Also worth keeping in mind that On-Ones might be cheap, but they’re a shit company. A bit before christmas 2016 they made loads of their staff redundant and hired on cheaper agency workers to replace them so they could pay less and give fewer staff benefits, all while posting record sales figures. Support a company like that if you want, but I wouldn’t have the nerve to buy from a company that shits all over it’s workers.

Their bikes are **** ugly tat too.

We’ve been going for a few years. It’s really well organised, good venues, cheap and generally a decent crowd. Only downside is the same as all good punk gigs – middle aged old punks who haven’t realised that the culture has moved on from knocking shit into everyone at the front regardless of whether they’re half your size.

Really recommend it as punk shows go though. Top weekend.

The DH tracks have all been logged. They’ll probably be back one day.

The High Roller 2 is a Completely different tyre to the High Roller, not riding one because you didn’t like the other doesn’t really make sense.

I had some superstar Sentinels on Tesla hubs once. The hub failed on me repeatedly and the rims were made of cheese. Threw everything away after a little over a year, by which point both rims were dented beyond repair.

I’d probably buy something else, or at very least buy one of their massively overbuilt wheelsets like the DHX. They weigh like 2.5kg though.

Yeah probably.

You’ll be fine, the bike will surprise you.

I’ve replaced the terrible Sram Roam 40s with DT XM481s on Hope Pro 4s, stuck a longer dropper in, replaced the bar and stem with Renthal, fitted Eagle, replaced the shock with a Monarch+ and obviously fitted the contact points I like. I’ve also swapped the back tyre to a Maxxis Aggressor since this picture was taken.

The wheels and the shock have probably made the biggest differences to how the bike performs, with everything else being more of a rider convenience thing. I’ve been tempted to try the fork at 140mm but I really don’t want to slacken the seat angle any further than it already is. As the bike currently sits it can happily handle anything from trail centres to stuff like Robin Run up Wylie or the masts at Afan. I’ve taken the bike clean past it’s limits and have a pretty good understanding of what we can get away with together, it’s a very capable bike and absolutely runs out of travel before it runs out of geometry which is quite comforting.

The new Marin/Polygon design looks like a dog trying to have a shit.

I found it incredibly noisy on the first ride after installation but since then as long as everything is cleanish and lubed it’s no louder than an 11 speed setup. I am using an actual Eagle chainring though, not an aftermarket.

Buy van, put bike on the…outside? Does not compute.

http://www.vegetarian-shoes.co.uk/

Vegan shoes aren’t hard to find, and they’re pretty damn good. It isn’t the 70s anymore.

Because eating cruelty free is usually an ethical choice and that makes it hard to detach from seeing an animal as a living being not a meal. No one is expecting a meat eater to stop because someone told them ‘hey, that’s a dead cow you know’. That’s on their conscience not mine.

Why is it meat eaters always seem to wade into conversations about cruelty free diets asking the same dumb gotcha questions and demanding answers about the meat industry. Bruv google it and enjoy your dead animal sandwich, whatever. If someone eating cruelty free did the same in a chat about bacon they’d be the first to start yelling about preachy vegans.

I woke up one day and couldn’t face the idea of being responsible for death anymore and haven’t eaten meat again since that day. I recommend fidnign some kind meat alternatives so you don’t have to give up your favourite stuff. Some suggestions –

Sausages: Sainsburys Cumberland style and the Quorn one sare good. I quite like the Linda McCartney ones too but not everyone does.
Beige food: Fry’s and Quorn do great nuggets, escalopes, breaded fillets etc.
Mince: I reckon soy mince is nicer than Quorn mince but both are good. The Fry’s one is gross.
Burgers: Fry’s and Quorn are great again. Morrisons do a nice own brand one.
Crispy duck/pulled pork etc: holy shit the veggie versions of these are great.

Past that just cook whatever you used to that wasn’t just ‘meat + whatever’. Any kind of stew/soup/casserole/baked dish/stirfry/curry etc can be made veggie. You don’t have to start from scratch with a whole new set of recipes.

I have my SRAM Roam 40s for sale that I’ve taken off of my T130C RS, if that would interest you? 1600g, boost, £150.

I think the word you looking for is ‘twitchy’.

I have a first gen 1×1 with no disc tabs on the frame, so have a disc on the front and a v-brake on the back. It’s dumb, simple, low-budget singlespeed fun at it’s best. Geometry from the 90s, but a wide bar, short stem and modern tyres help it along a bit. It’s only bike I’ve had for the last week while I wait from SRAM to send me a shock back and I’ve been having loads of fun going out on the local group rides keeping up with everyone on their trail bikes.

You don’t see many bikes then?

Not with front mechs on no. Majority of modern frames can’t even fit one.

Didn’t realise anyone still made mtb front mechs.

