I did this the other week and loved it:

http://www.bikehike.co.uk/mapview.php?lnk=http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1279811/BreconBLongRev4.gpx

First half is not very eventful and involves a long tarmac climb, but the second half rocks. You’re well off rights of way in the middle, but it’s all logging roads that the MXers seem to use a fair bit, so you shouldn’t have any issues.

The start finish is a lay-by with a tea/burger van (at least on the Saturday on which I rode).

I’d consider four hours to be fast for this route, mind you… but then I’m a slowcoach…

Having built about a dozen wheels over the years, I thought the WheelPro book was worth buying to see if I could improve my technique any. Loads and loads of info in there, but not much I didn’t already know about the basics.

However, the single most useful piece of information I gleaned from the book was the following, and it’s always worth bearing in mind when things aren’t going your way: if the rim starts out round and straight (which it bloody well should if it’s new) then if it’s no longer straight and round then there must be an imbalance in the spoke tension somewhere.

It sounds really obvious put like that, but it changed the way I think about building a wheel.

Cheesy Rides tend to be Mondays 7pm and Saturdays 11am lately. Drop me a note if you fancy a ride, I’ll let you know what’s on and let them know to expect you.

Can you run the free Spotify service on a Raspberry Pi, I wonder…?

I think with either P7s or XMLs (especially the latter) the important thing is to have the ‘orange peel’ reflector. I just bought a smooth reflector XML and fully expect it to be too spotty. Might be okay on the helmet though…

Cheap Android phone?

I’ve been told it’s dead easy before now and never got the hang of it… will perhaps learn to manual and then ask someone tame to help out…

Okay then, how about jumping things like logs where there’s no lip or face to the jump? I can sort-of get the back wheel off the ground by pulling up on my SPDs, but how can I improve things?

…early mountain bikes were rubbish

I guess it’s a whole different discussion, but it depends how ‘early’ you mean. The ’94-95 FSR platform that JMC used to ride is still a viable XC platform for 80-90% of UK riding.

For my money, the single biggest thing to improve over the last 20 years is braking, first with V-brakes then disc brakes. Much else has become unnecessarily complex for the vast majority of riders, and many things have become less reliable.

Yes, of course there’s also been a suspension revolution in the same timeframe, but again, it’s arguable that so much suspension is overkill for the sort of riding that many people do. And no, I’m not talking about trail centres.

Actually, the only thing I don’t seem to be able to get at a price I’m happy to pay is durable 110mm BCD middle chainrings.

Everything else I keep low-tech and buy on eBay, from Germany or lightly used… whatever’s cheapest.

I did this the other week and loved it:

http://www.bikehike.co.uk/mapview.php?lnk=http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1279811/BreconBLongRev4.gpx

First half is not very eventful and involves a long tarmac climb, but the second half rocks. You’re well off rights of way in the middle, but it’s all logging roads that the MXers seem to use a fair bit, so you shouldn’t have any issues.

I still don’t see what’s wrong with square-taper bottom brackets and 8-speed, though I have embraced 140mm forks and disc brakes (albeit BB7s).

Before I fitted Magura Thors to it, my main bike cost me less to put together than my car is worth. That’s saying something given that the car is a Y-reg Fiesta with 111,000 miles on the clock…

Anyone else think that the resale value of an internet bike depreciates by a higher percentage of it’s value than that of a ‘known’ brand?

Certainly not the case for Islabikes, but then they’ve got their corner of the market pretty well sewn up…

Reason for getting Vinyl…

Yeah, but you don’t want to play it otherwise you’ll decrease its value… duh!

:wink:

would a prospective client be less inclined to book one of our holidays if the bikes available were from an internet brand?

I’d guess it depends on what your competitors are hiring out and at what cost. When things go well with Canyon, my impression is that they’re well regarded. If you can buy cheaper bikes or similar quality and charge correspondingly less for their hire, what’s not to like?

For what it’s worth, the Avon and Somerset Police local Beat Manager will soon be aware of the issue… please post locations of ne’er-do-well hangouts here and I’ll pass them on.

Not that I’ve ever run one, but I would have thought that for a hire fleet reliability and serviceability were more important than absolute performance. How quickly you get it repaired / replaced where you are if it goes wrong?

Am I barking up completely the wrong tree?

Last time I was riding up there on my own after dark, I was thinking about the tales of people being followed home from AC and wondering how long it would be before folks were being mugged at night for their bikes. Only a matter of time, I reckon…

What lube is actually in there in the first place anyway? Isn’t it just some kind of anti-corrosion coating, or is it something useful in wet and muddy off-road conditions.

I must get round to trying ‘Squirt’ lube sometime. I tried White Lightning back in the day and quite liked it, but it didn’t seem compatible with filthy conditions, only lasting 10-15 miles in the filth. Squirt is supposed to last longer. Anyone get on with it?

@ransos

Degreasers, cleaners and solvents all strip the lube from the rollers, which is just silly.

All you need to do is wipe your chain with a rag until it’s clean, and then apply the lube of your choice.

This is pretty fine for road riding, but how else do you get the micro-grit out of the gaps in your chain in order to stop it wearing out (even) faster? Or is the idea of ‘The Method’ that you are flushing out the micro-grit with the lube?

* Take chain off bike
* Put in jamjar filled with neat degreaser for at least half an hour while you clean the rest of the bike
* Take out chain and put it in an old takeaway container / Tupperware box etc
* Rinse under hot top in the container and shake until the water remains clear. This can take a surprisingly long time as micro-grit gets dislodged from deep in the chain.
* Dry chain as you see fit, use WD-40 if you must.
* Re-fit and re-lube.

