Yes, I tape vulnerable areas on my road bike…head tube where cables rub, down tube from stones, grit etc and chain stays from the obvious…i like my road bike to look shiny and new but I couldn’t give two hoots about my MTB, I think they look better with some wear anyway.

Oh no, I’m male and enjoy sex…i forgot that’s not allowed these days…

…lets pretend we’re all eunuchs with no sex drive and we don’t ever look at anyone and find them attractive…or heaven forbid have fantasies about unatainable celebrities.

Silly hormones…curse me and my penis.

:roll:

Comes across as dim and vacuous but…that failed pop star Peter Brame dated her briefly and did a kiss and tell story…apparently she’s filthy in the bedroom and up for anything, if you Google it I think the articles still exist…on that alone she’s alright in my book.

:D

Yep, I work with people who seem to think interest rates have always been bugger all!..they’re going to get a shock when they start creeping up, I’ve just locked myself into a fairly cheap 5 year fixed term due to the financial uncertainties over Brexit…lots of my colleagues are on tracker deals/variable rates and to add to the uncertainty most are on interest only mortgages…with cars and other things bought when taking out the mortgage…its easy to blame politicians and bankers for financial ills but individuals are being reckless with debt and it’s on them that they don’t follow the news and make themselves a little more secure.

With regard to buying a house, when I lived in the South East renting was more expensive than a mortgage, what first time buyers struggled with was getting a deposit together…it can be done, it’s not easy and it does require sacrifices in other parts of your life…i got a deposit together by moving into a house share/room rental as opposed to renting a whole flat/house and worked all the overtime I could get, 18 months later I had the deposit I needed….i pretty much gave up on going out with friends and put myself forward to work bank holidays, Christmas, New Year etc…it was crap but I got a house at the end of it.
I’m happy to sympathise with people struggling to get on the property ladder if they’re doing all they can…seemingly though at my work the ‘kids’ moaning about house prices all drive nice cars, have the latest iPhone, go on holiday each year etc…cut back on that and there’s your deposit…owning property isn’t a right it’s a choice/privilege that you have to work for.
I also struggle to sympathise when people won’t consider moving away from the South East when their job is transferable to a part of the country where house prices are more sensible…again there seems to be an attitude of entitlement with regards living in an expensive area!…we wanted privacy and some land, we weren’t going to get it in the South East on an NHS salary, I could’ve spent the rest of my days moaning about how unfair things are but instead I looked around the country, saw the kind of house I wanted in our budget and moved 200 miles away to get it…it can be a pain not being close to family and visiting friends now entails a weekend stopover but it’s worth it and we’ve made new friends where we are now.

If you’re earning an average UK salary (25k?) and trying to buy in London then forget it, that’s life…look to move jobs first and then relocate somewhere cheaper and buy there instead…or accept that you’ll be renting in London forever…yes my parents generation had it easier with regard property prices but things change and you adapt to the economy/situation you’re in.

A lot of millennials seem to want to look for blame everywhere while waiting for someone else to remedy the situation for them…Barry Sheene famously said: “don’t wait for your ship to come in, swim out and bloody get it”… there seems to be a lack of that attitude at the moment.

aracer….yep cheers, just did that.

I text him his own name and address and said I was going to court over it….and surprisingly he’s now back in touch and trying to remedy the situation!
Excellent.

Also found out where he works etc…the internet is a wonderful thing.
If you’re going to scam people don’t plaster your details all over Facebook…idiot.

Weird, Shimano brakes on all my bikes since I returned to MTB in 2009, used everything from Deore to Saint and have found them to be fit and forget…i do tend to tinker and change things so I’ve probably not had a set for more than 12 months at a time before building another project or buying another bike, they’re brutally powerful in anything from XT up and I’ve found if you want more then 180mm rotors and soft compound pads do the job, never had the need for 203mm rotors and I’ve never had to bleed them either…it’s at the point now where I don’t look at another manufacturer for brakes, Shimano do the job and are cheap which is a bonus.

How do you find the house number of someone who’s scammed you?
Got a similar thing to the OP and have got his name and postcode including street name and town but seem to be stuck getting the actual house number?
I’m going to go down the £35 money recovery online route.

