I collapsed in a Tesco once , with a HR of 35. The ambulance drove me the 400mtrs to hospital.

Guildford by any chance?

Zee or Saints will give the feel/modulation of Hope due to the 4-pot design and two of those pistons biting the rotor momentarily before the other two come in.

Yes Deore, SLX and XT can be a bit abrupt but don’t pull so hard on the lever!…i only have Saint because they came up cheap in a sale but I can see the difference in feel now even if outright power seems similar.

That said if I was buying new my go to brake is XT, you can get a pair for less than £100 and they’ll stop you in the Alps all day long….if anything in the caliper fails buy a new caliper, they’re cheap enough on CRC!…likewise if anything in the lever fails replace that, it’s even cheaper.

I’ve never had to bleed Shimano brakes, they work from the box, fit and forget….Avid on the other hand would require bleeding again after a bloody pad change!

Double post.

Bugger it, the pads are so good it’s worth posting about them twice…i believe that the Racematrix compound is a mix of organic and ‘other’….nice compromise and in theory should be worse than plain organic/soft but I’ve never had a problem with power on them…easily as good as Shimano OEM stuff I’ve had and better than Superstar’s…which aren’t bad either to be honest.

Uberbike’s Racematrix here too, they put up with my brake dragging down Antur on my HT with no fade!…had them in everything from Deores to Saints so far, great pads.

They look great, my mk2 Piglet is great…incredibly versatile, can pootle around the woods trail style or hammer down a rocky Antur DH run!
Seemingly indestructible too…which is a shame really as I’d love one of these new ones!

Tubeless
Fat bikes
Plus size tyres
Carbon
Dropper posts

….all a bit ‘meh’ for me.

The Following just got a superlative review in the Nov ’15 What Mountain Bike so the queue’s going to get longer.

More fool them.

This thread shows the QC is crap and the warranty responsibilities of the manufacturer and importer are dire….but hey it got a good review in What Mountain Bike so what the hell!…..there are loads of excellent bikes out there without being lumbered with this pile of junk.

Enjoy!

Unless the child is thick it’s a breeze to come back after missing a week, GCSEs were a doddle and it was no different in workload to every time my tonsils flared up at secondary school and I had a week off…glandular fever had me out of school for two weeks and and nearly in hospital, I dont remember that being a challenge to catch up either.

I stand by earlier comments, if the overall attendance is good then a week with the family is more important than just another week in school…obviously important weeks that include exams are different.

In priority order it goes like this:

Family
School/Work
Everything else

People would do well to remember that.

My Pacenti TL28 rims do everything on my HT from general trail riding to DH on uplift days, they’ve been faultless but then I run proper pressures in my tyres as opposed to lots on here who’ll slag off a rim for being soft when only running about 15psi in it and wondering why it dents!

Not saying you’ve done that, the 80psi implies you don’t for a start!…probably a build issue.

One simple thing they could do, is take it out of the FMB world tour. With it being a diamond event, it creates a real 2-tier series and that’s got to put real pressure on competitors to take part. Don’t think the event itself needs to be tied into the series, and in some ways it probably hurts it- and I’m not convinced the series benefits from it either.

This.

It’s big enough to be a standalone event with specialists in this field of big mountain riding….Berrecloth, Zink, Lacondegeuy etc….

I was chuffed to bits when Sam Pilgrim won the FMB world tour in 2013 but I’ve hated seeing him ride Rampage the couple of times he’s done it….he’s mature enough now to sit it out, I respect him more for admitting to hating Rampage and going against the ‘cool kid’s’ consensus.

In a way I think WC downhillers are probably in their more natural element at Rampage than traditional HT Slopestyle riders…Semenuk has made the switch brilliantly but Fairclough, Atherton, Gracia….even Ben Reid when he did it, seem more comfortable on the big bikes and the big chutes, drops etc…it should go the way of Hardline, not linked to a series but great publicity for the riders and sponsors.

For me this year’s highlight was Sam Reynolds, from dirt jumper to Slopestyle to Rampage….that’s some progression but then I honestly believe he’s unhinged! Haha….love his YouTube vids though.

I’d like to see Atherton back there, his practice videos from Hardline were just mental…shame he punctured in the final run….loved seeing Fairclough throw a backflip, he’s a savvy boy….must’ve realised last year he needed a flip to compete with the big names…almost a shame it’s gone that way but he did what’s necessary I suppose!?

