My AM41s have lasted about 4.5k miles… the uppers are fine, but the soles are now wearing out. Some of this is the inevitable pin damage – but the worst wear is on the right sole from some ill-advised use on dig days.

My 11 year old now has a Rockhopper… I put a shorter and lower stem on it and also some narrower flat bars to bring the front end down and make it fit. I also changed the pedals and he’s an offer of a different saddle. At some point I might look for some second hand air forks… but for now the Dart 3s are OK, and giving 50-60mm of their 80mm travel.

This is a very useful resource, if only to validate some of the ludicrous lumen claims… you can check the current your light is drawing in the different modes and match to the binned lumens.

I went down the ‘cheap torches’ route – which is an inexpensice way to start, and a very flexible approach when you want to upgrade.

You need 18650 cells – but as I have access to old laptops they are ‘free’. I have a £5 charger from Dealextreme, which I run with an old clockwork timer ‘just in case’… and various mounts for bars and lid are about £1.50 each…

At the moment my basic set up is a C8 XML-U3 on my bars (£16) and 2 x 501b XML-T6 torches (£8.50 each) – one on my lid and one on the bars.

I run the C8 and my lid on MED which gives a decent light for 3 hours, and use the other bar light on FULL when I want a boost. If starting new I’d go for 2 x XML-U3s as the C* XML-U3 kicks out about 800 lumens on full so is plenty bright, and another 501b XML-U3 just as they are brighter… though the MID mode driver current is one of the more important settings and you have no idea what that will be. For extended runtimes all you need is a couple of spare cells in your pack… sorted!

Best of all an ‘upgrade’ to the latest LED is around £10-20… maybe I’ll try an XML2 next!

Love mine too… it’s a 2010 X4 which now has a 70mm stem, 730mm bars and a reverb – as well as Crests on Superstar Switch Evo hubs. Mine has a basic spec, so I periodically wish for full XT, possibly 2×10 with a shadow plus, but it’s a great bike, and with nearly 3,000 miles on the clock it has done me proud.

Came with 100mm forks – but I reckon it would be great with 120s.

I’m interested in ‘moderate’ and ‘easy’ rides in the North West of Exmoor. We are on holiday in Trentishoe in a couple of weeks (so not far from Ilfracombe) and as I’ll have my 11 year old riding with me we had better avoid anything too hard.

Better get myself to QE for some practice then!!

Another detour on Sunday then…?

Berms (in fact any corner): just to yourself: LOOKING (at the exit)… FOOTWORK… BODY POSITION. I am rubbish at berms, but when I tell myself this before I hit them I seem to do OK.

I also did the Epic on Sunday… and I really enjoyed it. The western half of the route counts as ‘local trails’ for me. If you found that OK then you’ll do fine on the SDW. Some of the SDW climbs are bigger (e.g. Amberley Mount which is steeper than this profile suggests), but there’s nothing quite as vicious as the climb up out of Upwaltham which we did on Sunday.

I would consider Amberley to Eastbourne and then a train back.

Amberly is pretty much halfway and is easy to get to – with the station right by the SDW.

It’s just over 50 miles to Eastbourne, and you get most of the good scenery… pick a day with decent weather so you can appreciate the views, and avoid days with strong headwinds. You do get most of the big climbs too (which is either good or bad depending on your view of things) – including an immediate climb up Amberly Mount, which I think is just about the longest and steepest on the route.

This is definitely the harder half of the route, so once you’ve knocked it off you will know you are ready!

It was great! I’m a Kingley Vale local, so I knew the western side of the course, but the rest of it was all new to me… and I think I’ll be back for some more of that. The last rooty descent back into Slindon was great fun. It was VERY hot though!

Yep… should be good.

A 501b XML2 or XML-U3 torch… about £10-15, Older XML-T6 501bs are about £8 (I have three!).

You’ll need an 18650 cell, or two (about £2.50 each but free if you have access to old laptop batteries), a charger (£5) and a mount (£2).

Future upgrades to the newest technology are then very cheap… I may buy an XML2 for next winter (£15 for the latest LED – can’t be bad).

Carboncycles – £13.24, 167g

does that rear mucky nutz one actually work ?

Well, it got spattered in wet mud and surprisingly I did not – so maybe, yes. First time I’ve used it to be honest and I was worried it might get blown away in the 45mph winds we had: it does seem very flimsy.

Minimalist mudguards… it was wet and muddy last Saturday

And maybe one day we’ll see a press release that says “this new bike is 1 second slower” or “this bike’s not quite as good” as the previous version. I believe they have a new bike to “sell” – and it looks good.

Totally agree… best of all is when there’s a full moon and you can ride sections of trail by moonlight alone.

I have an iGotU 120 – I think you can still get them and they were about £40. It’s a logger – one button for ON and OFF, a couple of lights to let you know its on and found satellites…. and that’s it.

Turn it on 2 mins before you leave – check its found a lock then stick it in your pack and go. When you get home connect to a computer via PC – use the downloadable @Trip to get your ride, export to GPX and upload to Strava.