HR2 2.4 front with HR2 2.3 rear…or Schwalbe Magic Mary front with Nobby Nic rear…both combinations work well on my HT.

My coronary arteries were clear but I still presented with heart failure in the summer, it was brought under control in hospital over a 5 week period and I now take meds twice a day to keep things stable.
In terms of lifestyle I wasn’t given too much dietary advice as my cholesterol is pretty good, I had general cardiac health advice instead, it consisted of:

Reduce salt intake as much as possible (salt raises BP).

Don’t exceed 2 litres of fluid a day (too much can overload the circulatory system), some leeway on hot days and during exercise.

Keep medication regime strict and at regular times (ensures stable blood levels of said meds).

Take regular exercise (rain or shine I’m out on a road bike twice a week, mountain bike once a week and the gym once or twice a week), when your health depends on it you’ll find time.

Of my own volition I’ve cut out sweets, chocolate, cake, crisps, fizzy drinks etc and replaced with fruit, fruit and more fruit…lost weight and feel like I have more energy.

Others on my ward that did have blocked arteries were put on Statins and told to reduce their red meat and fat intake and to replace with chicken or fish instead.

The fitness thing will take a while, it always fades faster than you got it in the first place!…take it slowly, I used abbreviated gym sessions initially (like only one exercise per body part initially) and go from there, I now do a whole body (free weights) session with 10 minute cardio gaps on a stationary bike between body parts in around 2 hours…that would’ve just about killed me back in June.
Ditto with cycling, initially I could barely cycle 10 miles again, there was nothing in the tank, just had to knuckle down and build it up slowly, can now go out for a day on the bike again just like before I was unwell.
I’ve found a local kick boxing club (i used to train religiously) and was never fitter than back then (aged 28), I’m now 40 so when I go back to it next week that’ll be the acid test and I’ll know where my fitness truly is.
What has been odd is tracking my heart rate when I exercise now, it rarely goes above 130bpm at maximum effort whereas it used to go to 170-180, I think its some of the meds I’m on that artificially reduce the heart rate but it’s strange going the same speed and distance as before but with as heart rate much slower, you do have to push through what feels like a barrier if that makes sense!?

Have they started medicating you yet?…once they get that sorted you will feel better and you’ll feel more confident about pushing your body again, respiratory problems can go hand in hand with cardiac issues so don’t be afraid to ask your GP for an inhaler to use during exercise, most will gladly prescribe one and will be pleased you’re exercising again… some peoples attitude stinks when it comes to their own health…there were people on my ward who were being given advice on weight loss, exercise, diet etc and were outright rude to the doctors and nurses with some even asking if there was a pill they could take instead of putting in the rehab work…trying to get through to patients like that is like banging your head against a wall, don’t be one of those and you’ll be fine.

Had one in the summer as a precaution when I was in heart failure, no deposits or narrowing whatsoever, my problem is the muscle of the heart not the blood vessels.

They tend to go through the wrist in the radial artery now, they use a local anesthetic but it still bloody hurt…felt like they were shoving a biro up my wrist, once it got past the elbow and into bigger blood vessels it was fine and I couldn’t feel it but someone else on the ward had to ask them to stop and use a smaller catheter…maybe it was just a crap cardiologist that day!?

I don’t see why this is so difficult….in theory.

However in reality I do think the EU is punishing the UK for daring to leave, it’s childish and making things difficult.

Given the speech last week about a European police and military it was a good call to leave…those at the top want (and are headed towards) a massive federalist state like a European version of the US…some may welcome that but plenty don’t.

The anger directed in the UK’s direction stems from the fact we’re a net contributor…when we leave the EU will lose billions each year, that impacts their cosy project for a more integrated Europe and leaves Germany and France (mainly) footing the bill.

