Pretty good really. Rotor-wise, I had 160 on the back and 180 on the front and that was plenty for general riding and playing in Wharncliffe. For more XC use I’d have 160 front and back happily as there’s plenty of power. I like the slightly squidy feel you get from shimano brakes so they’re good for me in that way and they’ve been pretty consistant in use really.

That said, my 2004/5 XT rear has now gone back on, having outlasted two sets of servo wave Shimanos…

Scratch all that. I’ve found the problem. A piston seal was leaking.

I’m using half a syringe on a hose, screwed into the reservoir. It’s basically a funnel. Or is there something magical about the funnel that I haven’t realised?

I’ve reverse bled them, on and off the bike, shaken them. sworn at them, slapped them about and I still can’t seem to get all the air out. Does it get trapped anywhere in particular?

I think I might be getting somewhere by dangling them underneath the bike, letting the pistons come out and then pushing them back in again. I can only think I have air trapped in the caliper somewhere, somehow.

Using a syringe instead of a funnel. But it probably is because I’m a few months too early.

Anyone? They’re doing my head in!

Same size.

Interesting double post…

He’d say “Shut up, legs!”

The bit down to Langsett is the best bit! It’s the top section across the bog, which is brilliantly swoopy in the dry, that will be the problem. It might well be a slow, stodgy, eroding mess…

Gotta say I’d go elsewhere after the last few days! You might have more fun around Castleton or Jacob’s Ladder?

Personally I find The Atherton Project one of the most watchable mountain bike related vids.

Definitely.

What I always like about the videos is that you see when things aren’t going well. When they’ve upset/frustrated/worried. Hardly trying to be ‘cool’ then. Seemed to be one of the first team videos around doing this too.

That and the fact that they always look like they’re having fun.

Cotswolds stock Hilleberg. Dunno if they have the Staika, but I imagine they can get it for you.

oops – meant to add – anyone else get this? Any cures? Preventions?

The bars that form the clipping mechanism on Eggbeaters (well, Mallets and Candys) always seem to wear out on me – they develop loads of side to side play and eventually stop holding the cleats in. My current pair have lasted less than a year.

(sorry for the hijack)

Ok, massive gear freak geek out:

The Camp set up Decathlon sell looks pretty good to me – like a cheaper version of this black diamond set
.

I’d be happy with the camp set up. The black diamond one has elasticated webbing, meaning there’s less stuff flapping around, but lots of reach (can very occasionally be an issue switching between cables).

You can get cheaper ones, like the petzl zyper, and you can get bits to make your own, although I’m not sure this works out any cheaper especially if you don’t already have twist-lock krabs etc. They may be cheaper to buy over there, and you may be able to rent them.

More info here

EDIT: I’d love to be able to lend you one, but I can’t find mine. If you know anyone who climbs, maybe ask around? It’s the sort of thing people buy and then hardly ever use.

I hate to say it, but please totally ignore everything allanbill99 said. Apart from the stuff about them being exposed and fun, what he’s said is totally wrong and potentially dangerous.

Via Ferrata (in the Dolomites at least) are graded. Go on a grade 1 and it is essentially just a walk. You’ll almost certainly be fine as a first-timer and with no kit.

Go on a grade 5 and you will be climbing. Do it with allanbill’s ‘sling around your waist and a karabiner’ if you must, but don’t fall off – you can take some very significant (in impact) falls on Via Ferratas and that set up has the potential to seriously injure you or snap. You do need a shock-absorbing set up. (In climbing terms, you can very easily go well over a factor 2 fall on a Via Ferrata. Do that on a sling and it’s likely to snap. If you’re lucky and it doesn’t you will mush your innards.)

From your post I’m guessing you won’t have a guidebook, so it’ll be totally unknown. And thus more fun! If you both climb, take your harnesses, take a helmet (if there’s anyone above you kicking stuff off, you’ll want it) and get a Via Ferrata kit (£30 – £50). As I said above, you’ll be fine on easy stuff and probably surprised by what you can get up. It’s most about scrambling, swinging around on metal rungs and having fun. It’ll be awesome.

A decent guide will be able to take you on stuff that’s fun for you/keep you safe but isn’t necessarily needed. A guidebook will help massively.

Not trying to put you off here! Via Ferrata are brilliant and one of the most entertaining ways of moving around mountains. I love them. Just use some common sense and, if you’re on anything you judge serious, the proper kit.

That was cheerful.

call me old fashioned but when I go mountain biking, I want to actually ride my bike…

I’d have said more ‘new fashioned’… 😉

You’re likely to be pushing up a few bits no matter where you go in the Lakes. Not worth missing a ride because of it though.

Helvellyn is awesome. If it’s been wet, just go up direct from Patterdale. (It’s still doable over the Dodds, you’ll just push more and get wet feet.) Definitely come down Dollywagon – the steep bit is nothing special, but the bits before, and particularly afterwards, are awesome.

The Borrowdale Bash will probably take around 3 hours going fast, but I’ve not done it for a while. (You still might find yourself pushing up from Watendlath though).

Virtually every single one we sold came back… make of that what you will!

I’ve had it happen loads on kevlar beaded ones. After a massive burp, I managed to blow a tyre clean of the rim with a hand pump, covering my friends in latex and shocking some walkers 500m away.

