I recall a time not so long ago. We had just stopped at the top of a steep climb, hanging over the bars trying to gather some oxygen ready for an amazing descent when a bunch of e-bikers came whirring up the same climb behind, “go through” we say between rushed breaths, “it’s not like you need a rest” with a slight smirk. “Oh, but you are wrong.” came the reply, along with the pre-written speech that is engraved on every e-bike’s top tube “We work just as hard, but we go further and faster!” he exclaimed, smoothly, calmly and not at all out of breath…

Contrary to the poster above, I have run Minion SS, DHR II and Aggressor recently. Minion SS is great for easier terrain like Ard Rock, but steep loose stuff in the woods is a bit lethal (especially with any dampness) as you can only brake with it leaned over. Maybe i’m just a ‘massive feartie’ whatever that is…

Aggressor (double down) went on over the winter and held out well, it wasn’t terrible in the slop at all. Also used it in finale and only swapped it off for a DHR2 at Tweedlove when the rain was forecast. In the dry it brakes ok, and corners well. I had it paired with a DHR2 WT up front and in the dry loose/loam I was hanging over the front of the bars to stop the front giving way first, which says a lot for its cornering grip, despite only being dual compound.

DHR2 3C on the back is easier to ride than the aggressor, you can brake harder and it doesn’t feel as loose if you brake through the corner. But it is definitely slower rolling in my view, and degrades a lot quicker.

Not much help to you, but i’m getting on really well with the Fox Proframe. Used it for tweedlove last weekend and it was completely invisible on the descents. A touch warm on the climbs (in pretty warm weather, with my goggles up blocking the big forehead vents) but bearable, especially with the cheek pads popped out.

Superb course. Very testing, but not ridiculous. I’m glad the weather held out, it would have been pretty sketchy in places in the wet for us mere mortals…

Course looks great. All thriller, no filler! (except the river path spin to warm up.) Don’t worry about it not looking like a big ‘loop’.

Can’t wait to get up there tomorrow and ride some ace trails (also known as practice…)

I can’t see you breaking one in a hurry, they aren’t built light! Mine (carbon model) has done BPW a couple of times (including enter the dragon etc) and has been to Finale without missing a beat.

I’ve been using a DHR2 WT up front for the last 6 months or so (paired with an Aggressor on the back). I would agree that it brakes very well but on loamy or dusty corners it does let go quite suddenly. You have to get in the habit of really leaning over the front end and even then it goes… I think a trim on the wider centre knobs would help.

I usually stick it in, can’t say if it helps though! The DH teams have been known to put long grain rice in theirs!

Some washers about the same diameter to space out the load on the frame should be fine. The counter sinking can’t be for anything other than aesthetics and to stop clothes/skin snagging on the bolt head. I wouldn’t worry.

Some good advice above… check for visual leaks with water/soap, check the valve core is tight, listen for hissing (mine had a seal gone in the negative chamber, so at around 10% travel mark when the pressures equalize I could hear a faint hiss coming out). If all else fails then an air can service kit will have the parts you need.

On mine I changed the 3 or 4 thin o rings that are visible when you slide off the air can sleeve. I’d been playing with the shock a lot so probably worn/damaged them removing the sleeve too many times!

You have to prise (i.e. break) it out with a screwdriver. It will need replacing anyway!

Topeak Mini 20 Pro here, tiny and always sorted me out. Has a big range of allen keys so it could tighten up all the pivots on my Yeti (that I no longer have). Used the chain tool on it more than anything else, works a treat.

I’ve ridden, raced, uplifted and holidayed with my T130 over the last 2 years. It is a fantastic bike that is fun everywhere with no major issues, however it must be due for a major revamp any time now. That is the only thing that would put me off recommending it.

I’ve used a bike delivery box for free from my LBS both times that I have flown with my bike. Not pretty and as mentioned before you need a trolley in the airport but i’ve not had any problems at all. As much as i’d like an evoc it is difficult to justify the cost over the free alternative…

I had 2016 Fox 36 Talas (120-160mm) on my Yeti and they actually felt more plush than the non-Talas ones I have now (at least until I did some mods). I put it down to Talas ones having a coil negative spring and me being fairly light meant they were actually a bit over sprung on the negative side (like all the new EVOL stuff does, basically). Either way, they were great and helped me get a more comfortable climbing position on extended climbs.

