I was going to say paper bark acer, and I see its on the list linked above ^

Can grow in even the worst climates, like where I live ;)

Are all Schwalbe tyres going to be radial, or will you still be able to buy the non radial versions?

I suspect unless they’re really lightweight tyres that might have a reason to remain crossply, cheap tyres they can’t be bothered to update, or road tyres which might go full radial (The new tyres aren’t actually ‘radial’) then most will migrate to radial. The ability to run higher pressures without losing grip/comfort* seems like a ono brainer for a more consistent ride in corners.

* comfort is obviously compromised at times – but its not all the time, just those times where a softer tyre would have provided more overall cushioning.

I like mine.

@Northwind – Im unaware of any non-radial related casing changes from Super Trail to Trail Pro, not that that means they’re not there, but I don’t know of anything. That said, for me Trail has always been fine. I usually destroy tyres at the rim bead, and Schwalbe are really good for not doing that.

@Dick we sell (Bird) the bottles and can also check it on an Aether for you. I also found a few angle adjusters too. Just give us a call! Depending on the shock I can make a 600 work no problems, maybe even the fat 750.

Depends on the mount you had. e4s work fine with the likes of Shimano, where a v4 wont as the big piston clashes with the mount. However if you have Hope mounts (or SRAMs IIRC) you can use them for both.

As others say, the public vs private argument isn’t the issue

Yeah it definitely is.

I don’t really understand the restriction on their use by under 14s, from a legislation point of view.

Do you think it should be OK to give an 8 year old a bike that weighs as much as they do with a 600w max motor and let them loose on the roads?

As for the original question, others have answered it, it’s Ts and Cs for BPW and it’ll be the same at 417

Actually its probably not. The issue is with public forests, and whether they are classified as roads (the access and fire-roads etc.). BPW exists within a publicly owned forest, whereas I believe 417 is on private land. The rules would be different as I understand it.

I looked into this for coaching/guiding for a friend and the underlying law is not totally clear on the road Vs. Off road element (unless some clarity has been added). It was our conclusion therefore that interpretation as no under 14s was the best policy as it prevents you ending up on the wrong side if something should happen. I guess BPW has the same idea.

Two things you should do.

1. Have the bushings burnished. If you bought the bike from us we’ll do that for free. Other brands may not.

2. Consider a swap to 3wt damper oil. It really opens the fork up.

3. Get rid of any tokens.

Comrie and Laggan are my 2 favourite trail centres in the country. Unique in many ways,  both great. I rode Laggan on Saturday on my 180mm enduro bike and it still works just fine. Trails need to be hard nowadays as bikes got so good, up and down. What I love about Comrie is how random it is. Not random bad, but random as in built to use the terrain, not to hit a KM target, so every bit of trail just goes where it needs to to use the terrain, not forced down a certain route.

thats an odd comment. When/why did people stop doing that?

I think its a combination of factors, relating to eBike vs. regular bike riders, costs of bike ownership vs. free cash to then go away, Covid, the rise of bike parks which tend to be less multi day trip orientated… There’s a whole load of reasons but I believe what was once a really common thing to do has become far less common in the last few years.

The rise of van life, the appeal of BPW (over trail centers in the region) and the demise of the mates biking weekend will all be factors I suspect.

Hope it works out fine for the owners, sold or staying open. Always liked staying there but now we’re the wrong end of the country.

Yeah they’re not cheap eh? I eventually gave up looking and got a set of alloy wheels off a new vehicle for effectively the price of the new (conti) tyres that were on there, sold the tyres on at 60% of their value and the wheels were then dirt cheap – like £150 for a set of 18s, so it can be done at a reasonable price.

There’s still a few winter wheel bargains around for the likes of Skodas, but not much.

I really like these – https://winstanleysbikes.co.uk/sdg-slater-jr-pedals

The metal studs deliver a good upgrade over full plastics in the wet without being shin/calf/trouser destroyers.

jnr’s had a set for years now, we just swap from bike to bike. Watch out for the crank hole size as mentioned, although mine has had his since 20″ wheels.

There’s no preload as they are air forks. You can adjust the air or the damping. You might find it is the opposite issue of too soft thats the problem. Cheaper forks tend to suffer from the problem of chokey damping, which means it all feels fine until it isn’t. You smash through half the travel then you end up hitting high speed damping and air ramp at the same time, and the fork stops moving abruptly, which you feel through the hands.

