buy one, and with the money you save over an Orange 5, go to Bubion for a week, and Chatel, and Dumfries.

This argument kind of falls flat on it’s face I that you picked on a bike that is just plain different. 4″ and steep vs 5.5″ and slack.

I get your sentiment but perhaps picking on a SC Superlight might have been more accurate… :-P

That said, my new home hub can barely hold a wifi connection and over the phone I was explicitly told to expect around 6mbs for my address even though I was paying for 8mbs which I thought was fair enough – yet I only get 2mb (ethernet cable not wifi which isn’t working)

Joy!

ck – quite old now (’04 I think I took this) :D

Photography seems very like MTBing, with discussions becoming arguments. Surprised noone’s argued that his photos would be better with a Nikon yet.

That’s because surely everyone knows that Canon’s are better?

Where and how did you you guys gain such knowledge?

tinternet and lots of messing about…

This is an HDR and tonemapped image but I tried to limit so it doesn’t have too much of that “HDR look”

This is why people hate HDR images (random sample from the flickr HDR pool)… it’s just an exmaple of bumping all settings to max in Photomatix and kinda burns the eyes. :)

No but it does open up creative avenues that can’t really be explored on compacts. In particular extreme wide angle lenses.

For the record – I never had a problem with the photoshopping, just pointing it out to those mistakenly blown away by what an SLR can “do”

Oh and not hating on SLRs either – I actually use one most of the time.

Not that it’s a problem for me but there is a LOT of photoshop going on there. A 400d won’t just take photos like that no matter who you are…

Another 12 hour solo – you can pull off into the event village at any time for a breather so go on, 6 hours!!! :)

I’ve not placed the order yet but I’ve been impressed with their service so far and am going with these guys (even though, like everyone else, they’re too busy to deliver in time for the Bristol Bike Fest :| – Carvalho Custom http://www.carvalhocustom.com/

The LVIS boys can probably give a better testimonial as their kit comes from them…

Incidentally, very jealous – want a Five for my wife… :-)

MM: my email is in my profile, let me know if/when you need it…

The in house Orange Stem on the gents is 80mm, if you’re Bristol-based MM, I can loan you the 40mm stem to chuck on for the test ride…

Five always both comes in lighter and rides lighter than people would imagine…

The amount of times I get the old “yeah but it must be pretty heavy right?” *picks it up* “Oh that’s alright actually”

The Five responds very nicely to being long in the top tube and then running a stubby stem for super tight handling (I’ve got a 40mm Truvativ Holzfeller kicking about in almost new condition if you decided to go down that route)

When you go into Bike Bristol, see if you can deal with Ian and tell him I said he’d be super helpful! He’s a super nice chap and he always looks after me! Bike won’t have a 14″ demo in stock but they should be able to get one sent down (I don’t know if you’ll be required to cover the cost of this, but even so, what’s £20 when you’re splashing out this sorta cash, make sure it’s right!)…

RDL – oh hey!

I love the bike! I’m getting rid of the rigid fork purely because I’ll have a Fox float sat around going spare but also, it’s such a playful little bike and it feels like a rigid fork is holding it back somewhat… My guess is it’s going to be a riot once it’s got some bounce up front.

clareymorris: losing the P7 wasn’t too bad – I replaced it with the Five :D It was the motivation I needed to drop the cash which I’d been agonising over for too long…

Also, MBR were never that aware of the flex in the 9mm QR floats anyway (that quote is from MBR I believe) – whereas WMB slated the float for it – what you read into that is up to you of course.

I never noticed it at first but as I got faster and more acquainted it did show up a bit but could be masked by fatter front tyres.

Interesting that you should say that, a recent mag review of the 09 Orange 5 with QR15, commented that the forks were not noticeably any stiffer than the 07 9mmQR equipped Foxs fitted to another O5.

I beg to differ – ok I’ve moved to Vanillas so it’s not a direct comparison. However, with my old floats, if you did the “check for headset play” test you could really feel the float fork bending around. The Vanilla is completely void of this but I tried the same headset test in the shop on a 15QR float and that didn’t suffer either.

