Timbur

Don’t see why it wouldn’t work with the Campy BB??? (Although obviously, you will have to loosen the bolt when/if it starts to move)

It’s not just an idea BTW. That’s what I’ve done previously to remove stuck BBs. If you take it to a (good) LBS, they will do exactly the same.

Good luck

PS – Some bike shops hate jobs like this – others seem to have a bit of a thing about them. LBS wouldn’t accept payment for trying to removing one of mine despite breaking 2 vices over a fortnight. I paid them with a crate of beer in the end 🙂

@randomjeremy

Excellent – The flatter (less bulky) profile was what was attracting me to them. I was also fairly confident that they would last longer than 661 gear

You may be able to answer a question for me then. What’s the sizing like? Currently using med Kyle Straits which are a good fit on fairly skinny legs

Soak in lots of releasing/penetrating spray over several days

Then pipe freeze spray followed by hot water ( a few times)
Disclaimer: freezing spray may crack your paintwork

Then more penetrating spray

Get a high quality tool (some of them are terrible) that fits properly Make sure it is one that will work with the flats of a large spanner (rather than a socket drive one) Reason for this follows….

Bolt the tool into the square taper (using a washer over the end of the end of tool) to stop tool jumping out of BB teeth (I do this as matter of routine now on square tapers)

Before you apply force, heat BB shell up with a blow torch
Disclaimer: this will damage your paintwork

Give it some welly with your large adjustable spanner OR better …clamp the flats of the BB tool in a well mounted vice and turn the frame. Watch out for the vice breaking!

Before/in case you were going to consider it – do not use a hammer on adjustable spanner (the adjuster worm will break)

If all of this fails (ie the teeth strip) and you really really want to save the bike, then your last option will be to weld a socket to the BB and then use a long extension bar (worked for me after LBS broke 2 vices trying to get one out)

Kyle Straits – worn em for up to 10 hour bike rides. Occasionally rub

Usually don’t

Side protection aswell as front protection

Don’t tend to rotate as much on initial impact as others I have used

Don’t slide down your legs

I’ve been considering the TLD ones as an alternative – not sure why though as the KSs have served me well. I’m on my second pair. Reasonably long lasting (for 661 stuff)

For many years people have been brainwashed into believing that they MUST get on the housing ladder

Yes, but the alternative is renting which in the UK makes you a second class citizen. It’s getting better, but 10 years ago, trying to insure your posessions (eg a mountain bike) if you were a tenant rather than an owner was hard work.

The reason that renting is not a long term viable solution in the UK is that whilst we could feasibly rent all the way up to retirement, many of us would not be able to afford UK rental prices on what our pensions are going to be.

Ask a chemist — they’ll tell you that Bonjela isn’t really much use in comparison to Adcortyl in Orabase

I used to get em regularly and then followed advice to cut out toothpastes that contain sodium lauryl sulfate. SLS aggravates minor gum damage and turns it into an ulcer. Also acts as a skin irritant for some people. Details of clinical study below.

It worked for me. After about 4 weeks away from it, I stopped getting ulcers.

Herlofson BB, Barkvoll P (June 1996). “The effect of two toothpaste detergents on the frequency of recurrent aphthous ulcers”. Acta Odontol. Scand. 54 (3): 150–3

I’ve always used the Identiti one. It used to be marketed as 29.8. It was then mislabelled by O Neal for a while as 30 and easy to find on CR. Dunno now/anymore whether it is really 29.8 or 30. Nice bit of kit – and a damn site better made than the Planet X one I had on my Inbred previously

Just to be completely clear – not ridden them myself!

That said….They were pretty much the only tyre available to purchase on the TransWales 2008, so many people experienced them, or if not first hand, got to witness their performance on other people’s bikes over the space of seven (mainly wet) days. Utterly hopeless as soon as riders got anywhere near wet rock from what I saw (repeatedly). By all accounts/from rider feedback – pretty hopeless over a variety of terrain. A few people have tried selling them on in our club over last 12 months – with zero success. Never seen one tyre so universally slated by riders.

