6ft 5, 215lbs and an xl yeti sb6, it’s the first bike I’ve ever run a 35mm stem on and felt comfortable

don’t worry you only need to start panicking if you loose two, then shit yourself.

Hope. it’s as clear at night and day. I have the short term luxury of having 2 mountain bikes at the mo, one with Hope Tech 3 E4’s on and the other with XT’s, both sets of brakes are pretty new. Six month ago, I would have said XT’s and had briefly tried bikes with hope brakes on, and wasn’t totally convinced, but after spending time on a bike with hope’s on, they are so much better in feel and response, both have loads of power and would even say the xt’s have more, it’s just the hopes just have way more control. It took about an hour of riding to feel comfortable with the hope brakes, and to get over that, “are they powerful enough” feel, because they definitely are. I have bled both sets of brakes after shortening lines and never had a problem with either.

As for weight Hope tech E4’s weigh less than XT’s not by much, so I wouldn’t really give a monkeys unless weight is everything to you.

unless you have chicken levers, dont forget where your brakes are, sounds stupid but if all you have ever ridden is flat bar bikes, it can be done. on the first ride out on my cx, I had to slow down to go round a metal barrier, by the time i remembered the brakes were no longer on the top, it was to late, id hit the gate, I went over the top and landed like a sack of s**t and the new bike was left with a nasty 2 inch gouge in the head tube. :oops:

I have snapped 3 alloy bikes and to date the carbon bike is still intact despite a couple of biggish offs , the alloy bikes were all from big companies. As already said, carbon is stronger if made well. The problem with all bikes is we think they are well made, until they break.

lonesome pine, the last 5 minutes back to kielder village is ok the rest is pretty dull,

bloody bush – fire road with a touch of pretty average to poor single track thrown in, but great views, and riding over the moors on the boardwalk is a novelty.

Deadwater and up and over are the best bits, the first descent off Deadwater is pretty pointless as its just a straight blast down some old washed out farm track, and not really worth the climb to the top. the rest is good though.

osprey – take the children.

for trail riding if you are from scotland / lakes, stay there, there are better trails where you live. If you are from England, keep driving to Tweed valley or the lakes.

If you want miles and miles of fire road chat with your mates, great views with the occasional blast, Kielder is the one.

hopefully you should side step all the frame issues then, they both ride really well and the sight in the right setup feels like alot more bike than it is, the horst link is really active, great for downhill but not so good uphill especially if you are a big guy and like pedaling out the saddle on climbs, you will feel a lot of bob, and need to use the climb switch a lot. if you want a big bike and want to hit big jumps and drops on trails go range otherwise the sight will handle it.

if your bike is a 95 then the wait is because there are no more swing arms, worth checking out mtbr yeti forum on this issue. If it’s another model then just yeti been super slow. though its not exclusive to yeti, 8 weeks for a swing arm was my longest, right in the middle of summer.

what year Sight? , if its a 2013 / 2014 Alloy one I wouldn’t go near it, the seat stays are known to fail, Ive been through 3, they have added more weld to the 2015 stays so hopefully this will sort it, Carbon sights get the odd paint chip but seem to be sound. The 2014 Carbon Range had a total recall for cracked BB’s, and 2013/2014 alloy range had similar issues with the stays as the sight. As for ability i ran a sight with 150mm pikes and cane creek dbair on and it got me down everything I could throw at it, lake district, scotland. In that set up its a great bike, Ive put the old revelations rtc3’s and the fox ctd back on and it will still take a beating but you get thrown around alot more on the rocks and root. Im not from south but while visiting a mate rode straight down the north side of devils dyke on it. A sight with pikes and a 1/2 decent shock will cover most riding.

Definately the dog owners fault, I had a similar incident and the owner took full responsibility, there were not children involved and the dog sadly came off much worse. I was cycling along a disused line saw a guy with his jack Russell, alerted him to my presence and slowed down, he got hold of his dog, but just as I was cycling past he let go of it, why I don’t know, the dog bolted and ran straight in front of my bike and I went over the top of it. The dog clearly had a broken back and was in a bad way, I stopped and helped him take it back to his car, despite been really upset, man I was gutted, he was really apologetic and kept asking if I was ok. Don’t know if it survived. As for grabbing your kid, if that was mine and I’d seen it, I would have lamped him.