Interesting to see the different setups people have on T130s. I also weigh about 85kg and am running (roughly):

130mm Pike, just over 80psi with 2 tokens, 4 clicks of LSC and 6 clicks of rebound from full fast.

Monarch+ Debonair in the back (piggyback shock not the OEM one) with 165psi, 2 bands and 7 clicks of rebound from full fast. Probably going to stick another band in this or maybe experiment with a few psi more.

And for reference on riding style I beat the ever loving piss out of it.

It took me one incredibly hungover day, but I had the woodyard cut the timber to the correct lengths because I live in a flat with no where for a table saw. Probably a solid weekend if you’re cutting the timber yourself.

I had 5 bikes to store and the same problem, so I built this:

It’s based on the plans from here http://www.instructables.com/id/Vertical-Bike-Rack-from-2x4s albeit somewhat altered.

The guys talking about mk1 Dispatch/Expert/Scudos know the score. The 1.9 and 2.0HDI engines run forever and they’re galvanised so very few have rust issues. Bought my current Dispatch for a grand with a full tank of diesel and it’s reliable, cheap to run and can easily fit 3 bikes and 3 people. It hasn’t got power anything so no electrical issues, only problems have been the usual door handle problems which aren’t hard to sort out if you have half a mechanical brain.

If you’re local to Greenham then I’m guessing you’re based in Newbury? That being the case there is a pretty good local club for wheels on the ground XC that rides twice a week called Buckled Wheel (which you may well already know about). Good scene of people into other stuff if you fish around too for such a small town.

They’re long bikes so it might feel like you can get away with a smaller size, but my suggestion would be to get the ‘correct’ size and take advantage of the long reach. I’m 185cm and running a 40mm stem and 780mm bars on a large and it feels fantastic.

I had a very similar problem with a set that turned out to have been miss-assembled at the factory, and were warranty replaced by Sram.

I’m getting a good deal on my Dispatch with Aviva, even get a solid discount cos I’ve got my car insured with them too.

I’m 186cm (6’1″) and am riding a large with a 40mm stem. Feels about right, although if I was much taller I’d have gone for an xl with a shorter stem probably.

UKIP are racist, misogynist, homophobic pieces of shit and if you vote for them so are you.

If you vote for dirty fascists you’ll get treated like a dirty fascist.

always bash the fash

I stopped eating meet a couple of months ago and honestly I barely miss it, even with a pretty heavy training program currently.

Also even when I ate meet I thought bacon was overrated. Chicken wings were the shit though. **** chicken wings.

Bikes get scratched. There’s nothing more depressing than a nice bike with pristine paintwork.

From Mr Stanton himself r.e. tyre clearance (I emailed to ask him when I bought mine):

I’d say a 2.3 is best, more than that you’ll run a risk, but it is dependent on the width of your rim… the spacing is 77mm, on the Slackine 853 it was 80mm, the Slackline 631 is 85mm

Also the frame was designed around a 100mm or 120mm fork as I recall, and should ride fine with either. If you mostly ride flat XC type stuff though 100mm would probably be a bit better; it’s REALLY slack for a 29er with a 120mm fork, and can feel slightly floppy on the climbs. Descends extremely well like it though. In fact, it’s **** hilarious to descend on. Still going to drop mine to 100mm though.

If you took the phrase ‘trail centres’ and replaced it with ‘local woods’ then that it is what I use my Solaris for. I reckon it is brilliant and after a lot of searching it does feel like the bike I was looking for.

Mine has no mount, but there is no reason you can’t stick a band-on front mech on it (and I have in the past). But I’ve also ridden round both Cwmcarn XC loops back to back (including a off-piste diversion up Twmbarlwm) with it 1×10 and not struggled. And that was without X1.

Honestly the Sherpa is ridiculously good, and if you want to ride XC with the odd trail centre you’d be hard pressed to find a better option.

I have a mini-DH bike. It isn’t a full-on DH bike. You also wouldn’t want to pedal it anywhere.

There’s a ton of standard mech hangar shapes, they don’t tend to be specific to a lot of bikes, same with dropouts in general. Shoot Dan Stanton a line and I’m sure he’ll let you know the model you need.

Related:

I have one. It’s absurdly capable and fun to ride. I’ve done all day XC rides, trail centres, big natural rides and even chuck it down parts of the Y Mynydd downhill track (probably not advised in the manual).

The geometry is solid, efficient pedalling but descends well, and the short back end keeps it from feeling like a barge. Also being nice steel the ride is really comfy and supple.

I’ve pretty much only been using my full-sus for bike parks, DH, uplift days etc since I got it. I’m actually thinking of going to only having the Sherpa and a DH bike, it’s that much fun and that capable – providing of course that you have the skills to pay the bills.

shut