nanty arian is also quite nice. (not sure whether it strictly qualifies as ‘north’ wales though, it’s more mid)

singlespeedstu – like those pics, whereabouts are are they exactly, in the elan valley?

personally i found nanty arian, coed y brenin and penmachno more fun though.

was there last weekend (12/13th march) and it was open then.

They prevent you slipping out on a bend by preventing you from ever going fast enough to do so in the first place.

Racing ralph-yeah going to go there tomorrow and then will take it from there.

Kaesae, thanks for that- the bearing on the opposite side of the free hub,i.e. Just inside of where the cassette lock ring goes on, is totally stuck. I was hoping that wasn’t a bearing, but it is.

yeah, thanks. The only thing I might be struggling for is the seal tool that you press the free hub on with. out of stock on ukbikestore and no other place sells it.

is this the “freehub drive side inner bearing” that may be the cause of the stickiness?
I suspect it is, as I tried to turn it and initially it was graunchy but it then moved slightly better once i’d forced it round a bit. This mirrors what happens on a ride, but it always goes sticky again.
Is it possible to get this bearing out, or is the only way to replace it to get a new free hub?

The freehub drive side inner bearing is causing the stiffness. (larger one)

Am I right in thinking there’s only two bearings in total in the hub?
Or is there two on the drive side and one on the non-drive side?

At the moment, I’ve got TWO bearings that I know of: one that’s free, that was on the drive side of the axle, and one that is still on the axle, on the non-drive side. Are you saying there’s ANOTHER one, still inside the freehub, OR when you say the “freehub drive side inner bearing” do you mean the one that I have free that came off the axle when i drifted it out?
Thanks

yeah, where he says at about 1:32 “and the seal there”, that’s the seal that looks like it’s deformed on mine, but is it meant to be like that? surely not?
I don’t get how it’s become deformed, and whether it matters.I suspect it does,but not sure.

the reason is to prolong the life of the tyre side wall. if you run your tyres at sub 20 psi a lot then you’ll see diagonal marks appear on the side of your tyres-

yes, this is exactly what has happened to my previous tyre!

I noticed that they had got quite bad and developed from creases into actual cuts, and the tube was poking through, which told me i needed to replace them.

But it has taken at least a year, and quite a lot of riding…

I would rather have to replace them more often than have poor handling. I guess I will go for a compromise of between 20 and 30, and see how it goes.

Don’t you get better handling with lower pressures – surely downhill riders don’t have high pressure tyres?

the bontrager big earls that they replace which admittedly were 2.5 never “rolled off the rims”. I have got fairly fat rims.

so do you get told HOW to dig, etc, or are you expected to know what you are doing? I mean i obviously know how to dig, but there’s digging and there’s digging.
Or is it just a case of “make it better, however you think best”?

Surely it takes more skill (and time) to dig a feature that will last, than one that will erode quickly?

[go to a dig day]

I could do that and in a perfect world if I was a perfectly moral human being then that is probably what I would and should do, however in practice the cut and thrush of it is that I haven’t actually got time. i do redeem myself however on the grounds that I would be perfectly willing to pay more than £35 for the season ticket fee, so I feel they should simply employ more diggers that live in the area, not 2 hours away like me, and simply pay their wages out of price hikes on the parking.

Wheel trap you ? Come on we all have steering to avoid this situation

(and to all the other ‘cope with it it’ll sharpen your skills’ attitudes:)

ok, but the wheeltrap is following the best line round the corner.
I can easily avoid it, but wont’ be going as fast as if it wasn’t there.
It isn’t stainburn we’re talking about.

[ride a rigid SS, it’ll sharpen your skills]

Cutting down a rainforest with a pair of nail scissors would probably also sharpen my skills, at cutting down a rainforest with a pair of nail scissors, but it doesn’t mean it’d be interesting or rewarding. :wink:

hen there's something wrong with it – that's just not how Garmin's are meant to work.

well it works fine on the road.
but when i took it off road, it was always pointing the wrong way, no matter what I had the settings on. I admit that I may not have tried hard enough to try different combinations of different settings or do an objective repeatable test.

will have a good look at satmap then, cheers for all replies

Sounds to me like you'd got it set to always point North. There should be a setting to always point in direction of travel (which it knows so long as you're moving – unless it's one that has the electronic compass).

@bonj in map options you should be able to set orientation to either North or Track up

nah, I've seen that option and tried it on both settings with no joy. It seems to be random whatever setting it is on. It's as if it's trying to point towards the nearest road.

do they only get caused by actually locking up the back wheel, i.e. skidding, or is it just *any* braking that can cause it?

as i've said before, I'm not sure i understand why full suss riders get blamed for them. Is it that they both want to go the same speed round the corner, but the HT would be already going that speed anyway and thus wouldn't have to brake?

In motor racing if you don't have to brake for a corner, then you weren't going fast enough on the straight, could the same not be said of this…?

