You’re going to need 4 of them. I’m willing to bet that even if available, they’re priced ridiculously high so that new pedals are a better option.
CRC are doing M785s for under £50 and the lowly M530 (of which I have 2 pairs and they’re ace!) for under £20!

I’m a happy long-term user of Avid brakes, pleased to meet you!

CRC are doing Elixir X7 Trail brakes for about £75 per end (not including discs). If you’re not bothered about carbon levers…

I am (was) a ’29er’ climber! being 6foot3 with chimp arms I was able to reach over the top of many a crux! Leverage was bad on overhanging stuff though. I preferred to solo on gritstone up to about 30ft (singlespeeder?).

As a person who ‘learnt’ (can it be learnt?) to climb on outdoor crags in the Yorkshire area, I’m not sure if indoor walls are the best place to hone technique. They are the turbo-trainer of climbing. Something to do when you can’t do your sport on the real stuff due to weather, light or location. A way of keeping the specific muscles in good shape (and meeting up with your climbing buddies for a chat). The best training for climbing is… climbing. So we do need indoor walls.
I recommend you try to find a quiet crag, put your sticky boots on and chalk bag on your belt and just move. Across, up, down. Concentrate on weight distribution, try not to overreach, keep moving, looking, thinking. Think ‘vertical ballet’. ‘Feel’ your way across the rock.
A crowded, noisy indoor wall is not the best place. But, if you can find a quiet wall on a midweek afternoon then do some unroped traversing.
A bit ‘wistful’ there, just remembering the climbing years, must return to it one day.

It’s not the worst bike shop website. One-one’s fellow Rotherham retailer has that honour. Hasn’t changed for years and just shows hundreds of out of stock items.

Went skiing in Geilo Norway one December. -10 during the day, -25 at night. No wind, very dry. We went out at night wearing only t-shirts and normal fleeces. Taking a deep breath through the nose was weird and touching metal door handles with bare hands was also an experience!

Buy a nice bike. Ride it on nice trails.

Set a personal goal and work towards it.

Try and avoid stressful situations.

(I’ve been in your place or something very similar. It passes. Don’t be old and bitter, one is inevitable, the other avoidable)

+1 for the Bell Super. A bit heavier than my last helmet which was a Specialized of some sort but also more vented which was a surprise. I’ve just started wearing goggles for any ride that I’m likely to get cold wind in my eyes. A bit of a revelation! I didn’t know how watery my eyes actually got! I park them under the peak for climbs and flip them down for the downhills. I discovered Revision Bullet Ant military goggles – look em up, they’re perfect for general riding.

I do a Tom Jones style ‘COUGH!’, always seems to work…

Get one of these or make your own. (I realise this wouldn’t have helped the OP)

My wife got £100 discount on her £1100 bike. Her delight was short lived when they charged her £100 to set the fork sag for her. Gits.

Erm, yes, they’re gits but come on! Who would allow a shop to get away with that? Care to let us know which shop it was? So we can go round, ask them how much and then laugh loudly in their faces before walking out!

DMR do some flanged grips which are one-ended locking. I bought some and cut the flange off along with a length of grip.

I said ‘flange’ and ‘length’ in the same post. Fnaaar.

Got some original SLX that are 4 years old and unless you get up close still look about 2 weeks old. Logo still untouched.

Maxxis Ardent for dry to moist, Hans Dampfs for moist to wet. Hans Dampfs are better for roots and rocks as well and are stable down to 15psi even with narrow-ish rims.

If you trawl German ebay, you can usually get a pair of Hans Dampfs for less than 60 quid shipped. I’ve bought my two last pairs that way. Just fitting the latest ones.

I’ve had one of these in titanium for the last 6 years:
LINK
reliable, bombproof, light and not too big. (I also have girly wrists!)
I fancy one of these next though:
GNARR!
Apparently it’s a ‘small’.
My current watch has auto-tilt back illumination but it doesn’t quite work, my next watch will have tritium tubes!