No offence intended to anyone who has a special place in their heart for them. 😀

Gav Must hook up with you guys at some point. Loved the “Another Rubbish Mountainbike ride in the Lakes” vid – Quality. Was up your neck of the woods with Simon et al on Saturday and then round Claife on Sunday – in fabulous weather 😀 Off to check out the Gap route in Brecon this w/e.

Fluff

Eh?
If it doesn’t come loose, why do you have to do it up really tight 😯

simonm – Fair enough – You’re a man after my own heart 😀

Hate going out to do a ride and not being able to ride a new bit of trail somewhere

I had an old style Hope skewer – Experienced it loosening a few times. Never had that experience with Shimano.

Was unable to reist the mountain biker magpie mentality when building up a bike recently and ordered one of the new Hope skewers mark 2 – which I understood had been “tweaked” slightly so they didn’t come undone.

Result (after several months use): It’s much worse than the original Hope skewers. Repeatedly comes loose.

(rear skewer BTW)

Perhaps slightly off topic – if so…apologies, but why would you want to descend that anyway? Surely the pennine BW 1km east which is a cracking bit of descent is a much better option. It involves less descent on road, and drops you out 200 metres from SV trail. I may be missing something here – if so – like I said – apologies.

Just ordered some ceramic bearings for Hope BB. When they arrived I realised that the £30 price tag was just for one bearing not a pair. Sent it straight back and ordered (a pair of steel) bearings

Sixty sheets to replace the bearings when you can actually buy the entire Hope ceramic BB for £88. Bu**er that.

PS £30 extra (over cost of steel) for pair of ceramics where I looked

LOL

@Bananaworld….

Many thanks mate

I just discovered this in a lightbulb moment halfway through replying to TJ. Have only just spotted your post. Having just done exactly that….it works…The improvement is phenomenal

Missus will be most pleased.

@Tandem Jeremy

TJ – Interesting. Is it theory or for real? It’s always seemed to me that the pistons retract under the vacuum that’s generated in the pipe when the brake lever is released

I’m assuming you mean the pistons and seals in the caliper (as opposed to lever) I can see the seal in the caliper could drag the piston when it’s moving out, but actually pulling it back into the caliper again – I’m not so sure. That would surely need seals with some fairly large dimensions to be able to distort to the extent that they can pull a caliper back in about 1/2 a mm?? And the idea with seals is (usually) that they distort as little as possible

However – you got me thinking about stiction type effects – which made me drop the wheels out and squeeze both brake levers a little bit to try and overcome any stiction. Have now put wheels back in and …Wow….phenomenal difference! Seriously…massive difference

There has got to be be some sort of stiction/drag/lag type effect on the calipers. I’m not sure if it’s for reasons TJ said, but definately that kind of effect. With the rotors out, the pistons can move a little bit closer together and when they separate again, they don’t move quite as far apart as previously.

Fixed 😆

Cheers

Fluff

@ scaredy pants –
Because if you move them closer to the bars to accomodate small hands…. given that there is an inch of free stroke… the brakes won’t have even come on by the time the levers are hitting the bars

The servo wave action is what I was referring to when I mentioned the cam/free stroke adjuster

Try the Five Ten Karvers?

Not great (in terms of suitability for wet weather) but a lot better than the original Impacts

Not had them long enough to tell if the layer on the inside of the sole has improved

Scout

I'm sure other headsets will cause the same mark.

Chris Kings are uniquely designed different to other headsets. The scoring is a result of the flex that is allowed by the "o" ring present in the CK design. This is not possible in standard "aheadsets" as they have a metal compression ring which locks the steerer tube in place wrt to the headset bearing inner sleeves (…assuming they are correctly fitted and adjusted)

Missing photos from earlier post if anyone is interested

TALASs

Air Pikes

Brand new coil Pikes 🙁

bonj

I have the same model – eTrex vista HCx and I have the same problem.