I use a one-up BB mounted chain device on my T130, to be honest you shouldn’t need it unless your narrow-wide chainring is wearing out though. I get about 9 months out of a chainring before it starts dropping the chain everywhere (obviously not since I put the chain device on).

My works components headset fitted fine, the bottom bearing did separate open quite easily just from test fitting but I would have popped the seals anyway and filled with decent grease. Lasted all winter and still ok on the rigid singlespeed which does tend to eat lower headset bearings.

The G170 is very different to the G160. It is shorter in the reach, more balanced weight distribution (rider more forward on the bike and longer CS), quite different suspension design and pivot points (more anti squat), bigger bearings on the pivots, seatstay bridge for more stiffness and the leverage curve is changed so you wont blow through the end travel and can even run a coil.

Any 170mm bike is a lot of bike for UK riding though!

Never mind – rechecked the garage and I only have enough 2.5WT in the cupboard for a fork so ordered the proper Maxima 5WT stuff anyway.

In the Peaks the two classics as mentioned above – Jacobs Ladder loop (also called Kinder all weather circuit I believe) and the Ladybower loop (mbr best of ladybower I think).

weeksy, that’s an older model of the T130, it has a front mech for a start, not sure if the geometry is the same. If the G150’s were anything to go by, I would avoid Whytes without the wider single ring specific main pivot.

If you ride aggressively, occasionally pinch flat tubeless tyres and want to enjoy hammering down rocky trails without worrying about your rims making it out alive then stick with alloy.

If you want to do none of the above then get carbon rims and enjoy the slight increase in stiffness and slight reduction in weight.

molgrips, not true. I ride both and SS has infinitely more grip on muddy hills than you expect. I guess something to do with lower instant torque or other sciency stuff.

I still SS every winter, and still love it! On the posh bike you sit there slopping around in the mud, on the less technical trails, grinding away at slower speeds and don’t get much out of it. Riding single speed makes the tame trails fun again, and the lack of maintenance is a bonus.

I put a -2 headset and a dropper on my El Mariachi this winter and it made a big improvement in its capabilities.

Thanks guys for the advice and strava links, the guiding does sound great to me, might have to work on the others…

If you have any especially good guided options (e.g. defender and wild enduro mentioned above) then feel free to add them in!

One of the group has been before for a few days and doesn’t think we need guides, I am open to the idea of guiding on a couple of days though (harder to convince the others though).

Even so i’d still want some routes for DIY days.

I think we are generally happy with most trails, we are on Enduro/Trail bikes not DH and we’ve all raced tweedlove etc without many problems, no idea what the trail level is out there though! Youtube vids look ok (but they make rampage look rideable).

The idea of XC racing is to compete with others in your category on a mix of fitness and bike handling ability (mostly fitness). Conversely, the idea of e-biking is to fulfill the modern need for effortless gratification and enjoy the reward of descending without having to actually earn it on the climb. I suppose the logical next step would be to receive trophies for your ability in enjoying such effortless rewards.

Alternatively, you can just enter the correct category at a regular XC race on a regular to test your fitness against similar others.

I loved my SB66c, looked unreal (which is the main thing!) also a great ‘park’ bike that would eat up braking bumps all day long (with top end suspension fitted), but could be used on epic all day pedalling efforts too. It did eat bearings but a full set was only £60 and easy to change. Ultimately the geometry led to its sale, seat angle was too slack and top tube too short. They didn’t really change much for the SB6c (which must be due a big overhaul) aside from making the seat angle a touch steeper. And I prefer using a bottle to a pack.

I’d love to have another if they ticked all the boxes.

Had the same quandary for my singlespeed. I nearly went for a Thomson, but in the end settled with the 105mm tavel of the Brand-X for £85 before Christmas. Works great so far and the internal routing (it comes out of one of the seat tube bottle bosses) is a bonus over the Thomson.

you can absorb more high frequency impacts with your nice and relaxed arms, where as you are holding most of your body weight in your legs

Your positioning on the bike is wrong.