As someone who voted to leave I have no problem with the UK honoring its financial commitments that were agreed in 2013 and last for 7 years I believe, that’s fair and decent…but a penalty or ‘divorce bill’ on top of that takes the mickey…a country leaving shouldn’t be punished for wanting more independence, it’s smacks of totalitarian politics…do what we want/say or else…this is the main theme most people like me have given for wanting to leave, the EU seems to want to operate like a dictatorship…there is nothing wrong with the UK wanting its own courts to be the highest level a case can go, there’s nothing wrong with the UK wanting to set its own immigration figures, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to keep an independent currency etc…yet the EU seems to think it has the right to overrule all these things.
In a supposed democracy I feel powerless when the EU goes on another ego trip grabbing powers from individual nations.

While there are some people who voted out for xenophobia and racist reasons the main theme among my social group was what I just wrote above, we want UK courts and politicians running the country not a convoluted system operating remotely from Brussels that can overrule.

If the EU’s finances are so dire that they need propping up by the UK for years to come and then a whopping great lump sum on top then it just reinforces my view that as an organisation it’s not fit for purpose and should have been culled a long time ago.

Look at how the EU are currently behaving towards Hungary, Poland and the Czech republic for a massively underreported example of what I mean…these countries have seen the reckless move that Merkel made with regard to uncontrolled immigration and the subsequent strain on infrastructure and have said ‘No’….they will take migrants but they want to do it in limited numbers and at their own pace…perfectly reasonable I think.
The EU however has other ideas and are currently threatening them with sanctions and fines for not taking the numbers they’ve been ordered to take….what a lovely organisation the EU is, how very Democratic of them to issue orders and then fined for not complying…it’s like they know the mess Germany made of the migrant crisis but won’t admit it, instead they seem to want to spread the misery around other countries.
Poland have quite sensibly said that large numbers of migrants from other cultures and religions will take time to assimilate to their deeply rooted Catholic culture and may cause friction in the beginning….again a realistic and sensible appraisal of the situation….not according to the EU though who seemingly just want to cover their ears and not listen to valid concerns of member states.

Personally the quicker this country is out of that mess of a bureaucracy the better.

This is just up the road from me, I’d like to join as I haven’t ridden Rheaedr before, I’ll see if I’m on shift or day off.

Nukeproof on all mine, youngest one is 6 months, oldest is 2 years….no probs.

X-fusion vengeance at 170mm with coil springs sometimes appear on eBay, nice forks, they take 650b or 26, they’re a bit weighty though but to be expected, the action is so smooth and I sometimes put mine on the front of my full suss to remind myself how far backwards we’ve gone with air suspension.

Cheers re. the Bluetooth advice, despite being switched off in the control bar it was still running in Settings…brilliant Apple, well done.

On a positive note it was clunky and slow initially but seems slick and fast again now.

Battery use has ceased it’s freefall now and only dropped 2% in the last hour.

Works fine on my SE but appears to be a massive battery drain.
If I’m light on use at work I usually go home with 70-80% battery left, I’ve been at work half an hour so far and I’m down to 90% already, not looking good.

I like it…i briefly rode someone’s 27.5 codeine at BPW recently, it was ace…got me thinking about a cheap/second hand 29er build.

That’s the way to do it, given recent price hikes I’ll probably do the same for my next FS, even the direct sales brands are looking pricey these days.

Friend of mine dropped her new swanky Samsung. Screen replacement was £350 for the component plus fitting and she had to wait quite a few weeks for one to be ordered and delivered.

Unfortunately Samsung have followed Apple down the path of building their phones from glass and metal, all of these devices are now too fragile for robust use and have to be handled with care….apparently that’s ‘build quality’….

…and no you can’t get iTunes for Android, you can subscribe to Apple music for a fixed monthly fee but that’s not the iTunes you get on laptops and iPhones where there is no subscription and you buy individual tracks at 79p – 99p each.

Shame as that is the only thing keeping me with Apple.

I’d still be with 3 if I lived in the South East, I was very happy for nearly 7 years.

No hassle from them, 2 year rolling contracts with upgrades, excellent data coverage etc…then we moved to Wales in 2015…the land that mobile phone networks forgot.