Who’s the incredibly talented Dirt/Orange rider who has put out some top videos this year?…Phil Atwill!….there’s someone who should be doing Rampage!
Anyway, more a stream of consciousness than a coherent post but it’s Sunday night and I’ve had a great weekend of MTBing, watched Rampage Friday and rode Antur on Saturday….we’ll be having this thread again in 12 months time I’m sure.

. It’s riding bikes; that’s all it is. If some of the riders are scared about jumping off cliffs, then why don’t they just go home? They aren’t forced to do it.

Its hardly just riding bikes is it?!…i just rode my bike across some MoD land this afternoon, it was nothing like Rampage, we’re talking many magnitudes of scale larger.

Likewise the ‘just go home’ comment….as far as i know the only true Rampage privateer so to speak is Wil White, the rest of the riders are employed/sponsored….if they just go home because they dont like it sponsors cut them loose…that means no money coming in, no high production cost Youtube vids for next years contract negotiations etc….some of these guys have wives and kids, its their job and they are effectively contracted into doing Rampage.

There’s aspects of my job i dont like, i cant just pick and choose….if i tried that my employer would fire me….of course no-one holds a gun to my head and forces me out the door each morning but its all i know (much like i suspect riding bikes is all a lot of these guys know) and so although i could leave in theory, the reality is that i need paid employment to keep a roof over my head….funnily enough much like the Rampage guys….starting again at my age would hit the family hard, again much like some of the older guys like Zink, Berrecloth etc….if you’re 18 its slightly different, when you’re 30+ you’re effectively in it for life unless you made enough when you were young to retire early.

If it’s going to be softer stick a Mary or Shorty on the front….the DHR will be fine whatever.

Just got back from Antur with a Minion DHF and a HighRoller on the back, it was great….at FoD a week earlier I had a DHR2 on the back and a Magic Mary up front….that was also great on the roots and dirt of Gloucester.

There are some bloody brilliant tyres around at the moment, gone are the days of having to use HighRollers all year round and tip-toe around the conditions, now just whack the appropriate tyres on and ride as you usually would…super tacky, black chilli and vertstar compounds help massively.

New medical director at work is 30yrs military, been the head GP for the entire UK forces, running the UK’s middle East medical ops in recent years and worked and advised with NATO….he spent a day with me before he got the job, we talked recent Afghan/Iraq matters and risk to the UK….he corrected me and pointed out that Russia is still the main threat.

His opinion was that Putin is genuinely dangerous, Russia is still hurting decades after the break up of the USSR and that the Ukraine events is a Russian test on expansion again and how the EU will respond….his opinion is that Putin/Russia only respects strength and negotiating with him is as good as a green light to continue….he said keep US and UK forces in Germany and park a load of nukes there too….it worked in the past and he reckons it’d work again.

He thinks talks of getting rid of our nuclear deterrent is nuts and effectively waves the white flag to Putin. This was from a military man so it will have his spin on it but what was terrifying was that he says MPs are well advised on Russian military movements and don’t seem that bothered!….the military are aware of increased Russian excursions into UK airspace and advise politicians accordingly….and they seem more concerned with other matters, he said it’s part of the reason he wants out, lost faith in MPs to keep us safe!…it was an eye opening day.

Always thought it a pointless law anyway, holiday companies prey on families and hike costs in the term breaks.

My parents used to take our family summer holidays in the last week of August and the first week of September, that often meant missing the start of a new school year but the school never kicked off and my parents were honest with the school…..it saved the family a huge amount of money and we wouldn’t otherwise have been able to afford holidays abroad.

Common sense really….in response to a cynical travel industry unfairly hiking costs on those who can least afford it…no problem with the decision.

because the existence of a way marked trail stops you from doing that does it?

Not quite but last time I was there I did seem to spend an annoying amount of time looking for signposts, stage numbers etc and turning around to get back on ‘the trail’….that’s what way marking does, it makes you feel you should follow the route….particularly if you’ve been led to believe that something worthwhile is coming up….without signs everywhere people tend to go off and do their own thing, explore a bit more etc….I don’t ride there anymore as a result, the number of users attracted to an area also tends to go up once something like Swinley becomes official and a trail centre and that’s just not an enjoyable way to spend my time.

Wrong?….no.
Crap?….yes.

There is better cycling around Swinley, look for it, that’s all.