Not really sure I've ever been bothered by them or noticed them, I probably have, but haven't recognised it as one or thought 'ooh there's a braking bump how annoying'. Are they on the north loop of whinlatter, the one with the jumps?

If they do cause a problem there is surely a way of designing the trail such that they don't form. I can't see how there can possibly be any at penmachno for instance.

hustler
I love mine

I will give you £50 for it and 1 p
E-mail in profile if you want to sell and/or advice re servicing

sorry to mess you about but i'll just see what the yanks say first.

also I wouldn't bother about the £40 surcharge, just think of the total cost of the flight, it's probably still cheaper than BA, and they aren't as likely to go on strike.

yep, i've taken my road bike on a ryanair flight and it was fine

I have got a hard case though, I got it from http://www.bikeboxalan.co.uk/ which I would definitely recommend – it is a dead good case

Some people advocate having minimal wrapping, so that it "is obviously a bike" – I personally wouldn't recommend this, as I don't think it's the fact that baggage handlers might throw it that is the problem, but the fact that stuff might get put/fall on top of it. The bikeboxalan one has got a pole in the middle for crush protection.
NOt that i'm challenging anybody, but I think something that bulky that's 20kg is a bit too bulky and heavy to throw very far with ease.

Also when I went on that bus from the long stay car park to the terminal the driver said bikes weren't allowed on it. But since mine was in a box and "didn't have chain and wheels visible" it was ok as just a piece of luggage, as long as i made sure i held it still.

Also been on easy jet as well

It always has to go IN at the 'oversize luggage' check in area, but the only thing to watch is where it comes OUT – it's never obvious – sometimes it comes out on the normal conveyor belt

If you have to ask, it's probably better to take up another sport.

^^^ this

weirdly, it would often get stuck in the 'down' position, but not for long – if I got off the bike and swore at it a bit and pushed and pummelled the seat in different directions it would eventually release, and I then forgot about it, but by the time i'd stopped and done that i could have lowered a static one…anyone had that?

but it's only ever in the 'down' position. But now for the first time it's stuck in the UP position, and it won't even go down at all, no matter what I do. Weird that, innit…

think I'm following up Crag's suggestion for now

I'll give you £25 not a penny more, OK a penny more, £25.01

Deal?
Nah. £50. or £49.99 if you want to be pedantic

Sorry to ask an odd question but as I'm thinking of buying one how long have you had yours for bonj?

Got it in december.

wheels with actual proper spokes and lacing are far better than "race" wheels.

I'd recommend mavic open pro rims with hope pro3 hubs, got them on one of my road bikes built by hewitts, really like them so building some myself for the other.

what does that consist of then?

they also don't let it on that bus that goes from the car park to the terminal

just buy a hard case.

OMG- did you not see my thread before? do not buy sram shifters, if you want to thread a cable its hell if you don't know what your doing

solution: know what you're doing

imho being hydraulic is far too over complicated, it doesn't need to be.
get a gravity dropper.

sue.

Or not. You don't just spontaneously grow muscle. Following what you say would mean that people riding light bike have less muscle than people riding heavy bike because you need to have less muscle to haul the bike up.

to some extent, but the effect of that only takes place while you are riding your bike, which is probably a fairly small percentage of the time.

Take an obese person, give 'em liposuction and stick em on a bike

Do you mean take an obese non-cycling person, stick em on a bike, or do you mean take an obese cyclist, who is cardiovascularly fit despite being obese, and give them liposuction, and see how fast on a bike they are?
The latter is more relevant and I think they would be faster than the person who was the weight after liposuction originally.

Yep, that's why fat people have the most toned bodies of all, and as a general rule can run and cycle just as fast as thin people and never get out of breath …

not toned, because toned is due to muscle being able to be seen through the skin, if there's fat between them the size of the muscle isn't going to make a difference.
e.g. if you want a six pack the best way is to lose fat, not gain muscle.

I think anybody who really thinks that human body has a constant fat-to-muscle ratio needs to log of the Internet now and meet some real people

I never said there was a constant ratio between them, but that doesn't mean there isn't at least *some* relationship.
i.e. power to weight ratio usually goes down with obesity, but absolute power (i.e. irregardless of weight) goes up.

Therefore if you neck a KFC bargain bucket and gain 100g of fat, you might also gain an amount of muscle needed to power an extra 20g of you along. You still shouldn't have done it, because you're still *effectively* an extra 80g heavier, but losing 100g off your bike more than compensates for it.

If fat people never grew more muscle as they got fatter then you'd never see any fat people as they'd never make it out of bed without collapsing.

The other obvious argument against "you'd be better off losing 100g off your body than off your bike" is that you could, of course, do both.

I have to say though in 15yrs of road racing I've never seen a road bike with one on or felt the need to have one myself.

http://www.parker-international.co.uk/432/Deda-Dog-Fang.html?referrer=froogle&utm_source=google&utm_medium=froogle&utm_campaign=pid432