Thanks all.

Leaning towards the Camino as they’ve just dropped the price to £499.

Also means I can choose a colour as the Orange was only available in Sand.

@BadlyWiredDog how does the Camino size up? What size do you have & what height are you?

@stwhannah some of those pages – especially team entry requirements – make my brain hurt!

So there are:

Elite teams who have an entry for the season

Wild Card teams – who qualify based on points, athlete profiles and other criteria

Invited teams to each round – scored similar to wild Card

That makes no sense what so ever……

So no individual rider entries or have I missed that?

Tried watching the DC Rainmaker video – I couldn’t keep up with him, he speaks so fast!!

Looking on the Amflow site it’s £6k for the base model:

Frame

Amflow PL Carbon Frame

Satin Silver

150mm rear travel

Compatible with 27.5″ and 29″ rear wheels

E-Bike System

Avinox M1 Drive Unit: 105 N·m

Avinox Screen: 2-inch OLED Control Display

Avinox Integrated Battery: 800Wh

Avinox Wireless Controllers: Right and left sides

Avinox Fast Charger: 12A/508W

Rear shock

FOX Float Performance

Trunnion (185×55mm), custom tune, EVOL Air sleeve, 2-position lever

Fork

FOX 36 Performance

160mm travel, GRIP Damper, 15×110mm, 44mm rake

Transmission

Rear Derailleur: SRAM GX Eagle 12-speed

Chainring: SRAM Eagle Transmission E-MTB Chainring 104BCD 34T

Shift Levers: SRAM GX Eagle Trigger Shifter｜Single Click

Cassette: SRAM PG-1230, 11-50T

Chain: SRAM NX Eagle

Crankset: DJI Avinox SL Crank (M/L: 155mm; XL/XXL: 160mm)

Brakes

Magura MT5 hydraulic disc brake, HC lever, 4-piston caliper w/ Shiftmix 3, 203mm MDR-C Rotor (front and rear)

Wheels

Amflow HMA-30

Rims: Alloy, 29”, 30mm internal width, 32H, tubeless ready

Spokes: SAPIM E-Light J-bend

Front Hub: Alloy, 2 sealed cartridge bearings, 15×110mm thru-axle, 32h, 6-bolt

Rear Hub: Alloy, 4 sealed cartridge bearings, 148×12mm thru-axle, 32h, 6-bolt, 21T

Tires

Front: Maxxis Assegai MaxxTerra 29×2.5″ WT 3C EXO E-25 TLR

Rear: Maxxis Dissector MaxxTerra 29×2.4″ WT 3C EXO+ E-25 TLR

Handlebar

Amflow Enduro Alloy Handlebar

35mm rise, 800mm wide

5-degree upsweep, 9-degree backsweep

Grips

Amflow Enduro Grips

Stem

Amflow Enduro Stem, One-piece CNC

Length: 35mm

Clamping diameter: 35mm

Saddle

Selle Royal SRX Plus

Seatpost

KS Rage-i

M: 150mm

L: 170mm

XL/XXL: 190mm

Accessories

Quick Start Guide

Torque Wrench (3~25 N·m, Hex 2/3/4/5/6mm, Torx® 25)

Shock Pump

Front and Rear Lights

@intheborders I quite like the Topstone, it just wasn’t getting used – now have a bit more opportunity to use one.

Small wheels only because I have spares sat in the garage – also allows me to run bigger volume tyres.

@forked nothing wrong with the Topstone – I sold it a while back though.

I Listened to the Chris Ball podcast the other week.

I could see where he was coming from on some of the issues with overall number of riders etc, 400 riders each for the DH & XC at Les Gets is an insane number.

But, what they don’t want to do is make it too small, agree with the above about some of the personalities who aren’t regular podium or even top 30 contenders – all sports need personalities that people can relate too.

No mention of the increased entry fees in that document though?

The Lou Ferguson interview sheds a bit of light on the fact that the teams don’t even know what’s going on, and that thing will be different for Elite teams and Non-Elite Teams.

All a bit of a mess really, you’d have thought that they’d have sorted this in time for teams/riders to know where they stand for next year.

Hoping that they keep Fort William (no way you could get that to a 3 minute course) – perhaps they could do what F1 does with Monaco and others for Historic purposes they’re kept on the calendar.

Can’t believe the £1500 Ti ones haven’t been mentioned!

