Wiggle seem to have them pretty cheap at the moment. Your local dealer (or any other Garmin dealer) might be able to help you out, though.

They do need tubeless tape. It’s supplied with the wheels when you buy them as a pair, not singly. (Don’t ask me why!)

I think their reference to rim tape is to ensure tha people don’t fit normal cloth rim tape and then try to fit tubeless tape over the top of that.

Sounds good. I’d certainly be up for joining in.

You will love tandeming!

We have an mtb tandem in the hire fleet which will be for sale after Christmas if you fancy giving it a try.

Your current lowest gear is 22/36 = 0.61 x wheel size. To match that with a 46T cassette you’d need a 0.61 x 46 ~ 28T chainring. A 30T chainring instead will mean you have a lowest gear a bit less than 10% harder than your current lowest gear.

Your current highest gear is 36/11 – to match this you’d obviously need a 36T chainring. So with a 30T you’d be losing more like 20% off the highest gear on the bike.

Current range is 36/11 to 22/36 ~ 535%. 11-46 has a 418% range. Whether you lose that mostly from the top end or mostly from the bottom end depends on whether you go 30, 32 or 34T. 32T will mean you lose roughly equal amounts top and bottom.

@ drover cycles. Maxxis part number TB96833300? If so I’d be interested in a price. How do I contact you?

Think the ones you’re after are TB96833000 aren’t they? And just checking our stock, I think we have the non-EXO ones which are not 120TPI, TB96833200. Will check in the morning though.

Email is in profile.

We’ve got a pair in stock I’d be happy to do a deal on OP.

Agree with much of the above – there is some additional weight/momentum involved but it’s not massive – you want robust enduro-type components but don’t need anything beefier than that. So think 34/35mm stanchions, 203 rotors, etc.

Looking at what e-bikes we’re going to carry next year and was very impressed with the new Meridas:
http://www.merida-bikes.com/en_gb/bikes/e-bikes/mountain-bike-full-suspension/2017/eone-sixty-900e-8389.html

Well that is not actually the reason. It is to do with the lower radius of curvature of the fatter tyre meaning that higher casing tension around the tyre is needed to hold the pressure in for a given pressure. It is that casing tension which exerts force on the tyre beads and can break the rim. Simply applying force=pressure x area is difficult because the forces on the inside of a tyre are pointing in all directions and you need to add them all up vector wise and when you do there is some cancelling out.

Road rims are reinfoced/heavier, but not so much to account for the pressure on the sidewall. The higher pressure in the tyre is forcing the entirety of the rim into compression. This can be seen when you build a wheel. Built on its own, the wheel may be perfectly tensioned, but as soon as you apply a tyre to the rim and inflate, the compressive force can cause a drop in spoke tension, this is especially true for lightweight spokes.

As road rims are under a uniform 700KPa (240KPa for MTB) they’re under almost 3* the compressive force.

Fair comments, there’s much more going on than the simplistic explanation I gave, for sure.

Longer answer: Check the max recomended tyre pressure on the rim. Road rims are reinforced to account the loads high pressure tyres place on a wheel, it’s why they’re often as heavy or heavier than wider XC 29er rims.

Sorry but this is simply not true. Force = Pressure x Area so bigger tyre at lower pressure ~ smaller tyre at higher pressure.

As Al says. And yes, weight is to do with braking surface or absence thereof.

OP – 29er is just a marketing term for 700c rims aimed at mountain bikers. The diameter is the same. They are the same thing. For a narrower (road or MTB) tyre you’d want a narrower rim – for a wider tyre, a wider rim. So the widest (“29er”/MTB rims) would suit only 2″+ MTB tyres (and sometimes, these days, 2.5″+) and the narrowest (700c/road) rims would suit only 23c/25c road tyres – but there’s a lot of overlap in between. Fundamentally though the diameter is what specifies rim & tyre size, and they are the same.

TLDR there’s no difference in diameter, but some narrow tyres would be unsafe on wider rims and some wide tyres would be a weird shape on narrow rims.

There’s a nice campsite just above Cwm Ystwyth. Plenty of wild camping all along the way.

I’d not rely too much on pubs for food along the way – many rural pubs have erratic opening hours/days and some are closed completely at random. Take plenty with you!

It’s a great route. Almost all surfaced – mainly minor country roads. Rigid MTB would be fine; you could do it on a road bike.

Shout if you want more details – it’s one of the routes we offer as a tour but happy to share details informally.

I recently did a first aid course and one of the criteria recommended for going to A&E was if it involves your hands and it has blistered or gone white.