I’ve just put ’09 15QR Vanillas on my ’08 Five (Floats popped their seals, will be resurrected on the SS). Trust me, you don’t want to be looking at the bar and stem – it was the forks all along.

The Orange kit is pretty good, functional and reasonable weight. I put a Truvativ Holzfeller bar and stem (I wanted wider and shorter cockpit) which are much stiffer than most things out there and it was still the forks that noticed. I’d say live with it and then get the lowers done come service time.

I’m not sure if someone raised this point having only skim read… I know that ‘anybody’ can sit at the back for 100miles and cling on – but. He was on an MTB and you reckoned you were averaging 20mph!

That’s fast going on an MTB slipstreaming or not.

Bitterness me thinks. If he was that quick on the MTB he’d utterly destroy you on a road bike. Regularly commuting on both, my 20 min commute on the road bike takes 35 mins on the MTB – that’s the effort difference so kudos to him!

clareymorris – I had a p7 just like that until it got swiped last year :'(

I’ve been running a small block 8 out back for 2 months now – perhaps I’m being rewarded for my faith whereas you late converters will be the curse of us all!

Also bought the book, can’t put it down!

Genesis iO ’09 With soon to be fitted Fox Float…

The highly staged nature of the shot showing the forks too is down to the fact that I was doing an inventory for insurance having just moved and acquired a lot of new stuff lately…

In fact Stoner linked to the one I have – so Merlin pretty much gave me the stem free then – nice!

Running a Holzfeller Bar and Stem that I got from Merlin for a bonkers package price of £30 – not sure if they’re still doing it but the bar is surprisingly light for it’s strength…

I’m a grunter on climbs and pedally singletrack when I’m getting pretty tired.

I’m a bit of whooper, shouter, curser when I ‘get away with something’ on the descents…

I’ve got a 520 Genesis frame and it’s lovely, can’t comment on how it compares to the 853 Altitude or the Soul…

I think reporting on the bike and leaving it unrated and then reporting on any developments and progress is fairer.

Like someone said, it broke so why rate it even a 2? It doesn’t achieve anything…

Meh they’ve done it before (well WMB but same guys), there was a bit of backlash from some readers as they slated a P7 cause the sliding drop out broke calling it a design flaw – when in fact, the bloke in the workshop at Orange fitted the wrong bolts.

They never really followed up that test stating this so they hardly have a history of playing fair on these things. They didn’t even tell Orange until after it went to print!

Pretty happy with the Focus C-Max 2.0 TDCi I just got. Not too MPVish, drives like a decent hatch and is fun for baiting german saloons.

Lizard Skin Peatys are nice and chunky… (at least they feel it in my little girly hands)

Avoid CB – cleat life and bearing life (on the low and mid range anyway) is shocking.

Cleats last < 6 months if you ride regularly (I get 18 months+ out of shimano). If you’re dumb enough to use the bolts provided you will be drilling them out no matter how well you greased them and maintained them.

Bearing life on the candys was shocking, Acids were actually pretty alright.

I like the system, can’t live with the build.

Oh and in a crash, they have this amazing ability to lock you into the bike, I normally needed the bike picking up for me and pointing upright as I lay on my back and try and wiggle a foot free – I think there’s a certain angle (which is the one you usually end up in when crashing) where the pedal gets tighter, not looser when you twist out… 8O

Just gone back to shimano…

I don’t trust them as much as my nevegals, they feel a bit insubstantial and sometimes a bit squirrelly on stuff that the nevegals just grip on, but they’re good tyres.

Seconded.

However, if you’re more than 12 st and like to ride rocky trails fairly hard – you’d better get used to changing tubes a lot.

White vinegar and bicarb I’ve been told is good for odours

I tried trailguru but it was essentially flawed because when you lose signal the iphone pops up a message and then app stops recording even when you get signal back – my gut feeling is that the flaw is not in trailguru either…

I’d rather lose a few seconds of my ride log than all of it!

Mrsflash – I was fortunate enough to post my feelings towards blade runner just as we went to page 2. Although the response you’re getting is consistent with my experiences. :lol:

Although this thread does remind me of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioUIF-hSXD8 (Work Safe)