Had to swap to EE to get a signal in the house and around locally while out, they’re more expensive, capped data (with 3 my contacts were genuinely unlimited data) and the handset deals are crap but I’m also a BT internet and landline customer and found out that BT use EE’s network so I’ll be moving that way on a decent bundle deal when this contract is over.

iPhones are not fragile. My mates mrs drove over hers with her SMax. Apart from a cracked screen

That’s kind of my point, fall from table….cracked screen, fall out of pocket….cracked screen etc etc…my 5S did it, my 6 did it, my SE hasn’t done it yet but I’ve only had it since December so give it time.

Never broken the screen on an Android.
With handsets from HTC they used rubber in the build I assume so it’s less slippery and acts as a shock absorber, with Samsung historically using plastic they just used to split apart (battery, back plate etc) and dissipate the shock that way either through design or accident….far more practical.

No doubt like the mug I am I’ll replace with a bloody iPhone anyway due to all the content on my laptop, phone and cloud and my continued obscure purchasing tastes that Google doesn’t cater for.

Its users like me that need Google to step up it’s game media wise.
I have an iPhone, not because I wanted an iPhone, not because I like it but because I have a huge amount of bought and paid for media on iTunes….yes I know there’s apps for transferring this over to the Android platform pretty easily…the real pain once back on an Android handset is going into Google Play, typing in the name of a song and getting nothing back…for all its hardware shortcomings (there’s a lot, I’ll get into that in a minute) Apple do seem to have the consumption side of things sewn up.

I can go into iTunes and type in some obscure late 80s/early 90s house track and it’s there…try it in Google Play and you only get current hits and well known classics.

With regards innovation, Apple hasn’t done any….for ages now…in tech terms they’ve been playing catchup for years.
Samsung, HTC and Sony have all had better displays than iPhones for years now, the latest Samsung Galaxy and the new Sony Xpreia XZ both have remarkable displays that makes the current iPhones look about a decade out of date…if you stream tv, watch films, browser YouTube etc then it’s all better with a flagship Android sadly.

Face recognition was on my Google/LG Nexus back in 2014…Sony had a flagship out in 2015 that you could take swimming (and a friend did, regularly, it was brilliant)…etc etc…

The last couple of iPhones I’ve had (6 and 5SE) have been ridiculously fragile, gorilla glass?!…erm no, more like brittle bone china, one drop and the thing is ruined…the slippery 6 I owned went back twice for screen repairs….and with the last repair the finger print scanner stopped working (another feature that debuted first with an Android manufacture)…the 5SE has been marginally better but having to use a case defeats the point doesn’t it?….hasnt Apple’s tagline been something about stuff ‘just works’ or fanboys croaking about ‘build quality’ whatever that means!?….wrapping a phone in fragile glass is not quality, it’s crap and they get broken…a lot.
The better half is on her second 6S, she’s happy to use a case so a potentially nice looking design now looks ugly, chunky and indistinguishable from any other smart phone out there….they both shut down, a lot….”i’ve got 15% battery left….oh no, wait, it’s turned off…anyone got a charger?”….seems to be a common theme.
All of our collective iPhones from 5S to 5SE to 6 to 6S have all frozen with a regularity that our old Android phones didn’t (ios is so great, it doesn’t freeze unlike Android…yeah right!)….in short Apple handsets are overpriced tat, far and away the best phone I had in terms of battery life, screen size and quality, ease of use, build, looks etc was an HTC One-S from about 2012….that thing looked good, full rubber and metal build, no plastic…no physical buttons on screen, purely touch operated…HTCs lovely ‘sense’ skin over Android and two day battery life….it was also less than 8mm in thickness but that still didn’t stop Apple spouting nonsense about how their iPhone 5 (released 6 months later by the way) was the first sub 8mm phone, the tech websites should have pulled them up on that, it didn’t seem an issue to HTC who politely ignored it but when Apple was using the ‘breakthrough’ dimensions as a draw in its ad campaign the industry as a whole should’ve told them to button it.

Apple peaked with the 4S, since then they’ve been behind the curve….like I said at the beginning, great media library but average handset….sadly I’ve spent thousands in iTunes over the years and don’t want to throw that away now.

