The above is correct if they havent changed it since 2010. I put an E-type BB mount one on my Stumpy FSR 2010

From CRC – Shimano SLX M665 E-Type 2×9 Front Mech – BB Mount – Dual Pull – 36t

Never been that late before on a Saturday afternoon, but made the mistake of trying to get in at 11am before and it was chaos! Definitely earlier the better but it should start tailing off by 4pm, I would guess by 5/6pm it would be quiet again – well as quiet as Swinley gets in daylight hours these days.

Whatever you’d wear for a big day in the saddle on some proper singletrack in the UK and are comfortable with. We went last year and I was so tempted to get all padded up but glad I only wore my GForm knees and XC lid as I’d have been uncomfortable in full pads/FF helmet. Its not big or hard if you are used to doing UK red trails with ease.

The only reason I’d suggest any pads so if you have a silly off it wont end the day/weekend/week out there, especially if you get tempted by some DH runs 😉

Just seen the footage on CH4. Does look like the sprint was carnage but good to see Barnes awarded her rightful place in the end.

m0rk – Member
Car park will be busy, but the trail won’t be too bad at all

This. Looks like a great day to do it today 😀

Looks amazingly like a rebadged Edge 800 to me, maybe doing it without the OS maps is making it a lot cheaper. Might find the firmware is limited in its features in some way. So they can keep selling the old 800 but under different guise. No bad thing if it is, great little computer (I have an 800 w/OS) for a good price.

Yup well worth it. I had an 800 since it came out and it’s great. Also gets far better accuracy than my friends on smartphones on Strava etc.

I’ve always had this with my 800. Its because it isnt that accurate, only down to a few metres so will always think you’re moving slightly if you’re sat still. Once moving it gets more accurate as it can interpolate where you are.

Dont think you really need a map, but its good to have that one printed out. Just head out on the blue and when you hit the fire road where the blue goes left and down hill, turn right and hit the first bit of red. Once you’ve done the red you come back to the same bit of fireroad and carry on down the hill to the next bit of blue.

He seems to have got very quick in a short space of time though, and has a habit of reclaiming a KOM by a fair margin the day after you take one off him! I’m sure it is genuine, but I did find myself wondering!

Someone my missus used to work with suddely got very quick at our local trails. Dont think he’s cheating as they are group rides so you’d expect him to be caught out if he was cheating. Maybe he uses real EPO 😆

If I were the person who’d written the digital EPO site, when it rescales the data I’d add a specific rescaling signature to the data periodicity, as it’s not particularly difficult.
Then after say a year or so I’d produce a strava app that checks for this signature in leader boards.

That would be class. Give it to Strava and they can flag up the cheats. Although it would be easy to overcome by adding your own “fudge factor” into the files by changing a few of the values yourself.

Unless the files are signed with a specific algorithm from Garmin or whoever that Strava can validate against then it will be very difficult for this stuff to ever be easily proved. And I’m not sure Garmin/Sunnto/etc could be bothered with the faff.

scottfitz – Member
No everyone rides the same 4 Stages but you have more time to complete the transition. We made the decision to have 1 transition stage because we could concentrate on building the Timed stages which are about 75% new trails.

Go on, just rub it in that I missed the registration (too slow) 🙁

Was down at QECP yesterday with some friends new to biking and we had a great time, would have loved to done the enduro, teach me to be quicker next year 😀

We were up there on Sat 18th and sure one of our group said they were moving out in the next week or something. Certainly said they were moving out, not sure when they said they were off.

Its very much a personal choice. We went out to do PdS last year and everyone was telling me I needed pads/armour/etc. I didnt see much point as didnt see it any differently to riding at home, so we went for some G-Form pads as they were lightweight and would help with minor offs and scapes. I did wear them at PdS and it did make me feel a little happier about the risk of having an off on such a long day, but didnt actually need them. As the others have said though, it would be silly to have a small off, mash your knee up a bit and stop you riding for a few days. So in hindsight it was a good idea to have them and I’d wear them again over there. I dont use them at home though.

I’ve only taken Bingo into work once and it was met with fits of laughter. Sitting there amongst the Mercs and Audis he did look a tad out of place…..

T5.1 (facelift) with the Sportline conversion. Looks like a bigger meaner VAG and will blend in with the other Audi’s and Mercs 😉

I got rid of a Nissan 370z to get our T5, its converted to a camper so we can get away for nice weekends camping (read: biking!). Drives just like a car for the most part, easily fits in car park spaces and can get into multi-stories easily enough. Interior pretty much the same a a standard Golf/Passat/Polo, so nice enough place to be.

