Everyone I knew that had a Megadrive always claimed it was better, but it was always Mario Kart at my place when we got together…

You going to have a rant at Niner bikes for setting up and only making 29ers?

Sure the shop might rue this mistake but it’s there business at the end of the day. I’ve found LBSs a bit slow to stock 29″ stuff so maybe they’ve spotted a little gap there?

Yeah, surprisingly good +1, muuuuch better than Stallone’s anyway…

And not that it’s relevant but one of the better 3D films I’ve seen at the cinema too!

Take a dump before you go out. That should make up for it. I can lose a kg that way.

I’d see a doctor if I was shitting a kilo at a time! 8O

I’d expect Berkshire Carpets and Blinds to take this matter a little more seriously… not sure what’s more shocking, the incident or how flippant Geoff Cox seems to be!

If you’re happy with that excuse I’m not gonna argue

I’d post a fairer pic but I sense nothing good can come of having the STW baying masses judge whether I’ve had a hard life or not :P

Blimey, that top photo is like looking in a mirror….29 you say….I’m 38…..have you had a tough life

Haha cheeky bastid! Combination of -6 temps, unkempt beard and a camera phone thank you very much!

I get asked for ID for booze still if I shave!

l have no emotional desire towards kids

Your own are different, everyone else’s are hideous/a nightmare. And for what it’s worth, they’re epic once you’ve got them.

And I second the whole life not over thing. Trips are better shared with kids. Food is better enjoyed shared with kids. I’m 29 and my life has not been ruined.

It’s all about the adventures man! You’re in deep now, so you might as well embrace what’s to come :wink:

Bristol sounds good, I could put you up too if you like. Let me know dates. Flashes and I know each other so we could round up a group ride if you fancied…

jameso: can you come back to the west country at some point, I reeeally want to have a go on your Jones…

Ti spaceframe would be my first lottery win bike purchase I reckon. So not my normal bag but if you take money out of the equation, it becomes a must have :)

Build a house on the mid-west welsh coast in the middle of nowhere and just go and ride my Jones into the hills everyday – lush!

I’d be surprised if it was all official trails. I’d expect a couple of offpiste timed sections.

Whilst I have no problem with Strava etc I do hope it doesnt turn in trail centres in to race tracks with riders barging past slower riders trying to find a couple of seconds.

Tbh, the kind of people that would do that were doing it anyway. I love to Strava bomb as much as the next guy but I won’t cut trails and if I get traffic, I’ll abort the run before I dare to ruin anyone else’s day. Dickheads on Strava were dickheads before Strava…

Give I’ve got little chance of making any actual races this year, I might target the Strava leaderboard instead. 56 mins is my best time, set in 2009, haven’t really done a proper run since. I think I could beat that now, that was done on the Patriot. Low 50s is reasonable I think.

I’ve only set one time, 1:04 but on 32lb FS 29er and it was a second lap. Not sure how much difference taking the 28lb bike, doing a lap while fresh, and generally being a smidge fitter would make though. High 50s would be good though…

sure I can arrange a ‘testing session’

Would still love to do the feature on you, and to sort my CTDs out… I’m sure we can pass this off as ‘work’ somehow :D

@Loco, I’ll give you a bell next time I’m coming over, you never know, the planets might align and all that :wink:

Yeah, it’s depressing! I’ve got 9 seconds to find to match Tim from Mojo, I have no idea where to find those! I’m 44th at the moment.

What’s to stop you putting a Works Components headset and the 140mm Fox 34 (that Chainline is selling in the classifieds) into the Gyro? Actually with careful selection of headset and offset bushings you should be able to get the head angle, seat angle and front travel to be the same as the Five29, but with a bit less rear travel and a lighter overall package. Plus no warranty of course

The warranty :)

every long travel 29er i’ve tried was a barge, you don’t so much ride them as wrestle them.

Yeah but if you spend more than 5 minutes on one you do adapt. I’ve got a Five too by the way but I’ve pretty much donated it to my wife. I’ve been a 29er rider for 18 months now, I tend to override a 26er now, you just adapt and change. I’ve just gotten abit stronger in the upper body than before and now it feels normal.

I’ve ridden the Gyro in the above spec down the FOD DH trails and had a great time. The only limiting factor was the current Fox CTD tunes being a bit too blowy but that would afflict a 26er just the same.

I don’t want to see the death of 26ers as I respect choice and what that means for the individual. But all your arguments against 29ers are largely codswallop :P

Roverpig, the 22mm lens exaggerates the perspective – it even looks like I’ve got a 26″ wheel up front now that I think about it :) But using that lens is ‘a look’ anyway :)

Wouldn’t trade this in for a Five29, I’d have both :-P No law against having two cross bikes is there?

A cyclocross bike, yesterday… :wink:

The 29er will be the death of proper mountain biking.

What have you been smoking?

Chainline, I was talking about the Gyro, not the Five29.

Lie ins and riding together.

Otherwise most stuff isn’t as important as we thought it was at the time and don’t miss it.