I’ve said it before but the fastest most impressive guy I’ve seen at Swinley was on a short travel carbon HT and he made everyone else look silly….the long travel, slack trail bikes being unloaded in the carpark all looked a bit crap and like overkill once I’d seen that….and that’s what Swinley has become, somewhere to go for an hour of a weekend in order to justify owning that type of bike in the South….it fails miserably, nothing better than exploring new trails or woods, Swinley as a trail centre has lost that and that’s the real shame, not that ‘jump gully’ has been demolished.

Judging others?….yep, happens all the time, everyone does it from appearance to speech to manners to hobbies etc….oh no I judged someone!

Never underestimate the thrashing, frothing, aspirational nature of some people….these sad creatures need ‘executive’ homes in order to feel good about themselves, they should be pitied.

Friends of ours have just taken on a 400k mortgage even though they can’t really afford it and will likely never be able to afford a holiday again, change their cars etc….they both earn very normal salaries and have a little lad who will likely suffer for his parents vanity but they ” just had to live in Farnham” (Surrey wankersville for the uninitiated)….been to visit them, you can’t park anywhere obviously as it’s a roadside property without a drive so we parked a few streets away….as they do too!….once inside you can’t swing a cat and all they do is prattle on about the bay window in the front room and how much the place cost….yawn, brilliant….don’t think we’ll be staying friends for long at this rate.

It’s not jealousy before people jump to that conclusion, we could’ve also done a stupid interest only mortgage that we’re never likely to pay off and stayed in the South, it’s more a frustration that people you know and like fall for this bollox and buy into the narcissistic way of living that just funds other people’s lives and not their own.

Got a mate that works in IT sales, visited him at work for lunch on and off over the years, the carpark is always amusing, currently it’s Audis but in recent years it’s been full of BMWs, the new Mini when they came out and briefly Range Rover Evoques….fashion, follow the leader, sheeplike mentality or a combination….i hate it.
He hates golf but feels obliged to give up weekend time and play with people he works with as apparently that’s when a lot of business gets done!…so he’s had to buy the club’s, the clothing, the bag, trolley etc and join the club for good measure….costs a fortune, all for executive status at work, no thanks.

People who can’t see the banality in their tragic lives assume it’s sour grapes from others but it’s not, contempt maybe, pity obviously….but more than anything just a desire for people to calm down and not buy into this crap, the country would be a nicer place if people didn’t get suckered into this nonsense.

Butterbean has it right though, Swinley as it stands is properly crap.

It gets lots of use because it’s in the chronically overcrowded South East…as said, the polished hard pack surface is awful, couldn’t care less if it drains well in the winter….I went there years ago before it was a trail centre and had a great time exploring and riding tracks that looked well used and some that looked natural and hardly used….found some genuinely technical stuff too….it was a thoroughly enjoyable day.

Went there more recently and it was dire, it’s more a place where people go to justify owning their bike as opposed to going because it’s good….there are huge parts of the Surrey Hills that are so much better but require some effort which of course doesn’t fit in with the painting by numbers cycling loads seem to want to do now….sad that people seem to actually desire a mindless signposted trudge through some flat woods….seriously even the MOD land around that area is better than Swinley itself.

Pointless ‘path of least resistance’ place it has become now, symptomatic of modern life and the South East in general I’m afraid.

If it works (and companies are honest about it) then what’s the problem?…it’s unrealistic of people to think small brands or start-ups will build their own factory and commission truly unique frames.

I think a lot of people would be surprised at what brands come out of the same factory doors.

It’s collectively part of the reason Mrs Deviant and I moved away from the South East, too many self important high earning moaning tossers taking the fun out of life….add in overcrowding, congestion on the roads and the cost of houses and despite being born and bred down South I now struggle to see why anybody would want to live there?!

When you’ve got a queue of middle aged men fawning over the brand and saying they’ll own one despite the problems then Evil/Silverfish don’t really have to improve do they?!….if they’re reading this thread they know they have guaranteed customers coming up regardless!….they must be laughing into their cornflakes.

Just read some of the comments on here, the thread in general has put me off even if I respect Dave Weagle’s input into the suspension linkage….but comments like ‘i wanted one because they’re a boutique brand’….jesus wept, is this shopping for footballers wives?…it’s mountain biking, how about wanting to own a bike because it’s good at the job?…or because it can handle the rigors of actual mountain biking?!

If the brand has a track record of broken frames and poor customer service then stay away, not fit for purpose springs to mind….but then I don’t need ’boutique’ stuff in my life so what do I know?!

I like it but it does need some changes….to decide what it wants to be for starters.

