Very happy with my T130SCR.

Changed bar and stem to Renthall (Fat Bar Lite and 60mm stem) and swapped the rear Ardent Race for a standard Ardent.

The ones I posted were taken as stills, not frame grabs from video.

I have a GoPro 3+ and I probably use it more for stills than video. I much prefer a good still than a bit of video.

A few GoPro shots I took on recent trips – (some of these are more than one shot “stitched” together and most have been edited/tweaked a bit).

Post ride? He and the bike look way too clean.

That’s proper funny. Engage smug mode for being sprog free.

As I said, personal preference. For me there is no need to change my seatpost height for anything I ride locally. It’s just the way I’m used to riding.

Like most here, it’s the amount of additional faff that goes with riding at this time of year. Living in the Chilterns / Ashridge area it gets really wet and muddy around here in the winter. A ride at this time of year is generally followed by having to clean/dry out a load of clothing and a bike to de-gunge and lube.

I generally ride rigid single speed in the winter but I’m not one of those people who can just put the bike away filthy and get it out again for the next ride still filthy. I like my bike to be clean, shiny, running smoothly and quietly at the beginning of each ride. It may not stay that way for long but that’s the way I want it to start out.

We live / ride mostly around the Chilterns so it’s not particularly technical. Never bother riding full suss around here (usually ride fully rigid single speed), and don’t have a dropper on any of the bikes I would ride around here.

I only put a dropper on my full suss last year and that only gets used for trips away (trail centres, Alps, anything likely to be more technical than local riding). So really she’d only be using a dropper in the same circumstances. I do enjoy the ability to drop/raise on the fly when out on technical trails so no argument from me that a remote is “better”. Pros and cons and personal preference and all that. I’ll leave it to Er Indoors to decide what she wants to do.

Cheers

Thanks all for the comments.

Personally, I wouldn’t go for a non remote dropper. I only have a dropper on my full suss which has stealth routing. I can kind of understand her concerns about aesthetics though as the Trek Lush top tube routing is internal so dropper remote routing would need to be cable tied in place which would look a bit naff.

Anyway, it’s her bike so her choice. Your opinions may help the decision though.

Cheers

I use those large plastic coated hooks. The shed is wooden (log cabin style so fairly sturdy), so I don’t want the whole weight of the bikes (6 on hooks), hanging from the wall or ceiling. I set the height of the hook for each bike so that the bulk of the weight is on the floor then the front wheel is hooked into the hook which is screwed into the shed wall. Seems to work.

Oh and I got mine for £530 in the sales so a definite bargain.

I’ve got a 2014 model. Size medium and I’m 5″10″ with 32″ inside leg. I find the sizing spot on.

Right now it’s setup for winter riding with Spesh Storm Control tyres. In the summer I run a 2.35 Hans Dampf on the fronts, setup tubeless at a low-ish pressure it takes a lot of the harshness out of the front rigid fork. I run a 2.2 Racing Ralph on the rear in summer and this combination seems to work well (for me anyway).

I swapped out the standard, own brand brakes for XT after one ride. I also changed the cranks as I had some spare Middleburn Unos in the shed. Since then II’ve also changed the bars to Rethall Fat Bar Lites. Other than that it’s all standard 😉

Overall, great bike for the money and worthy of the odd upgrade.

Only you can decide if its the right thing for you to do. If you do sell it and miss it you can always get another so it’s not that big a deal really.

Don’t forget that on a singlespeed you may not have enough slack in the chain to be able to just re join a broken chain. Always worth having a few spare links with you or magic link type things.

Does the slackline have internal / stealth dropper cable routing? Or just external routing?

All bikes are a compromise in one way or another. You just choose the compromises that suit you best.

Magazine reviews – take them all with a pinch of salt. It’s just one persons opinion which will be skewed by personal preference, fashion, marketing BS, advertiser relationships, peer pressure or any number of factors. Sometimes they are useful, sometimes not.

2.35 Hans Dam of on the front of mine for general summer riding with a 2.2 Racing Ralph on the rear. Got 2.0 Specialized Storm Controls on both ends for the winter though.

I have three of these on different bikes. 740mm is plenty wide enough for me but some people will complain that they are too narrow. Personal preference / fashion etc.

They work ok. They look ok. The upsweep/backsweep seems good to me. They come in four different rise options which is good.

They’re just bars though so personally I doubt you’ll see or feel any kind of earth shattering improvement.

