Haven’t read all the thread but I’ve been on HTs predominantly since 2012….i do have a FS (Trance SX) but have used an On-One 456-evo, Dialled Alpine, On-One 45650b and now a Ragley Piglet with a selection of 140mm-150mm forks for most of my riding.

The thing to remember is that a HT like the above won’t be a lightweight XC whippet but with long forks, slack angles and thin steel tubing it will be comfy and cover big days out really easily.
I use mine for everything, going for a pootle with the dogs?…grab the HT, going on an uplift day?…grab the HT, going to a trail centre?…grab the HT, in fact I have to make as conscious effort to remember to take the FS anywhere.

That’s not a slight on the FS, it’s a nod towards just how good modern HTs are….i would undoubtedly be faster on an uplift day with the FS but I find myself drawn to the HT time and time again….probably much like the current craze on here for gravel bikes, there are probably better tools for the job but people can’t let go of them, I’m like that with HTs.

Get one, they’re easy to work on, a doddle to ride, cheap, reliable etc….

Probably best if ‘bike’ shops remodel themselves on service centres and coffee shops, focus more on paid/guided rides, stock some tubes, spokes etc….but for me the LBS is defunct, I can do most stuff on my bike apart from wheel building and I’ve bought my last several bikes online….i don’t mean any ill will towards LBS owners or workers but if they can’t compete with CRC, Wiggle etc then I’m not interested….you have to play to your strengths and going forward I think that’ll be servicing and repairs for most LBSs.

I used to be awful for it when I was in my 20’s (constantly changing cars, bikes, guitars etc,.) but now I am almost 50 have long realised that happiness is not related to buying new things.

This…

People only buy buy buy when there’s something missing in their lives. If your balanced and happy you don’t buy a new reverb for every bike you own, own thousands of pounds of multiple bikes yet live in a rented property

…this…

some of us are happier having our thinking and behaviour challenged than others.

….and this.

The older i get the less desire i have for ‘stuff’ in my life, if anything i tend to streamline now….i think moving away from the South East and London helped, i also think the type of work i do has finally started to influence me after 16 years!…seen plenty of people die in both expected and unexpected situations, nobody has ever said to me that they wished they’d worked more or had more stuff….but of those that can talk pretty much everybody wishes they had more time with friends and family.

…it didnt used to resonate with me, in my 20’s i could pretty much do a call like that and be impervious to it but as i approach 40 something has changed and i tend to spend my time and money on things involving family and friends rather than trinkets for me.

Why do you want to ride on flats? I know plenty of people who can ride just as well on technical terrain clipped in.

For me its psychological…i’m simply not prepared to hit tech stuff flat out if i’m clipped in, had a few minor falls from road bikes over the years when i’ve been clipped in and its a horrible feeling….makes me shudder thinking about doing it on sharp pointy rocks from a MTB, i like to be able to dab quickly if needed and i’m not averse to the odd bit of Moto-x style ‘foot out flat out’ technique through corners…all perfectly doable with SPDs i’m sure but i’m simply not as quick to get the foot free when required.

Was going to put my reverb on but didn’t bother after using the standard dropper.

Same here, the Giant own brand dropper is vastly underated, havent had the need to bleed it or swap mine for anything else yet…12 months of use so far.

Depends what you want it for I suppose, the Trance is a versatile bike, in stock form it’s a 140mm trail bike or the SX version comes with a 160mm fork and slacker HA.

I bought frame only about a year ago and have done both. Initially I used a 140mm Rev I had from a previous 45650b build, then I went to a 160mm X-Fusion to create my own SX version.

Both worked well, the 32mm Rev is not the flexy POS that a Fox-32 is….in fact it wasn’t that many years ago that the 150mm Rev was still making the Dirt-100, obviously it’s been superseded by a host of forks with 34mm, 35mm and 36mm stanchions but that doesn’t mean it became a bad fork overnight.

I now run mine on the front of my Ragley Piglet, it’s actually a great fork, I’d buy the bike and worry about a fork with longer/thicker stanchions later.

