At the risk of turning into TJ here.. I've said this before and I'll say it again… (blah blah)
After a few rides the flexure of the sleeves will make the wires poke out the ends. These compress at high tensions and throw out the indexing. Cut the sleeves a bit long at first and then trim them off later. After a bit of work they settle down. I would dare say that there is no such thing as cable stretch.. only sleeve shrinkage.
And always always use sealed end caps. The little rubber grommet does a very good job of keeping the crap out. Thanks little rubber grommet!

Edit.. and as above, jockey wheels are always the first bit to die in a mech. LX ones are always cheap though.

Oops.. Mine are the wrong way up. Will I die?

erm.. Think i was a bit drunk when replying about the Enigma last night!

It's made to the same spec as the Ego (AFAIK, although it's a few years old and the current one looks slightly different) and of the same stuff. It's really stiff on the climbs, about as good as my old Klein, but definitely has more vertical spring on the downs. It feels really planted when you point it downhill, but that's partly down to the Reba Team's I put on it. It's got nice short chainstays and so is nice and flickable on the singletrack.
It's about a million gazillion times better than the old Inbred. Scientific fact.

How do find your Steel Enigma?

Mines a bit of a special one… They were looking for a factory to see if the mass of steel suff could be moved east to open the market a bit.
However, I agree with Jim. The quality just aint the same that they offer. The welding on mine is rough but does the job. I love their ideas about shape and size though.

I've seen plenty of Strokers with a sluggish master cylinder. Plenty more 9's with sticky slave pistons. I have a feeling that the issue with the 9's is due to road salt so if you only ride them off road then they are plenty good.
I've had leaky LX callipers which was really surprising. I replaced them with 760 XTs and all is good now. For that reason I'd recommend either cheapy deores (I had one of the first ones and it was good until I replaced the calliper with the aforementioned LX's) or XT and above.
Hopes aren't all that powerful but never seem to go that wrong. squirt them with silicone lube and work them and they are suddenly good as new.

Some lovely bikes there and a quite extraordinary number of headset spacers

Yeah, sorry about that. Haven't decided which bike the forks will live on yet… and frankly I'm leaving them there now just to annoy you.

Edit.. Although Scienceofficer needs to sort his shit out. Ow many?

90, 90 and.. er.. 90.
That's on an Enigma Steel hardtail, Kona Kula SS and an 05 Trance with 120mm forks. They've all got pretty much the same top tube length, all about medium size, and I'm about 5ft10. I've found my comfy point and I'm sticking to it.
I did have an 18" inbred which ended up with a 70mm Thomson. Right size, but it used to wheelie up hills. Ripped down them though. Compared to the Enigma it was like riding a bike made of jelly.

The roadie stems I'm using on two of my bikes seem to be doing fine.. Even the 26.0 one that's shimmed down with 3 layers of Sainsburys lemonade can!

Watch out for the arsenic

When I used to live in Falmouth a mate told me about a lake jump they'd built into one of the pools down there… He went a little white when I told him about the arsenic! At least that cleared up why they were all feeling a little sick afterwards.

Here's one:

I'd show you the dirty hack claude butler for the road but it's so ugly it would burn your eyes.

Giant. But as above, you'll find that a lot of old model bikes have a better spec for the money. 2010 bikes often aren't that hot for the price

For some reason I thought of Kylie.. mmmmm Kylie

The black SP41 seems to harden and develop cracks. not sure why.. sunlight maybe? The sealed endcaps are awesome though.

Good. I'm glad I wasn't imagining it then!

Mine is made of Columbus BTW, and is molto rapido..

I'd heard (and I'm being a rumour-monger here) that quite a lot of frames only used posh steel for the main tubes and not the stays. That's where the biggest weight saving can be had, and obviously it's fine to stick an 853 sticker to an 853 tube…
I'm a fan of Gary Klein's reasoning that the feel and efficiency of a bike is in it's chainstays, again just being a rumour-monger..