I have mine set to "Track up" as opposed to "North up". Some of the time it works. Some times it doesn't. When it suddenly inverts (ie rotates 180 degrees when you're not looking ….that is really confusing. (BTW – In response to Simwit's suggestion…mine is set to navigate "off road")

I haven't tried turning the electronic compass off though. Will give that a go this w/e

Rigid GT Timberline – bought second hand in the mid 90s for £220.
Still got it (altho has a very erratic set of Indy XCs on it rather than the original rigids – which to this day I regret binning 🙁
Still going strong
Still commute to work on it and rode John O Groats to Land's End on it in April this year. I love that bike 🙂

Malham – Malham Tarn – Mastiles Lane – Kettlewell – Cam Head Road – Starbotton – Old Cote Moor …and back via Mastiles. Gonna be a long one. Can't wait 🙂

Will Windows movie maker not do this?

(Comes free with Windows Vista/XP)

Reports by independant economics advisory bodies such as London School of Economics have highlighted that the state of the economy whilst poor is actually not as bad as the government is portraying. The Tory government has an agenda (as would a Labour one) and either of them would "frame" the circumstances at the time to justify whatever they were doing.

Some of the cuts being made/proposed are arguably more extreme than are perhaps required, run the risk of causing further/longer recession and are perhaps only being made because the tories wanted to make them anyway…. and the existing debt gives them a justification for doing it.

Underpinning the Tory ethos is the idea of prvatised industry. Plenty of what is going to happen in the next few years (alternative schools) is privatisation – just under another name. Privatisation has it's pros (efficiency) and cons (too much emphasis on the £ sign). The main thing about it though is it's (largely) irreversible. Whatever the tories sell off to their wealthy buddies can never be bought back. I don't like the idea of anything to do with the education system being run by executive boards whose primary objective is profit. The idea that this is irreversible worries the hell out of me.

..or the La's "There She Goes"

…or the UK's most popular wedding toon "Every breath you take"

Our T25 up in Highlands

and on the N coast

dickie

I ride with lots of people who run tubeless…UST, kits & ghetto. To bets of my knowledge none of 'em have had this happen.

Intriguing. The sun is gonna make the air in the tyre expand but can't see the pressure increasing that much and you said they were tubeless (UST) tyres. Not got anything strange in there that may be reacting with rubber solution to form a gas?? (God knows what though.)

Try a different sealant? Give Jon at JRA a bell and see if he's heard of this happening??

IME jockey wheel type tensioners work a lot better than rubber roller type tensioners – They give better chainline (rollers seem to create/allow side to side movement of chain) and jockeys also run smoother and quieter

Obviously neither are as good/tyrouble-free as a SS setup without any tensioner

Been in the market for a new (big) bag myself recently

Looked at
New version of Camelbak HAWG (what I been using for last 5 years)
Camelbak Don
Dakine Apex
Osprey – the 18L one – can't remember what it's called

Ruled out Camelbak – new ones do look nice but they still haven't sorted weak zips out – seems to be the cause of many Camlebaks going to an early grave. Perhaps they've reached a point where they're "resting on their laurels"??

Ruled out Osprey – Loved all the features. The easy in-out bladder looks good …but rip stop fabric??? Good for lightweightyness – ace for eg fell running gear…not so good for something you're gonna be landing on every now and then at speed near rocks. The other thing that put me off the Osprey is …I could be wrong but I think their manufacturing is being provided by North Face – who ain't exactly known for quality any more and have no UK warranty base (It's in Belgium). Go compare a TNF hydration pack with an Osprey one if you ain't convinced. From (partners) experience, the TNF hydration packs are not very good.

Opted for the Dakine Apex – which is a really really nice bag. And it's really comfy to wear – more so than I expected. It also looks like it's bombproof in terms of material, zips and stitching. Number of pockets and internal layout is really well thought out. When you first put it on, the back bit feels strange but within a few minutes just seems to mould to your back.

