If anyone has got an old XL frame with horizontal dropouts gathering dust at home, i’d be very keen to take it off your hands for cold hard cash!

Also have an XL 2Souls Quarterhorse frame with sliding dropouts gathering dust that ought to be sold. Previously used as a 140mm-forked hardtail singlespeed. In fact, I still have the Rev fork if you wanted that too.

I’d be happy if I could get hold of some 32H XM421’s… But nowhere outside of the UK will ship to the UK any more (Bike24 especially not), and Madison haven’t got them for months and months!

Managed to get a pair of DT XR391s from StarBike last week, VAT pre-paid on the site and delivered in 6 days.

Yeovil not my area of knowledge, but I can get you from Weymouth to Hinton St Mary.

Obviously you need to do a lap of the Portland coast path (I’d suggest anti-clockwise) before you leave Weymouth.

From Weymouth itself, get up onto the Ridgeway then drop down through Came Wood toward Dorchester. Lanes through Bockhampton and into Puddletown Forest from Hardy’s Cottage (good cafe here). Ride anything you fancy in Puddletown Forest, then pick a bridleway and make it over the A35 to Higher Waterston. Take the bridleway through Dole’s Hill Plantation, over the lane, through Nettlecombe farm and up to Dorsetshire Gap. Get onto the Wessex Ridgeway (be ready for a full nettling this time of year) up to Rawlsbury Camp, follow the road/Wessex Ridgeway along the top of Bulbarrow Hill to just above Ibberton, then fork right off the road staying on the Wessex Ridgeway route. Follow that until you come to a junction of multiple trails and take the left fork dropping down a steep one through Eastcombe Wood into Shillingstone. Find your way over the main road and onto the old railway line and follow that to Stur Newton.

Bought a second hand Ibis Tranny in one size too small (to solve the long top tube / short stem issue) to make into a gravel bike / travel bike (because the frame comes apart).

Comments from that build:

You’ll typically be able to fit a 650bx47 in the rear of an old XC frame; I went with 42mm Resolutes with enough clearance.
Mess around with your current sus fork if you can shorten the travel somehow (easy on my air forks) once you’ve fitted drop bars to work out how long a rigid fork you want (went with 440 on this build).
Hylix are slightly (!) more reputable cheap carbon forks.
Couldn’t be a***d with hydraulics as I wanted to reuse old road shifters that I already had, cable discs work well enough if you’re only riding fireroad. I’d try the V-brakes and current wheels before spending more on discs. Of course disc mounts bail you out of wheel size rim brake issues.
I run the rear mech with the clutch off without issue but dropped the chain off an XT 40T ring before I got a custom NW one, so clutch mech maybe but NW ring definitely. Or front mech?

Panaracer GravelKing 26mm used since April on road exclusively, not as fast as GP5000s but not bad, pretty light but only one puncture in 1k+ miles, and yes I bought them instead of Contis entirely because I wanted a tan wall road tyre.

Do you know what internal width your crests are twonks?

They’ll be the original ones so 21mm internal.

This won’t cope with an 11-42 cassette, right?

Black and orange full carbon tapered steerer, 490a-c 15mm thru axle or 470a-c QR £190 https://www.carboncycles.cc/?s=0&c=103&p=1786&tb=001

Only Andy’s route has Frank’s Tank in it, and neither his nor Jobro’s route has Woodhyde. Incorporate the old Dorset Rough Riders DRRT route into your pick of the routes above for the best-of collection of descents in the Purbecks.

Frank’s Tank: https://www.strava.com/segments/1219002

Woodhyde: https://www.strava.com/segments/1204862

DRRT: https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/318317830

Thread resurrection!

I’m running 700x38mm G-one allrounds on Crests with tubes at about 65 psi and they’re great for mostly road with some occasional off road.

I also ran them tubeless on the same rims at 40 psi and they were noticably slower on road.

Ideally I’d like to run them tubeless at 60+ psi but am too scared (!) to exceed Crest max pressures by that much so am considering some roadie tubeless rims. What are people using / what’s recommended?

How deep is too deep?

(Not ridden, just setup for photo after a running joke about bloke doing a particularly windy audax with a rear disc).