I’ve managed to source shorts over the years that have zip pockets to put keys, phone etc…. Water bottle obviously, multi tool also goes in pockets usually…

…but, you’re right about tubes, tyre levers, food etc….on a ride where a puncture will ruin the day and can’t be sorted with a walk back to the car I’ll use a backpack.

Firmer forks….it’s interesting reading pro DH-ers bike setups, most of them run virtually no sag up front!….on STW it seems to be in vogue to run 30% sag and use all the travel on a trail centre bimble.

Easy on that front brake….on a motorbike on tarmac then yes, hard on the front, dig the tyre into the track/road and get that weight transfer forward….on a MTB?….no.
Use both front and rear coming into a corner but be prepared to ease off either one as you feel traction slipping….if the front is sliding or locking come off the front brake, a rolling wheel always has more grip than one with braking forces on it….ditto the rear, if you’re skidding in with the rear locked back it off a bit.
You should still be able to use your front brake on a DH course but it takes care, don’t just grab a handful….as although interestingly last year when Minnaar won another WC race he admitted to being on the back brake most of the way down which is how most of us rode when we were kids!….was funny to here a pro doing it too though.

Get down/low on the bike…. I’m not a fan of this current trend of sizing up massively, I still ride a 16-inch HT in DH races, by all accounts it’s too small for me….nonsense, never been OTB on it….i run a short stem and wide bars and drop the seat post virtually all the way down into the seat tube, it allows me to hunker down in the bike so I’m almost laying on the top tube!….no chance of going OTB in that position….bike size is a red herring, it’s what position you can get into that counts, for some that will be large but for others (like me) it can be a small frame.

Does your new bike have Shimano brakes?….almost cringed typing that as it’s another STW cliche that these brakes are ‘grabby’…..but if we’re problem solving here that could be an issue I suppose.

Run more sag out back?….if you’re being pitched over the front WTF is going on with your rear suspension?…if it’s too firm for the front that could be a problem, I know some systems like DW-link setups favour a softer rear than front otherwise the bike handles funny.

And I’m done, no expert here….average weekend warrior that rides both FS and HT and does a fair few uplift days, some of the above may be worth a try though.

M785 user here, great brakes and picked up for peanuts once the M8000 series came out…plenty of people run them on DH bikes, massively reliable too…there has been the odd thread on here about the new M8000 versions being less than reliable?

Braking is somewhere I want total faith in the product!

And (keeping on topic) what about the best gin for gin martinis?

Any.

The trick is the ratio of gin to vermouth… i prefer a 50/50 mix….half fill glass with Gin, top the rest up with Martini extra dry, add a few ice cubes…. Lovely drink

Gin that’s nice to drink by itself; Tanqueray has a place, Gordon’s is inoffensive and easy to slurp, Hendricks is actually quite nice, as is Silent Pool from the silent pools springs outside Guildford.

New X-Fusion Stage, available brand new from American bike shops on eBay.

Getting rave reviews, the slider/piston/stanchion thing is massively oversized and apparently does away with the need for reservoir parts of shocks…. Ideal if space is right I’d have thought.

Just to add, it’s free and people abuse free stuff.

…although I’m staunchly pro a free NHS I’d happily see people pay for ambulances when there is a consensus from the ambulance crew, the nurse in charge of A&E and the treating Dr that ambulance transport to hospital wasn’t necessary.

If only one of those three disagrees then the patient is unaffected but if all three agree it was an abuse of the 999 system then a nominal fine of £50 would (i hope) start to put people off calling for frivolous reasons.

Programme bears out my experience when we waited over 40 mins for an ambo after guy had bad bike crash and amongst other issues his sunglasses shattered and went in his eye, we thought he’d lost it….my advice to anyone round here is go and get your car and drive them to hospital it will be quicker….

