Did everything but point the finger at Armstrong

Che?

For those that are interested they are down to £14.99 in the PX/OO Clearance Corner now.

I’ve had so many cars “buzz” me on the road over the years I have been cycling for no other reason than I am there and they want to teach me a lesson. I’ve had various drinks thrown over me as well because passengers think it is highly amusing.

I am now actually considering carrying a large, round pebble in my back pocket on every ride so that I can hopefully smash their back window or at least put a dent in their nice shiny vehicle. Hopefully they will stop as well so that I can explain to them why I did it.

I have a friend who has been riding the Hutchinsons for a couple of years now without one puncture. I use Bontrager Hardcase on my training bike with tubes and have had no puncture in the same time period but probably do twice the annual mileage he does.

When you look at his tyres he has lots of little white dots on them where the sealant has come through so presumably they do their job. He’s hopeless at changing tubes and not very conscientious about maintenance as well so it suits him well.

You pays yer money and makes yer choice I’d say.

I did exactly this on an aluminium frame once and it worked out okay.

I placed some electrical insulation tape either side of the cable guide just to help protect the frame in case I got a bit clumsy with the filing. I found that when I got down to a very thin section, the remainder of the ally cable guide virtually peeled off and it was easy to clean up the remainder with a bit of wet & dry.

It might be slightly more difficult to achieve this with the steel cable guides on the Inbred though, so be careful.

Maybe Guy Martin ought to watch “Riding Giants” and shave off his minging mutton chops before he makes comments like that.

I’m not a surfer but do ride a motorbike and obviously don’t ride the TT but the majority of people don’t do really extreme stuff anyway in whatever pastime they participate in. Does Guy Martin do extreme canal boating?

I give mine to a drunken sailor.

Plenty here:

http://forums.mtbr.com/29er-bikes/lets-see-those-29er-rigids-327678.html

I’m going through the same process by the way but have settled on a Singular Swift – just trying to get the cash together :o)

I had a strange noise on my 5 which turned out to be the rear QR. Doing it up progressively tighter didn’t help but I changed it for a Shimano one and now it is silent.

If you really wanted practically zero sweetness then using MyProtein’s maltodextrin on its own without anything else will give a very neutral flavour. You could then flavour the drink with a squash or cordial of choice to suit your own taste.

Adding fructose as others have suggested kind of negates the object of what you are trying to do because fructose is very sweet. Maltodextrin on its own however will still give a high carbohydrate content but with very little sweetness.

Another alternative is to make up your own gel using maltodextrin at a very high ratio to water and then put it in one of those very small bottles that runners use. You can then just have water in your bottles (or hydration pack) to wash the gel mix down and clean your palette at the same time. I have done this on a number of rides and it works very well.

Saddles are a very personal thing so asking for suggestions on a forum like this are pretty pointless. With no idea of your physical size you need to get yourself along to a Specialized dealer and get your sitbones measured on one of their gel pad systems.

That will at least give you an idea of the sort of saddle width you need to be looking for. Most of the modern racing saddles (which usually come highly recommended) are far too narrow for me for instance and at 6′ 4″ tall I need a wider saddle which fortunately some companies like Specialized and Bontrager now offer.

Even if you are a smaller frame with narrower sitbones, it will at least confirm the choice of saddles which are open to you to consider.

Love it. Don’t listen to the naysayers about the fork, it looks perfect. You just need to single speed it now to lose a bit more weight and make it even perfecter :o)

I don’t really think you will get anything decent for that sort of money. I paid £700 for my Myford ML7 off eBay a couple of years ago which came with a stand. You might be lucky and get one a bit cheaper without the pukka stand which will be fine if you mount it on a sturdy bench.

There are a lot of Chinese made lathes around from dealers like Amadeal (http://amadeal.co.uk/index.html) and a lot of those tend to be clones from one or two factories in China. They look like good value but the quality of them is pretty poor even though they have improved over the last few years.

I was in the market for a lathe a few years back so went to the Model Engineering Exhibition to look them over. All the Chinese clones were obviously of inferior quality so I decided to hold out for a second-hand Myford. If you want to go smaller then the Taig/Peatol lathe is very nice and second-hand ones do appear on eBay from time to time.

There are quite a few websites around dealing with small/hobby lathes with good advice such as this one http://www.lathes.co.uk/page2.html

Hope that helps.

I bought an Airborne Zeppelin (road bike) which subsequently developed a crack at the bottom of the seat tube. It look like it started within the weld at the bottom bracket but then carried on across the tube itself.

By the time this happened Airborne had ceased trading but Van Nicholas had taken over and said they were honouring Airborne warranties up to 5 years. I just scraped in by a few weeks and true to their word they supplied a new frame. Amazingly this cracked at the same place within a few months so I contacted Van Nicholas again and they said that there was a lifetime warranty on this frame but suggested I switch to a different model. This ultimately cracked again after a couple of years and VN duly replaced it once again.