If iTunes was open to Android handsets there’s loads of us who would gladly drive over our iPhones and run back to Samsung, HTC, Sony, LG etc….

It’s all good at Antur, by that I mean it’s a hard packed quarry type surface so I’ve used HR2s, Magic Marys, Nobby Nics, DHR2s, Minion DHFs etc and never had issues with grip unless it’s very wet.

Mud isn’t an issue, the most important thing is confidence in the rubber.
Pick a decent soft compound, I tend to run my front tyre at 25psi at Antur and the rear at 30psi (28 if it’s wet), take a few tubes and enjoy…actually saying that I’ve never flatted there and I’m still running tubes, my last flat was at BPW and that’s supposedly more forgiving so work that out?!

Slackset.

It slackens the HA, steepens the seat tube and therefore theoretically at least improves the bikes climbing ability while making the front more stable….yes the bottom bracket will drop, if it becomes a real pain then reevaluate the length of your cranks, I’d rather have a stable slack good climbing trail bike that needs shorter cracks than the other options.

Offset bushes tend to drop the rear of the bike, yes the effect on the HA is the same but at what cost?…in my experience the seat tube slackens out too making climbing less enjoyable, on a gravity bike it’s fine but I like trail bikes to be able to climb….you can get a similar effect by just whacking a smaller wheel in the back (drops the rear and slackens the front) but it will be a pig to climb on.

I’ve done both. My HT has a slackset as I tend to use it for all day rides and climbing but my FS has a smaller wheel in the back to make uplift days and racing more enjoyable without having to bugger about with bushings and headsets…it doesn’t climb nearly as well but then it’s only used for gravity stuff so it doesn’t matter.

This thread is brilliant…so the millage is the same, the OP is just annoyed that someone reset the trip clock?…as the millage is only 10 miles anyway?…seriously OP, what exactly are you wanting to record on the trip meter in those first 10 miles?…and you have a photo anyway!…just add on 10 miles if you’re one of those saddos who tries to work out their real MPG when they buy a new car.

Regards the screw caps, yes in a modern car that would look ugly, contact the dealer and ask for some, he’s just sold you a 32k car, if you point it out they probably have some in the workshop they’ll give you.

I once drove a brand new motorcycle off the forecourt and rode home down a freshly tarmac’d road in the summer…bloody thing was covered in tar spots when I got home…that’s life.

Generally a 44mm head tube with a tapered steerer has an internal cup on top and external on the bottom to accommodate the taper…it’s often written as something like:

IS44 (top cup)
ES44 (bottom cup)

At least most of the Nukeproof ones I’ve bought over the last few years have been listed like that.

If the streerer was a traditional straight 1 1/8 you’d need:

IS44 (top)
IS44 (bottom)

…as the lack of taper means the bottom cup can sit inside the head tube too.

Hospitals are generally pretty good at this, no one wants blood on their hands.
I had an RTC and felt fine, airbag went off and my head didn’t hit the A or B pillars of the car, didn’t hit the windscreen or steering wheel either…but 10 days later my coordination was all over the place, I was talking shite and appeared (according to family) very tired…better half took me to A&E who listened to what she had to say about the car accident and duly kept me in all night…endless baseline obvs, regular neuro obs and a couple of visits from consultants to perform their own extended neuro evaluations culminated in a scan the next morning and I was given the all clear…no internal head injury, referred back to GP who suspected mild epilepsy instead who then referred to Neurology consultant who instead discovered stress and exhaustion as the causes…but nonetheless excellent safety netting from the NHS re. the potential for head injury.

Supposedly you can be racist about a piece of slate used for writing on….blackboard, why not a fence?…i demand my right to be offended.

The bar as to what constitutes a political incorrectness, misogyny, racism and even nazism is so comically low now that if you’re not all the way in, then you might as well be all the way out and get comfortable with being called those names.

This.

Hospitals often use daily weights when treating certain patients and/or certain conditions…this has been known for some time.

