I miss the good old days when a gang of tracksuit yoofs (no masks or costumes) would knock on your door trick or treat mate.

American isn’t it, the elaborate OTT extravaganza. The British version used to be more low key. We are becoming more American every year. Baby showers, gender reveals all that nonsense. Showing off on social media! It’s not just the common use of American English, it’s a societal thing, the culture of money talks, showing off and not being a negative Nancy. The rise of SUV’s and massive pickup trucks. Just look around at the knocking down of old houses to replace them with McMansions that’s all the rage.

Anyway you lot will be grateful for his forthcoming baldness cure!

He doesn’t need to call out heavyweights there’s plenty of fighting men who will be up for it. Remember the amateur boxer who called out Deontay Wilder, it didn’t go well for him when he turned up at his gym!

Fighting men of utube.

Agree. He is offering nothing other than a method to get rid of a tory party that after 13 years even the voters can see how bad they are.

That’s it in a nutshell.

Although your average working class tory, 50+ bloke with a terrified timid little wife. They’ve seen it all, done it all and have been right about everything since birth. It’s like speaking to the same bloke, the same tropes about organised homeless gangs. They’ve all got a useless brother-in-law on 500 quid a week benefits. Everything’s fine, it’s just these woke lefties and lazy millennials exaggerating problems that don’t exist in their hard working (retired/semi retired) pulling your socks up world!

use of the term “acoustic” bikes…. You should be slapped in the face with a haddock repeatedly

Fair I’d say.

johni @ deggers. What a **** legend!

The V part is right Vampire.

Another gift from our American cousins!

I hope the proposed housing policy is not a complete disaster like the last Labour governments lip service. They did produce a lovely shiny corporate brochure about it! The token gesture of a few bedsits in luxury apartment blocks and a handful of smaller units on executive housing estates, weren’t affordable, nearly always ended up in rental portfolios, amounted to a drop in the ocean of targets missed by a country mile and never met any year since!

Private sector developers and/or large landowners (powerful lobbies, extremely shrewd and slippery bastards) will always opt to do what is most profitable. Affordability and allocation based upon need is never a consideration. Past threats/stipulations were met with poor quality token gestures, land banking and lobbying for a free-for-all in planning then we might consider being more helpful :D

Oh no I’ve had a horrific vision. A hybrid of these without any of the coordination!

Too much satin, beer belly, hip thrusting, dated and ultimately camper than a drag queens group holiday to Mykonos.

My mate used to call this type of music slow DnB :)

What’s happened?

Has one of the forum regulars gone off on one again, emailing death threats to MP’s and threatening to burn down the local planning department.

Bounce have been good for me. SS pins/dowels so in theory harder wearing.

TBH it doesn’t look to bad. I’ve resurrected worse to useable condition.

WD40 and wire wool is all you need. Clarks do a big reel of gear outer for reasonable money. IMO it’s plenty good enough to use on your other bikes as well as the soon to be polished turd!

If the BB and wheel bearings are sound and you can get suspension moving (shock mountings might just need a clean up, stanchions clean & polish plus working a bit of oil in) should be doable for relatively little spend.

Sometimes the chainrings on those BSO’s are warped just enough that you can’t completely dial out front mech rubbing in the extreme gears. Those forks clank on top out, they all do it, it’s part of the charm!

Autumnal kaleidoscope

Hahaha was going to post that.

Roll out the barrel.

people need to stop trying to cancel smaller wheels

Internet weridos the like of which you rarely meet in real life.

Must work in logistics, accounting or some sort of corporate admin where they are obsessed with streamlining and simplification. Or plain old corporate fanbois/armchair trouble shooters, you know the one’s who argue over which console is best and know the best strategy for every business on the planet.

What kind of stupid idiot is thrilled at less choice!?! Some bikes aren’t even suited to wheels on the ground 29nr kiss of death!

I doubt I could make it worse.

I once fixed the indexing on a BSO, the twist shifter imploded whilst doing it!

As has already been said do not strip it down. Give it a good once over and work out what can be fettled and what can’t or will cost big money and go from there.