2001 Serotta Atlanta with not-very-deep Eastons circa 2011. White tape and saddle to match the decals, natch.

I enjoyed the irony of my gear cable prize from sponsor Clarks for making it onto the singlespeed podium at Sleepless in the Saddle one year.

would rather stick with bigger purpose designed frames than sizing down a 29er and adding drops to keep the front triangle open for frame bags

I sized down a Karate Monkey for this job and still have plenty of space for frame bags, although the bars are perhaps a bit low for what you require (I came from an XL Gryphon with Luxys which was never quite right and I wanted a more roadie / CX position). Have ridden around some rocky places like Portland Dorset with a little extra *ahem* foot faults :lol:

Ride the road next to it going west, the surface of that’s usually like a downhill course.

Not many days the studded tyres come out, but was glad of them this morning riding the patchy ice at -6°C in the Winterborne valley. Never any snow in Costa del Dorset of course.

Riding in neg temps makes the commute feel like less of a drudge and more like I’ve overcome some minor kind of adversity.

I also use UberBike pads,and have recently put race matrix pads in my road BB7s having got on well with them in XT hydraulics on the MTBs. No complaints. They do them for Spyres.

Haribo Tangfastics
Peanut M&Ms
9bars (a bit dry for longer than 100 mile days when I might get a bit dehydrated)
Haribo Tangfastics
Clif shot bloks
Tunnocks caramel wafers
And if all else fails, Haribo Tangfastics

As you can see, I’m not a nutritional role model, but Haribos go straight to my legs and the tangfastics create saliva so I can get a handful down no matter how destroyed I am.

Of course, if you’re already spending serious money on Clif bars, there’s always gels…

I was going with 40mm WTB Nanos in the CX bike, but now it looks like I’m not going unfortunately.

If you can get the Ridgeback Scoot for £50-something its a bargain. At £75 it was well worth the money last April, it’s been great for my lad for the year. A mate’s son has the Islabike; it’s a bit lighter and has a headset that stops the bars spinning, but otherwise I couldn’t tell the difference. The Scoot was light enough that my son at 2 1/4 could pick it up himself, which is all that matters.

I second the comment get one with a rear brake, it means I’ve been teaching the son to use it prior to getting him a pedal bike on which he won’t have a choice.

Worked fine on some rocky trails in the Peak District last week:

Thread resurrection (see, I can use the search forum!):

I’m in the Peak District on hols next week. Carlos, you’r loop sounds like just what I’m after for a day out; I’ve had a good look at the route using OS maps but just to make sure you wouldn’t happen to have a gpx file for that would you? My email’s in my profile if so. Ta.

chiefgrooveguru => Thanks for the reply.

Debating the Minion SS a bit more over lunch. Where does the STW hive mind think this sits in terms of grip & rolling resistance compared with the Ardent 2.4 (29er) I have on the rear at the moment?

Also interested in the 2.3 Minion SS as a rear. Is anybody running it on a wide rim?

I’d be putting it on a 30mm internal-width rim, and looking at the pictures of the tread I’m wondering whether that’ll bring the sideknobs into contact with the ground all the time?

Specialized road frame MY2002, lovely stiff light aluminium frame, after 6 years I found a crack forming from a air (frame casting? Don’t know much about aluminium tubing production) hole at the rear of the drive side seat stay. With nothing to lose, I gave it to the welder father-in-law who passed it on to an alloy specialist welder at his work to have a go at fixing it NB the crack had not yet gone all the way round.

Got it back like this with a comment ‘it went better than expected’ ie he didn’t completely destroy it even though the tubing was so thin.

I used it for a bit of time trialling and to be fair it cracked at a different weld after another year; the repair held ok. I suspect with a MTB and it having cracked through already, YMM considerably V. Bad luck.

Images won’t work because I’ve got spaces in the folder name, duh, so clicky links:
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm30/Dyffers/Spesh%20repair%20Nov%2008/IMGP0005.jpg
http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm30/Dyffers/Spesh%20repair%20Nov%2008/IMGP0006.jpg

Interesting read OP, having bought Gotama’s QH frame a couple of months ago.