There does however need to be consistency, it’s no good weighing yourself in the morning on an empty stomach (and following a pee and poo) and being pleased with your ‘weight loss’ and then weighing yourself the next evening after a full day of eating and drinking and being depressed at any ‘gain’ you appear to have made.
As boring as it sounds you should be aiming to eat similar amounts (in calorie terms) each day and drinking similar amounts (in litre terms) each day…and then weighing yourself at the same time each day (or night)….if you can do that, and hospitals are a good controlled environment to do this in, then weighing yourself daily is very helpful, not just with monitoring fat loss but with monitoring hydration too.

15 stone when I bought my Superstar Elite-30s with conventional 32 spoke pattern, never any flex, rub or wobbling noticed… I’m lighter now at 13.5 stone but the wheels are 3 years old and have never needed any tensioning or truing…they’re lighter than the Fulcrums the bike came with (which weren’t bad either, just heavy)…highly recommended.

I think we’re both singing from vaguely the same hymn sheet jimjam, which is good….tolerant even which is nice because a lot of the supposedly PC stuff floating around at the moment is exactly the opposite.. they preach tolerance while being intolerant themselves.

Personally, I think a backlash is coming…people are fed up of being told what to say, do and think…frankly I’m amazed it’s gone on consistently for the last 30 years, obviously some things were out of order and needed dragging into modern and more equal times but now people just seem to be looking for offence where none is intended or even taken by the supposedly targeted group!… the professionally offended as some might say, thankfully a lot of kids coming through now are far from indoctrinated with it, they are tired of it and want to speak their mind…call it the Alt-right, the Trump effect, the college campus tours in the US by Ben Shapiro and Milo Yianopoulis etc….but there is a definite feeling of (as rage against the machine famously sang) **** you I won’t do what you tell me.

Reading this with interest as it’s in the next village along from us, we were going to go to the carnival but selling a MTB and buying a car got in the way.

We’ve also recently had people stating that all white men have unconscious racial bias and are inherently racist. No reaction. Oh and I posted that all gender was a result of socialisation just to see if anyone would disagree with me – not a sausage.

….there’s a reason for that, it’s clear bait and crap stinky bait at that…beyond the pale as my parents would say…or is that racist now!?

We’re in a downward spiral where people are actively hunting nazis of their own creation so that they can prove how virtuous they are and to disagree with the nazi hunters is to put yourself in their sights.

Now this I do agree with, we’ve reached a point where we (generally) have things so good that people are actively trying to equate language to violence in order to…i don’t know?…reorder the world according to their view?…suppress any kind of differing point of view?….the clamp down on language, thought, cultural appropriation etc is genuinely worrying because if there’s genuine good intent then it works both ways….take cultural appropriation for example, if a blonde woman with dreads is offensive then surely Asian and African people in western wear are doing the same thing and should be pulled up on it….which is ridiculous, surely we’re not heading backwards to a point where certain hair-dos, clothing or foods are considered exclusive to a particular group of people!?…and what’s most ridiculous about cultural appropriation is it’s not racist, the clue is in the title, culture and race are different…when on holiday in the Caribbean several years ago I went on a boat trip run by a white guy, he was born and raised in Jamaica, Caribbean culture was his culture, he even had a Caribbean accent and used the local dialect/patois…some people would at distance and without knowing his whole story scream racism or cultural appropriation…which is bollocks because everything about the Caribbean was his, born and bloody raised….more so than a black guy from the UK who’s never seen the Caribbean but describes himself as Afro-Caribbean…it has become ludicrous.

(while people boringly discuss what is and isn’t racist in this thread what’s going massively underreported is the theme of the carnival…movies…or is Cool Runnings off limits now?…is it even ok for a white man to watch it?… is it ok to laugh at a comedy containing black fellas?)

Ridiculous.

Got the MRP cartridge damper in my Revs on the front of my HT, a decent fork setup does make the difference…mind you don’t get me started on how you have to fit MRP or Luftkappe add ons or tokens to get a £500 – £1000 fork working properly.

Grrrr….

Calibre Bossnut.

Was in Go Outdoors the other day buying base layers and had a look at one, about the only thing I’d want to do is change the tyres when I got it home but that’s a personal preference thing…in standard trim it looked great, good angles, no silly long stem or narrow bars, solid looking build etc….and at just £999 it had me eyeing up my HT when I got home wondering how much I’d get for it and whether I need two FS bikes.