We/they were probably dealing with a mobile adult with knee pain that was three weeks old…but obviously warranted a 999 call right then….or maybe one of the numerous calls I’ve done this winter whereby the patient has no intention of going to A&E, they just want our advice on the cold/bug they’ve had all week….or maybe the most minor of shunt RTCs where the parasite inside decides it’s compensation time and fakes neck pain in order to get immobilized and carted off to hospital….of the growing pathetic number of pseudo fitters who drop and thrash around at work in order to get the day off….or they do it after an argument with their partner to make them feel bad….all comes our way, all takes time to sort out and it all means ambulances aren’t readily available for the calls they were intended to deal with like: strokes, heart attacks, cardiac arrests, diabetic emergencies, emergency labour, limb threatening injuries etc…..

If we stopped dispatching ambulances to nonsense we’d have a world class 999 medical services in this country.

For me, far more should be done to move industry, business parks and by default people out of the South East.

As others have said, there’s loads of cheap unoccupied houses around the country….but sadly no jobs for people to work if they buy one of those.

The government should be offering tax breaks to firms that are willing to setup outside of the South East, the government could contribute to relocation costs for those prepared to move which would surely be cheaper than trying to help people buy in the South East!?

We have a lovely country in general but a bizarre obsession with the South East, that photo above if the Surrey Hills is wonderful and I’ve enjoyed riding that area, sadly because it’s the only nice hilly bit of countryside down south it gets busy, trails get pulled down and you can ride from one side to the other in less that a day…..i can ride the same stuff in Wales, but not see another soul, build what I want and know it’ll still be there in a month and spend days eexploring areas that dwarf the Surrey Hills….seriously folks, if the government won’t help then do what you can to relocate somewhere better and more affordable….i don’t earn what I was earning a year ago but I don’t need to, there’s no bars, cinemas, restaurants etc on my doorstep like there was in the South, it’s a simpler way of living and far less stressful.

In the place that I was born and grew up, where every single person I know on this planet lives and where my job is based.
Surrey.

Life sucks, I too was born there….as an NHS employee I can’t afford anything more than a shoe box there now….but to be honest why would I want to live there!?

Surrey is busy, overcrowded, dirty, expensive etc….broaden your horizons and you’ll realise that there are many many places around the country better than bloody Surrey!
If you were to move somewhere else you’d find that you see as much of your friends and family as you did before, we certainly have done, people love coming to stay and everyone has cars so getting around is a doddle….the UK is tiny, it’s not like having to trek across Australia to see friends!

Part of growing up is branching out in different directions, I have friends all over the country and now abroad too…..life would be very boring if we’d all just stayed in Surrey….now I can holiday in Oz with friends on the cheap, friends can come to Wales and stay with me and we can go hiking and cycling together….life’s good, I couldn’t imagine anything more boring than spending my adult life where I grew up.

As others have said, it’s a London-centric and South East problem, we lived on the Hampshire/Surrey border and sold last year….there were 40+ viewings on our open house day…and the property sold that day….for above asking price, bonkers.

I bought in 2004 before things went truly nuts, I wouldn’t be able to now….in fact if we’d stayed in the South it would’ve been a sideways move….very depressing.

So….we moved to Wales.

Lovely village location, detached cottage, 4-acres of land with stables, a river bordering one side of the property with fishing rights and some of the best MTBing in the UK on the doorstep….i’m almost embarrassed to say how much it was….250k.

Obviously I’ve dropped a few thousand in salary but bizarrely Mrs Deviant earns more now, seems there’s good money in care and Wales has a huge elderly population.
Sorry to brag but life is idyllic, I don’t spend nearly as much time online any more, I ride more, I walk the dogs more, I’m learning to ride the other half’s horse etc…the pace of life is slower, people are more relaxed than down South…i don’t miss it, can’t ever see myself coming back….days on Cader Idris or the Brecon Beacons are priceless, I feel semi retired and I’m not 40 yet.

Try it, come on in the waters lovely!

Wet, mild winter means very few days where the temp has been cold enough to kill off the bugs….as a result coughs, colds and flu like illnesses are persisting beyond the usual amount of time we have them for, apparently….was on the radio the other day.

