As above, low bottom brackets may be great for stability and cornering but compromise ground clearance.

You’ll be fine, I rode it on a 100mm hardtail and there were several others on similar bikes. By all accounts Eastridge was the steepest and most technical round so far, very aggressive tyres and dropping the seatpost got me down the ridiculously steep and loose bottom of stage 1. The other stages were typical black/red trail centre routes. Atmosphere was great, speaker system pumping out the music all day, friendly nods from everybody involved, it will become a permanent date on my calendar now!

There were loads of Orange 5s at Eastridge but also a huge number of riders on Yetis too….i believe the sponsored Leisure Lakes guys were all on Yetis…seemed very capable bikes.

I buy whatever is on offer….this has resulted in me having some 2.1 Bontrager MR2s, some 2.2 Specialized Captains and some 2.25 Panaracer Cinders for when the terrain is really difficult.

None of them were any more than £20 and i’m not a good enough rider that i’d know whether i had a £40 quid tyre on the front or not.

For what its worth the Panaracer Cinders were superb at the Eastridge Gravity Enduro, didnt lose traction once….i will be taking them off soon and keeping them as my ‘go-to’ tyre for when i want ultimate grip.

The steep soil section at the bottom of stage 1 had me over the bars twice, glad to see i wasnt the only one having problems with it….in retrospect i should’ve pushed the bike down like the bloke in the video….probably wouldnt be typing this from the sofa loaded up on ibuprofen and tramadol with a stiff back!
Will be back next year though, the trails were epic.

I’m going…its my first competition and i’m riding a cross country biased Trek 4500….have got a shit load of beer though so it should be a laugh, if i enjoy it i’ll do them all next year with a more suitable bike!

I’m using Kona wah-wahs, cant fault them so far….only £30 too.

A Kona Caldera frame (not very boutique i know)….which will then be adorned with XT 2×10 running gear with 26/38 chainrings, also have some Mavic EN521 wheels ready to go on….should be a solid reliable lump when finished.

Trek warranty is lifetime cover for the original owner, a mate had a frame break and sent it to Trek, because they had stopped making his particular model they sent him an upgrade frame instead. Can’t say fairer than that.

nickjb – its not mentioned on the page featuring the rotors:

http://superstar.tibolts.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=50&products_id=453

….i ordered in good faith on the information supplied, no mention of needing to adapt the caliper, certainly no mention of having to file away or remove part of the caliper…if this had been pointed out during the order process then i wouldnt have ordered as it all seems a bit of a bodge job to me.

If you go to the customer reviews page then people have reported having to modify their calipers to make the discs fit….this should scream to Superstar that the calipers are shit and not fitting properly, scrap the line and find some that do fit properly….if its a common problem then Superstar need to put it on the page featuring the discs and clearly tell customers that the calipers may need fettling to make the discs fit.

TandemJeremy – yes.

The part is the correct diameter and is marketed as a bolt on replacement, no mention in the sales blurb about having to modify your calipers to fit.

The modification being advised is to remove or file away parts of the caliper that get in the way….i am gobsmacked a company would put out that kind of advice….i know we’re only talking about bicycles here but could you imagine a parts manufacturer in the car world telling a customer to permenently remove part of the brake caliper to fit replacement brake rotors?!…there is no way to tell if i’d done it ‘properly’ (if there is such a thing for a cowboy fix like this)…or if i’d compromised the structural integrity of my brakes….i’m not the fastest downhill but i do like to know my brakes will work if needed.

I bought a Ragley blue pig and it had an affair with my wife.

Cheers!

Dancake:

Deviant; you aren’t special mate. everyone has a story or knows someone with a story like yours pretty much

….thats exactly my point, drug use is nothing special and for the bulk of people it is a recreational pastime, the odd idiot like Winehouse becomes a casualty, shit happens.

Got all the time in the world for people trying to block out mental illness or escape from memories of abuse.

Kona Caldera….slack (for a hardtail) head angle of 68.5 degrees without going down the steel route and therefore avoiding the weight and rust issues….designed around a 100mm fork too, love it…i should just buy one really.

Anybody want a Trek 4500?

Some troubled individuals take drugs and/or drink in order to obliterate their mind and escape from some hideous event or unpleasant reality like abuse, mental illness etc…with regard to these people then i do sympathise.

However, for the majority of drug users there is a simple choice involved.
Back in the 90s my friends and i partied hard and were regulars at the clubs and raves around at the time….we smoked hash on a daily basis and every weekend was a blur of ecstasy and amphetamine…in the summer we’d treat ourselves to the odd mushroom or LSD trip. Plenty of times we were offered crack cocaine and heroin and each time we declined the offer….simple as.
As the years passed and our interest in the music declined we just stopped taking the drugs that went hand in hand with that scene.

Later in our 20s we all experimented with cocaine, very nice it was too but **** hell its expensive….and started to interfere with grown-up things like careers, mortgages etc…so we stopped.

Same for a little dalliance we had with opiates in the mild form of prescription Tramadol…pleasant but none of us were interested in taking it further and going down the morphine or heroin route.

As a group of friends we’re all very averagely educated individuals from typical semi-detached suburban homes in the south east…2.4 children type families, no demons to run from etc….for us (and i’m sure thousands like us) drug use has been a choice.
Now in our 30s none of us indulge any more and a few pints at the weekend is about as extreme as things get these days.

For somebody like Winehouse who is supposedly from a decent background with no horrors in her past that she needs to escape from, then i also take the (albeit callous) view that she chose to immerse herself in this life and could’ve got out if she’d wanted to….hopefully Pete Doherty will be next.