another big Hebden Bridge fan here.
This one’s basically a couple of loops from the Stubbing Wharf in HB:
https://www.strava.com/activities/498739785
Just do the Southern loop if you’re short on time. (NB all cheeky)

and don’t forget the stove-top espresso pot

After years of mainly pretty good service from various bastid-a-like clones, I’ve finally bitten the bullet and bought a Hope R8 for the bars.
Ran an XT40 for the whole of last year, bright enough, but it didn’t have the spread and following a mate with his R8 made me realise it was a poor substitute.
Still got a Solarstorm X2 on the lid which has been faultless for at least 3 years now.

I’ve got something similar to (but cheaper than) this:
vango-dry-holdall-90litre-electric-blue

Hmm, mixed feelings here.
Bearings on the current most-used bike have lasted two years before needing changing (Liteville 301). That’s a drastic improvement over the Five that needed bearings every 4-6 months. So some things are definitely getting better.

Drive-trains are the bit that niggle me most though. Alloy chainrings FFS why?
And my pet hate – Manufacturers bolting an alloy cog on the end of a cassette so that the otherwise acceptable wear-rate becomes limited by this soft bit that lasts less than half as long! arghh!!

Rivington MTB group on facebook maybe for getting in touch with a few locals, but they don’t actually seem to organise any rides, they just chat!

Bogtrotters do a regular every-Wednesday night ride in the area (Rivi, Abbey Village, Longridge, Pendle, etc) for those of us who can’t be bothered travelling to Lakes on a Wed evening.

Big Mac strikes again.

Another chunky monkey fan here (run tubeless on the front of the HT).

BUT, the smorg’ was absolutely useless on the back of the hardtail. Nowhere near tough enough to take the battering that it’s going to get on a hardtail.
My smorg’ experience lasted about an hour into the first ride before pinchflatting through the carcass way beyond the magical capabilities of the stans fluid. I wouldn’t contemplate anything less than a dual ply Maxxis on the rear of my hardcore hardtail.

Girlfriend in a (chicken) Korma

Personally, I wouldn’t care how he chose to do the job. If he wants to adopt unsafe practices, why would that be a problem to the customer?
If his work is poor, that’s different.

Sorry, I’d assumed you meant this one (which is bloody brilliant, some very challenging tech in places): http://streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?X=323120&Y=509040&A=Y&Z=120

Best bit of the Lakes, you’re spoilt for choice.
All the above are good suggestions.

The descent from Sprinkling Tarn that nobeer’ suggests is Grains Gill, and yes it is that good.

Also consider Bash extension by hike-a-bike up from Honister to Dale Head and descending off Hindscarth ridge and Scope End (another nice tech fest) then from Littletown back over between Catbells and Maiden Moor.

also, Whiteless Pike from Braithwaite, down to Buttermere (back along Rigg Beck as mentioned earlier)
or
Blencathra Centre; Blencathra; Scales Tarn descent; Scales; Blencathra Centre; Lonscale Fell; Skiddaw; Ullock Pike (big day out, about 6000′ of ascent)

This:

inserts are crap for riding. Avoid

because of this:

When your glasses mist up, rather than one layer of mist to squint through, you have two!

I’m running 40mm Syntace rims with a 2.35″ supergravity HansDampf on the rear.
After 6 months’ use on rocky Lakes tech the sidewalls wept Stans fluid steadily and I’ve had to replace the tyre before the tread even looked 50% worn :?

That Pedalnorth route looks like a truly awful waste of altitude.

The gpsies route is a bit short and the descent of Gatescarth to Haweswater is another waste of altitude. This is where a climb from the top of Gatescarth over Harter Fell is better, but then you’d have an even shorter route!

justinbieber’s route is the pick of that bunch. It’s spookily similar to the route we took exactly a week earlier. We just did a bit more off road at the start of the route.
Nan Bield Twice

If you don’t fancy the techy descent North off Nan Bield, just drop that (and the return to Nan Bield over Harter Fell) and descend from Nan Bield South back into Kentmere.

R4; Today and PM, on the drive to/from work

That’s about it.

Hard to look beyond a Mondeo estate…

Suggest you Google the route that they use for Manchester – Blackpool ride. It would take you North from Preston onto the quieter back-roads.

Yes, they would replace this under warranty if not 2nd hand.

and yes russyh, the B1 does not appear to be any better than the original in this respect. I have just had a B1 replaced under warranty for same reason. It was in turn a warranty replacement for older version which suffered same problem.

By contrast, I’ve also got an original (silver collar) non-stealth one which is now way out of warranty. When that one eventually failed, a rebuild sorted it and it’s been faultless for over a year since.

Until recently, I’d always been a big fan of XT.
Had 4 bikes all running M785 XT, from a hardtail to a Patriot, just changed rotor size and pad material accordingly.
BUT…
Over the last year (and typically when the brakes were around 2 years old) I’ve had problems with almost all of them. First symptom is typically black fluid at the lever end when bleeding. Often accompanied by lever feel/reach/bite point all becoming less consistent.
Final straw was going OTB on a set of Calderdale steps after a lever pulled to the bar 8O
Have now de-Shimano’d by fleet and gone Hope E4 instead.

To be honest, I did like the instant bite and the lever shape of the XT and the change has taken a bit of getting used to but I’ve adjusted my braking style and prefer the E4 over-all.

