Feel your pain OP, that’s a fair chunk of money.

In defence of the guys at Silverfish they’re pretty reasonable generally and in our experience tend to go out of their way to try and look after customers. They’re a small distributor so “process” doesn’t tend to get in the way of sorting folk out where they can. Similarly though, they tend to stick to their guns if (they think) they’re right about something.

It’s usually fairly obvious if something has been damaged by impact (“crash damage”) or has just failed (i.e. a crack with no other signs of damage). Does yours not fall into either of these categories, OP? How did it get damaged?

The money is only meant to be spent on a whole bike / and or safety equipment, bike clothes etc. I believe the shop are meant to supply a frame number to the scheme.

Depends on the employer, and the scheme, IIRC.

Which Cycle to Work scheme provider? If it’s one of the ones we deal with, happy to help if we can.

One thing to bear in mind: your employer (or the scheme provider, it depends on exactly how it’s run) will technically own all of the bits attached to your frame until/unless at some point down the line they transfer ownership to you. It’s a theoretical thing really, and as long as you and your employer are happy to do this, no reason to worry.

mboy and others above have given good advice – I’d echo that – Hope or DT Swiss hubs (probably 350 unless you have the budget for 240s), DT Swiss rims of a width appropriate to the tyres you plan to run.

DT Swiss complete wheels are also well worth a look IMHO, very good value at various price points.

Sixth Element carbon wheels are lovely if you have that sort of budget.

At the other end of the spectrum

it would still be hard to see past the Merlin deal on Pro-Build Chosen Hub / Alex Volar Trail Wheels

This is by no means a “Merlin deal” – the wheels are built by Raleigh and available through any LBS with a Raleigh account. In fact they’re one of the few things Merlin sell which aren’t at a ridiculous discount. We sell lots, and fit them to some of our demo bikes. They are really excellent for the money, and if you want a quality product at a low price they are vastly superior to anything else we’ve seen at the budget end.

Any Mavic dealer can get it for you easily enough but as per Mr P ^^ Neil is the most likely person in the UK to have one in stock.

Hope do all their stuff in blue and a very nice shade of blue it is too!

it’s not hard to spend a lot more than £4

Obviously it’s not hard to spend more than £4. It’s not that hard to spend more than £4000 either though!

4k gets you pretty much any bike there is.

I wouldn’t have bought mine without riding a few first – to get a feel for what I wanted. Some of them surprised me by being not what I was after at all. Hard to predict.

This is very good advice. Although it’s not hard to spend a lot more than £4. That said there’s not many bikes, if you’re sensible about the spec, which you couldn’t have.

Someone will be along soon to say it: Transition Patrol Carbon.

Will be a struggle to match the spec of those direct-to-consumer brands but it’s one I’d have in the mix anyway.

Nowhere near you OP, but if you fancy a trip to mid-Wales we have a large Scout carbon and a medium alloy Scout set up as demo bikes which you’d be welcome to try here, or at one of the south/mid-Wales trail centres: FOD, Afan, Cwmcarn, BPW, Nant-yr-Arian…

Claris is the only proper dedicated road groupset from Shimano which is still 8-speed, but front mechs are readily available.

FD2400F for double braze-on
FD2400BSM for band-on 28.6mm or 31.8mm
FD2400BL for band-on 34.9mm

Replace 2400 with 2403 for the equivalent triples.

All in stock except the double 34.9mm band-on, prices between £21.99 and £24.99 RRP. Feel free to give us a shout and we’ll post you one if you don’t have a suitable LBS who can order for you.

I wouldn’t run an 8-speed chain through a 10-speed mech – you’ll quickly have no cage left. 9-speed would be OK, but will be tricky to stop it rubbing and given that the correct part is easily available, why would you?

It’s nothing whatsoever like Llandegla (well, as different as two trail centres could be, anyway).

For a start it’s way smaller.

There aren’t as many built trails but there’s loads of natural riding in the forestry (as well, of course, as on the hills all around). Have a look at Strava for the Red Kite enduros last year and the year before, you’ll see lots there.

There are a few built trails, but it’s not had lots of money poured into it recently so they’re not as groomed as some.

Cafe is now closed I believe, so there’s just parking and a big forest. Stunning location though.

Happy to sort you out with them OP, if it helps. £15 delivered. Give us a shout – can send a payment link.

Will it work? Yes.

Will it work as well as Mr. Shimano intended? Maybe, maybe not. Probably not.

RRP on a front M8000 mech is £36.99. You can probably get them for less. You could flog the other one on eBay or put it in the spares bin. I know what I’d be doing.