This. General rule of thumb is if it’s over 9% of your body (an arm, front or back of a leg, front or back of your torso) or if it’s hands or head; or if there’s any white waxy flesh; or if it remains very painful.

I’d err on the side of going if you’re not sure. Better to get it checked out and it be fine, than to not bother and discover that it’s more serious than you thought.

We use Parcelforce 48 Large. You can access the service via Parcelmonkey/P4D/Parcel2Go etc.

Also to add, upper end of your budget but DT Swiss E1900 would be another option. Great wheels at an inexpensive price point.

I came on this thread to recommend the Alex/Chosen Probuild wheels which Tracey has beaten me to. Brilliant wheels for the price. We use them on some of our demo bikes and have sold a few sets. Excellent quality and the easiest bearing replacement of any wheel I’ve ever seen.

We have them in stock, and we – as well as any other proper bike shop – could do the same deal as Merlin are offering.

No. The boost and non-boost hubs are totally different and cannot be converted either way.

Does seem like a slightly odd request… you’re happy enough to identify and purchase the correct shock but not fit it? As above, some shops might be aggrieved that you didn’t give them a chance of the sale (and almost certainly then would have fitted it for free). Of course there may be perfectly good reasons for that.

But we’re happy to help – more mid-Wales than south but if Hay is within range, give us a shout and we’ll take a look for you. Wouldn’t necessarily have the bushings you’ll need in stock though, depending on spec, so may be best to drop us an email first.

Does anyone know why Malawi is such a popular destination for school trips?

Safe/stable, relatively accessible, but still undeveloped. English widely spoken. Plenty of opportunities to see “the real Africa” and get involved with development/volunteering projects. Good – and not too extreme – weather.

Second/third all the above. Local (or within-easy-travelling-distance) shop, but I’d add, pick one which has a range of e-bikes you can try out, sells a few brands (not just the e-bikes from their main “normal” brands) and who has experience (and training) in maintaining them.

Plenty of LBSs have invested heavily in e-bikes in the last couple of years, there should be somewhere reasonably close to you who can give you great service.

Hmmm I think it’s a bug with the site not anything we’ve entered wrong. Will try to find out if someone can help fix it.

clicking on your website address as shown in profile takes me to Singletrack – you might want to check that.

Thanks. On the case now. You will of course find us on Google. E-commerce site is http://www.drover.cc (I don’t feel too guilty typing that on here and hope no-one objects too much.) We are a Singletrack Premier Dealer.

We sell ’em! Have been really impressed with the DT wheels – been a dealer for just under a year, several pairs sold and also on demo bikes.

They’re not up on our e-commerce site yet but happy to do mail order. Not sure why they’d be difficult to find via a UK retailer so you’ve got me thinking now, sounds like there’s an opportunity there, may stick them up on the website tomorrow!

Please feel free to give us a shout if we can assist in any way.

Great wheels, bang up to date, and excellent after-sales.

there appeared to be two types of Zenith jacket

There are three current Zenith Jackets:

Zenith Waterproof Jacket – no hood, 4-way stretch waterproof/breathable fabric. Not really a softshell but a lightweight, stretchy waterproof material so might feel a bit like light, stiff softshell. This is the only one which is properly waterproof.

Zenith Hooded Softshell Jacket – breathable, showeproof (DWR-coated) softshell jacket with a hood. Mid-weight.

Zenith Lightweight Softshell Jacket – no hood, lighter-weight than the above and not DWR-coated so less waterproof (though will still be lightly-shower-resistant).

I’d keep it well away from the tumble drier if I were you, quite likely to melt!

Is the shop who has the bike now also the shop from which you originally bought the bike from?

If so, you’re well within your rights to expect them to sort it. You have no relationship with SRAM so you don’t really have any clout with them – although in our experience they will generally go out of their way to sort customers out.

With the aim of avoiding confrontation, though, here’s a suggestion. (Bearing in mind I don’t have any more information that you’ve given in the OP so there may be many reasons why this isn’t possible/practical). If SRAM are going to replace the shock anyway, they *may* be prepared to just credit the shop for the cost of the replacement shock. If they did that, the shop could then source you a replacement shock from either a) another SRAM distributor, if they deal with both (Raleigh and ZyroFisher); b) Orange, who probably have some stock of the shocks they use on their bikes; c) another supplier, although that’s a bit of a long shot; or d) another brand altogether (Fox?) depending on your preferences.

This all relies on SRAM being willing to credit rather than replace (which I don’t imagine they’re obliged to do) and the shop being willing to do some legwork for you (which if they supplied the bike originally I’m sure they’d be more than happy to do).