Fitted some a few weeks ago for winter riding around the Chilterns. It gets pretty muddy / gloopy around here. So far so good. They seem to work well and tubeless setup was pretty easy. I wouldn’t use them as a general purpose tyre but thats not what they are meant for. Should work well over the winter months though.

5’10” and 32″ inside leg and chose large. Rode the Large and Medium and both would have worked but the large felt better.

Changed bars to Renthall Fat Bar Lite with 2cm rise and the stem to a 60mm with a very slight rise (about 6 degrees I think).

Changed the rear Ardent race for a standard Ardent.

Did a week on dry rocky trails in Spain and loved it.

It has to be grey. It’s the law.

Sealed mine with PVA then got some sort of durable garage floor paint from the local DIY emporium.

Do you mean the seatpost or the seat tube?

If the latter, really, don’t mess with it. You’ve just spent weeks agonising over whether or not you got the right size frame. Now you want to start hacking things about to make it fit?

If the Reverb is all the way down to the collar then you have more than enough drop available for just about anything.

Will you ever be happy?

It looks like this –

Stem has a slight negative rise. Bars are Renthal Fat Bar Lite 1cm rise. Works for me.

Ralph’s are a good dry/summer tyre. Rubbish in wet/muddy conditions.

Oh and I changed thE rear Tyre and grips.

@dvowles – loving the T130. It’s not an every day bike as I ride hardtail or fully rigid most of the time but for trips away, trail centres or anything lumpy it’s the bike of choice. Currently running a 60mm renthall stem and carbon bars not other than that all standard.

Spain was great. Hot with lots of nice rocky technical trails. Perfect T130 terrain.

Hope you are happy with the large.

I thought you previously said that on a large frame you couldn’t run the reverb at full extension with it all the way into the seat tube?

It’s a tricky one on sizing. I tried the medium and large and went back and forth between the two riding around the carpark at the bike shop. I settled on the large and I think that was the right choice.

Ultimately though, it’s my choice. The shop staff can offer an opinion but it’s up to the buyer to decide if they agree. Tricky if you’re maybe not so experienced or confident in your own opinion though.

A bike that has been ridden for a month can only really be sold as second hand so I’d be surprised if they took it back and gave you a large. Good luck with that one. If the frame is basically in perfect condition maybe you could pay them to rebuild all the components from one frame to the other but even that might be pushing it a bit.

We stayed in Peisey last year on our week with Trail Addiction. There’s some great riding around there but there’s a lot of stuff you’ll struggle to find without a guide or some local knowledge.

I have some gps plots of some rides we did out there if that’s of any help. We were there when the lifts were closed though so some of the rides might require getting a bit further out from the lift network.

I generally just ask my local shop what their best price is then if I’m happy with it I buy. Dont like haggling or pushing them too far as they need to make profit to stay in business. I generally get a pretty good deal as a regular customer.

The PP frames look good. Pre order only at the moment though.

Dartmoor Primal and Hornet also look good. They say they take 26 or 27.5 but don’t seem to have replaceable dropouts so not sure how that works or what it does to the geometry.

Will the 631 take a 142/12 rear?

It doesn’t have replaceable dropouts right? If so, how does this affect the geometry if I start with 26″ but want to switch to 27.5 later? Anyone done this?

Cheers

Odd

I had been looking at the 853 Slackline which is listed as having as straigth 1-1/8th head tube. Looking at the 631 version though is says it has a 44mm head tube that can take tapered. Is this correct? Does the 853 version have a different head tube?

I have XT on four bikes and I like them. They are a bit on/off though.

I have Hope Tech3/E4s on my big bouncy bike and I like them. Worked great in the Alps. No problems and more feel/modulation than Shimano. I’ve hope loads of hope brakes from XC4s, C2s, Mini Mono, Enduro etc and never had any problems with them.

My newest bike came with SRAM Guide RS brakes which I was expecting not to be keen on but after a week in Spain I really liked them. Good lever feel and plenty of power. So I’m going keep them on and see how they work out longer term. The original plan was just to go XT to have the same brakes on all bikes.

Sold this one last month –

WTB Phoenix (re sprayed, original decals supplied by WTB) –

Klein Mantra SS (had this from new) –

Ok then……

The newest one –

The one that the newest one replaces (and I must get around to selling) –

The retro SS –

The other retro SS –

The errrrr other SS –

The newest SS –

The fast one –

The red and yellow one –

The best road bike (black one) –

What the f#€k is “sessioning”.

Is that other guy capable of constructIng a sentence without some reference to “marines”? Cock.