Hmm, this is starting to get silly….on my old double chainset it feels like I’m just treading water when I spin the 22 x 36 gear…. I’m not against 1x setups but with the XT 42t currently on my FS I’ve gone as low as when i ran multiple chain rings up front, struggling to see what this will give me except the ability to maybe run a 40t chainring….which I wouldn’t do anyway?….then how wide and heavy is the rear hub area going to get with these kinds of setup?

As someone else mentioned, soon it’ll be easier to go back to 2×10 for the range of gears you want, better weight distribution and it’ll probably be cheaper too.

eem to like a bit of ‘twang’ in my components. The Orange Five rear end flexing thing is something I’ve been aware of on mine while riding it. And it actually adds something to the ride.

This.

Motorcycles worshipped at the altar of all out stiffness a few years ago until riders realised it was counter productive in lots of situations.
By all means build a stiff front end so the leading wheel tracks straight and true….but some flex engineered into the frame and/or swingarm can be beneficial in taking sting out of the trail when the bike is leant over….obviously forks and shocks work less efficiently once away from the vertical, a good engineer understands this and allows for some assistance from the chassis when the bike is leaning.

I love FoD, the fact its not weatherproofed and surfaced like BPW is a plus in my opinion….i wouldnt want to ride it all through winter, i’ve recently booked a day at BPW later this month as the relentless gloop is getting boring now….but certainly at the beginning of autumn/winter its always fun putting the mud tyres on and booking a trip to FoD….there is a certain skillset required there that you just dont use at places like BPW.

The steeper sections drain well, just stick Marys on front and rear…if its horrendous go with something properly spiky like a Dirty Dan on the front and you’re good to go!

Loving the renaissance off the slack HT, in years gone by you went to OnOne and bought a 456 of some description….now you’ve got the new DMR, Nukeproof, Ragley, Orange and still On-One (stalwarts that they are!)….good times, I bloody love a hardtail.

What can I chuck in my body that’s quick and easy at work that will get my calorie levels up?

Peanut butter, it’s ridiculously calorie dense.

What’s baffling is that whoever is feeding the press from the Dr’s point of view is doing a staggeringly bad job of it….it’s actually quite simple, I had the misfortune of treating a local politician who counts Hunt as a friend….she asked me why NHS staff were up in arms about an 11% pay rise?….

…to her it was that simple, as far as she (and the media seem to believe) we’re all getting an 11% pay rise and are being unreasonable and ungrateful about it.

I explained to her that my salary currently enjoys a 25% unsocial enhancement for working nights, bank holidays, weekends and public holidays (christmas, New year etc)….the current proposals are to take this away and replace it with the much heralded 11% ‘rise’…..problem is that if you take 25% of my salary and just replace it with 11% I have a shortfall (or pay cut) of 14% in reality.

The old bird wasn’t a bad lass actually and once I’d explained it to her like that she was disgusted…..the problem is this basic illustration doesn’t seem to be getting through on the news, instead it’s being lost in the hysteria about privatisation of the NHS….that may or may not happen but it’s not the issue here.
For a supposedly bright workforce the junior DR’s seem to be muddying the waters and diluting their own case by going off on rants about the destruction of the NHS, to the casual listener it’s hyperbole and people switch off.

Stick to the point about pay and hammer it home time after time after time….make the press, the public and the politicians understand completely that this is a pay cut….taking away existing unsocial hours enhancements (which often total 25%+ of an NHS workers salary) and replacing with an 11% ‘rise’ is actually a 14% cut….stick to that argument and you might get more of the public onboard because the general public don’t have the attention span to work out all the nuances of this debacle.

Ultimately the biggest losers with be the public, the NHS will become nothing more than a training ground for nurses, doctors and paramedics to learn, qualify and then leave for more money elsewhere….leaving the general public to be treated by very junior staff while those who can afford insurance will get the benefit of being treated by the more experienced clinicians that left the NHS over this scandal.