What This Bike Needs… Is $1500 Mudguards?

Thanks all.

I’ve found a half price RX9 frame – hence same price as the Camino.

We met Lou at the Fort William World Cup – she was so nice, had a good chat with my daughter about racing etc.

@cjr61 dropped you a PM

Here you go:

@cjr61 I might have some in the garage.

I’ll have a look and drop you a message.

@chrismac

but it was Courdurier who was affected most. The three-time overall series winner suffered a multitude of mechanicals and offs including a snapped front fender and finished almost two-and-a-half minutes down on the stage, dropping her down to 11th in the overall.

From the report above.

 

Been a good season, will be interesting to see who gets the rainbow jersey next weekend!

Yeah, it’s just one of them things – hopefully the mental side will improve over time.

She was pretty pleased after practice and first run and knew where she could make up time, it just didn’t translate to that second run.

Did your lad manage to gap those roots?

The FAST UP damper is what you’re looking for.

Works out around 200 euro’s delivered if you order direct from FAST – although be prepared to wait a couple of weeks for it to land.

Or if you want it quicker you can get it from TF Tuned for £230.

Not the best day’s racing yesterday.

The weather was better than expected – it stayed dry apart from the odd bit of drizzle, never had the forecasted downpour.

Practice went well, used the uplift and had 2 pretty decent runs.

Race category times were 13:25 and 15:35 – no problem, we’ll get to the uplift early and we’ll be sorted………

For some inexplicable reason* there was only 1 (yes 1!!) uplift bus for the entire day, they were trying to give priority to the racers but this was hacking off (understandably) those who had paid for a days uplift.

So we get to the uplift around 12:30 only to be told that he’s done his hours for the morning (tacho on the bus) and has to have his break – uplift will resume at 13:30…… We’ll be pushing up then!!

Nice slow steady push up with a couple of the other girls and she does her race run. From what I saw of it she seemed to hit most of the lines – so banker time done put’s her in 6th.

So we have some lunch and go and scope out a couple more lines.

Chatting with  a couple of the other parents it seems that they’ve bought the start times forward – no problem get kitted up and go to the uplift.

Looks like she should be ok to get on, and then 4 guys with day passes turn up and take the last slots.

Bugger – do we wait for the next one? with a bizarre turnaround time of around 40 minutes (no idea why it was taking so long….)  we decide to have another push up.

This time I push the bike to give her a bit of a break.

I make my way down the track, watching several riders and then nothing – no one on course……

Turns out that the Ambulance had been called to an accident on the pump track, so until that had been dealt with and the Ambulance was back on the course nothing was happening.

Think racing resumed about 45 minutes later – so she’s been at the top of the hill for well over an hour and then had to wait around another 30 minutes for her category.

She come’s down and she’s not hitting her lines and generally not looking like she’s enjoying it – understandable with the massive wait.

So didn’t improve on her time and stayed in 6th, which she was pretty upset about, basically said her concentration had gone with all the hanging around.

So not a great day, but not a disaster as she managed to keep it rubber-side down and ticked off all the features.

Next round on the 6th October.

* Turns out there had been a ‘miss communication’ between the race organisers and 417 (who run the uplift) with incorrect numbers being given for entries – they were unaware that the race was a sell out and there would be best part of 200 competitors turning up……

Round 3 of the MIJ series at Forest of Dean this weekend – Only 6 entered in the Female Junior category for this round.

We’ll do our usual of travelling down on Sunday morning.

Track for this round is Sheepskull – another track that she hasn’t ridden before, so it’ll be a few practice laps and then a safe race run and see how she improves on the 2nd run.

Luckily there’s uplift available for this one, so I don’t have to keep pushing back up lol

Off the top of my head:

-Down Hill bike

-Gearbox bike

-Titanium frame

-Steel frame

I could have that for them…..

Why are we sending £11.6bn for foreign climate change? (Nothing to do with Milibands family having fingers in alternative energy pies is it???).

Why do we keep spaffing money on pointless crap instead of sorting our own issues out?

How much of that £11.6bn is ACTUALLY going to be spent on tacking climate change?

Not a lot I suspect – that’ll be spent on  pointless studies by consultants and government departments…….

That is bloody brilliant!!

Just what the adaptive cycle community needs – if you can build a rigid for the £3k that’s a great starting point.

The fact that it’s all modular and can be ‘upgraded’ as the budget allows etc. is also great.