My riding buddy had a t130 and the shock failed dramatically with the shock ending up more parallel to the seat tube, collapsing the rear triangle and bringing the rear wheel in past the left side of the seat tube.

Again, frame bearings (or a loose bolt) at fault here. This shouldn’t be possible even with no shock fitted.

If its a carbon T130 you can rule out coils as they wont clear the frame. I have seen them on larger alloy T130s but not sure about a small.

If side loads/twisting from the frame are breaking your damper, then you need new frame bearings before you start blaming the shock. The bridgeless seatstays make the more important on a T130 as bearing wear can introduce extra flex.

I’ve had scoring in the piggyback on my Monarch plus, but I assume that was due to a build error on my side and the part was easily replaced. Otherwise it has been very reliable and I really like the ML3 tune with a lighter oil on my t130. Plus you can pick them up for peanuts!

I’m not sure I agree 100% on the chainstay ideas as he only considers them in terms of climbing grip and agility elsewhere. Ultimately, if you put the front wheel further away from the BB without extending the chainstays, all else being equal you will result in less weight on the front tyre and therefore less grip for turning corners.

Any heel rub would soon make a mess of your shoes!

If anyone else thinks the chainline on their bike is a bit rubbish when winching up steep hills in the big sprocket, you can run a non boost (6mm offset) SRAM direct mount chainring. It is pretty close to the chainstay but has around 3mm clearance and the chain runs much smoother in the 42t sprocket. Tested it out yesterday with  4000ft of vertical in 12 miles!

The Whytes (and long/low/slack bikes in general) do favour more advanced or aggressive riders. If you don’t get your weight forward over the front they understeer which only gets worse on steep descents.

The S150 will ‘feel’ slower handling as it is one of the new range of reduced offset bikes, so increased trail on the front wheel will be more stable but require more effort to initiate a turn. 29” wheels will add to this vs the t130. It is more of a feature than a fault though and I’m sure most would easily adapt to it, however I can imagine it feeling a bit unwieldy at slow speeds.

I have a T130c and it is great by the way! Very good all rounder and for what is now a 4 year old model it is still up to date geometry wise.

Walleater – thanks!! I rebled them with the pad contact all the way in and they seem great now, very positive with the contact wound all the way back out. I did also get a bubble out but it may have been from connecting up the syringe again.

SRAM part number is 11.4118.023.055, if you google that you should get some results, e.g. https://www.hibike.com/rock-shox-shock-spare-part-damping-p333fee60b3db20ccd96874b7e8e63bcc

There is a second shim stack in the reservoir too, from my experimenting and understanding, it only affects the two “non-open” lever positions, so you can add or remove shims to make the lever more or less firm. I pulled out a big shim once and it definitely felt softer on the firm lever setting, but didn’t seem to affect the open setting (looks like the oil can bypass that shim stack when the lever is open).

If I am correct, the Vorsprung tractive thing is basically just a more granular off the shelf tune matched to your frames compression ratio and rider weight, whereby Vorsprung have a database of shim stacks offering more fine tuning than RockShox’s four factory options.

I run a Monarch Plus on mine, they also swapped my broken OEM RT3 for a Plus RC3 (SRAM said they aren’t making the RT3 in 216×63 anymore hence all swaps will get a new Plus RC3).

You might find the ML tune a bit over damped on compression still, the T130 as standard uses an ML3 tune, i.e. medium rebound, low-3 compression tune (around 25% less compression damping compared to a low tune from what I can tell). I bought an ML3 tune assembly (main piston with the correct shim stack attached) for about £20 and swapped it out myself.

I really like the Monarch Plus overall though, very supple and the 3 position lever is great, not a complete lockout but very useable on off-road climbs. Middle position can give you a bit more platform on smoother trails too.

I have read reports (I think on MTBR) of some air spring pistons being a bit oversized causing the issues you describe.

Mine are great – had the MRP fulfill kit in for 8 months now, so sounds like something is amiss in your fork.