Forecast snow down to 500 metres this afternoon. Should just clear the summits but you can’t rely on it.
This is Lecht webcam at 600m looking towards Glenlivet:

10am and looking clear.

Hmm, was gonna do Cambus O May on Sat but… I’d forgotten 2nd Nov was official open day.
Weather looks fine but 5 degrees in the valley. Brrrr.

Bought SB95 in June. I’d sold my Mega 2 years ago to fund our jump to a new life in the Oil and Gas industry. So how could she object? I spent 2 years on an Inbred which is a nice bike but I’ve been fully suspended since I bought an LTS in 1996!

Just gone for a pair of Endura Supalites, if they’re good I’ll get some more.

cheers chaps

Thanks chaps.
I was thinking about the army trousers cut down. The Altura ones sound good as well. The only thing that worries me about the army ones is slipperiness on a wet saddle.
I’m ‘inventing’ again. Most of my questions are related to ‘inventions’ currently whizzing around in my brain.

In case anyone’s interested, I had my steel granny ring on ‘inside out’. It affected the chainring spacing by 2mm.

The original pad material is a ‘loopy’ brushed nylon that sticks to male velcro. I’m trying to invent a helmet pad that helps with sweat transmission/evaporation. So I want a more porous pad. We sweat to lose heat by convection. If the sweat just soaks into a sponge, we don’t lose heat. And when the sponge reaches ‘full’ – what happens?

I measured the gap between my rings – 10.5mm from centre to centre of the teeth. I think it’s too wide. Therefore 9 speed and 10 speed rings might have different ‘dishes’ and if mixed, they can affect chainring spacing.
Any ideas?
I’m going to put spacers behind the middle ring tonight and do a quick test.

Thanks, but I actually want to sew my own together using my own materials etc.

I want to use 58bcd granny rings so I’ll need 5 arm crank arms. BUT, I want HT2 style bottom bracket.

OR, a 5 arm 94/58 BCD chainset that fits HT2 (I already know about the Middleburn RS8 X Crank)

Damn, didn’t look properly! thanks.

I’ve stopped buying them regularly. I bought the anniversary issue of MBUK but that’s about it in the last 5 years I think.
I have the following favourites on my browser bar:
http://enduro-mtb.com/en/
http://www.pinkbike.com/
http://dirt.mpora.com/
Along with stw, retrobike and the EWS site.

I always use the ghetto split tube method, much easier to get a seal with a track pump. I use Schwalbe 20″ bmx inner tubes with Schrader valves.
I have Ringle Radium rims and have got Hans Dampfs and Maxxis Ardents to seal easily with a track pump.

Tubeless since 2003…

I managed to get a Yeti 575 down to 26.5 lb at one stage but I used those superlight supersonic Conti 450g tyres – had to swap them for something decent immediately! Final weight for decent sturdy trail riding was 27.5 lb.
I had 140mm Revelations, Answer Carbon flat bars, Easton EA90 stem (lighter than the EC90!), SLX cranks, Hope Hoops with Crests, Thomson seatpost, various alloy bolts, titanium bolts etc.

Paligap have needed a decent big bike brand since they lost Kona.

So there was no single area that failed then? Could’ve been any weld!

I had the first edition of the Raleigh Titanium which was painted a sort of light blue metallic. It broke at the seat tube / top tube junction. Raleigh then swapped it for one just like the bike in the OP. That cracked at the seat tube / BB area. My third bike was a matt finish one with rear disc tabs which got sold almost immediately!

Makes Mavericks look less fugly…

bike discount it is then…

‘Ram’ is actually a colloquialism for crap where I went to school.

That bike looks as if it’s been run over.

Thanks, I’ll have a look. Your Reverb link was good value!

just checked, none at Starbike.

This company: Hilltrek do some traditional all-weather cycling clothing and also some made to measure in ventile. I was there on Saturday and the nice owner showed me a red cycling jacket that looked like something from the 1950s. He assured me all the long distance cyclists loved it. I can’t see it on the website but send him an email I’m sure he will sort you out.

just checked, no Trail versions there.

bump for the evening crowd