You may know this already, but before you cut your bars down move your controls and grips inboard to where you think you want them and go ride and experiment. And take your time.

Before I cut my bars I rode with a 80mm stem – then swapped to 70mm which felt better. When I had everything feeling just right I cut my bars down – and even then I left them just a bit wider thinking I could always trim them again. I am very glad I did. As soon as I swapped my layback seatpost for a Reverb (inline) I found I wanted the bars just a bit wider to make up for the new position… 730 is fine, but if I were starting again I think I’d be at 740 or even 750!

When I first tried I could not get Nics on my Crests at all… but once I got the knack of using the drop channel and starting opposite the valve it became much easier. The last Nic I put on went on by hand with no levers… so I am hopeful that I will not struggle too badly if I ever have to do a trailside fix.

Mine looks better than this now it has a bender fender on the front…

You need to look at stem and bars together. I have a 2010 Anthem, which came with 680mm bars on a 110mm stem, but now has 730mm bars on a 70mm stem (CarbonCycles – £13.24, may as well spend as little as possible unless you are sure exactly what you need).

Wow, I did not know that buying a bike was a “sign of Europe’s wider economic malaise”… perhaps the nay sayers are right and 650b is a conspiracy to destroy our economy by making us buy more bikes.

Luggage scales… not as accurate as proper scales, but I’m sure they will be close enough. Or just pick it up and think ‘hmm, about 30lbs’.

My local trail centre (QECP) isn’t surfaced so if you ride there when it is wet it will be an interesting challenge (hmm, wet roots – lovely). You will also cause some wear and tear to the trail, and if that makes you feel guilty then come do some volunteer trailbuilding. But either way just go and have some fun in the mud and water.

501b XML-U2 (£8)… lid mount(£1.30)… charger(£4) and adapter (£1.80)… used laptop cells (free).

You also need some foil to improve the heat sinking, and some electrical tape to make the cells fit snugly… and I use a small rare-earth magnet on the -ve end of the 18650s as mine are unprotected so a bit short. If the cells manage to move around they will interrupt the current which will cause the torch to change modes – this can be alarming as it is most likely to happen when you hit a really rough patch! But a torch on your lid is ‘stabilized’ so you will probably be fine without.

I’d also budget for a timer for the charger… that way you can set them to charge for e.g. 6 hours and then stop. I think single cell charging is pretty safe, but I would not like to leave mine on for 48 hours just in case!

Additional lights are £8-£15… e.g. a C8 XM-L2 for you bars.

It’s a very cheap way to get into night riding… and once you have cells and a charger additional lights (or a yearly upgrade to the latest emitter) are very inexpensive.

shortcut – Member
Are folk still using those P7 torches that everyone was raving about a course of years ago?

I replaced my P7 SSC torch with a C8 XML-U3… which is brighter and runs longer. Paired with a new 501b XM-L2 on my lid it’s a great set-up and the two torches together were less than £25. But I still have my P7 – my son sometimes uses it, and it’s part of my ‘loan pool’ along with a couple of 501b XML-T6s.

Distance – 2,390.8km
Time – 167hr 33m
Elev Gain – 40,621m
Rides – 70
all MTB

Strava ‘Heatmap’ (not quite as good as the disabled Multiple Ride Mapper) is also being moved to Premium :( I shouldn’t complain as the free Strava is excellent, but taking away stuff is a bit off.

I have a 501b XM-L2 torch… it would be great to have something smaller and lighter, but these are only £8. Next year’s upgrade to whatever is newer and better will likely be another £10 if it’s worth upgrading.

… and don’t bother night riding in fog or mist – your lights will be useless and you’ll get lost. I managed to miss a turn on a path I’ve done more than 100 times.

Anthem from Pedal On in 2010… I went there in person as they allow you to try bikes and they have a track out back. Ordered from them and had the bike delivered. Great service, easy to deal with… I’d use them again.

Tell someone where you are going and when you will be back… and carry a charged phone. Better still, go with some mates, and stop at the pub after.

But most of all, relax, have fun, and don’t run over any badgers.

Summer has been great… but once I get back into the habit of merino vests, waterproof socks and XR Mud tyres I’m sure winter will be fun too. But here’s hoping autumn is cool, clear and dry.

I’ve just seen “3 Minute Gaps” for the first time – and I was really impressed. Good riding, some proper contributions from the riders, and enough of ‘a story’ to link it together. I now know why people are so impressed with Brendog.

Also anything at all by Chris Askrigg… loved ’Five’ and ’A Hill in Spain’…

… but the best vid for me is Vicious Path II – not sure why: maybe because it looks so much fun without looking impossibly superhuman

Chalk ooze, chalk and mud, thin mud, thick mud… 2012 was the Year of Mud, though much of it did get washed away by the torrents of water leaving bright white scour channels on many of my favourite climbs.

Mud = XR Mud… sorted

I wear Bolle Axis – I started wearing them to stop my contacts drying out and then falling out, but they’ve saved my face from several branches over the last couple of years (sometimes you just don’t see branches especially in low light), so now I’d say they were ‘essentials’. Also useful on dig days when you are using a pick or a mattock.

The Axis are particularly good as the arms are adjustable… you can angle them up and rest them on the plastic part of the lid harness so they don’t press behind your ears. Keeps them on securely without any discomfort.

Never believe the lumen claims you see on websites selling lights…

Usually they quote the theoretical max for the emitter if driven at the max ‘safe’ current – but your driver won’t deliver that current, the cells probably won’t deliver that current, and without more thermal management everything would probably just fry anyway.

For a rough estimate you can check flashlightwiki.com, but you will still need a multimeter to see what amps your driver is drawing at each mode… and this I think will change as the voltage drops, especially on HI mode.