Having just gone through this, I found that the cheapest way to insure a learner was by buying additional insurance to let a learner drive a car already owned and insured by a parent. These policies lapse immediately they pass the test. Choice of car seamed to have little effect on the cost of these policies (My son learned in a 140PS Mondeo diesel estate, my daughter in a 125PS Auris)

Once they pass, it’s a whole different cost model though.

When daughter passed earlier this year, the best solution for us was to buy a 3 year old C1 and her to insure it in her own name as owner and main driver, on an Admiral multicar policy which was already in place for mine and the Mrs’s cars . This was about £100 per month.

This is worth a read:
http://www.bikerumor.com/2013/04/11/tech-speak-brake-fluid-break-down-and-implications-for-road-disc-updated/%5B/url%5D

You’re not going anywhere until you get that van finished Tom!

My B1 stealth 150 (which was a warranty replacement) is sagging too. Warranty yet again then…..

Fancied the syntace Titans but apparently they fall apart,

Ashy,
I’m running them on two bikes.
The big bearing and its seal were the weak point that gave me a few problems with crap getting in on the first set. Eventually lead to big bearing failing.
When I replaced the bearings and seals at about 1 year, I rebuilt with marine grease and periodically use the end-cap as a grease gun to purge more marine grease through the axle and bearings. It works a treat. Negligible play in the replacement bearings since (about 18 months since rebuild).

Since bought another set of Titans for another bike and adopted the same regime from new. Zero problems thus far. :D

A friend of mine guides groups down that way all Summer. Based in Torbole, you can contact him via this page.
Michael “Cycle”[/url].

Loads of great riding around there. Love the area.

Top of Gatescarth over Harter Fell is our preferred route.
Better than wasting hard-earned altitude by dropping to Haweswater (which is a bit feeble as a descent)
There’s some push/carry terrain but a well defined path on the way up. The first bit of the descent from Harter Fell into Nan Bield is less well defined but you can basically take whatever line you want. Lower down you’ll pick up a more obvious path into Nan Bield. Nicely techy in places :)

Probably the one-up E-type
http://www.oneupcomponents.com/products/chainguide-s3

We’ve hike-a-biked up Tongue Gill footpath, further to the South/East of Great Tongue bridleway. It’s a better surfaced path all the way to Grisedale Tarn and lower third maybe is just about ridable.

No idea re time, but can’t have taken long as that was our second ascent in the day of Helvellyn and we had lunch at the top of Tongue Gill.

Route was… up from Glenridding; down Birk Side/Wythburn; up Tongue Gill & Dollywagon; down Sticks & Seldom Seen :)

The 30T looks pretty close to the minimum that a 104BCD crankset could take.

This is correct. You can’t get smaller than 30t round or 32t oval chainring onto a 104BCD crank.

I’ve got a Shimano e-type bracket so guess that would work?

That’s what I’m planning to use

Ton, you need to drag the Sweary lads out of retirement. Blower and JimBobTed’s videos were often the start point for our routes ;)

We’ve done Wetherlam, St Sunday & Red Pike this year after a quick flick through the Sweary videos for inspiration :)

stevied, the Liteville’s take an e-type front mech (one bolt goes in the hole in the seattube; the other bolts to a backplate held by the BB cup)
You could therefore mount an e-type top guide in conjunction with an e-type backplate.

For me, that rule of thumb is when you no longer have to pedal up because you’ve got the luxury of an uplift and the downhill that follows involves an element of “wheels off the ground”.

I’ve ridden Finale and Garda.

Garda has a really good mixture of trails, mostly rocky but not silly tech. I’ve been three times now. 601 is a must, Navene and “Gnarly Ponale” are pretty good too. The uplift is mostly booked the day before or on the day, certainly not weeks before. I recommend Luca Bike Shuttle, who’s based in Torbole.
Look up “Michael Cycle”, mentioned in here for guiding or advice. He’s out there for about 6 months of the year and knows the place well.

Finale is mostly more flowy and the trails are cut/built for bikes, though it has a reasonable amount of tech in there too. I’ve only been once but will go again. Used Eze Freeride uplift when we were there. Most of their customers weren’t staying with them, just booking uplift. All the uplift companies in Finale offer guiding + uplift together. They don’t do uplift alone, but it’s definitely worth having the guide for linking the trails up efficiently.

Glad you enjoyed in Stevedoc. Always a pleasure to bump into somebody off here.

I have a 45650b, and they are not long. Pretty short actually.

I had the 456EvoTi (26″). 45650b is exactly the same ETT.
ie. yes, quite short.
6’2″ here and also looking at same bikes as OP
My shortlist is currently:
P7
zero AM
Liteville H-3 (but looks like these are sold out before even available)

yes…. Wharncliffe would be the obvious on-your-doorstep omission

Is there an environmental factor, like heat or humidity, ive fpund my sidewall sweating profusely the last few weesks

That’s a thought…
Mine have all been sweating like a (insert analogy of your choice) for the last few weeks too. Supergravity HD & Mary, snakeskin Mary. All with fresh Stans in them. Tyres mostly about 6 months old and none having done this previously.

What’s this “scrub them” thing all about? I’ve not heard of needing to remove release agent before. Walls don’t appear to be repelling the Stans fluid.

Maxxis Larsen TT is still my go-to Summer tyre. Dual ply usually as it’s a bit on the narrow side, which would suit your situation.