Unfortunately Dakine use Hydrapak bladders – which I don't find anywhere near as good as Camelbak bladders. From what I hear, they're a lot better than older Hydrapaks….but…. The very latest HydraPak bladders (2010 – some models) have now had the 90 degree bite valve replaced with a truly awful 135 degree bite valve which is really useful for getting water to….. your ear. God knows what they were thinking with this redesign 🙄 It also has a really low flow rate compared to previous Hydrapak bladder bite valve (which was already lower than the Camelbak)

SKS Raceblades seem to be the standard for most roadies. I got a set and they work fine

Don't know much about the cruds.

Be interested to hear how yours have performed after "field testing" as need another set and the cruds are obviously cheaper

PS – Yes ..With the Bachelor – as you suggested …you can run chain under or over the roller depending on chain slack/frame geometry etc.

John

As others have said, get a decent chainring. Goldtecs from BETD are cheap (ish), work for me and look nice. And obviously…lots of people like the Surlys

(At some point, would also be worth investing in a quality SS chain made by eg KMC. NB I didn't say "expensive", I said "quality")

But..in addition to that, I had a lot of problems with the Gusset Bachelor chain tensioner. The bit that the chain runs across is quite broad and I found that the chain either got pushed to one side or the other – enough to push the chainline out so that the chain was feeding badly onto teeth. Over or under-tensioning would not eliminate this. I then swapped the Bachelor out for one of the standard jockey wheel type tensioners and problem vanished immediately. The othe big diff with running a jockey wheel type tensioner as opposed to a rubber roller is that the jockey wheel ones are sooooo much smoother and quieter.

Strange – 2 crown races and 2 different forks.

Just a though along the lines of QC issue at Ritchey. …. It it was me, I'd grab any old different crown race off someone/LBS/bottom of toolbox and see if you have same issue. If your borrowed crown race fits correctly…. would suggest an issue with Ritchey manufacturing. If it's loose…suggests your steerer tube worn.

Al

The bearing has a taper on it's inner wall. The crown race on an XL2 has a taper that marries up to the bearing

If the crown race is cut, as you tighten the headset, the bearing pushes down and clamps the crown seat onto the steerer tube.

The XL2 and several FSA headsets came as standard with slotted crown races up until a few years ago. Slotted races and none slotted ones were interchangeable. If you had eg an XL2, you could either buy a slotted crown race or an unslotted one, or you could buy an unslotted one and cut your own slot in it.

1) Fisher Outdoor I would have thought

2) Don't know

If the play is due to re-using a crown race seat several times (ie race is worn ) Just buy a new crown race.

If it's the steerer tube that's worn – look at botches. If there's lots of play it's easy to shim it. V small amounts of play = harder to shim and whatever you use (have done tinfoil before) will probably wear out pretty quick. In which case: get a headset with a split (compression style) lower crown race like wot FSA used to make if you can still find one …or cut a crown race yourself. I checked with tech support at FSA and they said no issues with cutting lower crown race on an XL2 as the lower bearing will press onto the crown race taper and clamp it onto the steerer tube…much like the upper compression ring. (Clearly the design of the lower race is important here and this fix won't work for all headsets)

Electrical tape??? That's gonna get worn through in 1 ride

When you say "How much of an issue is this gonna be?"…If you mean is it OK to run with a loose headset – I wouldn't . You'll cause further wear at an accelerated rate. The wear will either be in the crown race (easily replaceable) or the steerer tube (very expensive)

Just wondering if anyone who has posted here has actually emailed CK about this and got a response??

Nice mag phillyd

Would have loved to come along to the chat. Love biking in all it's many forms as do many people on here, but my biggest passion is mtb so chances of me living anywhere near London are between nought and zero.

You visiting anywhere else?

My old air pikes – recently removed. I assumed when I saw the groove that it was my fault ie that I must have run 'em with headset loose. The groove is quite deep. Easily deep enough to feel with your fingers

My TALAS 36s. Fitted vs a Cane Creek headset for 4 rides. Just spotted this today

Which worried me enough to whip off the brand new coil Pikes I fitted just over 2 weeks ago. Same again

I've also had this happen on a pair of Z150s a few years back now and assumed then as I did with the air Pikes that it was my fault and I must have ridden with HS loose at some point.

Upper race of CK is coming off before next ride.