Yup. Did the same for my 2008 Tricross. Pretty sure the Langster I had at the time shared the same headtube. Knock the old cacky cups out, new bearings straight in. At work tonight, but can possibly dig out my bearings tomorrow to see what spec they are if it helps.

Crikey. Sentencing for death by dangerous driving is more complex than I’d thought. Reads like the stars aligned for this particular conviction. Heartbreaking for families when (all too often it seems) it doesn’t.

For me, it’s not just been tuition, but absolutely hours and hours of practice, variously over recent years (including the tatty jumps in Wild Park and Patcham Place some 14 years ago!). I think that’s the key ingredient that often gets forgotten about. Stubborn motivation is key. Studying YouTube videos, scrutinising videos of myself and mates to see where I’m/we’re going wrong, and then going back out to fix it. And repeat. To the point of obsession. I must have spent a good six or seven hours over three days during a recent Morzine trip sessioning the newly rebuilt jump park in Les Gets. Finally I’m consistently clearing tables and gaps on the blues, and some of the reds. Boosting up into the air is coming a little more naturally, and once I’m in the air, I’m a lot more relaxed and able to think about landing the bike. But what feels like five feet of air is turning out to be more like two or three sometimes, so I know I’ve more work to do.  Keen to go play on the jumps at Leeds BP after work on Thursday, see where I’m at, and then see about getting tuition locally to take what I’ve learned so far further.

But it’s just the best feeling when you start to clear stuff, land your bike nicely, and generally play a bit more on the trail. I can’t recommend it enough. Good luck in your quest.

I’d be wary of donning someone else’s sweaty helmet indeed (!). Just want to give folk options. Tredz do rhe not-spendy-at-all 7IDP jobbies and 100% goggles which have always done me proud.

I hope you find your feet again soon enough @Drac (sorry, still not sure how to tag after all this time!). Twelve years in over here, and after my head properly fell off for a couple months last autumn, I’m casting about for an exit plan from paramedicland. Problem is, though I won’t miss NHS management one bit, I realise I’d properly miss the Yorkshire folk I serve. So I’m bloody stuck driving the big yellow taxi for the foreseeable until I can figure something else out.

May your shoulders feel lighter one day to the next. Here’s to your next chapter x

Ha, this has been my pet project (obsession!) for a few years now. To the point where the neighbours think I’m a bit odd spending hours on the drive riding in circles trying to clear my homemade bunnyhop machine, or ages sessioning the jumps at the bike park while my mates go ride the rest of it. Self filming is really helpful, as you can see where you’re going wrong – direct feedback if you like. My persistent issue with jumps is timing (unweighting before the lip), and not standing upright enough, so I kind of flop forward over the bars, not getting the height I need to clear the table. (Think I’ve the common fear of looping out onto my bum.) YouTube is an amazing resource, but can be awash with conflicting opinions. I toy with the idea of coaching, but reckon the absolute key ingredient is targeted practice. Shedloads of it. Too many folk like the idea of being able to jump, but lose interest after an hour or two of not magically getting the knack of it.

I’m in Calderdale if you fancy a practice buddy sometime.

Kashima-colour mismatch on a £13k bike? My OCD’s having ants!

@andyg1966 It was as scientific a measurement as a quick eyeballing of two different wheels side by side. Enough for me to second guess my original idea. That’s all.

@goodgrief It’s the Baja Divide, not the Badger, yes. Hence lots and lots of sand. (Squirming around on the odd bit of sand on the Great Divide a few years ago nearly did my crust in.)

BTW, I’m a she, not a he ;0)

Tell us what it’s like to ride dry trails in April sunshine? I can’t remember :0(

Super time had by all. A proper tidy little venue. (And it didn’t pish it down like it did today at BPW.) Cheers guys!

I’ve recently adopted the ‘Did I have fun riding my bike today?’ as a simple metric for measuring how good a ride was. I found I was getting all antsy pre-ride, worrying about whether I’d be gnarly/fast/rad enough, which seems silly given we’re just grown up kids playing in the woods. It’s worked a treat, and taken the pressure off completely. It’s also made me focus on those aspects of riding that truly do bring joy, be it nailing a move you didn’t think you could, laughing your head off with a mate, or just watching a beautiful sunset from the saddle. Any bike ride could be your last, for whatever reason. Make sure it’s a joyous one.

