Have to agree with nick, Exposure really isn’t the only answer. My cheap and badly sealed Chinese light is 8-10 years old and works fine. My helmet light is a cheap Fluxient from Torchy which is at least 5 years old.Both can have their batteries replaced by off the shelf units not like many where the battery can’t be removed and all you can do when the battery fails is throw the whole thing away.

Agreed IHN. Plus  I find shorts decay at different rates. I have some of the Galibier mentioned above which were excellent when new but after two years of light use ( they rotate with other pairs) seem to have lost their comfort whereas an ancient pair of Polaris still feel good

Oh, and there isn’t a proper exit for the drinks tube, it just has to poke through the main compartment zip .

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Can’t comment on the 7 but I have the Seral 4 which is poor. The bladder takes most of the room and is a pain to get in when full. The bite valve and tube have a magnetic locator which is useless. Every time you move it comes off and dangles in your chain.</p>

Are those bars Corner bars , jp-t853?

How are you getting on with them?

They didn’t tell me this until after the depot had shut (to customers) for the weekend.

Don’t hold your breath if you have ordered a bike. CRC now use Parcel Farce for bike deliveries who seem as efficient as ever. I have been waiting for a bike for ten days now which is moving around their network with glacial slowness. It takes 2-3 days to cover each stage. Currently it is waiting in the delivery centre about eight miles from my house where it has been for a day and a half presumably waiting for the horse and cart. If it doesn’t arrive Monday, complaints to CRC. I wouldn’t feel so annoyed if I hadn’t had to pay for this ‘service’ . At least smaller stuff is free.

<p style=”text-align: left;”>If you’re happy with a separate battery pack, Magicshine have an offer on their M something * 900 for £99 which is a good deal on an excellent light</p>
*Can’t remember exact designation

<p style=”padding-left: 40px;”>I was always that fat lad at the back. The group I ride with are all consistently fitter and faster but being basically roadies they slow when it gets technical allowing me to catch up. Since I bought an emtb I have tried to remain with the group and not fly off. This has had a strange affect on the strongest in the group. He was always very tolerant of waiting for me but now he doesn’t have to, he is very grumpy when I turn up on the ebike. You’ld think he would be grateful not having to hang about but no. Perhaps he was nearer the limit than he liked to admit and needed the rests!</p>

I’m with garagedweller. I don’t understand the whole retro thing. I like looking at old bikes that I have owned or wanted to but there’s no way I’ld want to ride them again. I am not saying every new bike has been what I had hoped but they have always been better than the last one.

Have they stopped selling wheels?

There’s rims and spokes but I couldn’t see any complete wheels on the website

When I put the shirt in my basket that’s what it told me it would cost to ship to the UK

Ran the same for years without any problems. I had a lot more trouble with a 31.6 Thompson in a 31.6 frame.

I doubt very much whether most bobbies on the beat would know or be able to recognise the difference. In my motorcycling days I used to ride with a Police man who said most coppers just didn’t get the training to identify technical illegalities. He was talking about learner power laws for motor bikes but I am sure the same applies to ebicycles v. emotorbikes

In a PI in Inverness the staff made a point of giving us a ground floor room when they saw we had bikes so we didn’t have to faff with bikes in the loft. Good service

Even old crap is a target for thieves. When my son was at uni in London I gave him a succession of old bikes which got nicked including a 30yr old flat bar tourer which was cheap and nasty when new. When he started working somebody in his office had a bike nicked from next to his desk while out at lunch!

So, just buy the cheapest thing that actually works and be prepared to do it again soon

I had an original Scandium Scandal which I loved but succumbed to desire for a FS so sold it. A few years down the line I had a bit more money and thought it would be nice to have an HT as well. The 456 was on special so I bought one. At first I thought it was just me because I hated it but while out on a ride in the Peak I stumbled on a Cotic test day and rode a Soul. I couldn’t believe two 26″ steel hardtails could be so different. I bought one and 13 years on, I still have it ( as well as various other bikes. Didn’t put me off PlanetX though, I bought a carbon road bike which is fine.

Anybody tried bird scarers or scarecrows?

Any recommendations in Aboyne or Ballater?
I usually stay in Braemar but I have done most local stuff a few times and often end up driving to Ballater

That’s the route I usually use. Not a spectacular downhill but a nice drop into the woods behind Thirnswood Hall or straight down into Healaugh itself and a short ride into Reeth

An epicondylitis clasp is your friend. It’s a cheap brace which fits around the affected area. It won’t cure you but it will ease pain and increase grip. A few years ago I couldn’t twist the throttle on my motorcycle due to TE. The clasp really helped.

