Nope. Didn’t know that was a thing. Will add to the list for my next trip to Ballater (whenever that might be). Cheers.

“I take it you mean Mastermind”

Yup, that’s the one. Didn’t know what it was called when I originally posted as hadn’t looked at Strava yet.

Addicted To Lunch.

Lunch Is A Battlefield.

Tainted Lunch.

Why Can’t This Be Lunch?

Justify My Lunch.

Temple Of Lunch.

Isn’t She Lunchly.

You Lunch Us.

Lunch Removal Machine wins the thread though.

Wednesday summer evening club ride round the local a few years ago now. Came out of a bit of singletrack to see a fully nekkid bloke on a vicar bike bimbling past us along the fire road.

Carried on the ride and while waiting an chatting on a fire road junction a bit later, we saw the same guy in the distance heading towards us. To our slight relief he stopped to put some clothes on  before cycling past. As he reached us, we could see the clothes he was using to secure his modesty were a pair of denim daisy dukes and a skimpy crop top.

Came here to say Jedi but beaten to it.

Been a couple of times but not for a few years now. Back there in a couple of weeks to sharpen up my still a bit weak jump techniques.

“You make 3 teachers in the forum now!”

I think there’s a few more of us than that.

FWIW, happy with 5.5%. Sensible approach to avoid potential future disruption to students and parents.

I do like them but I wouldn’t pay 80 quid.

https://www.tradeinn.com/bikeinn/en/wtb-vigilante-tough-fast-rolling-tritec-e25-tubeless-27.5-x-2.8-mtb-tyre/138755705/p?utm_source=google_products&utm_medium=merchant&id_producte=15772565&country=uk&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw-5y1BhC-ARIsAAM_oKmjGxoCTkK8PD5ODO1XDewOv2YwDR6AhACGb2zY1CcUCSAcymNKXFEaAmCeEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

2.8 Rangers are great on the back at the right pressure (there does seem to only be a 2 or 3 psi window for this), but on the front they’re utterly terrifying at any pressure!

Grab a 2.8 Vigilante for the front. Run that combo on two bikes and it’s great once you get your pressures dialled in.

Action? War? Test the sound system?

Black Hawk Down.

If a lack of pound signs is all you’ve got to be angry about in this world, then I envy you (but I also don’t ‘cos it’s really petty). Your typographic choices may be different and that’s OK (assuming you’re not a professional crayoner in which case you should know better).

“Hmm. That’s the second highest ranking minister. Oh well.. socialism.”

I know I shouldn’t engage the below bridge dweller, but just wondering whether they need to be called out on misogyny, elitism or just plain nastiness?

Bearing change yesterday. Local today making sure everything was torqued up properly before we head to Scotland midweek (Dunkeld, Ballater, Laggan and Aonach Mor will be more of a test than any North Northants woods!).

Maybe these would be the ideal solution?

Centaur 3-in-1 Zip-Off Trousers

Don’t have these, but do have some other Odyssey stuff and it’s pretty good.

“and what we all want is an expanded public sector and the bigger tax take that requires.”

Can’t believe you’ve finally posted something I vaguely agree with! :-P

(notwithstanding the perennial STW debate over the financial part of that statement)

“Any internal storage on the bike?”

Nope. Skinny steel tubes all the way.

The rattle is definitely coming from the right hand (non air side) leg of the new Yaris.

“Have you got any tokens in there? I had one work loose and rattle once, took a bit of head scratching to work out what it was”

Air side is stock, so if there are tokens in a Yari from the factory then yes. Rattle sounds like it’s from the non air side though. Will check if (when) I need to strip it down.

“Cables / Hoses?”

Deffo not. All locked down and stable.

“Love the look of it (apart from the fork decals for some reason).“

Thanks! After looking at the cost of short run/one-off decals I bought a load of vinyl and printed my own. Can’t quite get the black background for the forks as deep as I would like on a domestic printer. The flip side is that I can design, print and try as many variations as I want until one works! Might try something a bit ‘scrappier’ like the downtube ones at some point.

