Thanks all for the above.

Certainties for me are therefore XTR 11sp rear shifter and XTR 11sp rear mech (this ends up being approx £145 cheaper than XX1 equivalents).

I’m still weighing the cassette up on a cost basis although I’ll most likely just plump for an XTR 11sp initially:

– XTR 11sp cassette e.g. £151.99 at Merlin
or
– XX1 Cassette £229.99 (CRC) + Roval / DT Swiss XD Freehub £90 at LBS = £320

Free speech Israeli style…

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/14/israeli-newspaper-hamevaser-merkel-women-charlie-hebdo-rally

jivehoneyjive – because Robert Murdoch had Hollande’s phone tapped who in turn had their phone tapped by Mossad who in turn actually run America and the AP?

Joke… or is it… ;-)

Gunz – I happily used qr dropout 26 forks for years and years however having now moved to a couple of xc 29’ers with 15mm bolt through dropouts the extra stifness is certainly reassuring and very noticeable on off camber descents etc. Like you I was happily unaware of this prior to the bike changes though!

.

UK law would possibly make the publication of today’s edition illegal here.

The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 inserted Section 4A into the Public Order Act 1986. That part prohibits anyone from causing alarm or distress. Section 4A states:

(1) A person is guilty of an offence if, with intent to cause a person harassment, alarm or distress, he— (a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or (b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting, thereby causing that or another person harassment, alarm or distress.

In my legal experience section (b) might do it.

Thanks all again for the replies and ideas posted a week or two back. I took a week or so off the road bike and thankfully suffered no issues whilst being back on a 29’er and happily managed a few New Year 100km Winter epics!

I’ve been back on the road bike over the past week and whilst still suffering a little knee discomfort the adjustments I’ve made to saddle height / moving the saddle further back on the rails and removing the 3 degree Varus insert in my left SPD shoe seems to have stabilised the knee.

The pain is almost certainly caused by the narrower Q factor on the road bike and subsequent mistracking of my patella.

This was an insightful article:

http://www.slowtwitch.com/Tech/Stance_Width_2562.html

In terms of pedals / shoes – I’m using a spare set of Time ATACs (I run ATACs on all my mtbs) so that I can use my current mtb shoes in the short term. The fact I’m using kit straight off my mtbs makes the sudden knee pain on the road bike all the more strange, especially as ATACs have such high levels of float.

The pain itself is acute and underneath the left patella (the right knee is fine!), also some tenderness to the inner edge of the kneecap, it certainly seems to be a patella tracking issue. I got half a mile down the road today and simply couldn’t put any pressure through my knee so had to come straight back home… grrr!

kcal – hmm, 175 cranks on my 29’ers, 175 cranks fitted to the road bike. I have long legs in proportion to my overall height (6ft 2).

scaredypants & sofatester – I’m not 100% ruling out yesterdays high mileage road ride as the sole cause of the pain but at the same time I consistently ride 180-300km per week on my 29’ers so the legs are pretty well used to that sort of mileage.

Thanks for the ideas so far, I’ll take a closer look at the fore/aft saddle position compared to one of my 29’ers – the road bike has a layback post whereas I’ve got inlines on both my mtbs. I’ll look at where the saddle rails are relative to the centre of the seat tube.

I’ll also try some of those bike fit calculators although a bikefit in a LBS certainly confirmed a 58cm would be good.

Seems very strange that 3 road bike rides this week have caused pain in my left knee than nearly 9000km of mountainbiking this year couldn’t!

It’s still dead on my work PC.

I could be wrong but when I was putting a potential road bike order together on the PX website this morning the 20% codes were no longer working… I’d be interested to see if anyone is having any joy with them… They were working last night.

I’ve had 2 sets of XTR HTII BB’s last at least 15,000km, ridden in all weathers, through the odd Winter flood etc with no maintenance. Very impressed with the duarability of XTR BB’s.

…on the other hand my first FSA PF30 BB is starting to feel slightly ‘draggy’ after 1200km… hmmm.

philwarren11 – Thanks, looks and sounds good and not too much at £55. How good are the Praxxis bearings / BB that comes as part of the kit? Looks they come fitted with Enduro bearings so I’m presuming they’re decent.

Sputnik – yeah, even though I’ve been riding mountainbikes since 1993 this will be my first foray into the road bike world!

Cheers everyone else for the replies, plenty to consider there and some really useful points raised. I think that even though my main intention for the bike will be Winter miles it’ll also end up being used for focussed training towards xc racing into next year. I raced the Southern xc’s this year for the first time (finished 5th overall in my category – yay me!) and a roadbike seems like a great additional tool to use for xc race training sessions.

Ah, that’s good to know wwaswas, thanks, what sort of figure do I need to consider as an approximate repair fee? I’ll give Endura a buzz on Monday then. In this case if they’re able to remove the entire arm panel where the slashed section is and put a new panel on as a repair that would do the job perfectly.

Just to throw it into the mix I was curious so did some Strava segment comparisons in recent weeks – ‘tested’ my new 23 lb 120/100mm carbon full sus 29’er versus the times from my previous 21 lb 120mm carbon 26 HT.

The segment conditions were pretty much identical even though on different days – a local dry, dusty wooded and slightly rooty 1.5km singletrack section with a gentle rise and fall and 17m altitude difference. Legs were pretty fresh on both days and I managed to give both efforts what felt like 100% gas with no interuptions.

29’er – 3mins 08 secs – ave speed 29.5km/h

26 – 3mins 26 secs – ave speed 26.9km/h

Make of that what you will. :-)

Ibis Mojo HD.

Just got myself a nice deal on a 2015 Whyte 29-C from my local shop, only been out on 3 rides so far but very impressed with it and the matte black and bright green paint job looks amazing.