I would consider adding compression damping (the top dial) as a possible solution, dissapating more energy in a linear manner from the start, so that you don’t get it all at once later in the stroke.

My understanding was that volunteers can’t build much of anything as that had been tendered out on an exclusive basis, and so with no budget, and an exclusive contractor, nothing actually happens.

Just email us and we’ll send you a new one. It sounds like it may have been made a little fat combined with a fat steerer making a stack of tolerances that don’t work.

My tips:

Tip 1: but the appropriate t handle took from DT. Double squares need the red handle.

Tip 2: lace your wheels 1 spoke at a time, with a fully spokes hub to start. Do all your inner spokes first with the wheel upright, then lay down the wheel and do the outers.

That is all you need to do. you might screw one up and have to do the nipple jiggle dance to get it out, but hopefully  not. Save time by oiling all your nupples at once with a bottle of whatever oil you have to hand and a strainer.

Bonus tip: buy a double square bit for a drill and use that to add a small amount of tension to every spoke. From there true and finish is just a few laps of the wheel with even tension added each time.

Drugs Mule?

Gambling dens. They probably shipped an awful lot of drugs too.

had relationships with Epstein

Everybody had relationships with Epstein if you were in big money. I used to work in those circles and I met many full on legit criminals and gangsters who had connections with all kinds of people, as well as meeting billionaires, footballers and other sports stars, and even Elon Musk once too. On one Mexican trip I was effectively kidnapped by a crime lord and met the vice president of Mexico within the space of 48 hrs. Both in relation to the work I was doing.

People have a tendency to completely overplay these things. There’s good people and bad people, and while they’re not going to invite them round for dinner, in most lines of business they’ll often end up doing business in some way anyway.

I have this in my house. 2 ‘identical’ stoves (visually anyway) one pre one post regs update. Same chimney set up. Old one burns nicer and cleaner than the new one. Not night and day but enough I have considered swapping them as we use the room with the new one in way more.

I find the solution to the smoke issue is just to burn it hard for a minute before you refuel. Removes the smoke from the system as well as getting the new fuel going quicker.

Yeah, gone from low 20s to high 20s.

I have a radial Mary on the front and it’s a great tyre. Grippy AF but also draggy too. It’s a fair trade off I think, seems like I got more performance upsides than downs, but don’t buy it it you don’t have gravity on your side. It’s a slog on the flatter stuff.

One thing no one has mentioned that I have seen is that the tread is wider spaced on the new one. So there’s less groups of nobbles which means better mud clearance but slightly worse dry performance I guess (dry hasn’t been a feature of my riding this far)

I can’t believe I put up with a supposedly 5 KW made in England somewhere stove for ten years, useless it was

I have 2 of them, and mine burn hot and clean. Rarely need more than a half firefighter and to be ignored for 10 mins to be fully up to heat.

My top tip is to go to Home Bargains and buy some of their bagged wood. Its a birch from someone called woodfuel or something like that. Honestly for £5 a bag its like rocket fuel. Its super dry (or at least the stuff near us is) and hence burns really well, and you get a decent bag for your fiver. Even if you buy in bulk, or like me make your own, having some starter wood that you can store indoors  and use just a half log at a time makes all the difference to getting it going right, quickly.

Then poish of with dry newspaper or kitchen roll. Or you can buy glass cleaner

You don’t need to clean it. Wipe the worst off with a damp kitchen roll and the fire will do the rest for you. If it doesn’t go away you’re not using dry enough wood/have it shut down too much.

One thing to remember is at the end of the period of use open the vent(s) and burn the remains off hard, don’t shut it down so it ‘stays warm’.

Yes. If you don’t have a good draw for whatever reason then you need to light it slowly, start with just a couple of bits of kindling at a time until some heat builds, its the heat rising that will start the draw and once its going you’ll be fine. It also helps keep the flue clean even when the draw is good as it warms it before you pump it full of smoke so you don’t get too much condensing on the flue.

Buy an english heritage membership and you get 5-10% off depending what you’re doing (IIRC). OK so you maybe don’t want an EH membership, but hey, you still save money most likely too. Also be flexible on route helps, we usually go in one port out another depending on price at each.

Yes and no….

