whats with the skills courses, didn’t anybody jump, wheelie and ride down mountains on BMX’s and grifters as kids?
for what its worth i use a canyon strive for everything and find the whole under/over biked thing quite amusing.

ate a tin of rice pudding that was 3 years past its sell by date without any ill effects.
ust use your eyes and nose.

possibly, but mr wiggins has ridden nibali off his wheel a number of times on the longer shallower climbs.

i think the sky strategy is quite straight forward. shadow nibbles then try to break him on the galibier where the shallower gradient will allow the sky train to TTT up the mountain.

the conspiracy theorist in me reads that as “their selling like hot cakes, quick phone Taiwan and tell them to paint them a different colour so we can say they are 2014 models and charge more”.

http://www.canyon.com/_en/mountainbikes/bike.html?b=3040

http://www.canyon.com/_en/mountainbikes/bike.html?b=3045

both give change from £2000 and both well proven, take your pick.

We also can assume that pinkfish is a retired gentleman interested in a long distance type machine. . .

So the natural choice is a £5000+ super aggressive carbon race bike.

looking around other threads it would appear that there have been delays on a bike mr pinkfish has ordered so there is a bit of cyber revenge going on.

not in my experience they’re not, canyon have been great to deal with.

never owned a bad bike but the worst bike i’ve ridden is undoubtedly a gary fisher hifi, the thing was unstable to the point of being dangerous to ride even down tame gradients.

well you never know they may have changed the sealing on them when they were relaunched as e*thirteen wheels.

it is happening, a friend of mine works for back on track, rowan sorrell is designing the tracks but the construction of them is still at the tender stage.

easy jets policy is 32 kg for bike and luggage but a maximum allowance of 50 kg.

so 32kg is included in the £25 you pay to take the bike but you are allowed to take upto 50kg if you pay the extra weight allowance.

ooohhhh good luck with those trs+ wheels, i have a chub front wheel (the exact same hub) that would eat though bearings in weeks even in the summer i still have it seized solid under my stairs.
i have learned to never ever buy anything MTB related that was designed in the USA they don’t seem to know that water and mud exist.

canyon hands down, better spec, better frame and no propriety parts nonsense. and drcv forks are absolutely awful.

hock have you considered a lapierre zesty with the EI shock? they’re adjustable as to how much impact is needed to start the suspension working.

MUD GUARDS!!! mincers, its only a bit of water and dirt.

no thanks i don’t need to give someone money to coach me how to jump a bike i’ve been jumping bikes just fine since the age of 10.

nitro mors does the job well, its nasty smelly stuff though.

there is no “technique” to smallish drops its just a case of riding off them. 90% of jumping/dropoff’s is having the plumbs to commit to them, there’s very little skill involved.

i often get baffled by people who look in terror at a 3-4 ft drop, without a bike they would hop off it without a thought but won’t do it with 4+ inches of extra suspension and the ability to use their arms as well as legs to soak up the rather light impact of landing.

never been a fan of VP intense’s, always look like santa cruz’s roughly built test mule’s to me.

think your confusing skyline with W2, W2 is just the same as its always been bar for the new descent and climb.
i’d say the best place to start is bryn bettws lodge too, right on the bike park so you can ride it before or after you’ve done a loop.

saddle could be short to keep the bike UCI legal (nose of saddle 5cm behind BB)
and i believe mr wiggins has reverted to round rings for climbing stages but not on his TT bike.

true arm pump is when your muscles “pump” up to the point where the membrane around them can no longer expand so the muscles start to strangle their own blood supply by compressing the blood vessels.
no amount of weight training can help it in fact it often makes it worse, top level MX riders have been known to have surgery to cut the membrane and let it regrow slightly larger.
most people aren’t getting arm pump in the true sense of the word though, its just fatigue usually from death grip and bad riding positions.

ah a chinarello, most folk who have them seem to love them, brand biggots hate them 😉

i’ve had 3 sets and all have been flawless, current x0 trail brakes re a bugger to get pads into though. on the plus side they could stop a planet the things are mentally powerful

you can generally tune the shock to make a bike feel as plush or as harsh as you like, there aren’t really any bad designs anymore as the shocks have gotten to the point where they can mask any shortcomings of the frames design.
some people like VP systems some like horst link bikes i’m a big fan of single pivots.
the only way to know is to try a few.

@nigelb001 strongly depends on what you see a trail bike as being, the WMB test seems to make out its a machine for bimbleing around trail centres on, to me a trail bike is something i would be happy to do an all day xc ride on or thrash around alpine bike parks for a week or two without it coming home in about 6 pieces, i certainly wouldn’t want an anthem for the later.

over a £1000 for that rusty piece of shit!! wow

put a cotic sticker on it and 90% of this forum would insist it’s the best handling bike in the world.

pretty bike the nerve 29er, one of the few wagon wheeler’s that doesn’t make me throw-up into my own mouth a little.

Video: The Dudeumentary Part 1

here you go, the nerve CF is in the later part of the video.

the nerve CF and AL are very similar bikes, both more than capable of handling what 99% of riders are going to throw at them.

theres a video of joe barnes ragging the shit out of a nerve CF somewhere on the interweb.

i’d have gone for the barreling down the hill at a thousand miles per hour sideways and on fire approach, it’s amazing how many people will jump out of the way when they know you couldn’t stop withut hitting them even if you tried 😛

superstar or hope really, both are pretty sturdy, i’d go for arch or flow rims if your concerned about strength though.

where do you live?

my LBS has a medium demo bike.

Duffer you are the very “trail badass” type person to which i refer, suspension doesn’t make things any easier it just enables you to ride things faster.

as a general rule of thumb high cadence works your lungs low cadence works your legs. most riders are most efficient in the 80-100 rpm region.

enough with the “overbiked” crap if you want a frame that can truly do everything get the el guapo, if you want to be in with the cool kids get the bfe you can rattle down the rough stuff beating the shit out of your body safe in the knowledge that your a super awesome trail bad-ass 🙄