It’s a quality GPS (better than a phone) and you can adjust the logging – mine is set to a fix a second when above 10kph and once every 3 seconds when slower… and on Saturday it logged a >12 hour epic on the SDW, so the battery lasts at least 12 hours from full.

EDIT: can only see them on eBay now

Islabikes – Beinn 24 most likely but check their size guide as it is spot on. They are light weight, and have everything sized just right… soon after he got his Islabike my then-8-year-old managed to climb our local hill… 140m of vertical.

It was pretty much ‘who’s making the most of the SW gale this weekend’… I did make it all the way to Eastbourne, and with me riding part of the the SDW the wrong way to find my buddies I finally clocked up 88 miles. Now I am tired.

Carboncycles Exotic – 60mm 70mm or 80mm – says 167g, and definitely costs £13.24.

EDIT.. looks like the ‘light’ Matrix F is only £31.19 – says 121g. Not used or seen one of these though.

Aiming to do (most of) the South Downs Way… 72 miles. Forecast is for a brisk tailwind (hurrah) and constant rain (ugh).

Queen Elizabeth Country park for an excellent waymarked trail with fun features (disclosure: I would say that as I helped build it… but see video[/url]). Also Kingley Vale which is near Funtington (start at Adsdean on Hares Lane)… excellent riding of all sorts, and a freeride course (see video). Sign up at Kingley Vale Mountain Bikers[/url] for local knowledge of both – and if you want a map of KV trails I can probably create you one from my strava output.

It’s 5.5km from my door to Adsdean for the start of Kingley Vale. About a third of the way there is on bridleway, so a decent warm-up rather than a chore. On the way back the last section of bridleway come out opposite the pub…

If your GPS track is rubbish then your Strava data will be rubbish. Most phones seem to have fairly poor GPS in them.

After using 745s for a winter on my HT I got some 750s for my FS. I rode around for a bit with the controls inboard and then when I was happy I cut the bars to 730… thinking I might trim them a bit further. And then a bit later I changed the stem from 80mm to 70mm and bought a reverb (no layback) – now 730 feels like just wide enough.

And this week’s warning picture is brought to you by the National Gallery – an Italian or possibly French mountain biker, apparently…

I don’t recall getting emails or anything from CarbonCycles, but the stuff I have ordered usually turns up within a week I think.

Strava has its quirks – you can be slower than your mate, but with a higher average speed, depending on the start/finish points logged by your GPS within the segment… the segment may be longer or shorter for different riders depending on the quality of their track and the sampling rate of their GPS… have a read[/url]

There are rules guidelines for riding cheeky trails

Mine are the 9/4 version.

One thing I’ve learned is that you need to leave yourself some room for adjustment if you are changing things.

I first got the 750 riser bars and an 80mm stem… I rode for a bit with my grips inboard and then cut the bars to about 730 as that was on the wider side of where my hands fell naturally. I also dropped some spacers to get the height right. So far so good. Rode some more… and then thought about maybe a slightly shorter stem and possibly slightly narrower.

So, 70mm stem… but then I also got a Reverb, which has no layback. Suddenly everything is just about spot on… and I certainly don’t want the bars any narrower (if I has them 750 now I might not even trim to 730).

So the moral of the story is that bar width is the last variable to change if you are cutting… as it is the most expensive to get wrong if you go too narrow.

I should probably have considered a lower rise bar, as I would not now want mine higher, and as you can see there’s no room to go lower.

As it is everything is damn good – but adding a Reverb nearly threw out all my calculations, and I had thought I was being careful!

Rockhopper are decent bikes in the small sizes… I managed to get a 13″ bike for my 11 year old. But complete bikes seem easier to come by than frame only.

XM-L is up to bin U3, and there’s now XM-L2 – the flashlight wiki is useful in debunking ridiculous lumen claims (though not 300m claims).

My AM-41s are now wearing out in one sole… but this is after 3,500 miles of riding using MG1s/Nanos, and some ill-advised spade-work on a couple of dig days when I forgot to take a change of shoes. It’s the digging shoe that’s going, so my own fault really. I’ll be getting another pair when they finally give up.

I carry a GPS logger in my pack – it’s a tiny box with an on-off button that logs your ride. When I get home and download it I can see where I’ve been, and can upload to Strava etc – but when I am out riding it tells me nothing. I also carry a phone for emergencies (text = “safe in pub, home by 11pm”).

Very happy with mine

Giant Anthem 2010 – my first MTB… where it all started
iGotU GPS logger and Strava/Veloviewer – motivation and exploration
Sealskinz waterproof socks with AM41s – keeps me riding all winter
Rebas – transformed by GT Avalanche
Dealextreme/Lightmalls XML torches – night riding on the cheap

But why not run your 785s with the grips and controls inboard – work out exactly where you want everything and then cut to size?

CarbonCycles 180g 750mm flat bars… more expensive at £60 but light :-)