That was my feeling too. My HT is set up with carbon forks ,light wheels and fairly fast tyres and seems ,for an old giffer like me, to do a reasonable job as a gravel bike.
Perhaps not for big road mileages but for an event like the Gralloch, ideal.

Just had a flick through the pictures linked above and wondered if anybody did this on an xc bike? There were a lot of photos so didn’t see them all but everyone seemed to be on pukka gravel bikes

I think the size up thing might scupper my plans as there seem very few Sidis in 49!

Yep. We were once out and his very tired chain snapped. I repaired it with a quick link (he had no tools of course) and we managed to get back ok. The following week his chain snapped. What bad luck, I thought, a new chain snapping. But of course it wasn’t a new chain, he hadn’t bothered replacing the old one which had more quicklinks than normal ones.
He also once turned up for a weekend away two spokes short in his back wheel. He hadn’t noticed , he said…..

I have Shimano 4 pot on the front and Meroca 4 pot on the back which cost £28 from eBay. Difficult to tell the difference in performance once original pads were replaced. More of a faff to bleed but no complaints at the price.

My problem with bibs is a long torso. If I get a size to fit my waist the straps are often too short and pull the pad up to squash my unmentionables. Any with adjustable straps?

I have been following this with interest as I am contemplating a similar decision.
I have a Solaris max but it really is a lump.
Even with light wheels and carbon forks, it still feels like a tank. Is this just my perception? Will I notice a genuine improvement if I move to something like the Yeti? Or is this all angels dancing on the head of a pin with incremental gains imperceptible to a clumsy oaf like me?

What puzzles me is that no electronics/computer genius hasn’t gutted Shimano motors and software to enable a fix for the most common problems. After all we constantly hear about major malware attacks, obviously there isn’t enough cash in it too tempt the serious players.

That’s inspired me to get out! I am actually a local but never seem to ride these trails because I rode them so much back in the day. I need to relive scenarios like my then eleven year old son leaving me completely for dead on the Beast wearing trakky bottoms ,Velcro trainers and on his mother’s Kona. Unfortunately he has now lost interest despite being by far the best cyclist in the family!

As well as length you need to consider space between bikes. I have a Thule velocompact which is fine with two road bikes but a real pain with two mtbs. It always ends in stem twisting, pedal manoeuvring and seat post pain.

My DT Swiss hub does this all the time which is particularly annoying as I have another set of wheels for that bike that I change fairly regularly using same cassette. I now use a wooden drift to whack it from the disc side without even taking the disc off. I did price a replacement steel freehub but it was £75 so I will stick to brutalism.

I tried the Barzo/Mescal combo but didn’t get on with them. I switched to Wolfpack, can’t remember the name but the more xc version
Very good but hard to find. I think Kids racing had stocks.

I had been reinventing my own gravel phase. As I have got older and more rickety, I don’t feel the need to ‘push the envelope ‘ of my skills. A nice tootle along a remote track with a nice caff at the end is my choice these days and it seems the bike industry is following suit.
The bike I ride most is a 29er HT with carbon forks and fairly narrow tyres. And yes it’s like the hybrid my missus had thirty years ago

One of my roadie mates told me about an article he had read which said it was a waste of time looking after chains, just buy an expensive one! Mind you he is a real contrarian, I shall continue buying cheapish chains, clean them regularly and change them fairly often ,usually yearly. I do have a few bikes to spread the mileage load.

Exactly the opposite experience from 5lab.
My Saints have been on 3-4 bikes and must be 10 years old and have never needed a service.
I bought some Superstar Evos for a new bike and they barely lasted 6 months.

Merak, how do you know?
I fancied one of these from STW shop but there are very few sizes left so was looking at the club ride website. The £26 postage was discouraging, and there are other issues?

I usually get this in the way home after a ride. I should have gone further, I should have gone harder, I shouldn’t have taken the easier option, all these thoughts get me down however much I enjoyed the actual ride.
Oddly enough it doesn’t bother me as much when I ride with others, just when on my own

In the olden days I owned My White Bicycle by Tomorrow. I played it to a mate who was convinced the lyric was My Wife’s Bisexual

Agree about the Giro Jackets. I bought a pair when they were very cheap, partly to save my 5-10s for more gnarly stuff but I have ended up wearing them all the time. For my feet they are just more comfortable if not as grippy. They also seem to be lasting longer than previous shoes of various brands.