MoreThan has limit of £1500 on each bike and the Green Insurance Co has an even lower limit

I think your bike history may have an effect too, I learnt to ride off road on rigid steep angled hardtails twenty something years ago, with the bars slammed and the saddle always up, most modern bikes feel very stable.

I think this is probably correct too. Switching straight from a ~20 year old, steep-angled, rigid 26er to a more modern, slacker 29er can be too big a change to easily like or get used to

Is this right?

for any particular wheel size, steeper head angle = faster more twitchy steering

keeping all other things the same, smaller wheel = quicker steering

so I think you’re thinking is going in the right direction.

(ps. just checked and I am riding a 26er with a 71 degree head angle :lol:)

those are truly horrible

Try searching eBay for CAAD. – if you choose carefully there are some great 2nd hand Cannondales to be had for a few hundred which you could update and would give excellent performance

had Merrells since the Keilder Polaris in 92 ~I think – they have been great. Have the Chameleon Vent 5s now

not so sure about W7 being solid – BSODs killed my last W7 PC and I didnt make any hardware changes. XP and NT were more stable, but I have a new W7 PC now :?.

\Trail centres and as such table tops etc etc have nothing to do with mountaing bikeing, they are what climbing walls are to mountaineering. Mountaing biking is being in the hills (or mountains) or other wide open space – period.

:-)

lol Gary_M

also don’t spin merino wool or it will shrink and felt regardless of who you bought it from

the customer is always right

Wrong.

do you mean “the customer is always correct?”

7 years old = not much whatever size it is

hello all – quite a thread this one! Actually, its sunny outside just now – think I’ll get me bike out :-)

60kg, 9 bar in the front 10bar in the back!

man alive! – your off the chart!

round

I don’t know how to measure it – its just what the chart says.

I only brought it up because I am in the process of buying a rather springy carbon road bike

but the footnote to the chart also implies that the optimum tyre pressures depend on the springyness of the frame. Higher pressures for a springier frame

have no proper evidence that it is more grippy. Its just that ” oooh, its a bit frosty, i’ll let a few psi out” habit.

well if its slippy out and the pressures are too high, then you can feel the tyres, erm. slip when cornering or climbing. I have occasionally had to get off on hills because the rear wheel was spinning underneath me

75 on the front

at such a low pressure doesn’t your front tyre start to “squirm” when cornering fast?

80 or 90 in the winter but 110 when its dry and time to race

what’s wrong with Wensleydale?

Have just ordered a stock of 26 Panaracer smokes and darts, plus some Mavic 531s, a Marco Pantani selle saddle and a second hand P-Bone fork just in case

I’m a mountain biker first but am getting more and more into road biking. Have been riding both for well over 10 years but lately with my 15 year old lad we have been road racing which is in a different league! The feel and sound of a pack of carbon wheels with high pressure tyres at 40kph plus is exhilarating. Still ride MTB to enjoy the forest though and chucking the bike around. Forests for windy days, roads for sunshine.

No the length of the thread is irrelevant – there has been a wheelsize thread running continuously for how long – three years?

Even if you could scale the size of the rider up or down, to test your scaling idea you would also have to scale the trails and possibly gravity as well so it all gets a bit academic

Roger (at C&B seen) was super helpfull,

+1 from me too

You’re losing your touch rocket old son that’s a patheticattempt at a troll

Just like the motorbike world, it’s the low step ‘thru end’ of the market that counts and makes money not the superbikes. What have been described here as ‘low end’ 26 tyres and parts will be around probably for ever. How many 650b bikes have been sold in India? And remember what is low end now was high end just a few years ago

cool – enjoy:-)

I’m still rubbish on 29ers!

arnt they meant to be easier and therefore faster??

.

I reckon 9 is a good age for a bike

I’m just upgrading from 12 year old alu framed road bike to a new carbon one. Sure I could keep upgrading parts, but the benefits are not going to add up to anythingf like the benefits of a move to a new carbon bike now. But it has taken me a few years to be convinced that the difference was big enough to be worth it and then get around to choosing and actually buying

They will be taking Jo Brand to court for trademark infringement next

:lol: :lol:

they do look like fun but is there any real benefit of riding fat for such tame tracks as those?

I think the trouble is that once you test ride something that really is way better than what you have, its hard not to be swayed. How old is your current alu bike?

thanks ComradeD

it’s only 1.5 inches or 37mm difference

actually its not even as much as this – the “27.5” is a sort of name – it does not give the true size of a 650B wheel

Sorry OP behind the curve, 29 is dead

[btw to Chips etc at the mag, all this crap is why I haven’t renewed my subs]

I think it must be right to go with the bike that feels right when you test it. It’s not just about specs but how the bike suits you. I just made a similar choice between two different carbon road bikes. Both get great reviews but only one felt really special when I rode them.

There’s no such thing as no risk. You could die sitting on the sofa eating crisps

Never mind how straight can you saw, if you are any good with the file to tidy up it won’t matter what you cut it with!

chainsaw it then :lol: