That’s all well and good – riding is meant to just be fun and you can have fun on pretty much anything but I’ll throw my toys out the pram and will buy a new crosser if 26 inch forks become so rare I can’t find parts for them.

Plus, 29ers honest to god look awful. Mountain biking was starting to look less nerdy post 2003.

29ers will have us looking like roadies again. In fact I’m just going to flounce and buy a new KTM 450 if 29ers take off – it will cost me about the same as slowly replacing my 26 inch mountain bikes over the next several years and I can’t stand buying something I really really despise the look of.

speed lube oil every 25 hours

Speed lube is ridiculously easy though – from what I remember with my Totems you don’t even have to take the fork apart.

26″ bikes have already become ‘kids only’ in the States.

Not further up north on the shore though. They’re popular in parts of the States that involve riding up and down fireroads.

Relatively balanced article –

http://www.nsmb.com/4479-29er-shore-worthy/

Interesting to note the wheels don’t seem to make up for a loss of travel. I don’t think you’ll be seeing any 180mm+ rigs that ride well – being sold commercially anytime soon.

As others have said, I reckon it’s going to be:

* 29ers for 0 to 150 mm of travel

* 650B for 160mm+ of travel

* 26 for 180 – 200mm of travel

There’s also the small issue of 29ers still losing to 650b and 26ers in world cup xc races, turns out they aren’t better all the time. Just some of the time – like it or not there is probably a limit to where increased wheel size becomes useful and I reckon 29ers may be right on the border….I mean why not 30? 32? 33? or even 28? Has anyone ever done randomized controlled trials on wheel size laptimes? No!

At the end of the day those of us with multiple bikes for multiple purposes are going to be worse off as we’re going to lose the ability to swap components – eg I’m not going to be able to swap wheels between a DJ bike and my All-mountain bike.

All because some Lycra clad roadie blowhards can’t ride rock gardens.

40MPH has it right…..brothers married to a Tibetan. All though she personally see’s both sides of the argument and seems to even be pro-Chinese from what I’ve gathered – as she’s had opportunities for a good education in mainland China that she would have not otherwise had.

Never mention Tibet in China though. Ever.

Seriously get the 650b Zen X on finance.

It’s a fair bit lighter than a reverb (500 grams) but the drop is next to useless. If it could do 100mm and the price was right it might almost be worth it.

They have good damping from what I’ve heard, apparently the TPC system is very similar to what you get in MX.

Touche, I’d never pay 1300 for a full sus. All the one’s I’ve tried are Pogo sticks. I’d rather have a hardtail with proper damping in the forks, lighter wheels and better brakes.

IMO for 1300 I’d be looking at a hardtail – something like a Saracen Zen X.

If you could push your budget to 1800 then a YT full susser would be nice.

Good spot piemonster! But even then?

Constituency boundaries?

Bwaarp, I love the idea of left-wing libertarianism. It’s sounds like an oxymoron, but isn’t of course. But be careful, you get flamed on here if you do not pigeon hole yourself according to traditional and wel-defined party politic

Fair point. I don’t really where I fit in though, I have left wing social ideals, right wing views of corporations (as in they’re not always bad) and a streak of libertarian philosophy thrown in.

I would….perhaps vote for SWP to get Labour to swing a little more left – but here’s the kicker.

If I/we did that and Labour went further left they’d end up losing seats to the SWP or the Tories like the Tories are with UKIP and Labour……and my line of reasoning has always been…..anything to keep the conservatives out. Labours policies are just enough to the left of the conservatives for me to go with the safe option.

For the record I’m a slightly left wing libertarian so none of the parties including the SWP appeal to me.

This is quite different to the ramblings I heard from the Green Rep I last spoke to.

What, the reps rantings were even worse? How do they expect to meet that pledge when they want to do away with modern farming practices as evidenced by their 2010 election manifesto?

Was ruining food supply and trade part of Old Labors manifesto? I think not.

Keep the proper Labour policies, cut out everything else and call them Old Labour….then I’ll vote for them.

I have to confess Ernie that I’m not overly familiar with their manifesto. Could you summarise for me please? Its basically saving kittens, talking to fair trade plants and installing wind turbines on everyone’s head isn’t it?

And destroying the world economy and agricultural system whilst on the other hand saying they want to help all the poor people.

It’s fascism for the Womens Institute and Friends of the Earth.

So what do you think of this article then Ernie considering the party and movements past

Darker shades of green

It seems rather coincidental that much of what is in the manifesto ties in with the accusations made in that article.

bwaarp the greens exist because someone in politics has to represent the ickle fwuffy bunny wabbits who have no voice of their own. Bless

Lol, I disagree. They exist because they are as I suspect, closeted or confused far righters that need to wrap their racism in something more middle class.

I’ll do a psychology study to prove it one day.

What did the greens do to you bwaarp?

Existed,

I jest…. I just don’t like what they stand for in their manifesto, who they are and the ideological undercurrents associated with the movement.

It was another Green Party btw.

The other one being the prior version they had before they split it to cover England Scotland and Wales as seperate entities.

So what if he was a sports presenter. The point is…. considering his views….he was attracted to the green party. I wonder why?

Darker shades of green

:mrgreen:

Secondly, in contrast with the Malthusians are groups with neo-Nazi pedigree who claim to advocate ‘social justice’ and decentralization. In the 1980s, the National Front’s Joe Pearce described ‘Social Justice, Ecology and Racial Purity’ as the three pillars of ‘nationalism’. Ruralism, spiritual values, social credit and even animal rights are themes that both appeal to greens but are also given a far-right spin by these groups. Social Credit is a 1930s theory devised by anti-semite Major Douglas, which advocates community take-over of banks, that places the blame for ecological destruction on the banking system rather than capitalism/industrialism. And from here it is a short step to the NF’s shrilling about a global Jewish banking conspiracy and ‘Alien Bankers Destroying British Countryside’ (see Nationalism Today, March 1980). Their espousal of animal rights focuses on ritual slaughter, with the right forgetting that kosher and halal practices are intended to reduce the suffering of animals.

HAHA oh **** god David Icke was in the Green Party.

This is a forum, If I had time I could write several dissertations on why they are wrong on medicine, wrong on agriculture and wrong on trade….all backed up with good data.

I dislike all the parties – but most of all UKIP, the BNP and the Greens.

You’ve expended a lot of energy on a party you obviously see as a joke. That’s quite pathetic.

I quite like politics and critiquing a party is what you should do in a democracy, – it allows you to develop a sense of who you shouldn’t be voting for ;) Know thy enemy, plus having a gander at the manifesto allows me to wind up any greens at the next dinner party I go to in Oxford.

And seeing as they take exception to my line of work, I’ll take a heavy interest in them thanks.

Looking at the policies I posted on the previous page as a whole they’re whole manifesto seems to revolve around – if it comes from a corporation it must be bad.

* GMO’s = Evil and unhealthy

* Pesticides = Evil and unhealthy

* Medical research = Evil

* Alcohol/Cigarettes = Kills lots of people but opposed because they’re produced by big faceless corporations.

Many of these policies seem to clash with

* We want to make the world a better place for all the poor people in terms of food security and living standards.

So what do they really want?

Reading between the lines, what their policy amounts to is “anything that is produced locally/small numbers is good. Even if that means lots of people die in the process of attaining that dream.” See what I mean, they’re still hippies that are opposed to anything produced by “da big man” even if they are better than the alternatives.

Gradually increase alcohol and tobacco
taxes by about 50% to match anticipated
increases in expenditures on the NHS, raising
£1.4bn in 2010 rising to £5.6bn by 2013.

**** no, if you want to decrease NHS spending costs massively reduce the costs of booze and fags. It’ll mean more people killing themselves earlier. This is where I don’t get greens, they rail against medicine and international trade like they want to make sure as many people die off as possible….yet they want to ban booze andd fags. I guess it’s because they’re seen as corporations and we all know they are evil that must be opposed.

Levy eco-taxes on non-renewables or
pollutants, in particular pesticides, organochlorines, nitrogen and artificial fertilisers and phosphates.

= More skyrocketing food costs.

Working to live,
not living to work

I prefer living to work actually, it usually means you have an interesting job. Working to live usually means, well just that. Working to put food on your table

Our programme has to be paid for, and we
accept that the Government borrowing of
12% of GDP is unsustainable. Like the
Government, we would aim to more than
halve the deficit by 2013, and the programme
of taxation and spending in this manifesto is
designed to achieve that.

Massive LOL!

Invest in the green economy now –
and if, in certain vital sectors such as energy
generation, the private sector is acting too
slowly and on an insufficient scale, then the
Government must take the lead.

What, like nuclear? Or Fusion? Or just hundreds of giant **** solar panels on every hillside?

Yeah they just altered their wording to make themselves seem less loony in their 2010 manifesto

Make available on the NHS complementary
medicines that are cost-effective and have been proven to work

Complementary therapy works, kind of.

The next anti scientific bit is

Support GM-free zones and continue to
work for a complete ban on genetically
modified food in Europe

There is no reasonable evidence that supports GMO crops being so wildly dangerous it warrants a total ban. They’re as safe as any other crop.

Then

Immediately ban causing harm to
animals(including but not only primates)
in research, testing and education, and invest
in the development of alternatives to animal
experiments.

Bye bye medical science in the UK, bye bye billions and billions of pounds worth of research, jobs and infrastructure in Oxfordshire etc

• Protect biodiversity and human and
animal health. We will always adopt the
‘precautionary principle’ with regard to
any alleged benefits of new technologies
such as genetic modification, cloning,
xenotransplantation and nanotechnology

Uhhhh so does science, what that means is that they won’t support them at all.

• Reduce dramatically the use of pesticides
and introduce measures such as ‘buffer zones’
around sprayed fields to protect humans as
well as wildlife.

Just think, if the whole world did this we’d have to use more land to produce food or starve. Guess we can make our land nicer and have the wogs grow us more crops though.

It destroys infant industries in poorer
countries, which are forced to open their
markets to imports from more developed
countries, and undermines efforts to
become more self-reliant in both North
and South

My economist girlfriend from the Philippines laughed so hard at this one.

The liberalisation of trade in goods and
services has rendered the world economy
increasingly unstable because economic
contagion spreads more quickly

Yeah all that trade actually tends to decrease wars and increase stability. It’s a total fallacy that the world is less Geo-politically stable right now.

It produces increased international trade,
which makes a signi?cant contribution
to the rise in transport-related carbon
emissions.

Oh no. Those brown people are going to improve their living conditions!

Our international policies should everywhere seek to reduce the economic, political
and environmental factors that force people
to migrate. E

Yeah you do that by increasing trade between wealthy nations and developing nations. **** tards

Promote fair trade,so that trade with
developing countries is based on decent
pay and conditions, with a fair price paid
to producers.

I’ll refer them to this gem…..”A report published by Adam Smith Institute claims that “Fair Trade”methods actually sustain uncompetitive farming practices rather than encourage the development of modern techniques or industrialization. In addition, payment structures put in place by the Fair-trade Foundation “unintentionally encourage farms in developing countries to take on labourers only during harvest time.” Seasonal sugar plantation workers in Asia are the most exploited. They toil under harsh labour conditions with low wages, no medical benefits and housed in crowded and filthy living quarters.”

The brace is connected to the two stanchions via the fenders.

Funny all this slating of the greens for a lack of evidence based policy etc – yes it’s not ideal, but then if they were in power they probably wouldn’t start any illegal wars resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, or demonise the poor when the economy is failing.

Yeah your right but judging by their manifesto they’d probably end up helping to create the conditions right for WW3 to kick off by destabilizing the world economy even further.

Or we might not have invaded Iraq and hundreds of thousands more Iraqi’s may have perished in “Iran-Iraq fight to the death with chemical weapons – part 2”.

My point being I’m not going to vote for them just because they mightt not have started a war and may or may not have theoretically saved lives. BTW I’ve worked with a lot of Iraqi’s, all them are happy as **** Saddam went – even the ones who had children killed by Nato bombs.

I believe doctors in Germany can prescribe homeopathic medicine

Which makes them tools.

yes it’s not ideal

Yes it’s far from ideal, they’d be the first ones bleating and pointing to studies if another party came in proclaiming global warming didn’t exist. But ****, if you use science against them? Your part of the machine man! This is called confirmation bias.

Lack of evidence based policy is what’s gotten this country into the mess it’s in, I don’t want to vote for another party that is even less inclined to listen to evidence.

Yes, yes…..29ers are definitely going to relegate 26ers to history.

http://www.bikemag.com/news/brian-lopes-wins-inaugural-world-cup-xc-eliminator/

Won on a 26er.

http://forums.mtbr.com/general-discussion/29er-bikes-inferior-world-cup-circuit-26ers-dominate-both-mens-womens-races-782893.html

29ers get owned where acceleration is important

The Angry Singlespeeder: 26er or 29er – Which was Faster at the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo?

29ers get owned in an endurance race.

http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/nino-schurter-wins-world-cup-1-on-650b-wheels-33467/

650b stomps on 29ers.

Basically in anything that requires lots of speed changes or elevation changes….. 29ers get destroyed.

The UK downhill scene requires good handling in tight low speed corners and acceleration under pedaling.

Both something which it seems 29ers suck balls for.

Drag of the wheels

Wind resistance, I still don’t buy 29ers being any good for downhill. How come intense ditched the 29 inch version of the 951 after testing it and went to 650b instead?

Pedaling right to the lip of jumps? Have you ever even raced DH before? You don’t pedal right to the lip of jumps because it throws you off line even with a BB a bit more below the axles of the wheel that isn’t going to change….believe me I’ve tried some bikes with really slammed bottom brackets. Besides that with many jumps you have to lay off the speed a bit or squash them so you don’t overcook the jump.

What are you on about….no point in winning on bikes they don’t manufacture? Yes there is, for development purposes and brand image. Teams start using new bikes way before the general public get their hands on them so that they can test and develop their products. As I said earlier, companies would push 29ers in DH if they thought it would give them a winning advantage…..people would then buy them.

It’s really obvious how little you know about the DH race scene man. I’m guessing your an XC jockey who bought into the 29 hype.

Funnily enough they did do something similar in Motocross years back, in the end they had to go to much larger diameter stanchions.

Something MXers still argue about to this day due to stiction etc.

http://www.pinkbike.com/news/dvo-emerald-first-look-2012.html

Looking at it I’m not sure the replacable crown will let you change the wheels without altering geometry anyway. The fork will be taller when converted to 650b!

Just what you want when your trying to get grip on the front, a taller front end.

No joy for me here.

must be pretty flexy then!

Torsional (twisting) stiffness has always been a problem with USD forks.

To counter it you either have to up the weight by having a huge bolt through (eg 36mm) or you have to do a little engineering trick like this.

Front/Back stiffness is actually improved with USD forks.

Nice troll :P but I’ll bite….

Well along with replaceable rear drops outs, it could at least mean you could swap between 650b and 26 without screwing the bike up as converting to 650b on the emerald is just a matter of swapping out the crown.

Then you could tailor one bike to different course types….something much more appropriate than having to buy two bikes because I reckon a 29er would be far far to heavy and unwieldy for most courses.

I note that Intense, Scott and KHS are all going down the 650b downhill route instead of 29.

All in all I’m hoping this turns out to be a decent fork because I’ll throw it on the pulse I intend to get and then if 650Bs prove themselves after a few seasons then I will get a 650b capable frame (if I can’t manufacture a new set of dropouts that would lower the bb on the Pulse)

Believe it or not that’s actually a USD fork, so nothing to do with fork coatings. What looks to be a brace is actually a carbon stanchion protector that is bolted to the lowers, it apparently improves stiffness by 50 percent.

They’re going to offer one in black as well.

Seriously mate, I can’t handle this – you’re now editing your edits !!!

Calm down and slow down mate …… I think you’re starting to get hysterical

Just admit that you got internet bitch slapped big time?

Nope, moved it about because I linked to the wrong one

the one I meant to link to was here:

http://old.sheffieldgreenparty.org.uk/xarchive/downloads/masts.pdf

*SARCASM ON* Best….literature review….ever *SARCASM OFF*

It reads like the rant of someone on abovetopsecret.com…. next up…..Chemtrails!

I don’t see what they’re so bothered about though, lots of greens want more people to die so we have less people on this planet. Why do they care about radiation? Are they anti-technology or would they just prefer it if *sarcasm on* slitty eyed people and darkies died off instead of them?

you’re now posting links to a French party

Ahhh stealth edit.

Let me remind you :

99 percent of the rest of the country will be opposed to them for the wrong reasons, like preferring racist parties, hating gays or just feeling comfortable voting for labour.

I’m not a misanthrope btw, I’m a disappointed humanist.