Jesus tang, look at the massive cock on the white guy… He’s blasting racial stereotypes out of the water!

Sorry, but you just can’t help but be drawn down there can you!?….and I consider myself straight.
I wear it on the road bike, tools for the job and all that….but I’m 14 stone of PEDs created muscle.

(some of the above may be lies, haha)

I love/hate waiting for good stuff to be delivered, haha, I feel your pain…for me it’s better than the instant gratification of walking into a shop and coming straight out with what you want.
Post pics later!

(I had the same yesterday waiting for some cool old alloys to be delivered for my old school Passat I’m building up but I won’t bore the forum with pics of those!)

Down here in Hampshire I reckon they are the perfect bike.

Only time they’re not much fun is on lumpy ups imo. On lumpy downs they’re great

Just recently built up a 45650b and it is preposterously good fun,

There are some very rooty trails near me where my 26 Hardtail is simply sheeeeeite. Hangs up on everything and it really really hard work and tiring.

All of the above, used to live in the South East and had a 456-evo, a Dialled Alpine, a 45650b and a Ragley Piglet at one point or another.
Perfect bikes for messing around on, you probably won’t win any races but it’s fun nonetheless and some races have a HT category anyway if that’s your thing.

Because we had a small house, no garden, no garage and no shed it lived in the front room which the other half was remarkably tolerant about but it limited me to one bike.
So, on uplift jaunts to FoD, Wales etc I’d have no choice but to take the HT, it was great fun…obviously I was slower going down than most of the FS gang but I used to get a smile and a knowing nod from most riders on the day, they know it’s tough, you’ve brought your HT to the party, you’re the big daddy….at least that’s what I used to tell myself!

Long story short, moved to Wales for a better life, more time on the bike, better property for the money etc but now these uplift centres and local off piste steep stuff are my local trails…so I caved and bought a FS, it’s bloody brilliant (how could it not be?, it’s the natural evolution) but I was missing something….cue a Dartmoor Hornet frame purchase and the use of 26 inch spare parts I had lying around and I had another hardcore HT!
It doesn’t get used as much as it did down South I’ll be honest and if I’m honest with myself although the angles were brilliant (longer in the TT than my previous bikes, lower BB, slacker HA than any of the previous HTs etc) I never really fell in love with the looks….i like thin/narrow steel tubing.
Hence I’m now in the process of transferring all the parts over onto a Ragley Blue Pig frame instead…it’s the day-glo orange one from 2011 and I’ve sourced matching coloured pedals, grips, saddle and stem…subtle it is not.
Only concession to modern standards is I’ve fitted a -1.5 degree angleset to get it to where the Hornet is geometry wise.

I think you can tell I’m a fan of aggro HTs and like someone else said, if I had to go back to one bike it’d be a HT….and probably the 45650b…which I’d run with 26 inch wheels (or a 26 inch rear) to make it lower and more extreme.

And tbf the frame only option is not nearly as bad value.

You seem to be paying almost retail prices for the parts however. Buy frame only and shop around and you will end up with a far better bike. Perhaps that’s not the market however.

This, frame only it’s not bad…but the ‘upgrade’ options take the mickey…as said above, buy the frame then go to Wiggle, Tredz, CRC and the others for forks, wheels, brakes etc and get a better bike for far cheaper than Orange sell their complete builds for.

I think this is what rankles most people who aren’t fans, as a company surely they buy parts in bulk and as such get an economy of scale that they can pass on to the customer?

….they don’t seem to do this though, which comes across as greedy…they’re not alone however.
I did this with a different brand’s frame and ended up with a better bike than their top spec full build for less money and no second hand parts were used.

Unless going for the direct sales brands (which seem astonishingly well specced) I’d never buy a complete bike again, there’s too much tat and compromises on complete builds that I’d want to change straight away and I may as well burn money at that point.

Canyon, Radon, YT, Rose, Bird etc are superb in comparison to traditional brands…and when taken into the competition arena by racers and factory teams they prove their prowess time and time again.

