I wouldn’t risk it. Even with tubes in I’ve had a tyre escape off a Notubes rim in explosive style. You’ll crap yourself when it goes off!

Try the Platypus bite valve, it’s quite good.

Gorilla 25mm is in Halfords at £3 a pop. I tried it, had bad results. It lifted at the edges and it’s HEAVY. I’m trying Gorilla Clear Repair Tape for tubeless, a rim is sitting with a tube in right now, gonna fluid it tonight!

Naming Strava segments is akin to naming a rock climb although first ascent/descent is not required. Look up John Redhead’s climb names to get inspiration: Cystitus by Proxy; Tormented Ejaculation; Menstrual Gossip; Sexual Salami; Raped by Affection; etc
Let’s see some creativity!

Ermine Moth

wiki

Hi badllama, any ideas on standover height? Spec looks amazing! I’ll try and get a viewing at a local store but the website says either go to Carlisle or I suppose wait while the local store gets one transferred.

Seen plenty of short people on 29″ if the bike is right then it works

It’s the standover height. Other than that, the 29er 2014 bike is great!

I’m surprised there’s not a nice WLS Cube for that price.

All the Cube WLS seem to have Suntour forks all the way up to £1,000 (and beyond). Plus, no decent dealers within range of Aberdeen. The ‘unisex’ Cube Acid comes in a tiny 14″ but they don’t list standover height in their specs and I can’t find anyone in the UK with one on display.

Surely they will refund if their error?

I did discuss it with them. They admitted their error. If it doesn’t fit, they’ll take it back.
The 2013 26″ Orange Diva looked ideal. I’m a bit annoyed as I’ve been searching for six months!

The Orange Diva turned out to be 29er not 26er. 29er standover height too big. The perils of mail order. Back to the drawing board grrrrrrr.

Standover height killed it. It’s going back…

Hi euain, we ‘stalk’ each other on Strava! I’ll be at Glenlivet hopefully on Sunday 31st to have a look and follow strange tyre tracks into the woods…

‘the right bike because Deveron53 says it is’?

This is what she believes as she tasked me with finding the perfect bike for her, it’s just that the chant of: “29ers are huge” from the chorus of disapproval has been too loud.
I will get her to check standover height etc. Then a quick tarmac car park circuit then I’ll tell her about the wheel size then we’ll set off on a mainly tarmac ride. The shop has authorised a fairly flexible test riding window due to their error.

I’m the one who for the last six months has been researching and presenting bikes for her viewing pleasure. The only thing she’s really bothered about is standover height. My main search criteria were air fork, external BB, decent wheels and brakes. Her family and friends have been warning her off 29ers. Not for any good reason than it sounds weird. I keep telling her about Tracey Moseley at 5ft 4in winning the EWS on a 29er!

She’ll slowly realise as she’s riding it. But then she won’t want to get off because she’ll be having too good a time.

I’ve gone from Reverb to Tmars. I don’t need a dropper all the time so I wanted a cheap, reliable solution that could be swapped in and out. My first Reverb went all loose and my second one I didn’t feel like using it as it is a faff to cut and bleed and maintain etc.

The Tmars has two positions – useful.
It has a cable that doesn’t move – useful.
The cable exits in a slightly inconvenient place for an SB95 – not so useful.
The actuator housing is a bit big and obtrusive – catches on my leg.
The 30.9 version is a 27.2 with a shim – the shim needed packing out to hold securely.
I can fit it to my hardtail because it’s 27.2 – useful.
It’s completely home-rebuildable – useful.
But for £65 I’m not complaining.

I’m going to try Gorilla Clear Repair Tape. The inside of my rim has got damp and it leaks out through the spoke holes back under the tape. If it was a brand new rim I’d be ok. I suppose putting my wheel in the airing cupboard for a while would help.

Interesting effect: When putting a tube in my tyre due to the leak, I inadvertently invented something similar to ‘Schwalbe Pro-Core’! The bead seal was so good, the inner tube was compressing the trapped air in the tyre. It wasn’t until the next morning, after the ‘tyre air’ had leaked out that I discovered a partially inflated inner tube inside.