160mm pikes from bikediscount.de £542 http://www.bike-discount.de/en/buy/rock-shox-pike-rct3-27%2C5-solo-air-160-tapered-maxle-lite-15-black-86867/wg_id-5224

On a hardtail from glenridding, up keppel cove then along over whiteside upto the summit then back down via whiteside and raise, and down sticks pass. Dollywaggon may be a bit much on a hardtail, if you do go down dollywaggon, I would recommend flats as it’s easy to dab and clipping back in is one to many things to think about. That Birkside route looks great as well, not done it, but will now. Hellvellyn isn”t that big a ride and easily done in 1/2 a day so combining it with the ulswater singletrack is a great day. Gear, standard 2.something Tyres with reasonably strong casing. Wet / cool weather clothing even in summer. Spares, and repairs, water, food and a map. Don’t take to much as you just have to carry it up. Have a great ride, it’s great up there.

As much or as little as you want it to be, if your asking to justify not buying one, then in reality not much better, but if your asking to justify buying one, then I’m sure when you start riding it, it will be loads better. Will it make you even 10% faster , probably not, will you suddenly start riding like a pro, no. Will you love riding it, and think it’s the dogs danglers , absolutely yes. It’s your money and your ride.

I Have had both, and still use the lev, love the 150mm and cable simplicity , no barbs to snap and hydraulic fluid going everywhere, but I have to say I still prefer the feel of the button and smoothness of actuation on the reverb, and will probably put a reverb on the next build.

Thanks for those pointers gazc, yes I’ll definatley be using the garmin, plan to solo ride so every little bit helps.

I can not praise these guys highly enough, bought a new frame, saw they hadn’t made a kit for my size frame, so ordered the large, but put a note on the order asking if it would fit and xl, rather than just sending a large out they worked out the sizing for an xl frame and made one up for me on a bank holiday, kit arrived 2 days later. remember there’s only a couple of them so i’m sure they can be pretty stowed under from time to time, but catch it right and they will do what they can to help.

many thanks for this, interesting what was said about the pedal north route, and maybe i shouldn’t underestimate the time taken to do it, especially as the days get shorter. Thanks

I have demo’d a 5c and own a 6c, both amazing bikes, you would not be disappointed, the 5 is more playful and fun, the 6 is a root eating monster. for the vast majority of trails the 5 is all you need, it you like very steep stuff the 5 will manage well, but the 6 likes it better. The switch infinity is strangely (I don’t know how it works, it just does) amazing both climb very well, my 6c much better than my old 140mm bike and the 5c better again. All bikes can break I snapped my alloy norco last year, and I know someone that snapped a rear swing arm on an orange 5, even though that does seem impossible. I am writing this with a smashed shoulder after taking the 6c over a good sized drop, that I had ridden before and stacking it, total rider error, the bike bounced, hit rocks, a tree, made some weird carbon fibre hollow noises, but is total fine unlike me, I have checked it 3 times, to be sure. I cant say a yeti won’t break but then the same goes for any bike, and they do have a 5 yr warranty if it happens.

id also agree with duffrider my pivot bolt bearing used to come loose on a frequent basis, I also have a 13 alloy frame, the newer model seem to have a much more substantial bolt/bearing setup so maybe they have looked into the problem?

Also agree on the Evans issue, I snapped my chain stay coming off a drop, Evans / Norco were happy to replace under warranty as the weld on one of the cable routes was defective, good. But it took 2 months to get the new stay, not good. the Evans store kept saying they were having problems with the distributor,which wasn’t the best line as they are the sole distributor/retailer in the UK. It came in the end and also the pivot bolt issue on the new stay never arose.

the other thing to be aware of is that because evans are the sole supplier replacement bearing are a fortune through them, for the lot and replacement shock bolts you are looking at £150+, they are only enduro bearing and the bolts show very little wear, so you can do it much cheaper.

Im going to go against the flow on the climbing thing. Ive ridden a 650b alloy sight for 2 1/2 years, really great bike, much more capable than you would expect a 140mm bike to be. the norco take of the horst link makes for a very good descending platform. The only thing I would say against them is that horst link which is great for going down hill is a bit to active climbing, particularly technical climbing, especially when you want to get out the saddle, you just seem to loose so much power through the suspension. If your a light rider then you will be fine, Im not. I tried everything 300psi, push fit the shock, cane creek dbcs, all made some improvements but it was still there compared to other bikes.If you climb in the saddle you will probably never notice it. won’t stop me getting another one either.