Yes they all take cartridge bearings, email superstar when you need new bearings and they’ll tell you the size needed for your hubs, they’re honest about the reasons they don’t keep a stock of bearings….basically you can source them elsewhere for cheaper….i’ve always found them helpful, when I snapped a spoke I emailed them, they replied promptly and I was then able to take that info to my LBS who repaired the wheel

The basic Switch hubs are Novatec, they’re easily serviced at home, axle swaps are a doddle, several WC-DH teams use Novatec hubs and more and more bikes are coming with Novatec hubs as OEM kit.

There have been teething troubles, the original Tesla hub was fragile, it has been superseded by the Tesla-evo which is great, swapping between axle standards is as easy as popping off end caps and clicking the right size ones one instead

I have some basic Switch hubs on my HT that take the worst of the Welsh winter and uplift days to Antur, BPW, FoD etc and are still like new, my Tesla-evos are also running great and well over 12 months old with no rough running.

I use Superstar’s wheel builder because the hubs work well and are a steal and then I can spec rims from DT, Mavic, Stans etc for a hard hitting set of AM wheels for significantly less than other sites offer….of course if you’re a label snob then hubs by DT, Chris King etc are available instead.

Highly recommended, if on the off chance you get a shonky set of wheels your LBS will usually true them up for £10 per wheel so you’re still quids in, the economy of scale they work on is huge, I’ve always had great service and also have some road wheels from SS too.

The Yari is getting good reviews even though the internals are a generation behind Pikes, nothing wrong with that at all, Revelations are similar in technology terms and still make a very good trail fork for significantly less than a Pike….i have Revs at 140mm and they’re great, further shortened to 130mm I would imagine they’re even better.

I also have X-Fusion Sweeps at 160mm on my full suss and they’re superb, the 34mm chassis is a step up from Revs, Fox-32s etc and the damping is plush initially and ramps up nicely to avoid bottom outs…they’re also easily adjusted internally from 120mm to 160mm if you get the long travel models, they usual crop up on CRC for less than £400, they are fairly future proof too as the new Roughcut damper (google it, getting rave reviews) will be available later this year and can be installed in older models by simply pulling out the old cartridge and dropping in the new one.

….read the Cotic page about why they’ve started speccing the Rocket with X-Fusion suspension, they’re quietly going about the business of making top performing forks and shocks that don’t cost the earth…they were set up by former Fox employees so they know their stuff, I’ve gone in wholesale and put one of their shocks on my FS too, when the Revs on my HT break I’ll be replacing them with X-Fusion, lovely kit regardless of price and serviced by TFtuned or a competent home tinkerer!

As others have suggested, you need ‘poacher turned gamekeeper’ types as their knowledge of the sleazier side of cycling is usually far superior to those who have led a sheltered life in comparison.

An anti doping message from someone who’s never done it is exactly like the dour, boring, whiter than white copper who comes into a school and wags his finger and comes out with all the usual cliches…what is usually more effective is the former addict who can recount first hand about losing his wife, his job, his house and his mind….it’s always a stronger message and if you get somebody like this on side they are usually excellent at spotting the signs of abuse in other people far earlier than the aforementioned copper.

Regards him telling all in his book, obviously if he wanted to ride professionally again he couldn’t go on a rampage naming and shaming everyone from riders to DS’s to soigneurs to financiers to officials etc that were complicit in the cycling doping culture….now he’s retired he absolutely should do this, he has no excuses for keeping quiet now his riding career is over….Armstrong could do similar and seeing as he has no way back to a riding career I can’t understand why he didn’t tell all!?….this is about the only thing that still rankles me about Millar and Armstrong, they could drop the UCI right in it, blow it wide open, really shine the spotlight on the pharmacists, doctors, labs, corrupt officials etc that enable riders to dope….they could go into great detail about the how?, where?, when?, who? etc but they choose not to….maybe they still have friends in the sport they’re trying to protect, maybe they don’t want to be seen as a snitch but if people involved in doping knew that a pinged rider would spill the beans once caught it would be another good deterrent because at the moment all that happens is the rider in question confesses but keeps quiet about anybody else involved….that has to stop, maybe the authorities should take the approach that police take whereby they reduce a charge in exchange for information leading to more arrests? Positive riders could have their 2 year ban reduced to 12 months in exchange for information leading to other caught riders, dodgy doctors etc?….controversial perhaps but it has to be more effective than Wegelius, Yates etc simply refusing to talk about it and perpetuating the ‘omerta’….