“No idea what that shock’s going to do through its travel… report back after more riding!“

Haha! You’re not the first to make similar comments. I’ll admit I don’t know enough about kinematics to even begin to have an answer. The guys at Marino did try to explain about getting the lower amount of travel from a shock I already had (that used to give me 150mm when it was in my old mk2 Rocket – you’re now going to tell me off for wrongly assuming that the Cotic custom Fox tune would work in a hacked together single pivot set up aren’t you?). They were more concerned with shock placement and angles to get the desired travel though than behaviour through the stroke..

Now done a couple of ‘proper’ rides on it. One around some of the features we have in the local woods and one up your way around Blackamoor. Nothing obviously funky about the way it rides. Feels pretty composed on the rocky descents until it runs out of travel but it ramps up nicely to full travel with no harsh bottom out that I could notice. On the jumps and drops at the local (not huge – biggest are about 1.25m drops onto downslopes or smallish kickers onto flat) it again feels composed and solid, with again no noticeable bottom out.

The way I’ve been describing it to my riding mates (in a really crude layman’s way) is that it feels kind of like the bastard offspring of my RocketMAX and an old Alpine 160 I used to have. The geometry and material feel a bit Cotic-y (since one of the geometries I ‘borrowed’ to base it on was my RocketMAX that’s maybe not surprising), while the suspension feel is pretty close to the Orange single pivot I rode a few years back. I know there’s way more going on than that and it’s oversimplifying things, but that’s the best way I can currently find to articulate things.

As long as it doesn’t suddenly start to demonstrate any nasty habits, or stress the shock into explosive submission, I reckon I’ve come up with something that suits a big proportion of my riding. Don’t worry though Kelvin – I still have and love the RocketMAX for the big days out!

Just the fork rattling to sort out before It gets some further testing…

Up Blackamoor way yesterday with a few of the club crew. Don’t often ride that bit of The Peak but it was good fun.

From the noise, it’s more something loose rattling around than a noisy damper – just picking the fork up and shaking wouldn’t trigger the damper to anything but it does cause the rattling noise?

Think I might need to consult a manual and strip the whole thing down…

Also, meant replaced the MoCo damper not a Charger IIRC.

All checked on the ride yesterday and/or this morning. Definitely in the fork – wheel out, pick the front end up and shake front end up and down it’s coming from the right leg of the fork.

You did check the date that video was posted?

Plus, grown up doesn’t have to mean po-faced and dour…

I guess this is going to be a very personal thing due to head and face shape, but I’ve had no movement issues with either Adidas Evil Eyes or Melon Kingpins. The latter are way better in terms of breathability IME.

Read that article and realised my mother-in-law probably (she won’t admit to it but also won’t discuss who she did vote for) helped vote in one of the five reform MPs. I now have to try and be civil to an enabler of racism…

If I’m vaguely left wing and liberal, but don’t read The Guardian (and never have), can I still be part of the echo chamber?

Finding the political spectrum discussion interesting TBH. Probably deserves its own thread. Unless I’m an outlier, suspect that opinions supported/disagreed with here (and elsewhere online) aren’t always necessarily in line with people’s actual feelings.

In my ‘ideal’ world, I’d be chasing a very liberal, very socialist, bordering on anarchistic (in it’s actual meaning) society. I recognise that’s not something that can happen in the real world currently, so here my pragmatic politics come out as a bit left of centre and socially liberal.

Not a Jeht, but at 168cm tall mulleted my RocketMAX by throwing in a 27.5 rear wheel without an angleset to try and avoid backside buzzing. Head angle now sits at 61 and a bit degrees unsagged. Minimal actual real world impact on handling as far as my mediocre abilities can tell (my guess is that the slightly sharper handling from the smaller wheel goes some way to counteracting the extra couple degrees of slackness at the front?

I know being exposed to views different to your own is healthy, but what on earth is that all about @grimep ?!?