I had a front wheel built (by Superstar) with this hub, laser spokes and Crest rims with alloy nipples. Last September. Weighs 700g with valve! Done loads of miles over smooth and gnarly terrain. I’ve used S-Works Renegades at 40 psi on moderate off-road and Maxxis Minion DHF 2.5 for things like Laggan Black etc. Still true as the day they were made! And bearings still perfect (I don’t jet wash though).
My only criticism are the 15mm adapters. They rattle about in their end retaining caps when the wheel is not in the fork. Occasionally when putting the wheel in the fork, one of the end caps can get knocked out and it’s a total faff to get it back in due to the supplied O rings being a bit too big and floppy. I had to get smaller O rings to make it easier to pop back in. The O rings are there for sealing and to hold the end caps on.

EDIT: was about 7 days from ordering to delivery. Came in a proper cardboard Hope-style wheel box.

I did a bit of research and in the end went for a Decathlon 720. They have a decent range of very well designed hydration packs. I particularly like the parachute harness style buckles with camera mount space. The 920 comes with a back protector but no bladder. The 720 comes with a foam ‘protector’ insert and a bladder.
I have a huge 30 litre+ hydration-compatible pack from Edinburgh co-op/Vaude so I wanted a small, stable pack for a 1.5 litre bladder and ‘race’ equipment.

A few lonely but keen bikers way off in Siberia it seems!

Saw them at Hyde Park last July along with Soundgarden. I missed seeing them both live first time around. So it was a kind of religious experience. I’m hitting Deezer to find them now…

What about a high quality, fast firing airsoft machine gun? It would only need one hit to bring down the drone. I’ve shot through some fairly thick plastic at quite long range (years ago…).

Failing that, train a hawk!

Sounds too much like pedo-scope. Either to find pedos or for pedos to find… y’know. 8O

It gave me that ‘Strava’ feeling long before Strava was invented!

The full results if anyone’s interested[/url]

A member of my old CC was 71st at 24.01

I see there are a load at 55 mins, were these DNS or DNF?

There’s always one bloke turns up at the local TT with all the gear and the aero wheels and all that.

I used to do TTs in the mid 90s. The local club’s hilly 10 and 25. I didn’t own a road bike so used my GT LTS with Specialized Turbo S tyres. Not far from where the above vids were shot. But on the hilly East Yorkshire Wolds, obviously!

+1 for the editing comments. I would also add: they’re not quality cameras, just the cheapos I reckon. Awful rotary shutter effects. GoPro or Sony would have been more watchable.

I’ve just gone for one of these. I prefer the Osprey bladder but I can always swap out and keep the Decathlon inner as a spare. The camera mount swayed my decision. I like nice touches like that!

Thanks all for the great suggestions, she has gone for the Orange Diva HT. Every part seems to be decent spec. I can bleed Avids so no worries there!
Proper Mavic rims, HT2 chainset, Race Face bits and most importantly, a decent fork! Tyres will be replaced by something a bit gnarlier (tubeless conversion in the works as well) and a TMars dropper will be fitted eventually.
Her sister needs a new bike as well so I have passed on the details of the Juliana (thanks mtbfix) as she is a bit more gnaar!

The cheapest ‘BSO’s from the 1980s/90s I can remember were the Falcons and Emmelles but I think they were actually decent cheap bikes! Even early Carreras were not too bad. I think the advent of suspension forks started the slide. EVERY bike nowadays has to have at least a suspension fork. I wouldn’t touch any bike with a suspension fork until I got to the £500+ price point. Before that, rigid fork and fat tyre does a much better job! Women’s bikes are a problem. Recently, I had to really search hard for a small, female specific bike under £1000 with decent forks. My S.O. has just ordered a 2013 Orange Diva HT at £850 but it comes with Recon Silvers and a host of other decent parts. The 2015 Trek Skye has cheapo RS coils which let it down, I felt.

That’ll make it inclusive and encouraging for newbies.

I make that rule so that the newbies with bikes that are ‘ok’ are not held up by people with BSOs that can’t make it 100 yards before they implode. Or, worse still, the bike falls to bits half way around the route and everyone’s day is ruined. And the person with the BSO is not embarrassed by: A. being told at the car park that their bike is not capable of making it; or: B. half way around the course that we all have to accompany them back to the car park, slowly, walking, carrying a ton of scrap metal.
It also may be dangerous to ride a BSO along certain trails. I also stipulate helmets and gloves. I’d rather put a newbie off riding than see them damage themselves!

