I use an Evolva X8 from Amazon, it was around £50 a couple of years ago and still going strong.

It’s sold under a few names ‘soonfire FD38S’ is one of them and is available on Prime.

Cheers folks, some nice suggestions.

Do like the SC Chameleon, almost bought one a while back so thanks for reminding me of that.

Ragley blue pig, Clockwork Evo and BFe Evo are all nice but out of stock at mo.

Not heard of Primal, anyone else had experience of these?

What about Bird?

Frame Size to suit a 181cm height, fork currently 130mm travel, wheels are 27.5″ with 2.6″ tyres. Cheers folks

If you’re getting something generic, make sure it’s a charger and not a power supply.

Lezyne are excellent in my experience. Had a mega and apart from having a lofi B&w LCD screen it did just a good a job of tracking rides compared to my Garmin 520.

Awesome battery life but just not quite as good at navigation. The MEGA C looks to have improved in this area though.

I’ve had the cube 27.2 120mm dropper and it didn’t last too well, about 6 months before I warrantied it. It’s the same as the tranX and Brand-X ‘CX’ ones.

I currently have a KS LEV Si and its holding up much better and is serviceable when the time comes.

Another vote for aftershokz. Got some of the ‘titanium’ ones and they work great and you can still hear cars etc.

I’ve got some Cambridge Audio Melomenia 1’s – sounds great and were £90 at the time. Fit snugly so I can’t say I regret not getting ones with noise cancelling.

Occasional issues with bluetooth but I think this could the phone (Pixel 3a XL) more than the buds as I have issues with other bluetooth devices at times.

3M VHB tape is what good number plate tape is, it’s works well provided you clean and degrease everything but that clear gorilla tape stuff in the link above is amazing, highly recommended – again clean and degrease everything with isopropol or brake cleaner.

Also, the better bearings you replace with the less often you’ll have to change them 🙂

I used Enduro MAX ones and they’re still going strong after 18months of all weather use.

I changed my Stereo bearings myself, for removal I used a bearing slide hammer style puller but some wouldn’t shift so I had to resort to various drifts and extension bars with a wooden mallet for those – just make sure you’re hitting them square on and not on a the wonk.

I do have bearing presses of various styles but some of the bearings on the stereo I fitted with g clamps or my vice and sockets – just make sure you’re pressing on the outer races, not the cage and that everything is square when fitting and you’ll be fine – it shouldn’t take a huge amount of force to seat the bearings so go slow and steady.

Hey,

I’m sure it’s salvageable, what pack is it or can you supply a picture of the pack and connector?

Where are you based? I may be able to help directly.

Cheers.

Thanks CaptainDanger, although a bad cell or cell connection might be pulling down the pack voltage the charger is also worth checking – can you measure the output voltage of the charger without load?

I’ve found that it’s often the way packs are assembled that is more an issue as this will be done manually by the factory building the bike lights rather than the cell manufacturers, whos process is highly automated.

I have had several Li-Ion packs fail due to badly spot-welded tabs inside the pack or badly soldered power wires and rarely had problems with the cells themselves.

As Steve says above the charged voltage without load should be closer to 8.4v as it sounds as though the pack is 2S3P (2 cells in series in 3 parallel banks), the light switching off at ~7v (3.5v per cell) is to be expected to protect the batteries, it is the LVC (low voltage cutoff) setting inside the light.

I would suspect either the battery pack or the charger if the ‘charged’ voltage is too low.

If the batteries are defective dispose of them in a salt bath and then take to the tip for recycling when their voltage reads 0V.

+1 for OldSkoolMTB – essentially fully catered as they provide breakfast and dinner, plus when I’ve been they’ve made us sandwiches for the ride. Fun, if rocky, ride to Coed and Lewis has picked us up in the Van on the way back when it’s been miserable.

You can book without food but it is really worth it IMO.

I bought a bike and some accessories from them last week. No issues, best give them a call.

Do it.

I had the 2 finger levers for a year or so on my full sus but then got a hardtail with MT trail brakes with the HC levers and had to change them on the full sus immediately.

The HC levers are much better ergonomically, the lever body is now closer to my grip meaning the shifter and dropper remote are exactly under my thumb, never noticed it before but I had to move my hadn to operate them and now it’s much more initiative.

I had a Garmin 520, turning bluetooth off on my phone so the two weren’t connected all the time made a big difference to battery life.

As you’re not using mapping it should be okay and not affect other functions?

I have two bikes fitted with Maguras – one has MT5’s front and rear, which I changed from the 2 finger lever to 1 finger HC’s, when bled properly (there is a knack but videos online to help) and fitted with the individual sintered pads they are awesome – I’m near 100kg when kitted up to ride and have had no issues anywhere I’ve ridden with fade or lack of confidence in them.

On the other bike I have MT5 front with a MT2 rear on standard organic pads, these came with the HC single finger levers are are also really decent – a little noisier than my other bike when slowing down but I think this is because the standard organic MT5 pads are conjoined and not individual pads for each piston, have some individual sintered pads to go into these also when worn out.

Tried them with Uberbike race matrix pads and they just howled and didn’t offer any better braking for me, plus didn’t like getting wet whereas the sintered pads just shrug it off.

Downside is the plastic body of the brake, after an off I did have to replace one of the levers as the thread in the plastic had become damaged, also I don’t tighten them up to the torque recommended by Magura, these seem high for plastic parts.