I’m still tinkering with setup on mine but would agree about how short it feels, even in XL and me at only 6’2″. However, I quite like the shortness so far, perhaps as I’ve ridden it exclusively SS with a 140mm fork so steeper climbs have been ridden out of the saddle rather than seated and forward over the front wheel. The shortness feels like a bonus pointing downwards.

I think it’s a keeper, but I keep looking at the Yelli Screamy frame hanging in the garage thinking it makes a more rounded do everything bike than the QH. Hmmm… Dropper and gears to be fitted next.

Question for other owners: How is your leather downtube wrap doing? Seems like the regular soaking / mud covering / hosing down can’t be good for it, but removing it seems wrong.

I have a convertible. The only use I’ve found for the removable sleeves is quicker to dry it out post-ride with them off. Not sure I’d bother again, just go for the long sleeve one if it’s identical in every other way (great jacket overall).

The simple and free but time-consuming way to do this (for my Etrex 30 at least) is:

Take a screen grab of the Strava heatmap you want;
Import the screen grab into Google Earth (maximum size is 1024×1024 I think);
Move and stretch the layer image you’ve created so it sits on top of the Google Earth map at the correct scale;
Export / save this layer as a .kmz file (this adds positional data to the image);
Put kmz file(s) into the same folder on your Garmin unit as your other maps are in;
Use ‘setup map’ menu on Garmin unit to enable ‘custom maps’.

I’ve used this a few times to get some local 1:25k OS maps on my Etrex 30. It’s frustratingly slow but worth it for small areas.

Has anyone ever had any success making their own ice tyres?

Ideas here and here for a start.

Love marzipan. Tried it on a day ride years ago, 200g cut into cubes. The next day…SPOTS! Never again :roll:

How about the length of Wales in a weekend…twice, on the Bryan Chapman audax route? :lol:

http://www.aukweb.net/events/detail/16-195/

Definitely go for it, just be aware of vintage standards like 120/126/130 rear spacing and be extra careful if you have an old French frame as you might have fun with not-easily-available BB widths and thread gauge etc.

Some of mine from past and present:

2001 (ok, not that vintage) lugged steel Serotta with SRAM carbon 10spd and RS80 wheels:

1990 Merckx Super Corsa (sold to a mate who put Campag Centaur on it):

1980s Resprayed Raleigh 531 that I cold set the rear dropouts from 126mm to 130mm to use 9spd gears:

Ardent 2.4 front paired up with my Ikon 2.2 rear if I want some more grip than both Ikons.

(Bad mobile phone pic of) Niner Air9:

Had a Canfield Yelli before…

My purple Yelli (formally Gotama’s) with a 140mm Rev and some 35mm rims

Burly enough for BPW, light enough for big days out.

Exactly. 28.5lb with the P35s/Chunky Monkey 2.4 tyres, 26.5lb if I switch to Crests with Ardent/Ikon combo.

I work nearby so have a number of fast XC routes of about 10-15 miles (to fit in a lunch break). Not much local tech, just bits of fast fun singletrack with some gravel bashing to link them up. The best bits tend to be cheeky trails which I do on a rigid bike otherwise its too easy/boring. I’d put Purbecks into this category too. Head for Puddletown forest if you want a bit more technical stuff.

My email’s in my profile if you want a few gpx files.

Great climb, rode it on a lovely calm summers day in 2010. Here’s the view from near the top looking down at the hairpins:

is this turning into a long travel 29er HT thread?

Oh go on then… :D

Gotama’s old XL Yelli frame, mine since summer last year. The ano purple has grown on me. Love the ride.

I run mine with 2.4s on P35 rims, so comfort isn’t a problem… but that might account for why I don’t think it flys up climbs :wink:

That’s quite a jump!

The Rebas were borrowed from my Niner, which is out and out fast XC. Although the Yelli felt fine with them on they were always just a placeholder until I got a bigger fork at a sale price; the brief for the Yelli was ‘not another XC bike’.

On days when I dream about riding things like the Highland Trail Race, I reckon the perfect bike would be a 100mm-forked, Crest-wheeled Yelli, so it would climb ok but you could enjoy the descents too. :D

Started with 100mm Rebas on my Yelli last year, which convinced me to buy the 140mm Revs a couple of months later. No regrets, loads of fun pointing down which is what I built it for, but it’s far from an XC whippet up the hills.