Think I’ll give it a bash, thanks folks

Nice one ta, reckon it’ll still be ok after the rain this week?

thats better

Never shared a pic on here before so hoping this works…

Early morning sunrise over Lake Superior, Duluth Mn last Nov. Taken with my ip5s

EDIT: Doh!

wow lots of replys and fast – thanks all

Pretty much confirms what I was thinking, both still good even with a bright bar light.

Keen to go cable free so thinking of an exposure diablo for the helmet. Will make do with my old magic shine for this season and save up for a new bar light for next winter.

thegreatape – I was keen to keep the bar light as I find helmet only means no shadows and I can’t see the bumps so well.

Cheers again for the input

ah cool fair enough – cheers for the feedback! Will go for a wander sometime

Thanks chaps – off to do some google mapping :-)

Sounds good Harry might drop you a line next time I’m heading up if that’s ok?!

I’m shocked and deeply saddened by this news. Tragic and far too soon as many have said. I worked with Brian in Alpine Bikes back in the nineties when I was a 15 year old lad. He taught me lots about how to fix and ride bikes and I definitely looked up to him as a rider. He was so enthusiastic about bikes and life generally and always happy to help. I remember one of the first shop rides I went on with him that he led and he was sorting out problems with other peoples bikes and cracking jokes instead of getting annoyed. I lost touch over the years but bumped into him occasionally, at Mabie riding the darkside and making it look easy and a couple of years back whilst on a ride with my wife in Glen Tanar, Brian appeared from over a hill. We had a good catch up before he powered off out of that valley and into the next. I always hoped I would catch up with him for a proper ride one of these days. I know he leaves a young family behind, my thoughts and best wishes are with them. RIP chief.

I’ve got a Bronson carbon and for me its the perfect do it all bike, if ‘it all’ includes more rufty-tufty stuff like lakes, Scotland or alps. I think its light weight, pretty nimble handling and peppy suspension mean it doesn’t feel like a boat anchor on tamer trails.

thanks guys. does sound like it might be a sram issue rather than a ceramic issue. a mate has also had a really good run out of a hope ceramic bb.

to be fair the lbs got his info from a shimano tech guy who was explaining why shimano don’t use ceramic bearings.

think I’ll see if hope or king do ceramic ones that fit xx1, as did notice the ceramics spin really well.

cheers again!
Ben

Thanks for the replies all, just picked them up as am over in Australia. Thought it would be a long shot that anyone would have experience of both. Will have a read through but like Mildred said they both sound like good options!! Cheers

Yes lyrics are a great match, had coil uturns on mine set at around 150mm. Imagine 36’swould do too. Ended up with bos devilles, best forks I’ve had the pleasure of running, better than the 2014 34’s I currently have on my new 650b wheeled bike, only reason I couldn’t keep the bos’s.

Really can’t decide what to do at the moment fork wise! It’s between revs or some older lyrik u-turns. Only thing is with something like a 36 or lyrik the A2C is going to be slightly taller than a rev at 140mm.

I personally would prob go with rev’s – I don’t know why but it would bother me putting forks on that are heavier than the frame! Think I’m just a bit special though ;) i guess depending on weight/riding style/ local terrain it would be nice to have extra beef up front. In that case i would run an internal cup prob but that would mean 1 1/8 steerer…?

this caught my eye too – v nice build:

http://www.vitalmtb.com/videos/member/2013-Santa-Cruz-Blur-TRc-Test-Bike-Build,19710/Straightshotmtb,19406

got an almost 2 year old 1st gen – no problems ever and not had it serviced yet either – still going fine

Another one for bike verbier here!

Been twice and it’s the best bike riding I’ve done anywhere, plus Lucy and Phil run it perfectly, very slickly organised but friendly, relaxed and fun! Experts at tailoring to group skill levels, preferences and weather conditions and never felt like anything was too much trouble. Chalet and food are top quality as well. I’ve ridden with trail addiction, aqr and riviera bike, and riviera were the close second, amazing riding also (but very different) and great Italian hospitality at the hotel.

I’ve not done a full week at aqr but my thoughts are it is more xc than bv, don’t think they really do uplift as far as I’m aware, so you need to like pedalling up some big mountains. You will pedal at bv too, but you always get a head start with the van / ski lift.

I don’t think they’re much more expensive than the others all things considered, and as someone else said its definitely a case of get what you pay for.

Basically I’d struggle to suggest how they could improve it, and if I didn’t live in aus now I’d be planning another trip back :)

Had a shred in the Perth(Australia) hills this morning with some good lads from the local trail building group, prob the last not too hot ride for the next 3 months, will need to start hitting the trails at 630am soon.

Conditions were loose and dusty; funny the trails suffer here in the summer like uk trails do in the winter, get blown out and grip drops right off. Don’t need to clean the bike tho-always a bonus!

Tia Maria and orange juice tastes a bit like terry’s chocolate orange, maybe could try them altogether?!?

Simultaneous post – You read my mind!

Sweet build!! Have you weighed it??

Enjoy!!

The only addition XX1 has over any other clutch mech is that it has a different profile to the teeth on the chainring…….do people really think thats enough to keep you chain on compared to a bog standard chainring?

Err not sure that’s totally true, xx1 rear mech has the horizontal parallelogram, which removes the second source of chain slap over bumps. Clutch mechs remove the main source but not all, if I’m to understand the SRAM press release stuff.

anyone know what the difference is between vipr 01 and 02’s? damping tune?

Last time I rode some bikes, I found that there were just as many differences between same-linkage bikes as there was between different linkage bikes.

