"have tried to take the last one out but chickened out when it neared the lip as it needs to be bang on straight when extracting and im bodging it with the "not right" tools"

Well you've got to change it now as bashing away at the inner race will probably have done some damage to the bearing.

Just get it done man! You've got the same tools as everyone else probably – old screwdrivers, bits of metal and a hammer. Only remotely specialist bit of kit you might find useful is a vice to hold the freehub while you knock out the old inner bearing and install the new inner bearing. To install use an imperial socket fractionally smaller than the bearing outer diameter (I forget which size it is) with an extension bar fitted, this will help you to keep it square while you tap it in.

I know you're past the problem in the original post now, but for reference, if the axle doesn't move easily I always use a 3 arm puller hooked round the spoke flange to force it out (with a penny between the shaft of the puller and the end of the axle).

Hitting the axle with any kind of metal hammer is a complete no-no

Why not just fix the problem of the sticky piston rather than wasting a load of paid for pad material and risking taking the ends of your fingers off trying to grind a brake pad?

The fact that half swear by Shimano and the other half swear just as committedly by SRAM must surely say that either way youll get good shifting and there's not much to choose between them in the grand scheme of things.

That yoghurt one with the 'hunger control formula' irritates the crap out of me. I mean, come on, seriously.

I still use my ~8 year old Vistalite Total Eclipse

It's taken everything i have been able to throw at it and is still going strong

Not that that's any help to you since I dont think you can buy them anymore :(

No – but only 'cause I can't wheelie.

Exactly. Neither can I, but that doesnt stop me trying. And failing.

Everyone's stacked it while doing a wheelie in front of a group of onlookers havent they?

self amalgamating tape can also be got from a motor factor as temporary hose repair tape.

Definitely get one from a well known manufacturer, preferably that is stocked at your local model shop. That cheapo chinese never-heard-of make wont seem such good value the first time you break it and either have to wait weeks to get the parts or cant ge them at all.

Cant go wrong with HPI, Schumacher or Traxxas amongst others.

I have an HPI MT2 nitro truck, broke it a few times, parts are easy to find, cheap and plentiful, it's normally fixed for a fiver on ebay.

Judy TT.

Had one on a Specialized Hardrock back in 2001 or so.

No damping whatsoever, then I got them wet, they let water inside and hydraulic lock meant they had no travel either.

But then I suppose it's not fair to criticise given the market segment they were aimed at.

I dunno if the current ones are the same but the original bladder that came with mine had a detachable tube so you could remove the bladder from the pack without unthreading the tube through the straps etc.

Quite a good feature but yes it did have a tendency to partially unclip itself and leak.

I have one that is maybe 4 or 5 years old, still going strong although the original bladder gave up long ago.

Zips are fine on mine, apart from the one on the sunglasses pouch at the top, which is knackered. That happened when I came off and skidded down the trail on it though so cant really complain :)

tim41 – Member

I've put a maxle / U-turn 140mm Revelation on my 08 Trance X. Had a few niggly probelms with the fork itself but as an overall package on the bike it seems to work very well. The bike performed far better than my abilities during a week with Bike Verbier.

It's my first full suss after years riding hardtails so I can't really compare it with anything else, but I'm very happy with it.

Are you me? Apart from the Verbier bit.

Loving it.

Most amusing thing is for me is that Steve Peat et al could probably still go down the Fort William DH course on that thing quicker than I could on an Iron Horse Sunday… if it held together long enough :lol:

Rear brake hose routing on that Pace is horrendous 8O

All you riders who dont have a ping bell – how else do you apply a rating to fit women as you each ride past? :?

Right here's the deal:

#1 priority is to make him understand that he needs to live frugally and not piss his loan away. 18 year olds dont fully appreciate the value of money and that it WILL have to be paid back and will feel like a considerable millstone round his neck when he leaves uni and go into work. The overriding aim is to leave uni with the minimum debt he possibly can.

So explain that while he will see all his mates etc going out all the time, using their loans to buy PCs/hifi/games/DVDs/CDS etc, he must resist the urge at all costs and spend as little as possible. This is paramount. By all means, have a fun few weeks constantly on the piss at the start, then it's time to rein it in and budget. Never let fellow students know you have any money and never lend anyone money. Lie and say you're skint if you have to.