I only steel bead Maxxis now.

Butternut squash (cook it first)
A bit of bacon
Some feta
and rosemary.

(With a little bit of tomato underneath.)

My personal favourite. (At least until manage to recreate the leek pizza I had in Wales a few years back.)

And my mate swears by dusting some semolina underneath it to cook.

EDIT: Dammit. Now I’m hungry again.

It’s dusty!

Glad it wasn’t directed at me as it would have ending with more than an exchange of words

Swearing around kids and loosing your temper like that is uncalled for and not cool

Slightly different thing (and nowhere near as bad as what some of you guys have done), but I can’t climb at the mo due to a dodgy wrist. The wrist thing is straight after a layoff due to elbow problems. These in turn came after I snapped a pulley/ligament in my finger. Which in turn came after etc etc…

Anyone else ever begin to think it’s just not worth it?

I had something similar on a Cannondale Prophet, which then meant there was a lot of sideways/twisting force on the shock. I noticed it when I started going through a shock mount bushing every ride. It was warrantied by Cannondale, although I’m not sure exactly what had happened to it as they never said.

Ha! And I should probably have read the thread title a little more carefully!

Cotswolds have got a couple of different Active Shell jackets in, an ME one and a Berghaus one (not bike specific, don’t know if anything for bikers is out yet).

As far as I know, Active Shell’s meant to be Gore’s most breathable effort yet (not sure how it compares to eVent). I believe Gore have put restrictions on the face fabrics manufacturers are allowed to use with AS, meaning that any jacket made from it is going to be pretty light and packable – certainly, the two I’ve seen are.

I’m not sure if it’s quite as durable as Paclite, or some of the lighter eVent stuff, but as it’s only just out, there’s no way of knowing yet. Still going to be totally waterproof though.

Equally, as stuff’s only just appearing, I don’t know that there are many (any?) reviews kicking around just yet.

NOTE – all the above could be wrong…

if you think 67 quid to ride round and round and for 24 hours is good fun, might i suggest its you who has a boring life, and you buy your self a hamster wheel

How do you know it isn’t good fun if:

as for the people that say you havent tried it, i havent and no intention

RE mats delaminating/splitting etc – try not to leave them blown up with the valve shut in hot tents. They heat up, the air expands, they get unhappy…

cynic-al – Member
Ooh I missed that amateur hour gem.

That really hurt my feelings, man.

Re-using old spokes rarely works. They lose tension and snap for more easily than new ones.

(But if it’s gone out so badly out that it’s rubbing on the frame already than either he’s had a huge crash (hint – does he have blood all over his face) or the build wasn’t up to scratch… Sorry.)

Trying to ride something like a mallet as a flat (say on descents) never works particularly well in my experience, even less so if you’re wearing a relatively stiff SPD shoe with a whacking great slippery metal cleat right where you don’t want it. You just slip around on the pedal and can’t get any decent control. Mallets are particularly bad for this as the cleat tends to roll over and spit your foot off the pedal (they are great pedals though!).

Either commit to flats or or cleats, if there was a middle ground that worked everyone would be using it.

EDIT: I like mallets a lot – they’re very easy to get out of (and more importantly, to clip back in to) and, having loads of float in the cleat means you can move your foot around on the pedal a fair bit before settling, when the pins hold it in solidly in place (a bit like a flat).

anyone actually had a repair successfully done ?

See my post above the photo…

For the Soul riders who’ve snapped their offside chainstays, were they previously damaged by chainsuck or was it completely out of the blue?

Mine was a Mk1 that snapped near the air hole at the dropout end. That hole’s no longer there, so nothing to worry about. (And I think I was messing around in Wharncliffe at the time). That was successfully and cheaply repaired with a sleeve.

The second time it snapped on a heavily chainsuck-damaged section of the stay. This was during an XC race when I tried to overtake someone mincing down a descent by taking a faster line off a drop. As I was totally kippered at that point in the race, I landed like a sack of spuds, to the accompaniment of a load crack.

Mine cracked on the chainstay near the dropout. Being the observant rider I am I didn’t notice for quite a while and just wondered why everything felt a bit wobbly.

For thirty-five quid a bloke in Dronfield welded a sleeve over it. A bit of hammerite in a totally different shade of grey to the rest of the frame and all was fine for another year or so. Then I cracked it again – same dropout, other end – and binned it.

The Old Bridge Inn is on the parallel road (on the Cairngorm side). From the centre, use the underpass just after the petrol station and it’s about 100m on the right.

That would be impossible Jezza, as I am never wrong.

Actually, I heard Elf was wrong once. It was when he thought he was wrong, but it turned out he was right…

I’m Dawn and so’s my mum.

My hairdresser is also called Dawn, is attractive, and is also a single mother. Do you live in Sheffield Irish_Al?

Sanny – that was Duckman’s argument, not mine.

My point was on a slightly different line – essentially, I agree with you, but I feel that if we want more access, we need to firstly address our image and to look at how responsible we as a group actually are.

(Incidentally, I don’t think that you said that just because walkers go there so we should be allowed to also. When I said in a post that you had made this point, it was the result of bad editing – I was trying to say that you had made the opposite point… sorry about that!)

It did look nasty!

I had never considered how fit you have to be for dancing. Amazing.