That’s about the long and short of it….but but there’s less ‘clutter’ on the bars….and and….nah, it’s fashion led at this stage.

The argument about clutter is nonsense, in this age of 740-800mm bars are people really struggling to fit a front shifter on there!?….the weight thing I can understand, if the bike is light to begin with and the rider is svelte too….otherwise you’re just clutching at straws by trying to save a few hundred grams when you’re several stone overweight and riding a 30lb+ bike!

I’m leaning toward the new XT 11-speed stuff as it’s cheap enough that building up an SLX and XT 2×10 drivetrain will likely now be the more expensive option, if I save some weight that’s a bonus….but this NX toss with its 550g cassette is a joke.

The rear mech looks laughably badly made….like a school metal work project!

Cheers CGG, that’s what I had in mind.

Meh, looks cheap and nasty….i’ll be going XT-11-speed on my next build.

Many thanks gentlemen, I’ll get to work on it then.

Exactly?….don’t know but someone on here will!….it’s one of the early ones though when they were still called Inbred-456’s instead of just the 456 as they were known latterly.

Lovely bike, rode far better than its price tag had any right to….still miss my 456-evo.

Spring summer set-up for hardpack/trail centres:

HR or HR2 front and back.

Taking into account more natural exposed riding, looser ground, woods/forest stuff i’d simply chuck a Minion DHF on the front instead.

I only bring the Minion DHR2 out as things get wetter and i slip on the Marys once autumn comes, initially on the front only (with the aforementioned DHR2 out back) and then in the winter i swap to Marys F&R…which is what i’m currently running on my HT.

Interesting thread though, i’ve always thought of Minions as more draggy but quite a few on here rate the HR and HR2 as more draggy tyres.

Despite that rambling post I forgot to recommend a combination, I use some of the below depending on conditions and surface etc….

Mary front, Minion DHR2 back.
Minion DHF, Minion DHR2 back.
Minion DHF, HR or HR2 back.
HR or HR2 front, HR or HR2 back.

Muddy:

Magic Mary front and rear.

Avoid:

Maxxis Ardent….god awful tyre in my opinion, the times I’ve used one on the rear have always resulted in unpredictable slides and poor braking performance.

If the Minion SS is anything like a Rock Razor then the braking won’t be as good as a fully treaded tyre, I was running a Mary front and Minion DHF (back) for the DH stuff I did last year….i entered a race in high summer on a freshly cut in track in the South East and thought it would be perfect to try a semi slick on the back….how wrong I was!, at one point I nearly ran off track into spectators….it was awful.

…i wouldn’t rule it out completely, somewhere hard packed like BPW might be better but in the earthy loose South East I needed more tread on the rear, once I switched back to a normal Minion out back predictable braking returned!

In looser conditions the fastest rolling I’d go for now is a HR or HR2 on the back, the significant center knobs are just too important during braking in my opinion, they act like a paddle and dig in if you like….with tyres like the SS or Rock Razor the paddle-like effect is missing and you’re relying on the ground being hard enough to interact with the rubber compound to provide traction as opposed to the tread simply digging in.

So much of this is subjective too, from years of riding motorcycles it was apparent that some people preferred a certain brand over others, I loved Dunlop and would happily push a Dunlop front tyre way beyond the point I’d push a Bridgestone for example….even though my riding mates might have all been on Bridgestone and there was no objective difference in performance!

In the STW tradition of recommending what you own I’ll also chime in with a Trance….

The frame is strong enough for my 14st weight, it’s reasonable price without going the direct sales route and has a certain amount of versatility to effectively be two bikes in one.
As stock it has 140mm front and rear with the DW link/Meastro platform firming up nicely under pedaling to make an efficient mile muncher….however stick a 160mm fork on the front and the HA slackens out to 66 degrees and you get a bike that loves descending…I couldn’t be happier and it’s stopped me constantly perusing the mags and websites looking at other AM bikes as I did in the past….instead I simply enjoy riding and I spend time planning rides out rather than what bike to buy next.