Getting a job is beneficial in a number of ways past the obvious financial incentive. I did aerospace engineering at uni so not exactly a 'mickey mouse' degree and I still found the time to work part-time in a cinema which did not have a detrimental effect on my studies. Bit of cash and a great laugh at the same time, met some of my best mates there who I never would have met otherwise.

Of course the stuff about budgeting will probably be in one ear and out the other but you can only try.

Shooter McGavin: I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast!

Happy Gilmore: You eat pieces of shit for breakfast?

I fitted a set of these recently and I have coil pikes on my other bike. Very nice indeed, not noticeably any less stiff or anything, but definitely noticeably lighter.

Mine has a slight (but annoying) clunking noise at the top of the travel, but I'm not sure if it's just that I haven't got enough positive air in there or something as I havent set it up properly yet.

I do remember reading something about a couple of mm 'dead travel' caused by the U turn adjuster part, perhaps it's that.

If I were buying again I would probably get the non-Uturn version.

Still hardly seems ‘cheap’, I mean £15 for a 3m long piece of (admittedly very tough) sticky tape?

The question you need to ask is why financial crimes get punished so harshly in comparison with ‘real’ physical crimes with real victims…

andywhit – Member

There’s that zipwire thing where you get attached to a high wire in a sleeping bag (or something like that) and whizz across a valley.

FANTASTICABLE!! :D

More brown content:

Gooooorgeous!

Definitely the new black 8)

You can decrease the travel from stock on Fox F series forks but not increase.

That doesnt leave a lot of options on an 80mm stock fork!

What’s to come to terms with? They look great IMO, quite distinctive 8)

thats not a stock stem on yours is it BF ?

No, it’s a 90mm Hope one.

Mine’s a 20″.

Says on the frame 5’10” – 6’1″.

I am 6’2″ and it feels right to me – wouldnt want it any bigger and I think it would feel like a gate to someone at the lower end of the suggested range.

Fox forks: 2nd hand just assume the stanchions will be f**ked somewhere.

Rock Shox or Marz: dont worry about it, they’ll be fine.

Another vote for Cae Gwyn Farm here.

Only downside is the road climb back to the barn after youve finished at CYB for the day. Can be utterly crushing and punishing if you’re already knackered.

Wot, no Trance X?

We used to go to the Shoppi in Morzine (probably more than stricly necessary) just to check out the 100% fit girl on the till, not sure if she’s still there though :lol:

Even the de facto standard Singletrack baggies are way off on sizing, I have a 34-36 waist (depending on how much riding i have been doing) and bought XL and even on those the elasticated waistband gets stretched out quite a bit to do the popper up.

That the dreadful 2.0 8V engined mk3? underpowered rattly bag of spanners.

That particular engined variant wasn’t badged GTi in other territories iirc, it’s just that they knew Brits would buy anything with a GTi badge on the back.

matthewjb – Member

Best that I’ve owned would be a Renault 19 16v. Great handling. Obviously poor French build quality.

Good choice, still own one, an H reg phase 1 model which are becoming very rare. Great drive if not the out and out fastest these days.

ijs445ra – Member

Think the basic Core system has a DVI connection not HDMI, similar but not quite as good

ALL new 360s have HDMI and have done for probably a year or more.

No 360 has DVI (which is literally HDMI minus sound and through a different connector)

racing_ralph – Member

My pet hate is people that talk about technology but clearly know f all do you have a pin number also, and and a dvd disc?

Using normal everyday (though not technically 100% correct) wording on a forum means I know F all about technology? FFS get a life.

TandemJeremy – Member

My favorite “misuse of IT” was a nursing home where they printed off an e mailed form, pulled the data for it off the computer, filled in the form by hand then faxed it back to the person who e mailed it to them – every week.

My girlfriend works for the NHS and often whinges about this exact same thing going on there.

My pet hate is LCD displays on…well, everything. Toothbrushes and clothes irons being the worst offenders. I mean… WTF?

TandemJeremy – Member

Que? It was not browns fault that american banks had got loads of toxic debt was it?

Oh yes, sorry I need to get on message, it’s a *global* problem that started in America.

Dave and John stand next to each other and douse themselves in petrol.

Dave lights a match and goes up in flames.

The fire immediately spreads to John.

Whose fault is it that John is burning?

a – Dave’s
b – John’s
c – Both of them, they’re both morons.

Of course you should respect and be grateful to the arsonist who sets fire to your house if he then does a reasonable job of trying to put the blaze out.