A handful of us Calder Valley Shred Sisters (Shreddies for short) are out 13-20 July, with a couple of honourary boys/Shred Siblings. We’re a friendly bunch, so if you see (hear) us, say hi!

FWIW I had a Novatec singlespeed hub on a nigh on new Rose jump bike a few years ago which did the same. Had it apart, grease inside still fresh, no cracks or corrosion to be found, put it all back together, and no improvement. Drove me nuts, so I replaced it with an ever so nice Hope trials hub, and put it down to a QC issue. (Bought the bike secondhand, so a warranty claim wasn’t possible.)

I had a similar quandry last year. Costed it and the upgrade came out at about £500. For a set of bling stoppers that’d get scraped next time I stacked it here in rocky Calderdale.  So I put the money towards an awesome trip away, riding the kit I have. No regrets.

You’d sort your grifter alignment for a press release photo, surely. That wonkiness made me wince (after I’d recovered from seeing the frame set price).

Yeah, waxing seems easy enough. It’s more the edges that are feeling a little rough in places, as it’s been a few years and several trips. Thanks all. 

Back just last night from a week in Tignes, having stepped into a ski resort and onto a snowboard for the first time four trips ago at the tender age of 40. (I grew up in South Africa.) It’s tough feeling like a total newb when everyone around you looks like they were born skiing.  I had imposter syndrome something bad for my first couple trips, feeling like I was going to get escorted off the piste for not having a clue what I was doing. Be stubborn with it.  Enjoy it. You’re going to fall. Pick yourself up. Fall again. Smile. Learn what you did wrong. Get better.  Feel the buzz when you get down your first blue in a oner. (Or don’t stack it getting off that icy chairlift.) And don’t forget to look up at those beautiful mountains, and raise a toast to playing out amongst them on a gorgeous day. 

Have a great time! 

”Apparently the new 529 is going to have some sort of UDH sliding dropout combo.“

So my present Shimano gearing will have to go out the window for a SRAM UDH setup? Could make for an unfeasibly expensive/wasteful frame swap project :0(

EDIT: just done a Google.  Looks like by universal UDH, the internet means compatible with UDH and normal – doh!

The video appears to be broken. Just a big blue square with the little buffering wheel going round. On both my phone and iPad ☹️

I love how I’m the only mountain biker and STW member in our household, but somehow the Megasack ditty and Darth Vader-esque voiceover are already inextricably associated with our Christmas.  It’s often Mrs CS who reminds me to do my Megasack entry for the day. I’m even not working this Christmas, for the first time in living memory – I’m already a winner! 🤣

It’s not OS maps per se, I suspect. It seems to be something that’s been added to the Outdoor Active premium ride planning tool, which uses the OS map. But only in my local area. I’ll check with the local ride lot in the pub tonight. Maybe it’s just me 😳

They’re not on the base OS map. But when you open up the ride planning tool in the Hebden Bridge area, up they pop over various footpaths in the area. 

@DickBarton, yep, have a look at the Hardcastle Crags NT property, a mile north of Hebden Bridge, flanking Hebden Water. The white circular, red bordered signs (which I take to mean ‘no doing of this’ as per the Highway Code), overlay certain footpaths when you’re using the ‘ride’ planning tool. As in, not in the general map.

@ajantom, that reminds me of a similar incident on a scorching hot day a few years back. Same prelude, but with the owner going ‘Nah, I’ll pick it up later, if I can be bothered’ and going back to his fishing. I said nothing further, wandered back to where his lab had laid its eggs, scooped them up in a poo bag I had in my pocket, and continued on through the car park. As I strolled past his estate car, boot open with said lab now chilling inside on its bed, I wordlessly and vigorously slung the poo bag deep into the boot, noting it slide well under a pile of tat up against the driver’s seat, beautifully out of sight.

That story warms my cockles to this day.