I’ve rescued BSO’s with crusty fully seized chains, corroded stanchions, corroded and seized gear and brake cables. Used tin foil on the stanchions, wire wool to clean the cables then greased them, an oil bath while wrestling the chain about to free up the links. All of which has cost relatively little (excluding time) and the bikes have been ridden for years after.

You can free up cables by just releasing the tension at the v brake bridge and pushing a rear mech inward, then pulling the cables out of the stops, slide the outers out of the way to free them up and get some light grease in there! Trueing the wheels and setting the brake blocks closer to rims, along with setting each sides spring tension evenly so the blocks hit the rim at the same time, goes a long way to sharpening up brake performance!

Look out for frayed/damaged/kinked/wrong length cables held down by a few strands and things which have been bent, front mechs chainrings, V brake bridge QRs etc.

Anyone seriously addressing the cost of living or housing crisis

Meh the majority of the electorate couldn’t give a flying **** as they’re alright. The last thing they want is more houses in the pool or close to where they live. Same with developers, a restricted supply keeps prices high, that’s how they like it.

No one is going to **** that little gravy train up. Not to mention the lovely rental incomes!

First one I’ve made it to after watching Dom on YT from when he first started with only a handful of followers. Good vibes all round with peeps on bikes, skateboards, scooters, their feet whatever young and old.

Charnock pump track and dirt jumps to finish off, lush!

https://www.goodfreephotos.com/cache/animals/birds/owl-looking-intensely-at-you-with-scary-eyes.jpg

Keeping an eye on you ****.

£10k

In STW speak buttons.

Seeing as most ebikes are mullets, …they ain’t going anywhere

The majority of DH pros run mullet as well. Looks like you will be able to get decent back wheels for the foreseeable!

My feet can’t tolerate Freerider Elements anymore, the sole is way to thin even with thick insoles.

I also own the other extreme, old Impact Pros (same as the Sam Hill version) that are so thick and heavy your feet are completely numbed. They weight a ton, fill up like a skip and suck up every drop of moisture from a trail!

Pretty happy in Etnies Culvert Mids. They have a stiff sole, a shade less than impacts, but aren’t as wide fitting as 5 tens, which works for me but might not for you!

His big policy announcements consist of don’t worry old people/majority of the electorate we won’t change anything.

Hellscape – A favourite of American “news” broadcasters known for high quality well researched output!

Closely followed by shitshow a favourite of social media tryhards.

Anyway we got 40 hospitals didn’t we.

Bloody fake homeless organised begging gangs everywhere. They don’t know what poor is in this country. They wouldn’t need to use food banks if they didn’t spend all their money on iphones, drugs, booze and fags, or heaven forbid just got a job.

They’re all liars anyway. Imagine if that Russian commie sympathiser got in it would av bin worse. Open door to any immigrants, Snow Black Trans you name it, moped knife gangs in every town!

Bloody single mothers, don’t know how to do shopping or cooking right. Out of control youths with aggressive music am I right eh, weeding whiting and aromatherapy am I white!

What size and colour is it champ?

You know ebikes like yours have taken a dip since the new argon batteries and 3 phase linear laser motors came out!

Can’t say I’ve noticed a difference in stiffness between my two 34mm forks, one with reverse arch, the other conventional.

There’s a few little details about Manitou forks I like. The HBO and dual air chamber on their pro dampers has been around for years while you had to modify other brands forks for similar functionality. The Pro dampers are excellent, (pretty much silent in operation) gobble up big hits and are up there with the best. The only downside is they are not as easy to setup until you get the hang of their quirks!

They also have a deeper crown steerer interface (think it’s about 5mm) than most of the competitors. Whether that helps keep steerer creak at bay I don’t know, but you don’t hear many complaints about it with Manitou forks. It could of course just be the fact hardly anybody has them!

I only service my forks as and when absolutely necessary (I do use fork oil to pull dirt out of the seals and occasionally PTFE polish the stanchions) and I’ve found my Manitou and X-fusion forks have stayed more consistent and need less attention over time. They don’t seem to suffer problems like the compression dial not doing anything after a while like you get with some Fox forks. I do like an RS Lyric though, such a well sorted fork!

Chutzpah.

It’s the same bunch who use kudos, the we know words people who think they rock up. The nomarks haven’t rocked up anywhere in their pathetic little lives.

