I have a similar dilemma.

The Kona Shred 2-4 is discounted at JE James at the moment (down to £390), 13" frame with cable operated discs and 80mm travel fork. Also, the Kona Mula (12" frame) is on sale at Evans down to £240.

How old are your kids? Mines just approaching 9 and I have been considering a small (14") adult bike instead of the intermediate size.

Ben

My daughter has an Islabike Beinn 20. She loves it, it's small and light enough for her to ride comfortably and she knows it's special (which I think is the deciding factor!). The gear ratios that Isla has put on it means she gets up most of the hills that the rest of the family can tackle with 27-speed set ups.

My son had an MX20 (best of the rest for the year I was buying – given I'd not heard of Islabikes then) and the sus forks have never worked properly and added quite a bit of unnecessary weight. The chainring was too big to allow anything very steep to be tackled – I was grateful when he bent it so I could replace it with something smaller.

I believe Islabikes will do a trade-in deal once she has grown out of it, by which time she will want another Islabike as everything else is just not good enough!

Ben

IIRC the NAS equipment needs to be powerful enough to run the music server software (SqueezeCentre), so as stated the cheaper NAS units may not work.

Question is, which NAS units are powerful enough? The squeezebox website states it supports Netgear ReadyNAS, but they are very pricey!

You may well be right there Northwind, but I have found that unless you're dealing with stupidly high outputs, you have a choice between flood/no distance or spot/distance lighting. Particulalry where LEDs are concerned.

There's a lot of talk about output lumens, but how they're focussed is at least as important to me. My bars lights have a 12 degree lens and my helmet lights a 3 degree lens, which translates to a nice broad pool of light to about 30 foot away, with a bright spot wherever I'm looking up to about 40 yards away.

I do miss the days of 6 watts of light output and requirement to 'feel' your way down a descent (and the avoidance of any kind of dazzlement lest it muck up your night vision!). Well, I say I do, but you won't find me trying to repeat the experience anytime soon……

Ben

I'm with Munqe-Chick. Less is more to a certain extent (vistalight 330 and Petzl Zoom for 10 years here), until you ride with someone who has a lighthouse stuck on their bars and they're behind you.

I use both (floody bar and spotty helmet) and it's a great set up, however be prepared in Misty/snowy weather to be blinded by a helmet light.

Interestingly, I've found LED lights to be better than halogen in poor weather.

I found my Shures a bit bass-light until I changed the rubber mushrooms to a size larger. Much better once they were properly fitted, although the sensation of having something well wedged into my ears took some getting used to.

I also have some Sennhieder 550's (not 'plug in', bit sit in your ear type) which I think are equally as good, but they suffer from the intrusion of outside noise and since I use my player on the train or plane I go for the Shures more often.

LOL! I was just putting a spreadsheet together!

STATO: You may be right. But it's worth checking.

My IO came with a 36/18 (e.g. an 'input ratio' of 2) a combo which I felt to be too hard on some of the harder gradients I regularly ride. I changed it to 36/20 (input of 1.8) which brought it down so the tough gradients were achievable. Unfortunately, above about 18mph I spin out.

If you alter the chainring/sprocket combo to 24/16 then this brings the input down to 1.5 which I think will be silly low given the difference a 0.2 drop made to me.

I don't have the alfine ratios at hand however and bow to anyone's better judgement!

Edit: if anyone's going to work this out, I'd be interested in how much overlap there would be in the available 16 gears….

Have you looked at the gear ratios? or experimented with a straight 24 tooth chainring running an Alfine?

I'd say that a 24 chainring driving the smallest of sprockets on the Alfine (16 I think) would provide some completely unsuable gears. You'd have to be climbing some enormously steep hills to use some of those ratios and if you were then your legs would be spinning at 100+rpm and youd be moving a walking pace.

Unless you have found otherwise…..

Hi.

Yes.

Twice, but only between Kidderminster and Long Mynd.

It is a path not well travelled – so the bridleways were somewhat impassable on occasion, sometimes due to overgrown vegetation and sometimes due to the passage of horses. The way markers can be a bit hit and miss; I've had fairly big problems both times in following the route.

Did I enjoy it? Yes, but both times I was weighed down with camping gear.