<Pedant>Zero-rated, not exempt</Pedant>

And in order to qualify as such, it has to be CE-marked and meet EN 1078:1997 – while a US-sold helmet would technically meet the standard (presumably, as it’d be the same as the EU version) it wouldn’t have CE marking and therefore would not qualify for zero-rating and I’d expect standard UK VAT (and import duty) to apply.

TLD are changing distributors at the moment, and stock is somewhat thin on the ground – I think most of what was left was jobbed out to WiggleCRC so if they don’t have the one you want, you’re going to be out of luck unless a shop somewhere happens to have one in stock.

Already been recommended, but I opened the thread to say Patrol, so I may as well say it. Patrol.

There are in fact two ways of doing it – ZS upper and lower as above (and yes Cane Creek equivalent will work fine) or alternatively as you suggest, use an EC44 lower and a crown race adapter. This will give a slightly taller front end by a few mm and a marginally slacker head angle.

Also – anyone done an audax? They seem to be big miles at a fraction of the price? How does a £35 100 mile sportive differ from a sub-£10 100 mile audax?

Audaxes are great. Much less organised (not less well-organised, but less stuff – no feed stations, no route signposting etc) than sportives, but usually interesting routes if you’re happy finding your own way (Garmin!) and they’re a friendly bunch. Plenty of folk on here have done them I’m sure.

And if I could just take this opportunity to put in a cheeky plug for our own sportive series. It’s way smaller in scale than the Wiggle ones, but we think (and riders who came last year seem to agree) that the routes, organisation, and our feed stations are pretty good. Certainly not just out-of-date energy bars and bananas – lots of home-made goodies and a variety of different food, plus some hot stuff at the end, usually. Details online at http://www.drovercycles.co.uk/events if anyone cares to take a look.

They’re far from flat, mind, especially our June everesting challenge on Gospel Pass…

No real reason it has to be a tank… just depends on build really. The difference in weight between the Croix frame and a light road or ‘cross frame isn’t loads.

80 psi is high for 30mm tyres – how much do you weigh?

Some good options amongst the DT Swiss complete wheels etc depending on budget.

Carbon post is a good idea. If you can justify the cost it’s an upgrade I’d certainly have. Easy weight saving and adds comfort too.

Feel free to give us a shout for more info. Have done several custom specs for these and just beginning to work on my own now.

FSA do a lot of OEM headsets which aren’t available aftermarket in the UK. They sometimes have names/codes not dissimilar to others.

I’d get in touch with the shop you bought it from. Windage distribute both Transition and FSA and in my experience will be happy to help sort what you need, via a dealer. By all means give us a shout if we can help. FSA Orbit ZE 1.5 fits, has sealed cartridge bearings, and doesn’t cost much.

Yep it’ll fit, you need the 10-speed spacer supplied with the cassette (as 10s is slightly narrower in fact than 8 or 9).

They’re decent low-cost rims. 80% as good as something much more expensive. Tubeless fine, reasonably robust.

Is it the Raleigh Probuild wheels you’re looking at? Bargain if so.

You’re smack in the middle of the two sizes I’d say OP, and could almost certainly get a good fit on either. I’m a smidgen taller than you and can happily ride either a L or an XL, probably with a slight preference for an XL.

We have an XL in stock if it’s of any use. Fork was damaged in transit so will be supplied with a carbon fork instead of the specced steel one.

Really interesting stuff – we use Royal Mail for almost all our website orders and would never have through to offer another delivery option for customers to choose.

Will look into adding this as it seems like something some people would appreciate.

Yep, speak to Sportline, who are the distributor, or your local Genesis dealer. They will be able to get the carbon fork for it.

They’re out of stock – of the old fork from 2009-14 CdFs – and waiting for delivery of a new carbon fork. Due 17th March, if anyone wants to order one for then.

Meanwhile Whisky Components do a very nice fork which would work but it’s expensive compared with a Genesis Frame – £399 RRP I think.

Otherwise the Kinesis Tripster fork RRP £169.99 (£152.99 from us for STW folk) looks like a good alternative.

If it helps, I’ve got a set of SID 29ers @ 120mm here which I’m not using at the moment. Happy to let you have the air shaft from those and stick a replacement on order so I can replace it when they come back into stock.

Email in profile.

to get round the Fred Whitton comfortably

It never gets easier, you just get quicker….

But FSA (as mentioned above) are doing some ultra-compact chainsets. Not available in the UK yet AFAIK but hopefully coming soon – look useful.

They’re very nice pedals – good shape, good grip, well made (of course) and as with almost anything from Hope will last a lifetime with maintenance (which can be done, as they’ll have any spares you might need, unlike some).

