I have a Spur, tarted up with a load of carbon bling, and its about 12.2kg in size large. 10/10 best bike I’ve owned and perfectly fits my riding, but I do love the look of the new Epic 8 (non-Evo) so if I were looking for a new bike today I’d perhaps be swaying towards that. Willing to take a slight hit on the Spur’s downhill capabilities in order to lose a good chunk of weight off the frame, which is something crazy like 600 grammes between the two bikes.

The latest gen Spurs with the Fox 34 / DPS combo are arguably straight up trail bikes now.

Good to know this is all normal having come back from two weeks on holiday with our 5-year-old being convinced we needed to call an ADHD specialist!

I used to take it years ago in my early 20s when I was into weights and it does help you to lift more / heavier weights but outside of that there isn’t any real benefit to taking it. You still need a quality high protein diet and all the rest that comes with it.

Downside is that it increases water retention so you get that Gym Bro puffy look although for some people maybe that’s a pro.

Between and my brother we’ve had most of them from the Commodore 64 right up until PS5. I checked out after the Nintendo GameCube but he’s still well into them and refuses to sell all his oldies.

I had a big eBay clearout around 2014/15 and made a few grand, especially some of the Mega Drive and PS1 stuff (sold one rarely for 200 quid) but in hindsight would have made even more during the pandemic when everyone was sat at home on furlough and the prices went through the roof.

I have a Nvidia Shield TV Pro loaded with a few classics and emulators but would love to get one of those multi game full size arcade cabinets as that’s the era where my best gaming memories come from (especially all the old SNK / Neo Geo arcade games).

The £200 cassettes last at least four times as long, X01 chains and above are the same (although with wax lube I get at least 2,000 miles out of GX chain too). So higher price of entry but much better longevity.

Shimano is much, much better at the lower end though (Deore / SLX) so swings and roundabouts.

Was it the guy who keeps getting arrested?

https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/people/naked-rambler-no-longer-letting-hang-1760

More tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannon and baton charges please. Oh, and release the hounds.

For sure, eeWings if you win the lottery, but I’d still hide the receipt from the wife. ?

I have a SRAM Eagle X01 crankset on my bike and I don’t notice any difference in flex or power transfer compared to a standard aluminium crankset. They’ve been totally bombproof but I don’ t think there’s any advantage other than them being 100 grammes lighter than the stock alu GX crankset that came with the bike.

If you want some really light, really strong, tarty (and exceptionally expensive) cranks then Cane Creek eeWings are the way to go. And I would second staying away from Race Face carbon cranks.

Fantastic race. Booyaa to the French.

Course looked fast and flowy, not sure all the criticism was deserved.

The only conspiracy I can believe in is that the Chinese / Russians et al are spreading conspiracy theories via a largely unregulated social media ecosystem to seed general discord and mistrust of governments in the West.

The industry and tyre manufacturers seem to have settled on 30mm id. You can happily run 2.25 up to 2.6 which I would say covers most riders nowadays.

Yes. Get a decent hanger alignment tool. Worth the investment.

Covid? Some nasty strain doing the rounds at the moment.

I used to live between Chapeltown and Harehills (Harehills Avenue for those who know). Amazingly diverse part of the city, never once had any trouble although there was the odd drug-related shooting / stabbing.

Everyone is really proud of the community round there so there must be more to the story than the media are letting on.

Just make sure you are riding with a friend who can drag you and your bike onto a “recognized route” before calling mountain rescue.

p.s. this is a joke, I am not advocating insurance fraud in any form.

I’ve got the V2 and V3 OneUp lever. The V3 has a noticeably better throw distance and the replaceable rubber thumb grip feels nicer. Would definitely recommend over the V2, but the V2 wasn’t bad per se.

Also have the original Wolf Tooth remote which I used to use with a Brand X post and that was the smoothest / best feeling combo lever I have used by far, but the Wolf Tooth doesn’t seem to play as nicely with my OneUp post.

Good kickstart to stopping the cancer sticks and vapes

Yeah stop all that stuff OP, especially the vape – https://www.physiology.org/detail/news/2023/08/15/new-evidence-bolsters-theory-e-cigarettes-may-increase-stroke-risk?SSO=Y

Alpkit Dozer / Double Dozer is a fantastic bit of kit but pricey. Also very low to the ground so not ideal for older / less flexible relatives.

Honestly, I would just go with a bog-standard Decathlon or Intex / Bestway double and a separate electric pump. The key to keeping them going for a few years is not to over-inflate (kills the seams) and make sure there’s nothing on the floor below them to snag and puncture the rubber.

OP, you mean post-wash stuff like Muc-Off’s Silicon Shine or Bike Protect?

Silicon Shine is just rebadged silicon car dashboard polish that you can pick that up for around 4 quid per 500ml. I find WD-40 silicon spray and the like is too thick and oily to use as a bike polish.

Bike Protect has light oil in it and is basically GT-85, but costs double the price.

ParcelFarce have always been like this. Their 24 hour service is basically 3 days, and the 48 hour one is “It’ll be with you when it’s with you.”

Having said that, a few years ago I sold my entire vinyl collection on eBay as a job lot (800 records in 8 boxes of 100 records) and they did eventually deliver them all to the buyer without issues, but it did take them two weeks using the 48 hour service.