Canyon, Radon and YT get podiums and/or wins in their debut DH world cup seasons…i just don’t see that happening with Orange’s DH bike if they came back to the sport.
I know the above will be irrelevant to most trail centre riders on their 5’s but I like racing pedigree, it improves the breed so to speak and proves a good product.

I like the industrial look, I hate what I perceive to be the greedy and mickey taking attitude of the company.

Don’t know how much a Ribble would cost to have sent out to Oz but I have one and it’s great…and cheap!

Aluminum Ribble Ultralite.

I used their bike builder page to have it built to my spec.

Decent 105 groupset.

Quality contact points: Ritchey bars, Cinelli seat, stem and post has made it almost comfortable!…with decent quality thick bar tape (don’t scrimp on these areas, they make a huge difference).

Wheels are Fulcrum, nothing flashy but not heavy either.

With a smattering of carbon in the contact points I listed above it sits at 8kg which I’m happy with.

I initially bought a Spesh Allez as my first road bike and it was ok but adjusting to a roadie position was difficult even though the Allez is considered more Sportive than Race…so I did the opposite of what’s expected and bought the Ribble which has proper Race geo (short head tube, straight to tube, proper head down and arse up riding position)…i thought that if I’m going to be uncomfortable then I might as well be uncomfortable on something that looks fast and I will develop into.

It’s been a revelation, with the Allez there was more weight on my backside which given the rigid back end of a road bike made it hurt and gave me lower back pain…perceived wisdom to cure this is a comfortable saddle and padded shorts…no thanks, I wanted a carbon saddle and lycra without a bloody nappy in it!

The more racy position of the Ribble has spread my weight more evenly between pedals, bars and saddle which has meant I keep the gorgeous sub 100g carbon saddle and get to ride in lycra shorts without looking like I’ve had a dump in them while riding.

I know everyone recommends what they own but I think the bike is brilliant and it was only about £1500…not sure what that is in Oz dollars but it’s got to be cheaper than what you’ve been looking at!?

I’d happily see motorcycles allowed on newly named single status trails….after all that’s the very definition of single status surely!?

There is so much confusion out there currently, when I lived in the middle of the Surrey hills there were bridleways for horses…but holier than though cyclists seemed to think that because their hobby is healthy and non polluting that they could use them too (which legally they can but the clue is in the name, expect to encounter horses!)…there were footpaths that horse riders regularly used and churned up because their attitude seemed to be based on some outdated belief system that owning a horse makes you some kind of aristocrat entitled to do as you please…and then there were the byways that were open to all traffic but walkers would get very angry about it if they came across an off road motorbike or 4×4 using ‘their’ footpath….it was bonkers.

Just make it all single use/access, it will sort itself out because some trails will be unrideable to bikes but walkers will cope, some will be fine to cycle down but too narrow for a 4×4 to drive along and a decent MX or horse rider should be able to get along pretty much anything although overhanging trees and height clearance will naturally sift out the horse riders from inappropriate trails too.

Simple, fixed.

Next topic….

As said above, I’m not digging at your weight.

At one point I was 100kg and found riding any kind of FS a weird sensation, I’m sure they’re engineered to take the weight but I doubt many test riders are that heavy…most pro riders, factory employed development riders or even just bike journos reviewing prototypes appear to be racing snakes…it’s often the same with Japanese motorbikes, they are usually designed and set up for the typical Japanese male who is (massive stereotype coming) shorter and lighter than European and American men…when I was 100kg I found riding my steel HT far more satisfying.

I’m now 83kg and my FS feels fine, I’m still probably heavier than the mass market air suspension products are designed for as fitting coil forks and a coil shock has the bike riding far better but with an obvious weight penalty.

Everything is a compromise….with your bike I’d love to stick a 650b wheel in the back while keeping the 29er up front, you’d still get the roll over ability of a 29er as the rear wheel just follows the front but it’d slacken out the HA some more, you’d probably get a stronger rear wheel out of it and it’d get marginally lower in the BB…i reckon that’d be a beast!