merlin sell at 1/2 price for £22.50 takes some beating. Its light at 128g and is sealed well.

Saving 1/4lb on your headset for XC use makes sense to me, but I would wait until the old one was knackered first.

I have a King and a WCS and to be honest the King is overpriced in comparison.

Quite how anyone can say Ghetto is less faff than Stan’s rims (NOT Stan’s rimstrip kits, these are a different ball game completely) clearly hasn’t grasped the concept of Stan’s rims.

It’s exactly the same as Ghetto, except wihout the faff of needing the BMX tube!

Glad you got sorted R-ralph, Stan’s rims are brilliant. I can run mine sub 20psi and I haven’t burped once in over a year of use.

They are all a bit of a compromise a bit like bikes 🙂

Our Quinny looks great, the different seat attatchments work great, it folds fairly small and is easy to use. But IME several bits have dropped off and any offroading leaves the front wheel needing to be stripped and regreased or it won’t turn a corner whilst out shopping (by offroading I mean dragging across sticky ploughed fields in January!).

A car seat that just clips straight out of the isofix base (maxicosi onto quinney base) in the car and onto the pram is awesome if you don’t want to wake the little-un up if he/she has fallen asleep in the car.

I’m not a massive fan of our Quinny but it does seem to do some things particularly well.

Wipe rim with meths
Leave for few mins
Apply one rotation of tape with 3″ overlap
Cut valve hole with scalpel
Insert tube and leave for 30mins at 40psi
Carefully remove one side of tyre bead
Remove tube and smear plenty of soapy water on bead and rim wall
Fit valve and remove core
Refit tyre and place flat over bucket
Pump like mad.

With a bit of luck the tyre will pop/clang onto the rim. If not then fit a tube and try again anoter day.

If it works then,

Deflate tyre and again remove valve core.
Insert (using a 60mls syringe) about 80mls of sealant (in two goes)
Replace valve core and inflate to 35psi
Shake and spin wheel as much as pos.

Go ride. Take a tube with you. They often loose pressure if it’s a new tyre until the sealant has covered everything inside. Some tyres are better than others, I’ve had some seal within seconds and others that have taken a week.

Once your confident it’s holding pressure you can adjust it to suit. I like mine about 20-25psi.

The DT-Swiss website lists the XC, Bulb and Pro2, tap in your spec and see if the spoke length alters.

Oh, and my personal preference;

Chainring- 36t Surly steel
Cog- 18t steel King or Surly
Chain- KMC610HX 3/32″

I use both Charlie and Velosolo and find them both great.

The axle is out I assume?

It can take quite a tug and usually comes off with a pop/click

Tomlevell has summed it up perfectly imo with his last statement.

What stratobiker said, or into thirds but there is a nack to avoid damaging the beads.

Wouldn’t a medium have fitted better 😯

The Surly dropouts do look great, you seem to do a very professional looking job. I’m suprised you can get away without slotting the disc mounts. I know my XTR one’s won’t allow the wheel to slide out the back due to the angle of the caliper whereas my Hope one’s are fine.

I have to agree with ^.

I usually ignore sellers wanting payment by gift as I think it is a bit cheeky.

Try Bikesappart in Glasgow (Sp?) Front’s are £117.

Does crank length have an effect on gear inches?

In answer to the the op, yes.

It’s funny how this forum has changed over the years.

I honestly can’t see anything other than a group of cyclists probably out enjoying themselves.

I like the GP 1hr charger, but the one I have does aa/aaa only.

£30ish

Hope so, I just paid £175 for a brand new pair from Winstanley’s and I was pretty chuffed with myself!

They were 440mm disc-only too. Yup, still feeling chuffed 🙂

Goodness knows which dark corner of the warehouse they came from.

Tim, can you link me to the new RC31’s for £150 you mention please.

Who is the fan of aluminium rotor bolts 😯

Some of the ’03 onwards Eggbeaters come with a grease port which screws in the end cap threads and lets you inject fresh lube right through the pedal with a grease gun.

