Can I come with you next time you go solo riding?

I’ve had SFNs slipping inside the steerer a couple of times now, especially when they get a little old & rusty.

I’m running Hed Doctors now and I think they’re the future. No special tool required, no arsing about hammering stuff into my expensive forks.

I usually find it’s down to play in the bearings, I’ve got the same issue with a brand new pair of Mavic Crossrides (rear wheel / brake).

The problem with using them is that it will crimp the end of the steerer inwards so the internal bore won’t be straight, making it hard to fit the star fangled nut, or perhaps impossible to fit a Hed Doctor.

Buy the guide tool from CRC and a decent 12″ hacksaw, even if you only use it once in a blue moon, you’ll feel loads better when you’re cutting the steerer on your expensive forks.

I use the 2.35 DTCs (Dual Tread Compound is right) and they roll pretty well for their size.

I’ve tried the Blue Groove up front but really do prefer Nevegal F&R, they’re awesome from a grip/confidence point of view, on a variety of surfaces. I do think the sidewalls are a little thin though and they don’t like being run at lower pressures (than recommended on the tyre), the sidewalls start to wear and the threads become visible.

The cut-outs on the rims of my Syncros DS28 rims eat the sidewalls too if I run them too soft and I’ve shredded a couple of rears from this. Having said that I keep buying them because they really are very good otherwise. Faster rolling than 2.35 High Rollers. I love em.

I wear my Kyle Straits loads.

It’s not where you ride it’s how you ride, and when I’m really letting it go I want something between the vulnerable bits of me and the ground when I hit it, and I will eventually.

If you don’t fall off you’re not trying hard enough.

I had two bikes stolen from my partners garage when my car was parked outside with Thule bike carriers left on the roof.

The Police stated this was in all probability the reason for the break-in. At lest two other properties in the local area were done the same night, both with cars parked outside with Thule bike carriers on the roof. And. if there is such a thing, it is considered a ‘low crime area’ and the car was parked well off the street, out of sight.

I certainly don’t leave mine on the car any more, ever. The new ones take seconds to fit/remove, it’s just not worth the risk.

6′, Large 2008 Heckler, Fox 36s, 60mm stem, wouldn’t want to go much longer. I really can’t imagine throwing a 100m job on there. Hasn’t the whole world stopped using stems that long on bikes like this?

And yes, it rides up hills and round swichbacks and slow speed technical stuff just fine.

It seems to me that not many people actually meet/go-out-with/marry anyone with similar interests. How does that work then?

I met my girlfriend on a mountain biking trip to the Atlas mountains. We ride together all the time. XC, trail centre riding, DH, finishing at the pub and riding home much later than expected after several pints, we enjoy all the same stuff. She rides because she loves to ride, just like I do. We’re together because we share the same passions in life.

Okay, I know I’m just making you all jealous now. But the point is, maybe we should be with people who share our passions in life, whether that’s knitting, watching TV or riding.

Maybe there just aren’t enough girls who ride to go around. Well I’ve got mine, you’ll have to find your own.

Mmm, Whistler in the summer…

I’ve got a 2007 and it’s great fun. Really plush rear suspension action (Fox DHX3 Coil). I swapped out the stock Marz Drop Off Triples when the internal rebound adjustment drove me mad and run some 66ATAs on it now (and looking on this forum I seem to have the only pair in the world that work properly).

Slightly steeper angles than a DH bike, but then it’s not a DH bike.

It weighs a ton mind, but that won’t bother you for gravity assisted fun.

I bought it as a ‘last year’s model’ a year or so ago for a grand, and I’ve easily had a grand’s worth of fun out of it. Buy one and ride it into/over/through stuff and just hold on, don’t worry about using skills, skills are so last year anyway.

Jumps reasonably well for a bike with loads of travel too. Slightly long back end makes manualling slightly harder, but it’s fairly stable at speed.

I’ve always bought it from Just Riding Along, and it seems to be one of the few things that’s actually got cheaper recently.

Great service from those guys too.

http://www.justridingalong.co.uk/?product=73

It’s real bad to hear about all this bike theft in and around Bristol.

My partner lives just outside Clevedon and we lost a brand new Heckler and a Marin hardtail late last year, no joy whatsoever from the Police. We had thought there might be some chance after they asked for pictures of the bikes, I assumed that if they wanted pictures it was because they expected to see them again. Not so it seems.

We’ve upped the security etc, but for all of those of you who are reassuring yourself that you live in a well tucked away place, trust me, it doesn’t make any difference. We hadn’t been out riding, and no-one follwed me there with the bikes on the car, call me suspicious but I always check.

Bike carriers left on the roof of the car were the give away. I won’t be making that mistake again! Even though the car was parked in a small cul-de-sac, behind a big hedge, definitely not visible from the road. These aren’t opportunist theives, they know what they’re doing and they’re going out there looking.

If people were losing thousands of pounds worth of jewelery or electrical goods in burglaries then I’m sure the Police would take it more seriously, it just seems like once the ‘bike nicked from shed/garage’ box gets ticked, it disappears into the petty crime section and doesn’t get any serious action.

All these bikes end up somewhere!

Great riding in Morocco.

Did the Exodus Atlas Descent holiday in the Atlas & Anti Atlas last April, met my girlfriend on the trip. Changed my life, happy days.

Not that it helps you, but it makes me happy!

I had the same issue on a Hope Pro II rear hub earlier this year. The flanges with the spoke holes in broke in a couple of places, on both sides. The hub was about 6 months old and hadn’t been ridden all that far or hard, and with 6′ of plush Heckler suspension and 2.35 tyres to soak up the hits.

I had the spoke tension checked before it was stripped and sent back, all spot-on.

My LBS, who built the wheel, sent it back and Hope relaced the hub with no quibbles within a week (swapped my old freehub onto a new hub) but I had to stand the re-build costs.

A little worrying though for hubs that are supposed to be strong enough for DH. New one has been fine so far but I’m keeping a close eye on it.

For info it was built onto a Syncros DS28 rim, so that with the Pro II should have been a reasonably bomb-proof combination I’d have thought.

Deffo IS, I fitted a pair to my Chameleon yesterday.

Cheap cheap on Merlin.

I’d say BG on the front, but I find them a little too vague in the wet. A pair of Nevegal DTC 2.35s are easily the best pair of tyres I’ve ever ridden. They’re awesome on a wide variety of surfaces and in pretty much all conditions.

This is a great thread, or it would have been a couple of days ago. I ended up hacksawing one of the blighters off, and you know, the squeezing thing really does work. Who’d have known? No more swearing at powerlinks for me.

I was going to say that they should come with instructions, but if they had I clearly wouldn’t have read them.

When it comes to fitting and removing headset cups, you can’t beat the proper tools, particularly the removal tool, saves gnarling up the inside of your potentially expensive frame, after all you’ve got to put another of the blighters in there. Never, ever had any luck with threaded rod and big washers for putting them in.

Buy a set between you and your mates, you only need them now and again.

BTW, like the sound of the freezer idea, must give that a try.

In Keswick it has to be Denton House.

Cheap, bike storage, loads of room and easy walking distance to beer and food and they take groups of just about any size.

http://www.vividevents.co.uk/Denton%20House.htm