Attaching emotional words to mundane things like forever home preloved that type of thing. Get **** you bunch of try hards.

I only have reliable stuff on my bikes bar Shimano brakes! which I would replace in a heartbeat with Hayes Dominion if I wasn’t tied to i-spec and other compatibility issues. Then my bikes would be as good as I can reasonably afford. I have no SRAM products whatsoever (Monarch and Reverbs were absolute shite), but do accept they got it right off the bat with their top of the range Eagle 11sp 1x gearset.

If we are talking reliability don’t rule out Manitou. Their shocks are good quality IME.

Keeping her in a princess bubble of pink between tantrums, getting her hair and nails done, while she bowls about carefree in a Range Rover and acts like shopping is a job! Quick Starby’s to recover then back at it for a hectic spa day.

TBH I can’t stand most of the American/Canadian ones.

Lets see….

James Robert MTB

GeZeusChrist-Mtb

Although the wolfpack guy does the standard YT product placement thing, he is handy on a bike though!

It’s Shite

Yup it’s bleak to say the least. There’s a handful of secret dirt jump spots and pump tracks that’s about it. The best spot near the area got bulldozed. Pinnies behind Daresbury Park industrial estate. Amazing little tracks in a small woods, even seen a pro team manager training some juniors there, such a shame. Don’t know how much of it has been rebuilt!

You’re on the wrong track boy! There’s only one choice for the raddest dudes. Channel the energy of a roid raging WWF star and feel the redneck spirit as the wind whistles through your magnificent mullet.

Majority in a referendum isn’t always the best answer.

It was in this case. I’ll take local democracy over diktats any day.

In my lifetime there has been significant progress with localised air pollution and most (not all) vehicles are much better than they once were. Generally people are no longer cruising around in carburetted vehicles, on leaded petrol, with a manual choke fully on and no emission controls! Some of the most soot covered vehicles (apart from industrial, farming and site vehicles) I can remember were diesel buses and trains. Buses are now hybrids, but in the Manchester area we still have diesel trains and a disjointed public transport system a long way behind Londons worst parts. The progress is ongoing and will improve further as ICE vehicles are phased out.

I’m glad a referendum (seems the only way to get things done in this country) in my area has meant the majority are being listened to, for the time being! I’m not holding my breath :) that the Manchester transport network will be significantly improved before the admin bods are given the green light to restrict movement, demand fees and handout fines left right and centre.

The attempted rushed GM implementation was being applied broad brush out to rural areas with few roads or any of the city centre traffic sited as the cause of air pollution. Only certain vehicles were going to penalised while you could still drive round in a V8 just by virtue of classification!

A lot of the misleading, alarmist and hysterical language, often repeated on the internet and used by some agencies is irresponsible and damages the cause. The ONS have recorded one death between 2001 and 2021 due to air pollution in the UK, that’s not to say it doesn’t cause any harm! The overzealous money grab by cash strapped local authorities looking to plug holes in their budgets by any means and quangos looking to sure up and expand their operations doesn’t help either.

Most people don’t give a toss about politics, mainly as the ‘they’re all the same anyway’ attitude is now all-pervasive. They only notice when this stuff imposes itself on their real lives by force.

Pretty much.

Apparently the biggest political issue in the UK is the casting choices of the American entertainment corporation Disney. Snow White being replaced by black trans or something, with the Woke Police coming round to wrestle any 1937 versions of the film out of your hands. Amazing isn’t it? grown adults addicted to drama on social media (something they deride young people for) angrily parroting it!

Suppose when your ideology is based upon lies and bullying you’ve got to reach for more and more ridiculous reasons why you are still right about everything!

Gak binge friends 4 life.

I can’t wait for every businessman’s wet dream, charging as much as possible for as little as possible to be mandated by governments. It’s going to be wonderful and ruinously expensive for some, with those that can afford it carrying on as normal.

My ideal setup would be Shimano XT or above shifter, whatever Shimano mech, XD cassette, KMC or SRAM chain.

As it is I can’t get past the price of Sunrace cassettes on a HD freehub. XD equivalents are pisstakingingly expensive.

SRAM X01 has got to be the best most durable mechanical groupset SRAM have ever put out!

Bit of an amalgamation of footage.