The fact you already have the files and can get parts made as and when you need them is a massive plus.

I showed to to my Wife (paraplegic) and she thought it was a pretty cool idea.

I might see just how much I can get the frame parts made for the rigid…….

Guessing it would probably have to be off-shored to China or similar?

Anyone ever had any off-shore CNC stuff done before?

Don’t think there will be many teams next year.

Hopefully the riders and wider team members can find another team – the likes of Camille, Benoit and Monika are too good to not be racing next season.

@stwhannah does anyone know what the entry cost for team is next season?

I’ve heard a rumour that it’s gone from around £20k to £100k – seems a bit excessive if it is…..

@finbar
Awesome. Another two years and there’ll be no cable routing for droppers in frames anymore so we’ll be forced into adopting these.

The new Santa Cruz frames have no gear routing on the higher end ones so it’s probably not even that far away……

Yeah that’s just nuts!

Waiting until they bring the non-kashima version out……

..

Thanks all.

I’ve gotten of and walked them to look back at them, looked at them sideways and stuck my bike on them so I know it’s rollable.

My brain is just not letting me do it.

.

.

.

.

The irony of this post is that I also coach…..

Might ask one of the other coaches in the club to give me a session lol

Anyone?

Awesome!!

I’m 50 and thinking I need to get better at jumps – not sure about Vision line though!

Well you learn something new everyday…..

I thought they still ran TRP brakes!

Even though I blatantly missed them when I was looking at their bike at Fort William (just looked back through my photos) ……

Best of luck for the weekend @weeksy.

Track looks brutal – watched Danny Harts POV run yesterday.

African Grand Prix: Rwanda to host F1’s return to Africa?

@tall_martin
No mention of cost to hire?

Hardtail – £85/day

Full Sus – £85/day

Ebike – £100/day

Downhill – £110/day

 

I’d quite like to properly try a DH bike – might look in to it next time we go – I might be able to keep up with my Daughter then!

I’ve heard a rumour that UCI Elite team entry fee for next season is a significant increase over the current €11k (single discipline), and that the standard team entry fee is over double the current €5k.

Not sure what the individual rider entry fee is, but guessing way more than the current €150 per race…..

Looks like UCI & WB are trying to make it like F1…….

Picked up an ‘upgrade’ yesterday at the local DH race.

Suntour Voro coil shock courtesy of WC racer Dan Slack (Currently on Pole Racing).

I’ll need to fix yesterday race damage first though before we start on the upgrades lol

Cheers @weeksy , she’ll probably be OK tbh.

I’ve told her to start chatting to a few of the competitors and trying to follow if possible etc.

We’ll likely be down on the Sunday morning again.

Have they said which track they’re using yet?

At last!, photos……..

Right then, the frustration of trying to upload pictures is really annoying now….

Can’t upload direct – just get a square, and if I try to link from Flickr I either get the URL or nothing…..

Bloody photo’s…….

Fort William World Cup DH track:

Click to play:

Coach Antoine:

Stile Cop practice (click to play):

It’s finished!!

Well it was finished a couple of weeks back as Daughter wanted it for our holiday to Scotland.

Her first ride on it was the skills area at Nevis Range, and then the World Cup track!

Missed out a few of the gnarlier sections and gap jump.

She seems quite at home on the bike, so we also got her a 1/2 day’s coaching at Nevis a couple of days later.

By the end of it the only thing she didn’t have a go at was the river gap.

The coach was well impressed with her.

Not fast runs but all very clean.

So tomorrow is first race on the DH bike – local race at Stile Cop.

We’ve been up a few times the last week or so, so she has a good grasp of the course.

We’re off to Dyfi in a couple of weeks and then the MIJ races.

All in it’s cost just shy of £800, which I think is pretty impressive.

*****Pictures not working ? ******

@anagallis_arvensis
Years 9–11 boarding £46,455 pa
Funny really, that’s pretty much my salary as a teacher with pushing 20 years experience.

Years 9–11 day £30,495 pa (£10,165 per term)
Would leave me with about 3k to live on if my son went. Still just need to make a few sacrifices and such…..

As I’ve been saying, not ALL private schools charge that much.

My salary is similar to yours – my Daughters fees are less than £10k/year – not per term – but still a bit of a stretch.

But you appear to have made your mind up about independent schools and those of us that choose to use them…..