My conclusion was that it was fruitless to try and guess how a bike was going to handle without riding it, or at least listening to someone’s opinion that you can identify with.

wot he said

demo’d one just out of interest – I loved it, just a really good all round mountain bike; very capable without feeling like too much bike, quite nimble, good fun! I’d defo consider one if I had the cash.

cool thanks for all the input guys, food for thought. Defo going to see if i can get a shot on a TRc and see if i can get some input on slackerised SL-R’s from mtbr as prob going to be difficult/impossible to have a try of one.

cheers

beb

oh right didnt know you could run a zero stack lower on a trc, interesting – means a 140 mm fork is a goer without it being too slack. Take it you need to run a straight steerer (i.e. not tapered) to do that?

cool thanks for that – will give TBE a call to see if they still have one to look at.

I do my trail riding mainly around the Kalamunda circuit and some of the other older trails in that area, and for more techy stuff the dh trails at mundaring weir are well worth a look, much more like uk dh’y type trails, and less gravel and more roots etc :)

Goat farm is ok but very pea gravelly and gets hellishly hot in from now on as no shade really.

I’m dead keen to ride down at Margaret River as the trails there are supposed to be great fun and made of decent grippy dirt. Apparently the shop in MR is friendly and has shop rides so prob best point of call.

Hope that helps!

stewartc,

thanks for the reply – what travel forks are you running on it?

and do you ever find yourself wishing for more travel on the trc?

I’m coming off 150/160mm bikes and wonder whether i’ll miss the skwish :)

Cheers

Hmm i think I’ve got to try and find a trc to try offroad somehow.

I’d be really interested to hear if anyone has put an angleset in a mojo slr, seems like an obvious step to me as they’re pretty steep by modern standards and Ibis even talk that option up on their webby.

My other thought was a tallboy c with 120mm forks and an angleset, much like ben cathro did here:

loved the tallboy when i tried one a while back but again was too steep and felt like it was about to tuck under during hard cornering and felt a bit scary on steep techy stuff. Anyone tried this??

thanks

yes HD 140 was my initial thought but i think they’re about half a kilo heavier, and seems a shame to carry the extra around when not planning to run it as a 160mm bike.

ltc’s are v nice too but again heavier which is why I was drawn to the slr/trc’s

cheers for the suggestion though :)

any other thoughts out there??

Some folk are just bellends, and the internet just makes them worse.

Haha made me laugh :)

For me one of the biggest advantages of bigger wheels is the increased bb drop. converting a 26 to 650b wouldn’t give you that obviously so for that reason, I personally wouldn’t bother.

GW, DrP – i think we’re saying the same thing. My impression is the idea on FG is to get benefits of a long front centre without going super slack. Stable, good DH AND quick/precise steering.

i thought the idea was to get stability from the longer wheelbase rather than going down the road of a really slack head angle and lots of trail. This would give stability without the floppy/slow low speed steering. The super short stem would also quicken the steering somewhat.

Also, as you’re positioned much further behind the front axle (due to the long front centre) would make it much harder to go over the bars on the dh’s too. Much like a slack head angle does, but possibly more so as you may have to go to silly slack head angles to get the front centre lengths the mondrakers have. And as trail increases exponentially with HA you might end up with super-floppy steering to achieve FG-esque front centre lengths.

I reckon they (an FG bike) would need a fair adjustment in riding technique to weight the front wheel enough on less than steep dh’s and also to manage the long wheelbase in tight turns (up and downhill – you can see Fabien Barel endo-ing to get the back wheel round the switchbacks in his FG promo vid) but I can see how it’d work for some people. They’re probably quite a marmite bike.

All this is theorising as I’ve not ridden one but would love to have a go! Probably find I’ve got it completely wrong :)

EDIT: PS bwaarp – i reckon it would speed the steering up but the bike would still be nice and stable because of the longer wheelbase – be interested to hear how it works out if you try it!

vitalmtb beat you to it:

http://www.vitalmtb.com/photos/features/Vitals-Banshee-Spitfire-Test-Bike,4062/Vitals-Banshee-Spitfire-Test-Bike,39656/bturman,109

looks good!

might have been my mate – lucky man has such a cool job :)

Interesting article. Pretty honest appraisal of the role of brand image in the MTB industry, and probably some truth to the statement about how we worry about the geeky details a bit too much. But for a brand with so many mech failures in its recent history I’d like to hear some more about how they’ve sweated the tech details rather than such a company focus on the brand image…very different approach to a company like say Cotic who wear their engineering on their sleeve.

I’ve got an Enduromatic – is a bit hot but feels very protective, secure, it is very light and for my head at least super comfy. I wouldnt say its VERY hot though…and thats after an Australian summer in one.

The pads do a very good job of keeping the sweat off your face though, much better than my roadie helmet. That black one up there looks cool too.

yep i wouldn’t think you’d need a large if you ride a medium Bfe. I’m 5’10” and rode a small with a layback post, 50mm stem, 740mm bars and loved it. BFe might be longer in effective top tube due to a slacker seat angle – pitch seat angles are quite steep 74 deg i think making the effective top tube seem short but when you’re stood up descending they’re pretty roomy.

lucien hit the nail on the head too. Took mine to Molini in Italy and Verbier in the Alps and it was super-capable downhill and perfectly good for climbing on. Mine had a set of 160mm coil lyriks which suited it really well.

Ice tech rotors will help with brake fade but more importantly make sure you’re running some decent sized rotors, get some decent brake pads in there and you’ll be sorted.

W-A-N-T!

Echoing peoples thoughts above, rode a tallboy c, thought it was ace but could do with being slacker and a smidge more travel, wondered when they would do one of those…

Time to get saving :)

EDIT: like the way the shock mounts off the downtube now ala nomad…looks ace!