Would I do it again? Not really – I didn't find it particularly scenic and I think if I were going to go riding for a day then I'd choose somewhere else a little more suitable for bikes.

The one bonus was that you can divert to Bridgnorth (or Kidderminster) and catch the Severn Valley Railway home again.

Ben

LOL!

Sorry – I was getting all vigilante.

LOL!

Sorry – I was getting all vigilante.

Ahem.

When riding at night or in dodgy areas, why not hide a length of old bicycle chain in the handlebars? With something like a keyring on the end to pull it out quick.

I'm sure it could create quite an 'impression' if it was used appropriately.

Ah. I wondered if the design of a flint catcher could be modified to ‘scrape’ the water/road grime off a road tyre with a cowl that diverts the scraped water away.I guess it would have to be mounted fairly low, well away from the brake arch and be made of extremely hard material to be of any use…..

Do flint catchers actually rub the tyre? Are they spring-loaded?

3 AM start this morning to get to the top of Worcestershire Beacon on the Malverns in time to see the inside of a cloud :(

Then went to laugh/yell encouragement at the MM competitors at the obelisk at other end of the hills.

Home for 8:30 for muchos fathers day pampering from my daughter….what a perfect day!

Happy Solstice to one and all!

Ben

I’ve had the nuts on my IO ID come loose a few times despite being well tightened when I replce the back wheel – are you sure they’re not loosening?

I virtually stood on my spanner at the end of the last ride after finding the back wheel loose after a hair-raising descent. I only hope I don’t have to remove the wheel on the trail – I’ll need to carry a scaffold bar to loosen it!

Ben

Great, thanks.

they’re going to be semi-slicks, so I may want to chop and change them around depending on the weather. We shall see…..

Bensales:you’re either looking at a Saturday timetable or last year’s.

Alternative routes:

From Worcester (via Evesham, Oxford into Paddington) the journey time is 2hrs 21mins

From Snow Hill (via Warwick, Leamington etc into Marylebone) the journeytime is 2hrs 7mins

Both of these will be considerably cheaper, but again, if it’s speed you’re after……

I know you don’t want to use New Street, but the 7:30 from New Street arrives Euston at 8:40.(Standard journey time throughout the day is 1hr 24mins, on a 20 minute frequency)

Elsewhere, the 7:42 from Birmingham International arrives Euston at 8:50 (Standard Journey time is 1hr 14mins, 20 minute frequency)

On an hourly basis, one of the services running through Birmingham originates from Wolverhampton (calling at Sandwell and Dudley) with a journey time from Wolves at around 1hr 45mins.

This all dependant on Network Rail not having signalling failures etc as happened yesterday……

I’m sure you won’t find quicker. Cheaper maybe, but faster costs more.

If anything it’s freed up and become more slick over the past few months.

I got it just before Christmas, but I’ve only put about 200 miles on it since then as it’s not the only Mountain Bike I’ve got.

I’m out on it tonight with the new sprocket and a larger/slicker set of tyres, which I’m hoping will give me just a little more comfort.

The chap in the lbs has had one for 18 months and it feels just like mine as far as I remember.

Good aren’t they?

I’ve just popped a 20T sprocket on mine to lower the ratios a bit – it wasn’t that I couldn’t ride things I would normally be able to on a 9spd set up, just that there was no room for error on the really steep stuff and I seemed to spend 95% of the ride in the 3 lowest gears.

The movie on the hubstripping site showing the effect of using grease in the Alfine as opposed to an oil (like the Rohloff) was quite enlightening, but I don’t propose to take the whole thing apart at the moment. Also, the comments about how hub gearboxes produce a high amount of metal filings in the first few miles due to them bedding in were interesting – in a hub using oil these are normally flushed out with the first oil change, but with grease they knock about for quite some time afterwards, potentially shortening the lifespan of the gearbox.

Ben

Pleeeeaaasssee will you post some sort of answer when you have one trail_rat?

I’d like to know what’s needed (even though the lbs says there’s not much to do and ‘just leave it’)

Ben

It’s not just Leisure Lakes that’ll take Halfords vouchers.

On Your Bike do as well. In fact I’m willing to bet you’ll be able to find someone who’ll do you a RR on a Halfords voucher….

