Group of 87 riders in the ‘autobus’ got in at 35mins 40secs, technically outside the limit but I can’t imagine them being thrown out, not with Cav, Gilbert, Cancellara, Hushovd, Farrar included.

Rojas got in at 31mins 17secs so was inside the limit so hasn’t been deducted points.

Will Cav make it in in time, that’s now the pressing q – the cut off time is 33min 17sec and he’s only half way up the Galibier.

Classic stage, I’d say Thomas Voeckler’s drugs worked the best…

I think there probably would be a ‘Tour’ effect, much like the sales of tennis rackets probably increases before & during Wimbledon (I suspect).

Gotama – ahh, that’s useful to know, funnily enough I’d be replacing a set of 2009 Lyrik Coil U-Turns (might be up for sale)- I love the Lyriks but would quite like to lop 1.5lbs off the weight of the bike in one swoop. Interesting to hear the flex issues with the Float 150’s.

Thanks for replies & info above – was asking on behalf of a friend who is going to be starting a few tri’s this summer.

I had an SL Pro with an RP23 and Lyrik U-Turn Coils, really enjoyed riding that and had it for a few years, was vastly improved with the Fox rear shock & Lyriks fitted though. It’s quite a long bike so fairly steady at handling high speeds, maybe not so good when it gets really twisty. I used it predominatly set in the high BB / steeper HA setting but it was a hoot in the low BB / slacker HA mode with some 160mm forks on the front! :-)

Errr, according to stw’ers a VW can’t possibly be boutique because they’re such a big brand… yeah right… ;-)

http://www.boutiquecampervan.co.uk/campervan.php

If Giant happened to make 10 bikes, each hand painted & costing £15,000 & sold through a tiny independent outlet in Harrod’s they would by that very nature be boutique, the fact they were Giant’s would be irrelevant.

BTW – Turners clearly aren’t boutique anymore, stock em high, sell em cheap Merlin sell them nowadays… ;-)

I’m sorry but a £6500 Trek is ’boutique’ by the very nature of it’s price!!

Strictly according to the english langauge a 1985 Specialized Stumpjumper is equally boutique because of it’s rariety nowadays – eat that stw bike snobs… :-P

Steve Peat went through a phase of riding his DH bike with 3 Ti bolts holding each rotor on (weightsaving) so if he can do it then I’m sure you’ll be fine with 5 bolts… :-)

It’s a smaller event but I’m personally very glad I’ve focussed on doing Bristol Bikefest the past few years, sounds a better event than MM, most importantly the MM course round and up & down fields @ Eastnor can’t even come close to the BBF Ashton Court trails…

What bike for BBF 2011?

90mm travel sub 22 lb xc hardtail or 23 lb 120mm/105mm travel carbon FS?

I set the fastest lap time on the Saturday last year so want to try & do it again this year, those TORQ guys can eat my dust. ;-)

Mr_Mojo – use my friends place, ‘The Remont’, very nice contemporary place. For such a visitor centric place there’s a dire shortage of good quality, modern places to stay in Oxford unfortunately but you have yourself a good one with the Remont! :-)

Don’t even think of the Randolph – tacky, colonialist cr*p…

Here you go: http://www.remont-oxford.co.uk/

Currently 4th best in Oxford according to Trip Advisor so hope that’s reassuring.

Roval Traversee – £600 & 1550g. The rear hub on the Roval’s is also basically a DT Swiss 240 so you’re arguably getting a better hub than the Easton’s.

http://www.specialized.com/us/en/bc/SBCEqProduct.jsp?spid=47223&menuItemId=0&eid=0

Why pay £1400 more for the Easton’s to only save 100g?!? :-O

Or if you wanted to import them there’s the new 2011 Roval USA Control Trail SL Carbons – $1500 & 1350g, they’re also 15mm bolt through compatible (as are the Traversee above). $1000 cheaper than the Easton’s & 100g lighter – I know which I’d get! ;-)

http://www.specialized.com/us/en/bc/SBCEqProduct.jsp?spid=54122&menuItemId=0&eid=0

Gaz – does that spell the end of your Heckler? Hope your well mate.

Ben.

Complete idiot! ROFL!!!

In terms of forecast it looks like the area will get a good dowsing of rain tommorrow so I imagine up round Wendover way it might get slighlty claggy in places with the Chiltern chalks and clays…

I’m going to be running Rocket Ron Evo 2.1 f / Racing Ralph Evo 2.1 r, roll nice and fast for the distance and the Rocket Ron on the front grips well even if it gets abit sticky in places.

Yep, 132km for me on Sunday. Thoroughly enjoyed the 121km route last year so have been looking forward to doing it again. :-)

The bang you get from these tyres blowing off the rim is quite incredible!

I had an S-Works Sauserwind 2Bliss tyre blow off at approx 60psi – I was in my basement at the time! It was honestly the closest I can imagine to a Call of Duty style stun grenade going off in a room! My eyes were completely shaken for a good 15secs, I had no hearing bar a very, very high pitch whine for about 2mins and the shockwave raised every available particle of dust in the basement so it was pretty ‘cloudy’. My poor wife was sat in the living room approx 7ft directly above the scene of the explosion so she thought the acopolypse had arrived aswell!

Laughing aside i’m very releived my hearing wasn’t damaged and no debris hit me in the eyes as the tyre was shredded. I haven’t inflated a mtb tyre above 40psi since… :-O

stevienieve – with that level of money involved (£4k!!) and ATB being shoddy with all the delays & no updates I’d take your money elsewhere quite frankly. Mojo’s are better frames anyway… ;-)

snotrag – had a similar issue when I replaced the rear pads on my Elixir Carbons back in January. I couldn’t get the new pads to fit in as the pistons had closed together over time as the previous pads wore away. I therefore prised the pistons back into the calipers, however even when all the way in the new pads still didn’t fit. I therefore had to resort to filing down the new pads, thankfully this did the trick and they have been fine ever since. Pads rubbed slightly on the first ride or two but then no problems.