I have a quiet word with all participants before the ride and offer to lend anyone a spare bike if necessary (or offer to check their bike for problems).

Tough love works!

I organised a works day out at Cannock once. One chap turned up with a BSO strapped to the back of his MX5 (he is a six footer, the BSO was clearly a 16″). By the time we got to the bottom of the long fireroad climb on the Follow The Dog the right hand pedal had mashed the threads in the crank arm and fallen out. I pointed him in the direction of the car park and led the rest of my work mates around the route (it was the old FTD, pre-Monkey).
The chap in question got his £99.99 refunded by Tesco…

So most adults will spend thousands on unnecessary cars but less than a ton on a full suspension disc braked bike!

I stipulate a minimum bike standard for rides I organise now. Although I regularly have to repair people’s (decent) bikes halfway round routes due to them being stored in sheds all winter.

I don’t think they cast B.A. very well. He’s a very hard act to follow though, I’ve no idea who could’ve pulled it off. Except Mr T himself!
Liam Neeson as Hannibal was perfect IMHO. He did a very good impersonation.
CGI containers was poop though…

This is nonsense, I applied for c2w recently and no one asked to see my driving license or any other proof of height.

This was the thing that happened with the cycle scheme when I worked there. Different schemes may be more lax. We had to supply colour scan of driving licence or similar. My shop was very rigid about receipts and top-ups. They were just protecting themselves.

I read Arthur Bostrom’s gas meter (Officer Crabtree from Allo Allo)

I put a 52t on my Cannondale M400 circa 1992. I had Specialized Turbo S tyres on. I spun out very soon going down Garrowby Hill. I was still spun out approaching the AA box at the bottom.

Aberdeen is like the USA. Why would YOU move to the USA?

Employment and/or geography perhaps? The friendliness/unfriendliness of the people doesn’t come into it.

I live in town but rarely actually visit the town centre. I mainly go from work to home and to the mountains. I drive an automatic and have a large library of tunes to listen to while stuck in traffic.

I hate golf, I dislike football and whisky makes me ill. But I LOVE the mountains and the freedom that the access laws give people up here. The hills are also mostly empty.

My simple and clumsy illustration (but it’s the way I feel!):
Aberdeen is a bit like Sheffield in that it’s a city (with terrible traffic!) that’s close to somewhere like the Peak District (Bennachie and the Ladder Hills etc) but it’s got the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales and Snowdonia and the North Yorkshire Moors all bolted on to it just the other side. The North Aberdeenshire countryside is all agricultural and rolling a bit like the Yorkshire Wolds. There is no such thing as a footpath, bridleway or anything like that. They’re all trails and you can wander on or off them using feet, wheels and hooves! Most walkers say hello and step out of the way but you rarely see them. Aberdeenshire has the highest horse ownership per head of population in the UK but I don’t think I’ve EVER passed one on the trails, which illustrates how vast and empty this place is!

Just get up here!

Ellon to Inverurie ‘corridor’ would be good for Peterhead access and mountains access. Depends on whether you want short commute to work or short commute to mountains.
I’d avoid living on the A90 corridor, push further West.
Go to ASPC.co.uk for rental properties, they have a great search engine although word of mouth for a nice cheap cottage under £700 a month is the best!

I was on a radio 4 comedy show with Johnny Vegas and Dave Gorman.

I’m getting Cromaworks[/url] to repaint my Yeti at the end of this season. I need to spend some time designing the scheme…

The café at Glenlivet prints out the Strava times of the top 25 male and female for the Red and Blue routes. I am proud to say that I’m still on the Blue list! I was 10th when I set my time last July but I’m in danger of sliding out of the top 20. Time to revisit methinks…

There are some gifted individuals on bikes. Fitness is one thing we can all improve but the ability to throw oneself down a steep, rocky chute is harder to come by.
There is a chap who seems to have all my local downhill KOMs and I found out recently he’s only in the race category below me, making him in his 40s I think, so it’s not one of the young nutters!