I’ve replaced some of the stock Whyte parts at the outset and have put on some weight weenie 29’er carbon wheels, Easton Haven carbon bars, EC90 carbon post, Specialized Romin Evo Pro carbon saddle (170g), 70g Quaxar disk rotors and replaced the stock tyres with some Rocket Ron 2.25 Evo Pacestar, it’s down to 21 lbs now and feels proper quick. I’m also impressed with how it feels descending, very planted and more confidence inspiring than you’d imagine an xc focused hardtail to be, maybe some of that is down to the slack ish (for a 29’er xc bike) 69 degree headangle.

The only negative for me is that the rear brake hose goes via the downtube and under the bottom bracket – I wish it avoided this and went via the left seatstay but that’s just my personal preference and a minor gripe.

I’d thoroughly recommend considering it on your list!

There’s still 451 pairs of these bars left at CRC so they’ve done a massive bulk buy (there were over 700 bars left a few days ago)! 8O

To all the IDF supporters read the following.

This was 10 years ago and just scrapes the iceberg of attrocities that the IDF has committed before and since… In this case the review panel concluded that the Commander didn’t act ‘unethically’. That speaks volumes about the so called ethical standards of the IDF and it’s operations (thankfully the Israeli Military Police charged the Commander seperately).

I never fail to get a lump in my throat reading this text and the incredibly sad vision it creates.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/24/israel

WHAT a stage! Well pleased for Nibali and also for Lars Boom – you’d never guess he’s a previous CX World Champ would you! ;-)

Disk brake equipped carbon forks?

If it’s a star rachet hub then you might not need to remove the cassette. DT 240 hubs for example are puch fit so you can remove the freehub by simply pulling it away from the wheel with the cassette still attached, this provides instant access to the Star Rachet internals. If it’s a new ish wheel then I’d presume there’s too much grease in the rachet if it’s simply spinning without engaging, there really does only need to be a very minimal amount of grease in there.

Sad news as I always make a point of heading in there when I visit Bath. However, when I was there a month or two back the shop was pretty sparse and I got a feeling something might be up. :(

Swirly – the owners manual is on the Marzocchi website archives, e.g.

http://www.marzocchi.com/template/detailProdotti.asp?LN=UK&idC=1592&IdFolder=113&idMY=2147&IdOggetto=2441

Click on the ‘Owners Manuals’ tab on the right hand side and you can open the Pdf.

jonnyboy666 – here you go (at least according to the Marzocchi website), they look like 2007 All Mountain 2 forks. Same colour, 20mm dropout type, top caps etc.

http://www.marzocchi.com/template/detailProdotti.asp?LN=UK&idC=1592&IdFolder=113&idMY=30710&IdOggetto=30794

Mine is 24 lbs – plenty of light weight but strong carbon stuff has helped I suppose, all gear I wouldn’t have a moments hesitation with though.

*I should probably add that my ‘Trail/Enduro’ bike is a 140mm front / 125mm rear travel bike not a 160mm like most listed above so hence the lower weight.

This is the best musical performance of 2013 imo, and it was on Later a few weeks ago. :wink:

tthew – no dazzle issues as the sun rising was positioned off to the right of the road.

Certainly interested by the comments on road positioning – I think in this case he just wasn’t paying attention to the road / his car windows still looked pretty condensated on a cold Autumn morning etc so I presume he’d only shortly got into the car. In this instance I’m personally glad I was riding as close to the white line as poss, if I’d been any further right I fear he would of had me completely off the bike and over the bonnet.

cb – he said he didn’t see me, I had lights going and reflective gear on even though the sun had risen to be pretty bright by around 7.30am. It’s a completely straight, flat section of road for say 600-700m as well so it made the surprise of being hit even greater.

SC TB LTc / TBc2 / Bronson / 5010 frames use a square shaped bearing insert as opposed to the round ones that used work loose and crack – too soon to tell yet but the square shape should limit the unbonding issues.

crashtestmonkey – I was looking at a TRc purchase but after doing some web investigations the news of what seems to be fairly common TRc frame / swingarm cracks I’m now seriously cooling on the idea!

I checked over my Blur XCc last night and thankfully all 100% ok on that front, it’s still immaculate (abeit under a summer’s worth of dust!). :-)

luke1688 – does it look like this? i.e. there is a raised circular bulge forming around the suspension pivot, if there is then it can mean that the insert has come unbonded from within the frame / swingarm.

[/url]

Devs – the above example is a Tallboy Carbon, note the thin, circular ring around the pivot axle bolt. This is one that cracked on the front triangle, the crack and ring is seemingly more common on the lower link mount on the swingarm.

If left, the crack propagates to form a complete ring and at that point the pivot axle and frame insert simply spins in the frame leading to a very wallowly rear end.

[/url]

Butterbean – interesting, the Nomad C as well then… I’ve heard about warranty TRc rear ends lasting all of 3-4 months before they have to be replaced again due to cracks forming, it’s not instilling the greatest confidence.

Looks like the 2013/14 Bronson / Solo / Tallboy Carbon2 now have square inserts as opposed to the circular ones in the lower link mount, time will tell I suppose as to whether cracks form but the square shape should prevent this.

PSA – anyone with a SC Solo will end up having a relatively ‘rare’ bike. It turns out Rocky Mountain own the trademark and rights to mountain bikes bearing the ‘Solo’ name so all subsequent frames will now be named ‘Santa Cruz 5010’…

Pointless update over. ;-)

SC Tallboy LTc is the only bike in the test to get 5/5 yet it doesn’t win ‘Trail Bike of the Year’… hmmm.