Generally 12 speed chains on 11 speed cranks is no problems. However Shimano’s 12 speed chains feature extensions on the narrower plates that intrude into the space between the rollers. This means there’s less room for teeth (mud, grit etc.). On a 12 speed ring it has a revised tooth profile that will accomodate this. If you put a 12 speed shimano chain on a new ring of any other type my experience is that its noisy and annoying until its not – when the chain has worn the ring to match. Putting it on a used ring therefore could be just fine out of the box (or it will drive you insane/and or possibly skip when dirty).

12 speed chainrings are good with everything else.

The clutch on the XPLR is too weak, I wouldn’t bother if I was you. I hear the new transmission RED one is stronger though….

ot enough air is often the issue – they need a certain amount of air pressure for the lock to work right.

The proposal is for 40 of them with between 3 and 10 riders plus the other ways to enter sounds like a lot of riders being able to compete.

That’s 40 over 4 disciplines, but not really as the ’15’ will all likely be mixed discipline big teams. Trek, Spec etc. They’ve left 5 places for others across DH and Enduro, and 5 XC and SC. The reality is it will be less than 30 teams across all mtb disciplines.

Some people might think that’s enough, but I think part of the appeal of dh Vs other big sports has always been it’s open nature. If you’re good enough as a racer you can race. Now if you’re good enough you’ll still have to find a place on one of 20-30 teams. Sure there’s other ways to get an entry, but without a team backing you every round, for most it’s just lip service, and given ews history of sponsor blackouts for racers that don’t ride for a team that paid the team tax, I expect they’d think it fine to extend that into the other disciplines meaning if you’re sponsored by someone outside the top teams you should expect almost zero coverage, no matter how well you do.

I’m not certain where it goes entirely but I know it is a lot on the pikes teeth side, just lower down.

I don’t think the plans are terrible for MTB. Work on the new blue has started (although based on recent English forestry trail centre works I would expect a cat litter topped flow trail not suited to riding fast or slow more likely than not), and the area of the plans is reasonably compact and wont effect the trails too much, however there are some issues I foresee:

#1 the 20% charge on activities in the forest is already hurting independents and retailers alike. If FE pursue this policy on the new site it will mean the bike hub will never open – no one can afford a 20% surcharge on their pricing.

#2 the forest isn’t interesting enough, big enough, or in an interesting enough area to sustain expensive forest cabins. It’s just not a touristy enough area and while the landscape to the west is attractive in a bleak kind of way, its freezing cold half the year and wet, windy or wet and windy the other half which what keeps it bleak and uninhabited, but also not that appealing to posh cabin dwellers.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Hamsterley and I don’t actually mind the new plans, I think the Go Ape will add a lot, I know me and my kids will use it from time to time, but I think the forest cabins are going to struggle and I can’t see any of the new developments having a specifically positive impact on the MTB side, neutral at best.

The plans also face big challenges from the residents of the forest, there’s actually quite a number of people who live in the forest and will be directly impacted by the plans, while the planning will be minded to approve things that positively impact tourism, its hard to argue they wont have a significant negative impact on residents.

RC shoes are currently cheap at Evans / SD. Owned by fox so you can bet they have very similar rubber to Fox but Ive found the soles to be supportive, and the D3O ones even more so.

I mention RC as even though you didn’t like the Vice, the Vice isn’t a real riding shoe by any standard I would care to measure it by, its a going down the pub on your bike shoe. Something like a Helion is a way better actual riding shoe.

I liked Rework when I read it. Had some good pointers.

Thanks for the PSA! My wife said she should get me a machine for my B’day/Chrimble/just because to save me pinching the work one when were away. The boys at the factory will be grateful! With 100 pods the machine is very cheap indeed.

We use Heja for Jnr’s rugby. Works well and does what you want (If Ive understood the brief)

You’d still need to do the form itself in google or similar, but the collation of the attendance for the event etc. works well BUT its all app based so each parent will need the app, which is a challenge in itself.

And DEFINITELY tax all cars weighing over 2 tonnes for the increased road damage they cause.

Broadly speaking they already do that. On average a heavier vehicle will produce more emissions, and so pay more VED.

The only exception is for electric cars, which are very heavy (Relatively speaking) and pay little/no VED.

I was at Knebworth in 1996. While that was a great gig, not sure I would want to see the middle age versions. Especially not for north of £100 for bog standard tickets.

It’s the size not the weight that’s a big difference.

45gram Gravel Lightweight RideNow 700 x 32C-47C Inner Tube 45mm,65mm & 85mm Valves

Honestly don’t know about the c02 part but seems fine otherwise.