If it’s a Slopestyle contest on a mountain then be done with inviting WC racers and just have it as an event on the FMB tour and he who can throw the most and the best tricks down their line wins (cough-Semunek-cough)…..or make a race of it, have all riders dig teams build the one dream line that everyone rides, no tricks, just fast big mountain riding….fastest from start to finish wins.

Choose one or the other, the current incarnation is too subjective for me.

Ultimately it doesn’t matter what we in the UK think, we’re not the target audience….freeride is huge in the US and Canada and that’s all that matters to sponsors, TV, websites etc….

I much preferred watching Hardline, that seems as big, steep and dangerous while still being a race….I’m just not interested in talking about a riders ‘flow’ or ‘style’ or any other BS you can’t actually measure.

Agreed, their DH bikes are lovely.

Yep, if Vink makes it then he should win….it’s the most nuts ‘line’ I’ve seen in a long time!

Brendan last year was incredible….proper big mountain riding….but no tricks, shame really as it’s become a Slopestyle event that just happens to take place on a mountain now.

Gee’s 2010 run was great too, as someone else said though, I’d rather watch Hardline….or have the Rampage riders and dig teams collaborate on building a line then all ride it….that way you can fairly compare riders on the same turf so to speak…the childish squabbling over lines this year (see Pinkbike) has been disappointing.

Plastic Nukeproof here too, combined with double length pins from an eBay seller and they’re bloody awesome!….the plastic doesn’t seem to become as slippery when wet as the metal flats I’ve used over the years and long pins are a given for making any pedal better.

This thread has whetted my appetite, I’m there on Saturday….on a HT as it happens, will film the carnage for every time this thread pops up!

The more affordable the sport becomes the happier I’ll be, if Superstar can bring in a decent quality FS at a reasonable price point I’d be all over it.
Not interested in labels, if the geometry is good and it’s fun to ride then they wouldn’t be doing anything plenty of other brands don’t already do.

I have some X-Fusion Sweeps and it’s my understanding that any X-Fusion fork can be set at any 10mm increment in its travel if you know what you’re doing and are happy to take a fork apart?

Is DLA like U-turn or TALAS in that it can be done during the ride?….the videos on YouTube I’ve seen show the standard RL2 damper being adjusted in 10mm increments….in other words you can buy a 160mm Sweep and change it to 150mm, 140mm, 130mm, 120mm etc if you’re handy with the tools and feeling brave.

The Chunky Monkey is great as a front, bit like a Minion…..never got on with the Smorgasbord, it’s trying to be an Ardent and I think they’re crap too.

The Geax Datura spikes are truly brilliant winter tyres, they were a tenner for wire bead and £15 for folding last time I looked….how they haven’t all gone yet is a mystery to me!?…i love still having a 26 inch HT, tyre bargains like that don’t seem to come up for my 27.5 inch Trance nearly as often.

Yeah, the Minion usually goes back on for BPW too.

Good, all clear…Minions front and rear, super tacky 2.5 DHF and 2.3 normal compound DHR2…can’t wait.

Ok, to save starting a separate thread about tyres… I’m off to Antur Stiniog next weekend, weather looks dry….. What tyres?…. I’m thinking ditch my usual Mary up front as it’s really a soft terrain tyre and Antur is rocky right?

I have a 2.5 Minion DHF somewhere, shall I put that on instead?….matched with the 2.3 DHR2 as they’re both Exo/dual ply.
Also have Exo/dual ply High Rollers in various sizes if they’d be better….even got a rare 2.35 dual ply Larsen FR in Super Tacky if that’d be better on the back…. I’m taking the HT, don’t expect to be riding the blacks if I’m honest….blues and then step up to the reds sounds like a good day to me.

Magic Mary front, Minion DHR2 back….was fine on the DH runs at FoD today….looking at other people’s bikes Marys, Minions and High Rollers still seem to be the order of the day right now.

I’ve got another Mary to go on the back for when things get wetter/muddier….once things progress beyond that I tend to switch to road riding until the spring!

The year he narrowly lost to Hayden it all slipped away at Valencia. He rode like a nervous child

It didn’t help that Bayliss turned up after a year in WSBK and stuffed everyone that weekend showing what could be done when he got his own way…..i believe he arrived in Valencia with the forks from his Superbike and demanded they fit them to the GP bike, initially the crew chief refused, Bayliss started to walk and the boss relented….the rest as they say is history, he’d proved his point….he’d always wanted his WSBK front end in that Duc but was never allowed.