Anyway, I’m impressed with the XM-L2… much brighter than my XML-T6s, but some of that is down to higher current, especially in MID mode. For £8 it’s a real bargain.

Yes, I have that light as my new head torch – arrived very quickly. On my bars I’ve an C8 XML-U3 which I also got from Lightmalls, and which is excellent – I’m very impressed with Lightmalls. Dealextreme are also good – I have several lights from them as well as mounts and chargers.

I saw one Strava ride at an average speed of 52,613 kph… round Budapest via the Gulf of Guinea (hmm Lat 0 Long 0), so 11,209.5 in total for the ride. That rider was well ahead in the ‘May Massive’.

EDIT… can’t find that one now, but I see the ‘winner’ of that little contest did 11 rides for a total of 94,791.8 km that month.

If you want to ride off road you can sign up at Kingley Vale Mountain Bikers[/url]… we are not a club, more of a MTB social network. There are usually rides posted for around Kingle Vale / Stoughton (between Emsworth and Chichester) and Queen Elizabeth Country Park as well as points in between. You can just ask for some company or tag along with a group – and if you don’t know the area we can show you around.

A 501b XM-L2 torch from Lightmalls – £8. You’ll need a mount (£1.50) a charger for 18650s (£5) and some cells (anything from £2.50 to £10… or free if you have access to an old laptop battery).

The best thing about 18650 torches is that additional lights or an upgrade to the latest LED is about £10.

I used to use them, and I really liked them for long XC rides… but I found that they were a nuisance on steeper stuff as they made rotating my wrists uncomfortable. Now that I have a shorter/wider set-up on my bike I don’t have the same numb wrist issues, even on really epic journeys – so for me some adjustments to my set-up made all the difference.

Hmm… I calling “Champery DH” on that one, Dave!

Where do you work? Everest base camp?

Veloviewer already has 3D segments on the ‘Your Segments’ tab… so 3D Activity complements that very nicely. It would be even better if there were a zoom function.

XM-L2 501b from Lightmalls – 11.99 USD at the moment. We’ll see if it is any good, but definitely cheap!

I also got my C8 XML-U3 from there – 16.90 USD, though I had to email them to get them to ship Singapore Post and not pay through the nose for UPS.

I quite enjoyed the ‘Enduro’ segment… made me want to go out riding immediately. The wheel size debate was a bit of a taster and did not mention the potential consumer backlash. For me the most disappointing bit was the buying-a-new-bike section in that it seemed to suggest that all entry level bikes were awesome and good value – so +1 for promoting cycling, but -2 for actually helping someone get a new bike.

I’ve an XML-U3 on my bars, and I’m just upgrading my head torch from XML-T6 to XM-L2 (upgrade cost £10!).

Carbon Cycles Exotic stems are like £13 quid or something

Worked for me.

I am upgrading to one of these… XM-L2 on offer at £7:70… even ‘full price’ it’s under a tenner. As I already have lockblock mounts and 20+ cells it’s a cheap upgrade. If the modes are half decent I might get another.

“Double Defense” seem to me to be even better – though the worst my previous “Snakeskins” ever suffered was a score-but-not-actual-split from the local chalk and flint rubble.

pacific?

Over the last 3 years I’ve acquired a few – all torches. My original P7 SSC was great, and I still have it, but I’ve replaced it with a C8 XML U3 which is usefully bright on MID mode for 2+ hours, and very bright on high power.

I’ve now just ordered a 501b XM-L2 to uprate my lid light… at the moment I have a couple of 501b XML-T6s which have also been excellent.

My experience with the previous generation 501b XPGs was less good – one packed up (replaced the drop-in with an XML) but the other is just a general use torch as it gets too hot and then won’t switch modes.

These torches are cheap as chips… my C8 XML-U3 was £15 and my new 501b XM-L2 is £10. I find that the 501b’s often have heat management issues – fixed by wrapping the drop in with foil to improve thermal conductivity. They also have issues with cells rattling around inside – which breaks the contact causing the mode to switch just you are hitting something rough! But that can be fixed by wrapping the cells in electrical tape to make them fit more snugly, and by using one or two rare-earth magnets on the -ve end of the cell to make it a bit longer so it has more pressure on the contact spring (I’m using reclaimed laptop cells which are unprotected and so a bit shorter than protected 19650s).

The latest kit is unbeatable at the price… but some fettling is required to make it reliable.

If you want to be more upright then (1) inline seatpost – no layback, (2) shorter stem, (3) riser bars. My stock 26er Anthem was quite rangey with it’s layback post, 110mm stem and 680mm bars – it now feels very different with an inline reverb, 80mm stem and 730mm bars. Small changes can make a big difference to how it feels.

Summer Lightning at the Woodmancote Arms… and no need to wait for summer. Mind you, we discovered that Wednesday evening is curry night at the Barley Mow in Walderton so I may have to switch to Doombar or Adnams.

The most important things I learned from doing (most of) the SDW are:
(1) that you don’t need to carry too much water as there are several taps – so last time I saved 1.5 kg in my pack.
(2) it is handy knowing what’s ahead… glad I took this crib sheet of climbs to come and tap locations

(3) as someone else said… it is easy to miss the turn before BlackCap – if you get to the trig point STOP and turn around (we were on the way down to Lewes before turning and climbing back up!)

Amberley is pretty much half way, but the downside of an Amberley stop is that (1) there’s a lot of climbing in Day 2 as the second half of the route to Eastbourne is the harder part, and (2) you start Day 2 with a climb of Amberley Mount which is one of the hardest climbs on the whole route.

You could look at breaking the journey at the YHA on top of Truleigh Hill… it’s 60-65 miles in, but you’ll enjoy Day 2 a bit more! I’ve not stayed there myself so I do not know what it’s like.