Owned a set of XTR M980 SPDs and after 6 rides at the start of the year they really irritated my knees due to the lack of float compared to the clipless pedals I’d been using for the previous 16 years(!). I promptly sold the M980’s and got some Time ATAC XS Carbons and these are much more to my liking due to all the cleat movement they have.

In terms of function the M980’s were easier to clip into but the Time’s are much easier to unclip from. Both seem to provide the same level of support whilst clipped in, the Time’s are better in muddy conditions though.

Jeffus – your spec list seems to match perfectly with the new Santa Cruz TR carbon frame – 120mm travel, tapered headset, 68 degree headangle, cable guides for a dropper post – boxes all ticked!

I’ve already seen a Yeti ASR-5C with a cracked swingarm (cracked around the lower main pivots, both sides) so not sure if that might end up being a one off or a weak spot on them.

In terms of the SC Blur xc Carbon, pre 2011 models have been known to suffer from sheared upper ti linkage bolts, this often rapid failure in turn overstresses the right seat stay often causing it to crack. The bolts have been altered on the 2011 model so this issue should be fixed now. They’re otherwise pretty solid frames.

2011 SC Blur XC Carbon w RP23, Fox F120RLC’s, XTR / XO gearing, Marta SL brakes, Roval Control SL wheels, Racing Ralph / Rocket Ron combo, Syntace stem, Chris King headset, S-Works carbon bars…

Approx 23 lbs, maybe I’m being pesimistic with the weight of my Blur, or njee20 is being overly optomistic with his… things I could change are replacing my Thomson Elite seatpost and lock on grips to foam jobbies but I still struggle to understand how there can be full 3 lb difference between a v top spec Blur xc carbon vs a Top Fuel… ;-)

Fran, that Stumpjumper FSR Pro is what I had before I sold mine at the end of last year, served me very well so I’d recommend it. I swapped the Brain rear shock for a Fox RP23 like that Bikescene example and it was all the better for it, is a good all rounder. Did me proud at Bristol Bikefest in 2010!

:-)

It’s probably just more straightforward if I outline the problem!

My Fork steerer tube length = 190mm
My Thomson stem height = 40mm
Ibis Mojo frame = 145mm head tube length

145mm frame head tube length + 40mm stem height only leaves me 5mm to play with for headset stack height. Now thankfully the Mojo uses an integrated headset but even so any low stack headset is gonna be a very close call.

What shops sell the Cane Creek IS2 headset that generally comes on Mojo frames?

Any ideas gratefully welcomed!!

Dr_Bakes – I’m just undertaking some research!

davidj – just to clarify, is that a 1/1-8th Hope integrated headset you’ve got?

Anyone else on here running zero stack headsets on your Mojo frames – I need a list ! :-)

Cheers.

AGray – incredibly likely Im going to be selling the 2009 RP23HV I’ve currently got fitted to my Enduro SL as the frame should be sold soon with the original AFR shock. I’ll therefore have no need for the RP23 anymore so let me know if you’d be interested in buying it. Having had it fitted to my Enduro SL it’ll come with all the right bushings to fit yours.

seanoc – have you been diagnosed with it aswell then? With me a winter of spinning classes seems to have caused it together with trying to use new Shimano SPDs with minimal float.

I usually spin with a really high cadence whereas the spin classes have you spinning high loads at really low cadence, this seems to have caused a leg muscle imbalance which inturn is now causing the kneecap to not track across the knee as it used to.

Saw a guy at the weekend on a 2 month old 2011 Yeti ASR5 Carbon and it had cracked both sides of the chainstay either side of the main swingarm bearings… not overly impressive…

Yeti and MSC aside, carbon frames are generally fine. I know someone who flared open a headtube on a carbon xc hardtail frame but that’s probably because he was forever doing stoppies on it, not really the intended use of a lightweight race frame I imagine…

dustypumpkins – I posted a very similar thread yesterday, got overwhelmingly good reviews for Time ATAC pedals.

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/any-look-quartz-time-atac-xs-clipless-pedal-users-on-here-reviews

Frankers – cheers for that. Yep, I was looking at the ATAC XS Carbon’s, there’s some great deals for them, around £95 which seems pretty decent.

Cheers.

Hmmm, looking like Time ATAC’s are getting an overwhelming good review on here then! Looks like they’ll be the ones I go for, one further question though, do you get 1 set of cleats with them or do you have to purchase them seperately?

Cheers.

2011 SC Blur xc Carbon with Fox F120 forks.

Great race xc bike but also awesome as a trail bike as the frame is so stiff and with those forks a 68ish degree head angle is quite handy.

Cheers for replies, certainly v useful to hear other peoples experiences.

I’ve previously been lucky in that after about 3 weeks of seriously getting back into the biking schedule end of Jan / Feb time of the year it fades away and disappears for the rest of the year. Just slightly more concerned this time as my right leg was almost locked straight on Sunday due to the pain, I hadn’t been like that before. I’ve also been doing spinning sessions for the first time this winter, I was wondering if this might have been the cause. I usually spin a very high cadance on my bikes, however, spinning sessions have had me pushing very high load at slow cadance, not what I usually do… hmmm.

2010 Covert frame w RP23 bargain! Within budget – £999.99!

http://evocycles.co.uk/products.php?plid=m4b0s353p1172