Do it. MTFU!

Wow. That sent shivers down my spine.
3 things scare me.. Cars, knives and guns. In that order.

The Bell Rock Lighthouse:

mental!

The dedication and willpower that went into building it was amazing.

Nowt wrong with disc front and v back.. Gives you some "Oh shiiii.." power when you need it.
Asymmetric clobber on the bars just gives a kind of Doc Emmett Brown feel.

If you can feel a clunk when lifting it and dropping it then it's the shock bushings, however a side motion shouldn't be due to them.
Disconnect the shock and give the rear end a good old wiggle in a solid workstand. If any of the bearings are rough or loose then replace all of them.

You can get a complete hub for £17 and you get a spare freehub and bearings virtually for free..

here

Edit.. Damn.. Beaten on both price and time!

Crofton Beam Engines on the Kennet and Avon Canal in Wiltshire.
One of the engines there is just short of 200 years old and can still do its original job! It lifts lifts about 12 tonnes of water a minute to supply the canal summit.

do the above and stick the pads in the oven at 180c for a few minutes. should burn off any oil. never use disc brake cleaner with the pads in. It just causes oil to migrate from the calliper to the pad surface

blah blah blah.. here's a tip for everyone who has gears on their bike, SRAM or Shimano, because both work really well if set up properly.
Trim the cables and sleeves slightly long at first and then use it for a good few rides. Take the cables out and pop off the end caps. Cleanly cut off the ends of the sleeves (which should by now have the internal wires poking out some).
If you reassemble them after this and give the cable a good tug to settle it down then they should be super sharp, no matter what it says on your rear mech.

Nice to know. My dad has a few Arcam bits. They sound lovely and do nothing more or less than that.

rings from 760 will work on 770, but not the other way around as they are wider around the bolt holes

Allen key, threadlock, grease.

I just got some LX ones for 2.99 each, and I don't care how long they might last!

prob just dislodged from the hook that holds it in place.
It's a bit of a "stab yourself in the hand with a screwdriver" job but can be put back

Your deore brakes will chew through the arms of xt ones. the pad is deeper. Not sure about ashima ones.. probably? I've used hayes rotors on deore brakes before and that was fine

It's worth chucking a teaspoonful of new oil in the freehub every 6 months or so. Quite an easy 5 minute job and it stops any early wear of the bushing and pawls.
Mavics take a bit of tinkering sometimes (checking the bearing preload etc) but usually last well.

If it's like my girlfriends 1.4 of the same era then the coils are prone to quitting. She had two go within two weeks..

However, when they died they stayed dead.

If you've got a local freecycle/freegle group then stick it on there.

Fox sidewinder. Bomb proof and a really nice fit

Crikey! They might take issue with how long you rode it after it had failed, but that's a hard one to quantify. Either way, their work should be covered by a guarantee. As Jamie says, you need to know how it failed but if a part they fixed failed within 5km then it's their responsibility in any case.

Surely it's just cheapy no-name spokes fatiguing. Just get a respoke with DT or Sapim spokes.. As long as there's no flat spots or bends in the rim and the hubs are still smooth.

The damage to the frame is their responsibility.. However I'd be surprised if it was severe enough to cause an issue. Bring it to their attention and have a think about whether you want to push the issue with them. Can you post some pictures?

With you there. They are the best pumps.

er.. I snapped a triple trying to straighten a rear mech hanger by heaving on the mech bolt! Total lazy bodge, but it would never have happened with a Park triple!

The other thing with Pedros is that they make some of the smaller sizes mis-sized.

I've got a Castelli roubaix fleece top from about 97ish. I wear it all the time whenever it's under 15 degrees or so. The zip is finally dying but that aint going to stop me using it.

It's up there with the bottle cage on my old Klein which was all that was left after numerous upgrades.

Slowrider.. we didn't need to see it all covered in sex wee!