Pushing old folk / dog walker off trails, as you fly past shouting STRAVA

without suspension when you ride over rock you just bonce with the big tyres, Mostly Balanced – figure of speech , too be fair they do much less damage than a standard trail bike in wet muddy conditions because the spread the load, it was one of the reasons I bought one, so that I could continue riding my favourite natural trail through the winter without rutting them up, keeping the trail fairies happy.

im with hot fiat on this one, manufacturers need to grow some balls and slacken the angles a bit. my fat bike has a 68.5 % head angle and thats not slack enough, you can really feel the difference compared to the FS. might have a look for an angle set if i can find one for the bluto.

ive only had my fat bike a couple of weeks and now it’s total useless, damn you turner bikes.

more travel the better on a fat bike imo. you run into a rock garden fast with only 100mm of travel on a fatty and you know about it. its great to see fat bikes evolving so quickly. only a few years ago they were the domain of the pipe smoking, sowester wearing beach bunch. now they are becoming full sus monster trucks capable of destroying any trail at any time of year, and in any condition. bring it on.

many thanks for the advice, long and low seems to be the one. the xl nukeproof also is the slackest of the two bikes. cheers

cheers folks, yer seen it work on a 40T not a 42T, since moving to a 1×10 i seem to he dropping the chain a fair bit, even with a narrow wide and a clutch mech. tried one of those little bionicon thing, there crap, lasted amount 2 weeks. might look at a single speed mounted tensioner next.

:| upload not working oh well

I usually use the track pump to avoid the drying out issues, though that said I have never had a massive problem when I use the co2 cans. It looks unlikely has I will get the on the plane with co2 cans, so either smuggle the track pump into the wifes luggage or run tubes may be the best options

plush – when has riding over rock and roots felt like a velvet sofa from DFS, or a roll of andrex bog paper.

I’ve ridden both the pike 150 650b and the revelation 140 rct3 on a Norco sight killer b. I always found the revs problematic. In that they struggled to cope with very varied trail conditions under the same setup. If they ran smooth then they were prone to dive under braking and if more pressure was put in then they felt to harsh. The factory recommended pressure always felt to harsh. But anything less resulted in bottom outs. The pikes so far have been spot on. They feel stiffer, and definitely don’t dive or bottom out under the same conditions. I was always flicking between the 3 settings on the revs but tend to ride in the middle setting on the pikes. With the pikes you feel you have more confidence to take on bigger hits, 150 mm of travel on the sight killer b feels right. Norco should have built the bike with this travel as standard, but then it would have been to close to the Range, which would have been pointless for flogging / marketing their bikes.

pulled the damper out and got to the bottom of the problem, deffo a warranty job, though why it is happening is beyond me, if the problem 4 weeks ago was caused by the same issue, which i believe it was, as the end result was exactly the same, then I would love to know why, as twice in 4 weeks on a new set of forks is a bit strange? especially when the damper was replaced.

anyway I am no good on technical names, so took a pic. as you can see the metal plate on the top of the rod has chipped, the reverse of the other is the same. why this is failing when in lockout, whilst riding on the least technical surface possible – ie flatish tarmac or track is beyond me? – sorry about the wall paper , missus is away so took the bike apart in the kitchen – she likes the retro stuff.

Thanks – looks like a bit of tinkering over the next day or two.

thanks stuartlangwilson not opened a fork up yet, but have looked at the service instructions and it looks pretty straight forward, were was your problem located and what do you think is the cause?

bit late to the party, but saw this thread so thought I would comment. have had a sight killer B1 for 3 months, XL size as also 6 ft 4, to date I cannot really fault it, great fit and great do anything trail bike. I have had no build quality issues, and have read a few reviews and have not seen any mention of build quality, would love to know which davosaurusrex was reading? the rockshox forks took time to bed in & some adjusting to get right, but are spot on now, but would be great to compare with the new fox 140mm. The turner burner looks a great bike, I did look at it, but could not get the xl or 2xl at the time – sure you would not go far wrong with either the norco or turner, though i would love to try a turner. 650b is the way forward even for taller riders. the bike tore up my brothers specialized enduro, and my 29 has never been touched since.