Big upgrade, definitely worth the extra £200 and would cost you a lot more if you bought the Fox stuff separately as aftermarket parts (i.e. not fitted to a bike).

+1 Manchester security staff being grumpy AF. Terminal 3 security also seems to reject 50% of all bags, making you wait for half an hour.

They nearly removed a Bruce Lee Blu Ray box set that was in my hand luggage because they didn’t believe that it wasn’t a bomb. I had to open all the packaging and take the discs out one by one.

Another vote for Honda. Worth the cash and last forever.

Spend a little bit more and get a Shimano Deore one that will last 3 to 4 times as long and work out cheaper in the long run.

Looks hideous.

Fortunately there’s still some decent looking Fords out there…

https://i.postimg.cc/Y0L5pkDg/840-560.jpg

Don’t speed.

Triple check your mirrors when overtaking. Be aware of blind spots.

Don’t use French truck stop toilets.

Always been an XT fanboi but my last bike came with GX Eagle and its been totally bombproof. Would happily run either. I’ve got an X01 cassette, shifter, mech and chain ready to go on but the GX stuff refuses to die.

You need to get the machine really, really, really clean before using it. Residue from fabric softener and enzyme-based detergent will kill Goretex and similar material in a single wash. I’ve learnt that painful lesson myself.

 If you are writing about the logo then use of the logo is fair game

This. Clearly falls under fair use as its being used for non-commercial purposes. Sounds like a scam to me.

If you absolutely need it then just get the cheapest bog-standard, unflavoured, unsweetened “raw” whey powder.

I do have a bag at home because its just so convenient to bash a scoop in the blender with some milk, a banana, milk and some oat flour to drink as an after-ride recover shake when I’ve been putting in the miles. Much more palatable than trying to force down a tin of mackerel.

EDIT: as others have mentioned in other threads, i’m suspicious of SID reliability, which isn’t ideal for an expensive fork.

I think this was just the V1 SID Ultimate (120mm travel, 35mm  stanchions).

Not seen any complaints about the 100mm/32mm SID SL, or the latest (very expensive and massively outside of the OP’s budget :yahoo: ) V2 model.

Brand-wise, another vote for Vango. They make great quality, decently priced tents.

Agreed, for me it’s super boring and I go out of my way to avoid it but each to their own. Probably plenty of people who think riding a bike is a snoozefest

This was the album / band that got me into electronic music. I think it came out in the summer of 1994 and I was in the second to last year of primary school (10 years oldish?). One Love and No Good (Start the Dance) were getting loads of play on the ITV Saturday morning chart show and later that year a mate at school brought the cassette in on his Walkman that he’d nicked of his older sister.

Fast forward to summer 1995 and the last year of primary school. I was on canal boat holiday with my family and bought the cassette in HMV in Rugby.

This does indeed make me feel old.

Super happy today. The acceptance speech was the icing on the cake.

One thing Starmer needs to do immediately is open up all the No. 10 closets to look for the skeletons, set up commissions to see where it went wrong with the Tories, dig up the buried reports, and fully enact Leverson. What they (the previous government) have been able to get away with should never, ever be allowed to happen again.

Drain the swamp indeed.

They really nailed the new Epic / Epic Evo 8, but missed the mark with this one.

I wonder if they will bring out a cheaper alu version with normal cable routing?

@poopscoop I asked my council to do that (emergency proxy vote), this is what they said:

“Hi

Thank you for the update unfortunately the emergency proxy is not an option you have to run with the postal arrangement as all deadlines to amend, apply or cancel postal votes has now passed 5pm 19 June 2024

Regards”

So I said…

”

“Hi xxx,

The postal vote hasn’t turned up, despite registering way ahead of the June deadline. I am seeing on the news today that there are issues all over the country with postal votes not being printed and delivered on time.

I would therefore request to register for an emergency proxy vote, not regular proxy vote, as the conditions have been met to warrant this due to unforeseen circumstances outside of my control.

Otherwise my democratic right to vote in this election is being disenfranchised.

Best wishes,

Mr. Devash”

To which they said…

“Hi

I can confirm that there has been no issues with printing or releasing of postal votes for Redcar Council, your postal vote was released 20 June and is now in the hands of Royal Mail, you may want to take this up with your local delivery office as all statutory dates and procedures have been met from this end.

Regards”

p.s. Redcar Council is Tory AF so go figure.

@benpinnick super interesting description, thanks.

From what I understanding you are saying, your proposed solution is a custom fit mounting pin / hardware that’s machined for each individual shock and eyelet, that would be compatible with a generic poly / igus bush because the manufacturing tolerances of the bushes themselves are pretty much always bang on?

Have you heard of this guy? https://huber-bushings.com/produkt-kategorie/gleitlager/ I ‘think’ his solution is to machine the poly bushes themselves to different tolerances, whereas the mounting hardware remains the same.

My overseas postal vote hasn’t turned up so I guess I am going to be one of the disenfranchised this election.

Contacted my local council back home to ask if they could set me up for an emergency proxy vote and apparently they can’t. They said its not their fault as they dispatched on time and to “take it up with Royal Mail.”

Democracy in action.