They’re also pretty expensive and there are lots of good, modern, flat pedals on the market. You can get something 80% as good for 50% of the price (sometimes less) so it’s a question of whether that extra 20% is worth the significant additional cost, to you.

Same as with their hubs, headsets, BBs, etc.

IMHO, yes, they’re worth it – but then we sell them!

and pocket the 200

… briefly, before using it to pay the staff who put the bike together, the landlord they rent the shop from, the electricity bill, the business rates, the postage when they need to send something back which failed under warranty, etc etc.

But then you know all this Ben as you also run a business and sell things for more than you buy them for 😉

Don’t know many proper bike shops that run “mainly” off supplier stock either – yes, most won’t have everything in stock in every size/colour, but even a small shop has tens of thousands of pounds of stock they’ve had to pay for.

OP, no need to apologise, and don’t feel too sorry for us in the bike trade. We get to play with bikes for a living so it’s not all bad.

Sounds like you’re sorted but we’d also be happy to help if needed. In Hay but within easy reach of Brecon and pass through fairly often.

Going back to your original question, the distributor will generally be making a smaller percentage than the retailer (but shifting much more inventory and with lower overheads %-wise) and the bike brand itself (and this is getting into guesswork territory) will also be making less gross margin on each bike than the shop but obviously shiting even more.

These two stages are of course sometimes merged into one (either because a bike brand sells direct to shops rather than through a distributor, or because a distributor has developed their own-brand product) which means that either the retail price can be more competitive or the combined distributor/manufacturer can make a bit more gross margin, which is then often used to increase marketing spend.

Where it gets really juicy is when all three become one e.g. Halfords or CRC own brand bikes, Canyon, YT etc. They can make their bikes a bit cheaper but still make a really healthy gross margin. Whether they can make a sustainable business doing it depends on how well they control the other costs.

does anyone work in a typical independent bike shop and know the answer to this one

Yes

or should I just give up and accept it’s a trade secret?

Not exactly a trade secret but would you be happy to discuss in public the exact breakdown of your business finances, or would your employer be happy for you to discuss their business finances? Suffice to say that margin on bikes is better than e.g. a corner shop gets on baked beans or magazines, but much worse than a clothing retailer gets on its stock.

Bottom line – shops can give 10% off and still make a gross margin. Whether it leaves them with any net margin after overheads etc are taken out, depends on a number of factors including how big a shop they are (and therefore how good a deal they are on with their supplier), how efficient the business is, and the £ value of the bike. On anything sub-£1000, most shops won’t be making much net margin if they discount by 10%.

So when they are offering 30% on sales bikes, you must be getting that for cost price effectively.

30% off will mean that they’re making a substantial net loss when you take all of the above into consideration, but yes, in £ figures they’ll be recouping something close +/- to what the bike cost.

Is it a right of way (public footpath, bridleway or byway), or is it a route across private land which has been widely used which you’d like to become a right of way?

I suspect the best way to go will differ depending on the above. From your description if sounds as though it’s not currently a right of way.

In my experience if you’ve noticed a drop-off in performance then they’re probably past the point where they “just” need a service and you’ll be looking at replacement parts as well. A couple of times a year, or maybe once a year if you ride less often, seems about right to keep on top of things – and on that schedule they’ll generally always feel as good as new.

Croix de Fer or – if you want more serious off-road-ability – Vagabond would be our suggestions but then we do sell Genesis so are biased.

Then again the reason we sell Genesis is that they have bikes like these… so it’s a bit circular.

Surly Straggler would be another great option.

Incidentally what size are you OP? We have a few deals on at the moment…

Shimano XM9s are in our sale at the moment, at a great price. They’re like sturdy boots so easy to walk in in the sense that you won’t be skittering about.
https://www.drover.cc/winter/footwear/mtb-shoes

XM7s are more trainer-like so a bit lighter and less clumsy but conversely not as warm/weatherproof.

170km to go here so that’s our plan for the day sorted… Elan valley and back with cafe stop there.

Just deciding between road bikes or tandem. Think the tandem and its fat tyres are winning…

Nice idea. Sure you’ll be fine – enjoy the ride. It’ll be better as soon as you get going.

colournoise, do you have a linky for those?

I hope you don’t mind me jumping in. We’ve just added winter footwear to our new site and we’re doing a fairly decent offer on those boots – I believe this is the best UK price:
https://www.drover.cc/winter/footwear/mtb-shoes

Pads will be the single thing that makes the biggest difference, although as others have said the mid-high end Shimano brakes are much better than others.

Swissstop Flash Pro is our choice of pad – not cheap, but they make a massive difference to breaking performance especially in the wet.

Kind regards
Luke