@SSBonty – the lockout/low speed compression adjust is on the top of the fork crown, you don’t need the bar mounted lever (if they’re the same as my Pike 409s).

i’d say so, look the same as mine. I wouldn’t let that put you off though – a properly good, bombproof set of forks for £200. You only save 0.5lb with the alloy steerer IIRC

It has a push-in cover for the floodgate adjust. You pull it off and stick in either a long-handle allen key or you can pull off the rebound adjust and use that to adjust.

oooh 10 speed Saint! :-)

I have some 409s – steel steerer, internal floodgate adjust. Heavy, but great forks

I love my Saint rear mech (ok, maybe that’s a bit strong, but you get my drift)
Crisp shifting, handles the filth well and i’ve beaten the sh!t outta mine over the last few years, stll going strong.

Do it

Renthal or e13 unramped chainring – light, strong and hardwearing

Stinger may be sufficient – they’re meant for dual rings though aren’t they?

great news :-)

cheers m’dears, much appreciated. There are some crazy expensive ones on CRC, blimey

someone please put the troll out of his misery. I’ve seen Troll Hunter – you just need some UV lights mounted on a Landy ;-)

I guess the fundamental question is – do you want to buy a road bike?

Time & opportunities to ride becomer fewer and further between as a new dad – maybe invest in some decent lights and do early mornings/night riding offroad? As above, depends if you have to drive somewhere to ride MTB.

true, true – T.rex would be crap in a boxing match due to rubbish arms and if it fell over it would be fecked.
My personal fave is Utahraptor :-)

34:14 on a 26er.

I think so, in super simple terms. Reach etc would be similar, but steering leverage etc would be different

p!sspot and Oakley goggles here – mostly either keep them on my face for the duration or push them up onto my lid for that Star Wars/Desert Storm look ;-)
Feel like a bit of **** sometimes though, but don’t get mud splattered in my eyes from around the side of the lenses and don’t fog as much as glasses either

If you’re thinking of a front tyre to complement a MK 2.4 on the back, try a 2.3 Baron rather than 2.4 RQ?

I think they overcomplicated things with talk of elephants and the like – should have just said “T. Rex were 100% badass. End of”

bag of spicy nuts. High calorific content relative to size = more room for booze :-)

as above – 2×9 setups retain granny don’t they?

Running 1×9 for 3 years with 36t up front and 11-34 out back. Suits me just fine, don’t miss granny at all.

great course, great vibe, done it many times, both solo and team.

Always lush weather (apart from one year), only downside are some of the semi-sponsored teams that have been a little aggressive in the past. But as above, they were told to wind their necks in in no uncertain terms by the organizer.

best thing for them both to do right now is to stay cool, or as cool as possible – hopefully it’s an amicable split? As soon as lawyers/courts are involved it’ll take a turn for the worse and nobody wins.
As above, assume she’ll get it all.

totally! they’re better than nowt and not that heavy – although my son does point out that he can see my forks working and his don’t seem to move…
They’re good enough to take the sting out of the trail – perfect for local Brizzle trails

it’s a very basic elastomer fork – oversprung for littlies IMO. Does break in after a while and performance improves if you lube the stanchions.

It’s a bit like a RS Judy or RST fork from 1995

As above, fit is king with kids’ bikes. My eldest went from a Cnoc16 @ 3 to a Spesh Hotrock 20 @ age 5. Get yourself down to the Spesh concept store on Park Street and let him have a go on the 16 and 20 bikes to see which works best?

@igm – if the Suntour fork is the same as the one on my son’s Hotrock 20, it’s a Suntour XCT-JR20

2 years into my Nixon and it hasn’t missed a beat. Strap is ripped a little though, but 2 years of muddy biking hasn’t caused it much issue, including one particular big off that resulted in a small dent in the bezel.

What you want is the Tonka-tastic Nixon 51-30

perfect age – do it

carbon enduro?

teamhurtmore – sorry, not familiar with her, although a quick Google brings up the tagline of “the Tories’ favourite teacher”, which doesn’t exactly endear her to me! Couldn’t find any comments from her on the original article?

Great reponse from convert – our kids’ school (primary) has communicated the acceptable grounds for “unauthorized absence”; basically not when they’re being inspected or there are tests in the offing. Fully expect this to be a different kettle of fish when they go to secondary in line with converts comments.

Key thing is that we’re exercising judgement as to the best thing to do for our kids – if we want to take them out of school for whatever reason, we evaluate and decide, communicate and agree with the school.

Gove is barking up the wrong tree with this policy – much better to stop undermining the position of the LEA with his nutjob notions of academies and free schools.

I’m in – Team Dude

I like Dirt and I like Jonesy’s articles – his photos aren’t half bad either

I used to work near Cabot Circus and the drivers used to get in early/leave early. The cost of parking can be quite prohibitive – Cabot Circus car park can be v. expensive for day parking, you can get good deals from the NCP next to the Holiday Inn at the bottom of Stokes Croft, but there are deals to be had.

I’d show them a pic of whatsername’s nose – you know, the one who used to be in ‘Enders and rotted her septum away with too much nosebag.

Walking across Wenceslas Square, we were once asked if we wanted to see dwarves f***ing. As we were very, very drunk, it took a while to register….

dude – if you’re in Ross, you’re quite a way from the Quantocks. Cwmcarn, FoD or Bristol are your closest/bestest bet. As above, you’re super close to FoD, so that’s your best bet

Ross is where i grew up – deffo the FoD, especially if you have the family in tow

+1 on shifting responsibility to drivers a la Holland

In truth, it’s a jungle out there – I can only speak from my experience of commuting through the crazy streets of north Bristol, but in my daily journey I see cars and bikes regularly jumping red lights and people regularly doing things on both 4 and 2 wheels that they shouldn’t be.
I don’t want to die riding into and home from work, so I wear hi-viz, a lid, lights, don’t jump red lights and assume no-one on the road has seen me.

Liking that Minnaar vid, cheers :-)

hubba hubba, me likey