Had loads of Juicy’s and Elixir’s, currently running Elixir 9s on mine and the missus bike, and held up fine in the Alps last year for PdS and Les Gets bike park, and still going strong.

Bleeding can be hit and miss. Still not 100% sure whats needed to make the bleed go right as I do the same thing every time and sometimes its a good un, sometimes not. I do tend to push more fluid through than they say, that seems to get a bit more air out. I think its pot luck and if you get some trapped air it can be a sod to get out.

dashed – Member

Would I ride it week in, week out?

Probably. But in the same way I used to ride old Swinley – have a session around Labrynth area one visit, maybe a couple of blasts around the blue on another… Mix and match kinda thing but I would get bored of riding the whole loop time after time.
I think this is how we’ll hit it. One time do a couple of loops around the blue, another do blue and red, another had out on fire road to get to the red quicker and do the interesting bits a few times then head back on the blue or something. Just link it up like we used to and not follow the whole blue/red routes all the time.

I hope they build more red route sections as there were points on it that are so boring, but then others that are really good. Seems to be much bigger extremes than the blue route which is pretty good all the way around just not techy at all.

Dislocated shoulder and as yet unknown damage to hip/pelvis is all I’ve heard so far

Thanks for the info. Does seem a bit excessive to get the Air Ambulance out for that, but if there are any change of back/neck injuries I guess they will always be called out.

Didn’t get to ride that section in the end so cant comment on how likely it is to catch people out, but I am amazed at the amount of people to hit stuff far too quick and then claim it wasn’t signed or is dangerous. I’ve always been taught to ride to what you can see, and everything (that I’ve seen) in Swinley is rollable and should be rolled the first time around. When it gets a bit touch and go is when you can do it quickly but not quite clear it comfortably as will be the case with a lot of people at Swinley and a few of the doubles.

New trails are running pretty sweet, but already showing signs of damage which is a shame. Agree about the red route bog, we got confused down there and have been riding Swinley for a few years, sure there are better cheeky trails to get down that part.

Anyone know the outcome of the Air Ambulance attending on Sunday around lunchtime? Think it was section 25-26 on the red route. Think a lass was hurt on a set of doubles. Hope she is ok. So much for the new route reducing casualties, never seen Air Ambulance out before yesterday.

My Strava says 5.6m, I must have been high round the berms! 😀 That was with the longer route going left at the post on Stickler. Tank Traps is on the red.

I have only ridden it once since the work was completed, but please dont change the steps. Its the only bit of tech riding on the course I can remember that was a challenge and it makes it interesting. If its meant to be a red route, IMO thats the only part that makes it red. Everything else I remember on there is rollable easily by even beginner MTBers, and if it werent there, then its most definitely a blue route.

I ride both and I think you’re on the right idea with choosing the pedals for what you are riding. I can happily change between both, dont rely on SPDs being stuck to my feet to get the bike in the air etc.

My usual choice is:
SPD for longer more XC rides where efficiency has more effect
Flats for shorter blasts, more gnarr riding! Also for trying new skills where being able to jump off will help.

But say if either have been soaked the day before on a weekend away, then I’ll ride the others as they are dry 😆

Klunk – Member

Strava is Xbox Live (or whatever it’s called) for fit people.

much much more easy to cheat on strava than xbox live.
And will be completely useless once more people realise you can very easily edit the text files 🙄 Sure there must already be programs out there to do it. I’ve edited my own for Garmin Connect before to join what it decided to track as 2 separate rides into one. Wont be long before people start tweaking the timestamps in them slightly to give them KoM.

ENVE would be my bike tart vote. 8)

If you can get a trade card for Halfords (they will accept a business card for a mechanic as proof of working in the trade), then they do the small bottles of DOT 5.1 (250ml?) for just over a quid! 😉

This kind of thing has been happening for years, only more easy for the scallies now as there are more expensive bikes out there at “trail centre” car parks rather than in random car parks for natural trails. When I was a young lad, my Hardrock and brothers Rockhopper were stolen from our garage. The police say it was targeted and I must have been followed home. This was very likely the case, as at the time we had thousands of pounds of kayaking equipement in the garage which they didnt touch, just took the two bikes.

I now go for a quick spin around the block on the way back from local bike trails/rides just to be sure theres no-one on my tail, and where you enter our cul-de-sac its very obvious if someone is behind you, and if they ever are, I will divert down another cul-de-sac until they are gone. Long way for a scally to follow me if I’ve been to Swinley, though I wouldnt be surprised if it happens there too, more rich pickings.

I loved my old Racelines. Had them on an Orange Air-O with some massive replacement carbon brace (forget who made it now).