“Why does everything have to be neatly pigeon holed as left or right? it’s a very simplistic, childish, even, way of looking at things.

Problems require the correct solutions, not be dictated by some partisan ideology regardless of whether its suitable.”

Possibly the most sensible opinion ever posted in an STW politics thread!

FWIW, I think STW is generally liberal politically, and that’s not something I’ve ever thought of in terms of left and right wing ideology (but understand that might not be a ‘traditional’ view).

“Just a heads up… try and replace those bearings now not later. Should really be done before they get to the noticeable play stage. Cheers.”

Absolutely. Habitual procrastination, ‘that’ll be OK for just one more ride’ syndrome, and building a new bike are not a good combination…

I’m a bit of a self-confessed Cotic fanboi, so I ought to leave the thread to maybe more balanced opinions.

Having said that, you’ll not regret getting a Cotic. You’ve already identified the only possible downsides (weight – but actually not that heavy compared to similar aluminium or even carbon bikes – and a colour you don’t like but you can always lift that over time with colour accent components).

I’ve had both Far East and UK built Cotics and there’s very little to choose between them IMO. AFAICS build quality is none of the reasons Cotic moved production of some frames.

Not had a Jeht (Rocket/RocketMAX owner) but comparable ride characteristics I think. Very assured on descents, especially the steeps. Not sprightly climbers out of the saddle if you like honking uphill but pretty good sit and winchers if you are good at spinning circles.

Bearings fine. My RocketMAX has done three UK years in all conditions and only now showing noticeable play in the main bearing (probably need to replace them all before I go to Scotland in a few weeks).

2024 04 21 Nice work Cousin 02 by Rob P[/url], on Flickr

“How were they supposed to know any different?”

As far as I’m aware (and I have only a passing interest/knowledge of this as my work as a teacher gives me a fair bit of ‘fair use’ leeway) it’s on the end user to do their due diligence.

Doesn’t help with the claim (and that’s already been covered pretty comprehensively), but is there any way you can take your own photograph of something featuring the same logo and at least get your content back online?

It’s almost like there’s a list somewhere of ‘stuff the Tories did wrong’ and an urgent desire to tick off doing the the opposite.

“Usually I think people are wasting their money getting custom builds when there are probably better off-the-peg options already, but this really is something unique.”

TBH, that was my thinking too. If I was going custom I might as well do something different. I’ve had the mismatched thing in my head for years (even tried suggesting to Cy that Cotic do something with the idea after the original Rocket was launched).

As a steel fanboi I could have tried something like a 2nd hand Flare and stuck a longer fork on it, but that would have been a bodge/compromise in terms of geometry in too many areas, so custom it was…

29 x 2.8 front and 27.5 x 2.8 rear.

(My RocketMAX is currently 29 x 3.0 front and 27.5 x 2.8 rear and my Transmitter is 27.5 x 2.8 at both ends – I clearly have a thing for the look of cartoonishly big tyres!)

A few key numbers then…

Mullet+ (2.8s all round)

120mm rear travel, 160mm forks

63 degree head angle

77 degree seat angle

Some other numbers (built for me at 168cm) – Seattube 380mm, Reach 460mm, Stack 615mm, BB height 345mm, Wheelbase 1225mm, Chainstays 435mm.

Was feeling like my RocketMAX was a bit too much bike for a fair bit of my riding, and figured a new bike now would be my last fully human powered one so decided to go full custom with Marino (if the thing turned out to be a dog my pocket wouldn’t take TOO much of a hit).

Years ago I saw a GT Distortion and loved the idea of a short rear/long front FS for UK riding, but couldn’t bring myself to buy a GT. More recently I saw the Chromag Darco and read their thoughts on the idea of a ‘steel hardcore hardtail with some rear travel’. Mashed those two influences together with the geometry of my recent Cotics and came up with the numbers I sent to Peru.

I have pink highlights on my grey RocketMAX so just thought ‘what the hell…’ with the colour scheme on this one. as it’s a one-off, might as well make it look like it too.