The media circus that weekend was ridiculous, as much as Rossi tries to stay strong mentally (and usually achieves it) he was not expecting that….i seem to recall both Ducatis disappearing into the distance that weekend and making the rest of the field look silly….Rossi was expecting a straight fight at the front with Hayden and himself.
That would be my only reservation this year, Dani is back winning races, Marquez is always a threat and there’s no guarantee one or both won’t screw things up for Rossi and Lorenzo in the title fight….if it was just a case of Rossi cruising round behind Lorenzo to finish 2nd each race then I’d stake my house on it but the two mischievous Honda riders are going to play significant parts I feel!

We’re having similar things in the Ambo service re. unsocial hours….the understanding has always been that anything after 7pm was unsocial as this encroaches on your evening….the gov want it changed to 9pm or 10pm I forget which….it’s nonsense, who works at 10pm and considers it social hours, most people are in bed by then!

It’s a canny way to reduce unsocial hours payments without getting DR’s, nurses and paramedics to actually stop working unsocial hours.
I gave up trying to make sense of it years ago and just milk the private sector for all its worth now, the NHS pays me my basic 37.5 hours per week salary and I earn up to £60 per hour for the same job but wearing a uniform without an NHS logo on it.

The problem isn’t pay, or unsocial enhancements, or private contractors….although none of this helps….the elephant in the room nobody wants to talk about is how long people are now living.
The life expectancy when the NHS was set up was decades less than now….and it was affordable….children born today are expected to hit 90 years old….that’s what is unsustainable.

Most these days are in education until their early 20s and not paying tax….then you might get a 40 year tax paying career from them….only for them to live another 20-30 years costing the country literally billions in care, meds etc….

We also need to get rid of the myth that “i’ve paid my taxes, I’ve paid for my retirement”….no you haven’t, you’ve paid for those who are already retired, your retirement is based on the generation behind you working hard and paying their taxes….and this is where things get ‘uncomfortable’….there is no younger generation coming through, we’re a top heavy society, the over 60s now outnumber those under 16….it’s truly bloody terrifying.

None of the political parties really want to tackle the problem because telling the massive grey vote that they’re living too long is political suicide….as much as I love the NHS if the electorate doesn’t want to pay more tax then I can only see insurance as the viable solution….and then you get cries of a two tier system based on who can pay…..yep, that’s the price you pay for living too long!

Anyway, it’s late and I’m at FoD uplift tomorrow, none of the above applies to me as the men in my family drop dead of heart attacks at about 70….good citizens that we are.

When Saracen relaunched with the Ariel 141, 142 and 143 back in 2011 (or ’12?) it had a 68 degree HA….slacker bikes were around like the Commencal Meta, Spesh Enduro, Spesh Pitch etc….but the low BB, short stem etc had mags like Dirt debating whether to list it in their Dirt-100, websites like Rideio/southern-DH declared it a ‘mini DH’ bike and ended up buying their long termer.
What I’m saying is a bike is a sum of its parts and more than just a HA, 67 degrees wouldn’t bother me….my Ragley is 67 degrees and feels slack as f@@k, certainly more slack than the 456 series of HTs that preceded it and were all supposed to be slacker.

I’d ride it at 67 degrees first before buggering around with anglesets.

A road bike, a hardtail and a full suspension would do it all for me. Don’t need all that other niche crap that I’d never actually ride.

This covers it for me too, easy to maintain, never gets silly expensive keeping them in tyres etc….

I used to get tingly hands riding motorbikes, it then unfortunately progressed to mountain bikes too….bars I’ve used that have been fine and not given me numb hands: Renthal Lite’s 740mm , Answer Pro Taper 780mm, Sunline V 745mm,

Bars that have given me numb hands: Kore Torsion 760mm, Ragley Wiser 760mm, Funn Fatboy 787mm,

Never tried carbon but tempted by the soft/chewy compound that On One’s bars come in.

I think we knew that already….the fatbike demographic seems to be middle aged men who cant ride a normal bike without crashing.

and I’m not a bike retailer, who relies on my reputaion

Neither is Evil by the sound of it!…they seem to get sales on the basis of a weird looking suspension linkage and high retail price which seems to appeal to a certain kind of rider who thinks it gives them a (false) sense of superiority and riding ability while out on the trail….boutique I think it’s called.

Done.
I rather selfishly voted for more DH trails like Rogate, more Enduro events and a skills/drops/jumps freeride area.

That’d be awesome cheers.