Any dog off the lead that comes near me will be treated to a lovely bit of mars bar (or other chocolate snack), Go on eat as much as you can

Thankfully not as dangerous as non dog people think, my two have always enjoyed chocolate, they’re 6 and 8 and love the stuff, crack on.

Interesting thread, I simply don’t trust people who don’t like dogs, it’s weird….they’re great animals and the best company.
There’s something creepy, not right and a little bit stunted about grown men getting their knickers in a twist over a loose dog, been in the situation loads and I bend down , call it over and have a play….if only half the people I come across in life were as easy going and fun as a dog.

It will be an exciting season for sure. I think Bruni will be up there. I’m also keen to see how Atherton does on the Trek, he had a quiet season last year. Perhaps he has passed his best.

I doubt he’s passed his best, physically he is the stand out specimen in men’s DH seemingly taking the fitness and conditioning side more seriously than most….then look at the Redbull Hardline videos from the end of season, Gee has more talent on a DH bike than most give credit for, unfortunately his dour (at times) personality doesn’t help…..expect to see him on the podium all season, the Trek is universally well regarded as a neutral and easy to ride machine.

Re. Ratboy….he’ll be back too, he has bags of natural talent, he won at Mont St Anne last year while on the recovery road, he’ll win again this year now fully rehabilitated.

It’s Hill I’m interested in, the new Nukeproof looks awesome and hopefully the shoulder has healed, if it hasn’t then that’s a career ending injury right there….sad if he has to go out with a whimper, in full flow there’s nobody I’d rather watch!

Also interested to see Mike Jones step up this year, a podium last season and a good result at the WCs is great for a young lad but the top step beckons I feel….

I think Gwin has a tough job this year….it goes without saying that Minnaar will be in form, Gee is always a threat, Bryceland is a winner now, Hill on the comeback trail, Bruni looking to win some more now he’s got the taste, Brosnan can and will win….the leftfield team from GT of the reprobates Dale, MacDonald and Wyn Masters will ruffle some feathers too although I think the top step will elude that lot!

…. It’s going to be awesome, just wish they’d make the season 10 races long!

no chance I’m slowing down for horses or walkers on a dedicated MTB trail.

Saw an idiot do this close to a horse on a shared trail, not sure what he was expecting really!?….he obviously thought of himself as ‘billy big bo##ocks’ but he looked a right tit when the horse spooked and stepped sideways into him and half a ton of equine muscle sent him flying….made everyone else laugh though.

I’ve also had a guy on a MTB at QECP come towards me at speed shouting to get out of the way, as a fellow MTBer I might have sympathized if he’d been on the signed MTB trails there….but he wasn’t….it was in the carpark and there were kids about, me with my dogs etc….he came off far worse, I’m at a loss as to what people in this situation think they’re riding!?….it’s a bicycle that is unstable if you hit something/someone and it’s dead easy to fall off….it’s not a tank and yet (some) people seem to adopt an air of invincibility when they strap on a helmet and go for a ride.

There are idiots in every sport, cycling does unfortunately seem to have some particularly militant and obnoxious ones though.
If you really can’t handle having to share a trail with a walker, a dog or a horse go somewhere on private land like BPW, the 417-project etc….if you’re going into forestry commission land accept that you’ll have to rein it in a bit.

Had SRAM stuff as OE on a few bikes in the past, it’s fine.

My only gripe was the brakes seemed to need a bleed after the smallest change like fitting different pads, changing from one bike to the next etc, very finicky….Shimano brakes are my go to choice as soon as the SRAM stuff needs so much as a pad change, I just buy XT stuff and put the SRAM brakes on eBay.

Drivetrain is different, I’ve had decent performance and life span from SRAM stuff, even the low end X5 kit, however I do buy myself Shimano kit when doing a frame only build….current bike has XT brakes, SLX chainset, XT and SLX mechs and shifters….it’s cheap, works flawlessly and lasts ages.