We’ve just had the pricing through for 2016 Pygas including the Stage and Stage Max. Will be going up on the website shortly. It’s lower than expected which is always nice!

Ryde Trace Trail or Trace Enduro are still our favourites, albeit there are many more to choose from these days. The Easton rims do look excellent but they’re a bit heavier width-for-width than the Trace and I’m not seeing any other major advantages.

My dealer is chasing, but I’m still waiting with bated breath for my Patrol Carbon

Carbon Patrols not expected until the end of the month at the earliest when they come out of production and get air-freighted in. As Pigyn says it’s more than likely going to be early Feb.

If you’ve got an alloy frame on order it should be with you any day now I’d expect.

Or buy one of our ex-demo Pyga OneTen frames, more trail than XC race oriented, as long as he/she is a large. Under 27lbs would require some fairly high-end parts but could be done, I’d have thought.

How light/XC vs how trail-oriented? I’ve been putting together options for a customer who wants something similar and we concluded that KTM have some good deals – their XC race bike, the Scarp, frame and fork packages from 2015 (carbon) or 2016 arriving end of Feb (either carbon or alloy).

More trail-oriented, depending on budget, Salsa, or the new Pyga Stage or Stage MAX.

I’d agree that Alivio rather than Deore with the difference spent on better/lighter tyres, a suitable saddle etc, is the way to go. Current Alivio is at least as good as 9-speed Deore was. In fact you could probably go down to the newish 9-speed Acera, although don’t expect it to last as well.

Received confirmation from the supplier today that the fork can be changed to 150mm (or 140mm) travel by removing spacers. This can be done FOC before sale, and the spacers supplied with the fork so that the end user can adjust it back in future.

The 130mm forks listed are just the 150mm ones with two spacers in, in other words.

If anyone would like 130, 140, or 150mm forks, please let us (or any other Suntour dealer) know.

Presumably the same can be done with the 27.5″ variant, but I’ve not checked this – if anyone wants to know, just give us a shout.

No worries, hope yours is with you soon.

like getting cash out from an ATM without a card

Awesome. I hope other banks are going to add this!

JAT thanks for your email, hope you got the info you need, just shout if there’s anything else we can do.

Wookster, I believe the frames are in the warehouse now so delivery to us in the coming days. We have a large Scout, Patrol, and Smuggler on the way.

We’ve got a large orange one on its way at the moment, in case anyone wants one… Not going to be selling it for £960 mind.

We do have our 2015 demo bike (the lovely teal colour) which is also a large, which I’m happy to sell as either frame-only or complete bike, or anywhere in between. It’s immaculate, ridden a handful of times (everyone who’s ridden it has gone on to buy one!). If someone wants a bargain, that could be the one.

No, I don’t think that would generally work. There might be some combination of BB & cranks which would allow you to get away with it, but I suspect not. 17mm is quite a lot!

Just coming back to let anyone who’s interested know that it is possible to change the travel on this fork but it requires some internal parts not stocked in the UK. We’re investigating the most cost-effective route to supply the fork in 150mm guise at the moment and will update again once we have some more info.

Happy New Year!

They’re available in early Feb. Don’t think anyone – certainly in the UK – will be able to get them before then.

Had a play with one recently – they do look interesting, I must say. New Magura brakes also look good, and excellent VFM I thought.

No problem. Tried to call the distributor (Greyville) this morning to check this out but they’re not open, so guess it’ll be Monday before they’re back. Will get back to you then if that’s OK?

Slight hijack: are all ones tubeless? Thanks

No. There are ordinary clincher versions, and tubeless versions. The ordinary ones are definitely not tubeless compatible!

I believe there’s stock available at the moment, we certainly have some stock though I think we might be running out soon, but expect to be able to get more quickly.

Are 120mm SIDS RTC3 a flex too far?

Depends on how much you weigh, as well as the type of riding you do, in my experience.

I have 120mm SIDs on my hardtail, which isn’t used for anything especially gnarly – it’s my “long rides in the mountains” bike more than anything. I’ve found them flexy though, and while I like the weight, I’d go for something stiffer next time, or stick to 100mm.

But, I’m the wrong side of 90kg so YMMV.

Only seems to be available in 130mm guise in the UK, but I suspect this may be adjustable via internal spacers to 140 or 150mm. Could check this out for you, possibly Tuesday when we’re back open – depending on whether the distributor are there then.

Price would be around the £320 mark I think.

We’ve placed an order… no idea when the bikes are going to be here though!

Be interested to hear what anyone has to say about these too!

Yep, you’d need to get the 140mm ones with a 46mm offset and swap the air assembly. Any LBS with a Fisher account, or certainly any Rockshox dealer, could help you with this.

I think Paypal protection runs for 90 days, or is it 180? Worth checking as this may make a major difference.

If the item never turns up, and Paypal protection has run out of time, you recourse is to sue the company for your money if they fail to deliver what you bought. Of course if they go bust in the meantime, that’s worthless to you.

I’m sure they’d be delighted to refund your money and cancel the order rather than buying in more stock and selling it to you at a loss, in fact I’m surprised that’s not what they’ve done. If you want the discounted price and they’re prepared to honour it when new stock arrives, you’ve probably got little option but to wait.

@pigyn what frame/fork/wheelset combo for £2339?