This also opens up the possibility of upgrading to the next shock up in the range if you (or the shop) are willing to cover the difference, depending on what’s in stock.

Talk to the shop – I’m sure they’ll be just as keen as you are to get it sorted.

English
Welsh
French
Spanish
Portuguese
Italian
German
Arabic
Swahili
Wolof
Bambara
Amharic
Afrikaans
Vietnamese

Forgotten lots of others. Guess where I’ve travelled most!

As above, Hope hubs need a different end-cap if using an XD-driver rather than a Shimano-style freehub. Been caught out by this ourselves.

Hope will send you the bit if you ring them (in exchange for cash of course) or call us and we’ll get it ordered for you.

Thanks also. Not worried about the work involved. He’s quite interested in the mechanical stuff so I think he might quite like to do it with me. The left over bits can go to the local bike recycling charity too so do someone else a good turn.

Nice. Sounds like an excellent project to tackle together!

If anyone is after a proper rigid 26″ MTB with hydraulic discs designed for kids (so BB height/crank length etc all in proportion) we have a Genesis Core 26 from the hire fleet which is also up for grabs.

Sounds like a good plan to be honest, if a fair bit of work.

Only one to add – have you seen the new Saracen kids bikes? We were impressed and reckon we’ll sell a few of these this year:

http://www.saracen.co.uk/bikes/kids/junior

Had a play with a Diamondback yesterday which had one of those new RSP droppers on and I was very, very impressed. We’ll certainly be stocking those – for the money I can’t see anything else getting close.

Thinking about running them on some of our demo bikes too!

Transition Scout, can do 25% off 2016 model which will leave some room in your budget for upgrades.

Have a small number of Pyga OneTwenty framesets which we can do some deals on too.

I honestly don’t think there’s a better E-MTB bike than Moustache. It’s what they do – that and nothing else. Check out their range:
http://www.moustachebikes.com/uk/

IMHO you want lots of grip to make use of the power, so 27+ makes a lot of sense. Their carbon full-sus bikes are very spendy unfortunately but an absolute blast to ride.

Wow, those Mavic look like a deal. No idea what they’re like though, and how does Mavic sizing compare to Shimano?

Mavic sizing very similar to Shimano IME and the shoes are excellent quality. The Drift is their XC-oriented winter boot, very similar to Shimano’s offering. Now replaced by the Crossmax SL Pro Thermo, hence the reduced price (if anyone needs a size 10 we could do a similar deal!).

The Crossmax Pro H2O is their more trail-oriented winter boot and is on my wanted list for this winter. Our Mavic pre-order may just have one in my size on it…

I’m a UK 7, normally wear a shimano 42

Sorry, most stuff we hold in stock is 8-9-10-11. Don’t have anything on clearance that’d fit.

New Shimano MW5 is £125 RRP so only £112.50 through us to STW folk if that’s of any interest:
http://www.shimano-lifestylegear.com/eu/fw/products/offroad/037mw5.php

What size shoe are you OP? We have a few on offer from Mavic and Shimano.

Are any manufacturers supplying frame, battery and motor kits yet or are only full builds available.

Only full builds as far as I’m aware but maybe look at an entry-level build which you could then upgrade the components on by swapping across?

There are a few Moustache hardtails in XS (the only size which uses a 26″ fork/front wheel) on clearance offers if you wanted to explore that as an option. Would suit riders up to about 5’0″ tall. (Also some higher-end full sussers in S and M but those have 27.5″ or 29″ front wheels and forks and are specced with better kit to begin with anyway).

Quick Q – What’s with the giant tubing on the Moustache? Seems weird that the battery is mounted on a rear rack yet the downtube is similar in diameter to the size of an integrated battery setup ie Spesh Turbo?

Bigger diameter tubes are stiffer and stronger. The downtube the Lundi doesn’t have much in the way of reinforcement so is big and boxy to give it the required rigidity. We’ve got some cutouts from some of the frames and it’s interesting to see the level of engineering which goes into them. It’s noticeable (at least, we’ve convinced ourselves it is!) in the weight and ride quality of the bikes.

Interestingly some of their 2017 MTBs do have integrated batteries in the downtube.

BTW we have a red Lundi ex-demo going cheap(er) if anyone is interested in one.

Moustache are now our best-selling eBike brand and I have to say they are excellent.

Some clearance deals on 2016 models as they’ve just launched the 2017 range, which looks fantastic.

Yep, don’t believe it’s possible I’m afraid. You’d need the Deemax DH.

Mavic still do – new 2017 wheels recently launched. Crossmax Elite would be a fair bit under your budget, Crossmax Pro a touch over (both include tyres, though).