I don’t suppose you’ve got a set of Marzocchi’s you want to sell to fund this? :wink:

Could arrange a shady deal at Warrington station……….

Aye

You can make your own LED lights

You can make your own tubeless tyres

M&S insurance is pretty good

Why carry a big camelbak when you’re only out for a couple of hours?

Marketting can be hollow drivel and if your best bike is 10 years old so what? (and old kit ain’t necessarily ‘broken’)

You can take your off-the-shelf bike and do things to adjust the ride quite dramatically.

Singlespeeders are deviants (but strangely alluring)

Don’t take Picolax lightly.

That’ll do for now.

Well said AdamM and aP!

Much of the improvement seen over the last 3 years came about from careful planning and examination of best operating practices that started 5+ years ago, once the industry recognised that the highly confrontational mechanisms that were put in place to mimick a competitive ecomony were b*ll*cks and the best way to improve the service was to work together.

Anyone who thinks they can solve the issues of the rail industry in a couple of paragraphs is dreaming.

Personally, I think longer franchises (say 15 years with an option to extend to 20?) Will immediately begin an improvement process – although the public may have to wait a couple of years to see the benefit. Longer franchises lead to better business cases for decent investment, cheaper for the industry as a whole (owning groups will spend up to £10m per bid to secure a franchise) and less ‘churn’.

As for cost, there are always cheap options available (megabus fares, advance ticketting etc) although you have to be flexible about travel times, just as it is with the airlinesn if you travel at peak times then you’ll have to pay for it. Plenty do as the services are packed during the peak hours.

If the rail companies do go bust then the economy will be even more FUBARed: Millions unable to get to work on a daily basis.

East Coast have tried to hand the keys back, and the story is that the DfT (after swearing blind that they wouldn’t do it) have put them on a letter agreement. This effectively ensures the trains keep running but on a ‘cost plus’ basis.

Cue the floodgates opening for all the other struggling* franchise operators to go banging on the door.

*why are they struggling? Because the franchising process has rewarded those who offer the DfT the greatest income stream, whilst due to the short timescales of an 8 year franchise offers no opportunity to work up any kind of long-term investment business case.Now the economic situation is not all ‘grow,grow, grow’, these operators who forecast major growth (and an economy able to support increasing revenue) cannot make their payments back to the DfT.

Broken system? Sure, but who’s going to sort it out?

Bah.

Thanks Wilma: I had spotted that one (I think it’s on the GP14 assoc. website under classifieds as well).

I’m going to sign the family into the sailing club as non-boat owners and hire their dinghys when we want to sail(£120 + £2.50 per 2 hour session with a choice of GP14, Laser, Topper and Oppies for the kids). I realise the boats themselves may be a little battered, but I’m not after performance to start with.

Once we’ve proven that we’re fairly committed to sailing, then I’ll invest in a boat.

Cheers for all the advice and comments (and Mr Flashheart tempting me with glittery things…you bad boy!)

Ben

Wilma: that website has made my head hurt. Thanks for the tip-off however!

Ben

oh dear.

I was hoping to show Mrs BOAS this thread and illustrate how wonderful our family hobby could be.

I think I’ll have to bury it away now (or sell a couple of bikes)

Ben

Wow! What a load of info! Thanks muchly!

I’m tempted to go the GP14 route as it’s what the club has in the main and they run races on a weekend, so we could enter these if we get good enough….Although a nice tippy Laser looks like fun! I guess the equivalent of a sports car verses an estate…

How much more expensive can it be than Mountain Biking?

Ben

Arrgh!

There’s that mention of a service again…..

James-O – what does this service consist of? I thought the hub was dry, so no oil change. Ummm……what is it then?

Ben

Oops. I meant the IOID does (the latest Green one with the Alfine).

As for reviews, there have been plenty, not all complimentary about the Alfine hub. I think the conclusion is that it’s ‘horses for courses’

Ben

IO does.

I used to work with Roland Butter.

Also C. and P. Nile

oh, and C. Lyons.

My GF Sugar1 is 10 years old this year.

I put new forks and shock on it (and wheels and everything else) and it feels better than it did new.

It’s a bit ‘triggers broom’ but I don’t think of it as ‘old’, just in need of some painty TLC.

Ben