No doubt @pigyn will be along in a minute to confirm, but I took this to mean they do 10% off the package if you buy the complete rolling chassis from them – i.e. you choose wheels and fork, and get 10% off the whole lot. The frame element of this bundle therefore costs £2339.

IANAL but I’d have thought that if they hand you the cheque, or send it to arrive, on the day they’re required to “pay” you by then they’d be OK.

It’s not their problem how long your bank takes to process that payment.

On a separate note, who uses cheques these days!

Do larger companies put in four returns a year?

It’s not technically targeting big vs small companies – it’s about the structure of the business. If you’re a limited company you have to pay Corporation Tax quarterly anyway.* If you’re a partnership or sole trader then you pay income tax annually on your profits.

Most small(er) businesses maybe aren’t incorporated, whereas almost all “large” ones are, so the effect of this is going to be felt by small businesses on the whole.

That’s my understanding anyway – I’m not an accountant though!

*Actually a bit of googling suggests that the quarterly payment of Corporation Tax might only apply to larger limited companies anyway… so not sure how small limited companies will be affected by this – someone will no doubt know more.

Only 17.5″ left from the 2015 range; you need to find someone who has stock on hand – not sure there’ll be many out there TBH.

What size are you after, OP?

Have you discussed this with your dealer to see if there are any other solutions, if you’d rather not wait?

Some of the framesets are in stock now, for example. We usually find, with Surly, that we can do a custom build for no more than the price of a complete.

Question – do they do the Yari in conventional 15x100mm

Yes.

Re: Pikes. Don’t get the dual position unless you want that – get a cheaper fork. You won’t get Pike Solo Air performance from the Dual Position.

Talk to you LBS once you’ve got some online prices; you might be surprised what they can do to help (with some help from Fishers) if they know what you’re looking at.

go to your local bike shop and ask them to get you one and ask them to price match somewhere cheap. fishers will match any price allowing a margin for the dealer. if that makes sense. you get to deal with a local shop and your local shop gets to make a little bit of money on something that they weren’t going to make any money on previously.

^^This. They won’t necessarily match **any** price, but within reason, your LBS should be able to match like-for-like most online quotes.

If people prefer to deal with bike-components or the like because they’re friendlier and more efficient than your LBS, by all means do that. But please don’t do it because you somehow think they’re going to be cheaper. For Rockshox stuff, they generally won’t be, if you ask for a price-match. If you don’t ask, your LBS can’t do it – unless specifically price-matching, they’re paying way, way more for the product than these online people are. But there are processes in place to allow us to compete, and all it requires is for customers to ask.

Of course we’d all like a level playing field where we could buy at the same rates Bike-Components or whoever do, but we’re not there yet. What we do have is a pretty decent solution and we need to get the message out to folks that you don’t any longer have to buy online/from Europe to get the best deal.

Couldn’t resist posting up a photo of our new Surly Wednesday demo bike…

Transam isn’t as slack as you might have in mind, other than that you’ve pretty much described it. Give us a shout if you’d like to try one out in mid-Wales.

It varies widely by brand and is all down to supply and demand.

This year, far too many bikes were on the market, in general (at least from the mainstream brands) and consumer confidence wasn’t great; bike shops were holding back on ordering, and manufacturers and distributors were left overstocked – this resulted in big discounts early in the season (yes, from around April in some cases). Once one does it, others will be forced to follow suit.

Next year, I would expect to see far more cautious forecasting. There won’t be as many shops around, but those that there are may feel that they need to order more/sooner. That, combined with manufacturers making less and distributors ordering less, MIGHT mean fewer discounts early in the season. There’ll probably be less availability too. If there are few bikes left, thre won’t be the same level of discounts.

So the answer is… it depends.

Just about to send off a Hope order this afternoon if you want some, should be able to get them to you by the end of the week.

Edit – just saw 18 Bikes guys have already offered to help so sure they will be able to sort you out.

It’s a tricky one for companies too. Sometimes you need to offer products/services at or near cost price, or even at a loss, to attract new customers. You cannot run a viable business by selling at those prices to your existing customer base. So you either have to differentiate, and hope your existing customers don’t mind seeing “introductory” offers, or you have to not do those introductory offers and not attract as many new customers…

That ^^ Cotic is very nice indeed.

Yep that FSA one will have the info you need.

Alternatively if you post the internal and external diameters of the top and bottom of the head tube, and whether each cup is external, internal, or integrated, we’ll be able to tell you which headset to get.

Or take it to your LBS and they’ll sort you out.

Genesis Tarn?

Good B&Bs in both places. In Crickhowell Ty Gwyn, Ty Tal and Park Place are all ones we use and we get good feedback about. In Talybont, likewise for the Traveller’s Rest and Malt House. In Brecon itself, the Bridge Cafe is excellent and run by cyclist friends of ours – there are three rooms so you could take the place over, if they still have room.

That looks like the ones, though they’re definitely listing a 120mm model (in fact they list 100, 120 and 140mm on the price list rather than the 150mm that the article mentions).

I’m sure I saw Fox where going to release some special edition fork with a straight steered and for 26″ wheels but with the modern internals.

This too, it’s not a special edition though, just a regular price list item. You can’t get the Kashima-coated Factory series forks (though they may have done these as a special) but the anodised stanchion, Performance series forks are available – £459 RRP for 26″/120mm/QR/straight steerer.