I can’t praise Van Nicholas enough for the way I have been treated as they have always honoured their “lifetime” warranty after I supplied photographs of the cracked frames. Litespeed should be named and shamed as often as possible across the interweb and these frauds should be hounded out of business for the money-grabbing charlatans that they are.

Although I already seem to have a titanium frame for life, with my personal experience and all the other stories I have heard on the web, I wouldn’t entertain buying a titanium frame now of any description. Empirical evidence seems to indicate to me that this is not the wonder material that it was once hailed as and you might as well buy a cheapish frame and just let it break and then buy a new one.

At least you get a new frame every few years.

This thread’s gone from bad to worse! Now you are slagging off the 5 Spot which just happens to be the other bike I own along with a Five!

I’m not some pretentious **** though who just buys status symbols. I bought the Five second-hand for a very good price when it was less than a year old and the 5 Spot I also bought second-hand as a bare frame again for a price it would have been rude not to.

I bought the 5 Spot as a bike to build up for my grandson and he absolutely loves it, as I do the Five. I think all of the generalisations on here are completely pointless but do agree the thread has been amusing…

I have a 5. I like it’s rugged simplicity and it’s superior performance characteristics which make up for my deficiencies. It’s the VFR of mountain bikes.

Clarks work fine for me also. I’ve used several others such as Jagwire and noticed no discernible difference so cheap and cheerful is the way to go.

32:18 in the Winter, 36:18 in the Summer for me. It’s easier to change the chainwheel than the freewheel on my SS.

BB7s are excellent brakes. I’m not sure if I’d use them for downhill work, that’s not what they’re meant for anyway but for general XC and trail riding they work well. They are the most popular brakes on the MTBR site with nearly 1000 reviews and an average rating of over 4.5/5.

I have no direct experience of any of the lights you are considering but I do build my own lights and follow most of the main commercial offerings via forums like MTBR, CPF etc.

The Gloworm light seems very good value for money but they have had some teething troubles with it as it is still relatively new. They seem to be actively listening to feedback from users and it will eventually be a very good light.

I don’t know much about Smudge’s light other than it is a single XM-L LED. These tend to have not worked out very well in terms of throw but the beam shot on Smudge’s site seems to be quite good. He also has a very good reputation amongst the night cycling fraternity.

I don’t have any knowledge of Torchy’s light I’m afaid.

At the end of the day if it were my money I would go with a pair of Smudge’s lights. He is UK based and will sort any problems very quickly. There is also something to be said for getting two of the same lights because battery connections, chargers etc. will be compatible so will mean less faffing about and bits will be interchangeable.

Hope that helps.

I did it last year and it was dry as a bone and a beautiful day. Likely to be a tad different this year! I’m going to wait until I see the weather forecast Friday night before making a decision about going. I don’t mind it muddy, I just don’t want to be slogging round in the pouring rain.

I used to use a bottle in a cage on the frame for rides up to 2 hours but it very often used to get covered in 5h1t. Then I discovered the Cambelbak FlashFlo which is basically a hydration bumbag.

Although the bladder has a 1.5 litre capacity I only half fill it and hardly notice the weight so low down and it reduces sweaty back syndrome. It also has a couple of useful pockets to stash some stuff as well such as wallet, mobile phone etc. Brilliant.

http://www.camelbak.com/Sports-Recreation/Packs/2012-FlashFlo-LR.aspx

Thanks for the suggestions. I just ordered a Race Face Turbine from CRC for £35.

I’ve never bedded any brake pads in on several bikes for years and never had any problems with brake performance or wear rate. It’s an urban myth I reckon…

Kevlar pads in Avid BB7s. Silent in the dry, squeel in the wet. The pukka Avid sintered pads used to squeel in the wet as well but the Avid organics were silent wet or dry and lasted quite well. I might go back to them when the Superstar kevlars wear out.

This month’s What MTB comes with a fitness supplement which explains the training zones and plans which you might find useful.

I demoe’d an XL SC Tallboy last year that the shop in Peaslake, Surrey arranged for me via Santa Cruz. It cost £50 for the day.

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I really don’t understand why manufacturers push 29ers as being beneficial for taller riders and then don’t have any test bikes in the larger sizes.

Ta very much.

As you already have a triple chainset on the Dolce, it’s likely that you have long cage rear mech also. Druidh is correct about the 34-11 being an MTB cassette but your existing long cage road mech on the Dolce might still work with the 34-11.

I would suggest swapping the rear wheels on your two bikes and see how you get on with the 34-11 on the Dolce. It might save you having to buy a new rear mech.

If you do try this then you will need to test the gearing at 30 on the front and 34 at the back as well as 50 on the front and 28 at the back to make sure the chain (and mech) can accommodate the gearing extremes. You may need to adjust the length of your chain even if the mech can handle the stretch of the lower gears.