Call me shallow for judging a mag by its cover, but I ordered this issue for the cover photo alone – it’s ace! And it’s only £6, FFS 🙄

@petevanhalen (sorry, not quite sure how to reply to specific posts) – you absolute winner. That was it. I’d not broken my mate’s damper after all.

Happy days. Ta!

Yes, I did, having made that mistake before. It also won’t compress with the air can removed and no valve core in situ. Which is why I’m stumped. 

Intending to consult a great TF Tuned oracle tomorrow. 

Here’s hoping the race bug has bit! It was indeed an ace day. Here’s to the next one! 

I find I’ve got to be in a jibby kind of mood for that. While I happily spent 2+ hours playing with a pal on a set of plastic ramps in the local train station car park the other day, it rarely occurs to me to do so at the start of a group ride. Conservation of energy levels for the task ahead I guess. Also, certainly for me, jibbing means stepping out of my comfort zone and into a way more focussed learning zone, where failure is rife, as is the possibility of falling on my ar*e.

Once I nail the bunny hop though, I’ll be hopping every bloody thing I can at every opportunity I reckon! 

The quest continues…

Doing the bearing swap as a favour for a mate, and doubt he’ll want to shell out £55 for the YT tool. (Bought the Santa Cruz tool for my own bike a few years ago, only to find the hammer and punch tool far more effective.)

Sooooo, guess I’ll persist with hammer/punch/many cups of tea, and see how I get on.

Cheers all!

Second the Alpkit Kraft trousers. I’ve three pairs now, and work, ride and live in them. Tough and comfy as, er, a tough and comfy thing. And Mrs CS reckons they look ok from behind too 😉

Yippo. The Calderdale Shred Sisters (Shreddies for short) will be there in force. It’s one of the few annual events where most of us manage to make it, and so it ends up being more of a giggle-filled catch-up with long-seen pals, with a bit of riding in t’woods thrown in for good measure. Weather’s meant to be warm and dry too!

If it’s your first time, fear not. It’s a super friendly and inclusive event. Overhearing comparative chitchat about all things menopausal while a bag of Haribo gets passed up and down the queue above Home Baked stood out for me at the last event!

Hellooooo you lot. Eloise here. A longtime lurker too, and I live and work just round the corner from ST Towers. Crashing into my peri-menopausal late 40’s aboard my Santa Cruz Bronson or Stanton Ti Switch9er, and occasionally falling off my repurposed 2005 Cotic Soul pump track bike for good measure. (I’m presently mostly riding my newly-aquired Surly Crosscheck singlespeed while the trails continue to remain bogs, however.) All of this often jet-lagged from being an emergency services shift worker. I also love a damn good fettle, having spent ten years wrenching in bike shops before ‘getting some direction in life’ (as my mum put it).  Pleased to meet you all. Here’s to this forum becoming a great place to be.

PS: I’m a motorbike rider too! Presently sharing Vinny the Van-Van with Mrs Cheekysprocket who’s just got her CBT.

The waiting at the top of the hills thing aside, I think Simon is being quite reasonable. And it sounds like they share available riding time equally. He can support her, but only Rebecca can do what’s needed to rediscover her mojo, or she’ll have no ownership over her fitness and riding.

Question is, what are STW going to do with the survey answers? It’d be interesting to see the spread.

I envisage still using both. To quote Jo Cox, on STW, we’ve more in common than what divides us. However, there’s nothing like comparing notes about a shared lived experience (sounding like a social science researcher here) to make it feel a little less lonely out there when you’re the only woman on the uplift bus on a grim November day.

You reckon? Or is it just that a women’s experience of mountain biking as a sport can be a little different to men’s sometimes. (Mention trying to clear a jump with brain fog to a bloke, and they don’t get it, bless ‘em.)

As someone who’s dipped in and out of the STW forum since its beginnings, I’ve generally found it a positive, respectful and helpful place to be. However as I hurtle towards the big 50 and the menopause, my urge to ride nice bikes in gnarly places shows no sign of settling. Being able to share that (rather rare in the real world) lived experience with others going through the same thing – and its associated challenges – would be ace if nothing else. I reckon it’d add to the STW platform, not take away from it.

Cheers Hannah!

As I read this, REM are belting out ‘It’s The End Of The World As We Know It’ on Radio 6…