Always loved the reaction of mates trying them out and launching themselves over the bars 😀

Given my age when I had them, I will always consider them the best brakes ever. Even if modern discs are better, they cant touch my old HS33s!

The guys at Hadleigh were class. One was singing “if you’re happy and you know it” and another was threatening not to let anyone in that wasnt smiling 😆

Another angle of the no-footer in the rock garden…

I run Spesh Tahoe with XT Trail pedals. You get noticably more support from the Trail variant than the non-Trail (that I ran before). As with the others, I had sore spots on longer rides with the Tahoe as they are not the stiffest sole, but with the Trail variant its gone. The extra area around the cleat interface definitely adds more support. Also works well when you’re not clipped in as emergency platforms – had that a few times in the Alps!

Edric 64 – Member

I did a seal and oil change on a pair of 2004 Rock shox Dukes in half an hour. The parts were £30 sending them away to TFT would not have been worth it on apair of old forks as with postage its about £110 ? The £60 quoted above seems more reasonable

bland – Member
There are videos showing you how to do all kinds of forks, just give it a go yourself, its not rocket science

I did give my friend that option, we were going to get the bits from Loco, but he doesnt want to give it a go only to then have to pay someone to put it right if he breaks it. This is despite it being an older spring/oil which I think are easy to service. Told him to MTFU but he wants a shop to do it. Just seeing if we can get somewhere local so it doesnt cost ~£30 in PnP.

Evans are looking good so far unless anyone has a independent LBS near Basingstoke/Reading that we could use.

Good to know that not all is lost in the world of LBS then, I was starting to wonder what they did still do these days! Think it must just be my local ones down here.

Hadnt thought of Evans TBH, I will give them a look and see how much they want for it. The problem we have is that the bike was only a few hundred quid to my mate, but then the service at TFT is £90 + postage each way. So its nearer £120 which seems a bit bonkers when I sold the bike for £300. Loco are more reasonable at £70 but he’d still have to pay postage. If Evans can do it for £70 or less then I can drop the forks off for him which saves £30, making it all more reasonable.

Should note I meant to put the question as “Do LBS service suspension still”, dont mean to offend any LBS techs on here that still do it – qudos to them to keep the skills up.

Attached to the frames or not? I assume this is for normal glasses and not prescription lenses for sunglasses? Oakley’s small vault should have you sorted. Be very surprised if you have lenses that Oakley dont do a case for themselves.

Me and Mrs I have tickets to the Mens race on the Sunday 😀

I have one of these from recommendations around the web – http://www.actioncameras.co.uk/wambam-buffa-gopro-case

The only problem is the camera does move around in it a little, so I got some old foam and made a U shape piece to go around the top and sides of the camera. Fits just nicely now.

I’ve got one and used it for our week in Morzine. Nicely quietened the rear end and kept things in check. It did tend to clog up in the mud (mix of mud and pine needles – yummy!) but was easy to clean out. Dont have much of a groove in mine yet, but think I may remove it for pootling around. Its dead easy to remove with one bolt, just leave the cable guide part zip tied to the bike. You can turn the guide part to have the chain wear 4 different sides/faces so should make it last a bit longer. I’d imagine once you wear in the initial track it will then slow down the wear rate a bit as more of the chain will contact it.

Good for 40 quid, and will last longer than my DCD did years ago hah.

G-Form. We have some knee and elbow pads. They’re not the greatest in terms of protection, but they offer a good amount, but importantly are very slim and flexible and as such are very unobtruisive. They’re quite cheap at £35/pair on eBay if you look out for Tredz (who are actually quite good as an eBay seller!).

Oh and when you are bedding in, dont not come to a complete stop on the brakes! It will transfer too much pad material and cause a high spot on the disk which you will feel as judder. Be sure to ride around for 5 mins on no brakes afterwards to cool them down. I do it on a hill near our house, down it to break them in and back up to cool down.

Instructions to break them in are on the SS packets. You need to do 10-20 hard stops without locking the wheels. This generates enough heat to transfer a small amount of pad material to the disk. When you have done it right you will know as the disks will be scorching. If you spray water on them as SS say they will fizz/sizzle. Its the same as high performance car pads. You need to bed the pad material to the disk and also heat cycle the pads to harden the pad material.

I have a set of SS kevlars waiting to be bedded in for PdS this weekend so will see how they go. Have used their sintered before and they last us forever, but I’m not a heavy chap nor do I brake that much or drag the brakes (may change this weekend!)

If you mean the c.guide v2 I got mine from bike-discount.de, delivery in a matter of days from DPD. Quicker than most UK shops would have had it delivered and no doubt cheaper.

I was about to say we’re there too, but its cos we’re with you – muppet 😆