It will ensure every possible space oin the internals is packed with grease.

Hope do indeed do their Pro2 singlespeed hub, but with reference to the OP, it isn’t that cheap.

Most motorbike chains have a pair of internal rubber 0 or X-rings per link, parafin does’nt do them any harm.

In most cases it is far more efective if you can whip the chain off and let it soak for a minute or two. The wide mouth bottle as mentioned is perfect.

Scrubbing in on with a toothbrush on the bike is a big no no as far as I’m concerned. Plus the surrounding area and legs get covered in hundreds of little black flecks 🙂

They don’t weigh 1300g.

Most petrol stations sell it off te shelf for about £5 for 2.5L.

I suspect you have remembered it the wrong way around. Not w-spirit for discs.

For chains, parafin is a lot stronger IME. Its popular with the motorbike crew as it will dissolve even the gummiest of chain goo.

Be aware thast CRC may send you 14mm nipples not the standard 12.

They have on the last 2 sets I’ve had anyway.

You will be fine with either and tbh I have never found the DT calculator accurate to within 1/2mm in practice anyway.

You need some skirting boards.

I’ll often tighten mine just using my little Topeak mini allen-key set. It can’t be more than 50mm long so I’m hardly getting any leverage and I’ve never had them come loose in about a year.

Does sound odd. I’m not sure what they are made from, but if they are stainless you try swapping for high tensile and see if it makes any difference. High tensile will stretch slightly compared to stainless and should provide a slightly more secure hold.

Motorbike disc bolts are usually high tensile for this reason.

Provided nothing as actually damaged (drop in to decent LBS who have tools to check things like this if yor concerned) then just realign the caliper when the qr is tightened. I know a few of my forks slightly settle themselves when the pressure of the QR pulls everything tight, perfectly normal unless it’s an excessive amount.

Does the rim/tyre look straight and centred in the crown when the qr is done up?

I presume it is the ‘o-ring lever’?

For geting them on or off if they are tight I would think.

Both Chris King and Surly do a large base 18T.

Ally or Brass nipples?

On aluminium I personally would consider a rebuild. That’s about 1/3rd of threads not preperly engaged.

Looks fantastic. As has been already mentioned, so does the parquet floor.

Blue grips need changing for black though.

How the hell do you wait patiently for months? I’ve been tearing my hair out since Feb for the new stock of Simple’s to arrive.

🙂 and the 5 zip ties for brake hoses. The Simple isn’t really designed to be built superlight, but it’s the nicest singlespeed frame I’ve ridden and I have got a SS genesis for the burlier days.

To be fair some manufacturers are correct with their weights;

Stan’s olympics are 343/344g
King Hubs are as they list
Sram chain is 319g as claimed

SLR Saddle, it even has 135g written in silver writing across the leather, its 149g ffs!

It’s more the complete bike weights which are somewhat optimistic.

With pedals and latex, if mine’s under 19lbs I’ll be happy. It’s still only 1/2lb heavier than the Spesh Allez E5 SLX road bike I had a few years ago, and that felt floaty.

Plus, the weights are measured un-fitted. Steerer needs cutting, chain will be shorter, hoses will be cut…

Thats another 40-80g in my favour!

Njee, your right to a point about the spreadsheet but it isn’t going to be out by much more than 50g.

For example building my rear wheel, I had weighed each of the 12 individual parts, down to stan’s yellow tape. Once it was built the total weight was within 2g of what the total should have been on paper.

I was susprised myself by the total, but going by your logic, there isn’t anything super light its just a lot of light parts 🙂

How the hell do you come to a stop only using the rear brake?! It offers so little braking compared to the front you would be better just sitting up! You can understand it mid-bend but then you shouldn’t be needing to scrub speed of mid bend anyway.

We were advised however that on the emergency stop you could avoid using the rear brake as a rear lock-up is a fail. Front brakes alone wil stop a bike on a sixpence anyway.