If you use the three chain circulation method to minimise wear, you obviously have one chain on the bike, one soaking and one clean ready to go back on at any one time.

My degreaser of choice is similar to this stuff, can’t remember exactly where I got it. Use neat to soak chains and then you can filter and dilute the jamjar contents for more general cleaning. Surprisingly effective at high dilutions, I usually use about 1:10 or 1:20 for general cleaning. Will tarnish anodised parts if used neat for longer than a minute or so, but the tarnish comes off pretty easily leaving a nice patina :wink:

http://www.clickcleaning.co.uk/Products/6/Virosol-Citrus-Based-Cleaner-Degreaser-5litre.aspx

I got one of these, for less than £25 though I think:

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_241043_langId_-1_categoryId_255232

Does what you’d expect reasonably well, i.e. you can spray off the worst of the loose / wet dirt before you put your bike back in your car. A spray with Muc-off or similar first would probably help. If you’re quick, you can get most of the mud off two bikes with one ‘tankful’.

PS – for proper retromongers, there are SunTour thumbshifters and wishbone shifters out there which will fit on the ‘closed’ parts of the bars. Some have steel brackets which will flex open enough to get round the bars, and some have lovely hinged brackets:

http://www.bikestash.com/product_info.php?products_id=105

I think the 8-speed SunTour thumbshift levers will fit these brackets, but I’ve never tried it myself. You can then go to 9-speed using the Hubbub bodge with one friction-shift gear:

http://www.ctc.org.uk/desktopdefault.aspx?tabid=3946

The IRD thumbshifters have hinged clamps too…

@tommid – what’s the different between narrow and short? :wink:

In comparison with the Titec J-Bars, the Marys have a little less backsweep and would need a shorter stem to put your hands the same fore-aft distance from the saddle, but they’re really not much narrower.

Hadn’t spotted the CTBM one, thanks. Anyone closer?

I have both On-One Marys and Jones / Titec J-bars. The hand position is very similar on both. If you don’t get on with Marys, I’d hazard that you won’t get on with J-/H-bars.

Lots of choice here: http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=cree+headlamp&_sacat=0&_from=R40

Cut off the straps and velcro or zip-tie the lamp and battery pack to your helmet. Variations on AA / AAA / 18650 batteries available. Also, many have a focusable beam so you can choose / vary your beam pattern.

Not tried one yet, but probably going to give an XPG-based one a go very soon.

@psling – it was a RetroBike ride in 2011, can’t remember who led it though…

I was taken round the FoD via the following route last year, no idea if all the trails are still open:

http://www.bikehike.co.uk/mapview.php?lnk=http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1279811/FoD_Ride.gpx

Buying a bag plus a bike as allowance from EasyJet gives you a 32kg allowance, but they ask that “you keep the weight of each individual bag below 23kg wherever possible”.

http://www.easyjet.com/en/planning/baggage.html

See also: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2012/jul/31/airline-bike-friendly

…but check it’s still up to date. Note vintage Gary Fisher full suspension bike in photo at top.

@joemarshall – wheelbuilding requires patience and methodology, but is by no means difficult and can often be time-consuming if you don’t do it regularly. My preference is to buy the wheel built and then check the tensioning and stress relief myself before riding it.

I only use them when I am in hurry to get hold of something, or if I’m not in a hurry and have to order it / want to avoid postage charges / can get it cheaper than online price + delivery. I have a well stocked parts bin – much of which I bought lightly used – and use eBay to buy consumables in bulk. I am proud to be a bottom-feeder in the MTB world.

Realised very early on in my cycling career that spending the repair money on the tool for the job and doing it yourself works out much cheaper in the long run. I can now do pretty much anything except frame building, and I hope to be able to do that too within five years.

Hmmm… I remember being distinctly underwhelmed by Bowderdale when I rode it back in 1997 as part of a Dales-Howgills-Lakes tour. Couldn’t see what the fuss was about, although the setting was pretty spectacular.

It was obviously better than the riding round Cambridge – where I was living at the time – but not a patch on the Calderdale riding I’d discovered a couple of years earlier when living in York. Always wondered at the time why I’d never seen a Calderdale trail guide in the mags…

You can run a 9-speed cassette with 8-speed SunTour thumbshifters if you use the Hubbub modification to the cable routing at the mech:

http://www.ctc.org.uk/desktopdefault.aspx?tabid=3946

You set things up so that you have the eight highest gears with ‘clicks’ and then the lowest (biggest back cog) is a friction gear, with the mech travel limited by the appropriate adjuster screw.

Where’s a good source for Phil Woods grease in the UK?

Seconded Deore for the budget-concious, but repack the bearing with some decent waterproof grease like Phil Woods before you start using it. The stuff they put in at the factory is pretty useless.

Sites such as http://www.bikehike.co.uk may help route planning, as you can easily put mapping and aerial photography side-by-side so you can see if a RoW actually follows anything on the ground…

No-one else but me has Issue 1, subscriber number 1 though…

A couple of things from mates I’d like to query:

1) Someone said that the Marin trail has lots of fireroad, including fireroad descents. Has this improved any since it’s had work done on it?

2) Also, how well signposted is Penmachno? Someone said it wasn’t very good…

@juan – do you live right on the coast or further inland?