I’m 6′ 4″ and 85kg and pretty fit riding constantly throughout the year three times a week, a combination of on and off road. Off road I ride an Orange 5.

I test rode a Tallboy carbon (XL) last year at the Surrey Hills organised through SC by the shop at Peaslake. Having read all the hype about 29ers suiting taller riders I was fully prepared to like this bike and give it every chance to impress me. However it just didn’t.

In almost every respect it was a severe disappointment feeling ponderous and leaden in comparison to almost every other 26er I have ever ridden. Conscious of the fact that I was riding a 29er for the first time I was looking for the supposed positives of increased traction, bump compliance and carrying speed but noticed none of these traits.

All I did notice was its dead feel, especially when trying to accelerate those wagon wheels and a definite unwillingness to turn quickly, especially in tighter switchbacks like the bottom of BKB. It was also one of the most uncomfortable rides I have ever experienced in terms of wrist pain and I am not sure why that is. The guy in the shop at Peaslake spent a very long time setting the bike up for me and on paper it seemed like my size.

I’m perfectly willing to accept that other riders might be able to get more out of a bike like this and could probably be faster over certain courses than on a 26er. I would just say make sure that you test the bike thoroughly on the sort of riding you are going to be using it for to make sure it suits your style of riding.

32:18 for Winter gloop when I’m not so fit
36:18 for rest of time when I am

It’s easier for me to change the chainwheel than the freewheel :o)

Haven’t tried the gels, but I mix my own energy and recovery drink with stuff from Myprotein.

Here’s a recipe for a recovery drink I got from a friend which seems to work well for me too. It’s based on between 1 and 1.5 grams of carbohydrate per kg of body weight, so adjust for yourself…

— 50g Maltodextrin
— 50g Dextrose
— 30g whey protein (flavoured)
— 5g glutamine
— approx 500ml water

Do not try & use the unflavoured whey, it’s grim!

I don’t usually bother with the maltodextrin and dextrose in a recovery drink as I have usually been chucking that down my neck for the past few hours on a ride any way.

For training rides where I ride from home I whizz up a mixed fruit smoothie in the blender and use the 30g of unflavoured acid whey protein plus 5g of glutamine. If I am out on an event somewhere I usually use flavoured impact whey protein plus the glutamine in a shaker at the end of the ride. Getting those BCAAs into tired muscles really helps speed recovery.

On long climbs (>10 mins) I take mine off on and off road because I sweat like the proverbial when the temperature is above about 15 degrees. My sweatband gets saturated and the sweat then just drips in my eyes, so better to take it off I think.

+1 for the Bontrager Racelite Hardcase. Over 3000 miles on 2 sets and not one puncture. I fitted a set to my daughter’s commuter bike as well and she hasn’t had a puncture in several hundred miles either. Cheap as chips too.

Cool. Are you going to offer this conversion in the same way you have for the Hope Vision 2?

No doubt you’ll post more details of the conversion either here or on MTBR. In the meantime any idea what optics are in use in the Hope Vision 4? It says on their website that there are 3 spot (+/-5 deg) and one flood (+/- 15 deg).

Also the original battery is a 7.4V 5200 mAh job so either the original LEDs are wired 2S2P or it is using a boost driver. How you have wired the XM-Ls and what driver are you using?

I’ve always used Avid FR-5 levers which are a cheap version of the SD-7 without any adjustment. I normally use standard Shimano brake cables as well so nothing special there.

I’ve never had any problems with modulation or lock-up on any of my bikes using BB7s and I would say these brakes are almost as good at the Hope Tech X2s that I have on my Orange.

I do take trouble to set up the calipers so the pads are parallel to the disc and even between the two so maybe this is something you need to look at if you don’t already.

A DMR Simple Tensioner Seeker has always worked well for me on vertical dropouts and looks like it would fit yours.

http://www.dmrbikes.com/?Section=products&pageType=item&category=3&CategoryName=Chain%20Devices&itemid=CDSTS

You might have more luck posting here:

http://forums.mtbr.com/lights-diy-do-yourself/

I would say it also depends on what type of riding you do and how you brake. I have BB7s on my hardtail and SS bike and they are great on most types of XC riding including Afan, CyB etc. They are very easy to set up and provide more than enough braking force and plenty of feel.

I use the organic pads because the sintered ones squeel like Ned Beatty in Deliverance and put your teeth on edge. The organic pads last plenty of time for me as well. I have Hope Tech X2s on my Orange 5 just to show that I do know the difference between cable and hydraulics discs and these are better than the BB7s.

I would say if you are more into DH type riding then a decent set of hydraulics are the way to go but I don’t think there would be much to choose between the Deores and the BB7s in actual braking force. If I were actually laying out the cash now then I would probably plump for the Deores.