@Paceman: I’ve reviewed the Tallboy with 120mm up front. Although the back end of the Tallboy is technically stiffer without the wheel in, I wasn’t happy with 9mm axle. The Tallboy doesn’t have the tyre clearance of the Gyro which rules out burlier rubber too. And the Gyro generally feels slacker and more confident up front. So in all, it is a smidge more potent and confidence inspiring DH, again IMO.

Sounds like the Gyro is up against the Tallboy, Rumblefish, Sultan etc and the Five29 more in competition with the longer travel FS 29ers

Gyro is a fraction more capable than Tallboy IMO, but using Tallboy and Tallboy LT analogy for Gyro and Five29 is a pretty good one!

Edit: I hate using the word capable but meh, you get what I mean :)

I guess it would be pretty silly to buy a Five29 and stick a 32 fork and XC wheels on it.

Bingo!

Longer chainstays should make for more comfort, but I guess they’d also make it harder to get the front wheel off the ground.

Genuine request, please correct me if I’m wrong, but with the forward axle path, doesn’t a SP effectively start shortening in the chainstay the second you start to sag it?

Eitherway, Gyro is longer in the chainstay than a Superfly, but the Gyro front comes up easier. So lots of factors in play…

Just for info, I’ve carpark tested Tom’s from Mojo but nothing more :)

His was lighter than my Gyro at the time but he had much lighter wheels than me, X0/1×10 and he was running much narrower/lighter tyres. I was on Hans Dampfs and the stock wheels and finishing kit. But realistically, the Five29 is not going to be lighter all things being equal. There’s less metal in the Gyro swingarm and it’s a lighter gauge of tubing in the frame I think. Eitherway, I was told firmly by Orange that the Gyro is not a Five and if I wanted to ride proper DH runs on it, I do so at my own risk. The Five29 is going to be up for all that.

Roverpig, I’ve been trying to shoehorn a Gyro into UK Enduro type usage and it’s very surprising, and I’ve certainly mixed it up with 160mm 26ers on things like the FOD DH trails (similar ability riders), but being realistic it’s more a 29″ ST4 than a 29″ Five and that’s going to be the big difference between these bikes. Big wheels don’t make a difference when you’re dropping to flat for example!

28lb builds from a frame only start should be very easy without spending silly money if you shop around. I reckon 27lb and maybe a smidge lower if you really splash out or go very XC.

At a total guess, and assuming you run a 34 fork on the Five29 (as you should), the Five 29 is always going to be at least 2lb heavier than a Gyro with a similar budget thrown at it, and that’s assuming you run the same tyres on them actually.

Trail centre bike, XC epic/wilderness bike, doubling up for UK Enduro – Gyro
Enduro (poss even Europe under the right rider?), All Mountain, Mini DH and Alps bike – Five29

IMO.

Been putting off replying for a total lack on knowing what to say… I keep coming back to this thread and keep being blown away by how you’re handling this. I’ve got a two year old boy at the moment and I feel like I can’t take my eyes off him since hearing your news. I feel angry when I work late and don’t see him in the evenings too now. Maybe that sense of perspective is what I’ll take away from this.

I seriously cannot comprehend how you must be feeling or even coping right now. You make me feel somehow braver about handling such a bereavement though.

I’m really sorry :(

Santa Cruz will give you X5/X7 mix with Sektors for £2900 on Tallboy LT, makes the Five29 seem alright tbh!

Fox 34s, not 32s, with Kashima, and Kashima rear, not OEM, and it’s 10 speed actually…

Only rival bike I can think of right now is Tallboy LT or a Niner WFO which are crazy money.

http://wideopenmag.co.uk/news/17549/first-look-new-hope-techbar-handlebar

Those same people seem to have missed the bit where they were going to produce a carbon version made in the UK.

Sell a load of Taiwanese made handlebars in order to fund getting into making carbon bits in house. Seems sound to me.

Comparing the Inbred and 456 to an 853 Genesis Altitude, the Altitude was much <insert steel stereotype here> than the On Ones. I was always under the impression that the Altitude was supposed to be a very good poor mans Soul too, so take from that what you will regarding the Soul.

Or get a Latitude as they’re now called.

Whatever the cheapest Shimano is at the time that has a ratchet on the top strap.

nicemates, I’d say go for the All Mountains, for the rim width alone tbh! I’ve survived the Forest of Dean DH trails on the Gyro with these wheels, and even put in some reasonable times on Strava, you might be fine on the XCs but I can promise you won’t be disappointed with the AMs. The only thing stopping me from going a bit quicker is the CTD fork and shock which have a tendency to blow through a bit on very big highspeed hits. But I want to stress, we’re talking DH trails only, I never noticed it at Cwmcarn or riding natural stuff in Wales, and Loco reckons he can play with the highspeed circuit and sort it out.

Cheers guys, I appreciate the feedback. I’m just a bike dork at the end of the day and I like writing about it :wink:

Radcliffe and Maconie are the worst for what you describe IMO. Lauren Laverne generally makes up for any overtalking with the quality of the music (most of the time). Jarvis is worth a listen.

We have it on in the office and rarely listen to what’s actually going out live.

This is my current wheel-tyre combo at the moment:

The American Classic All Mountains are 1750g and are very wide and heavy duty. The Gyro could happily roll on the XC version. But 1750g and the ability to run Hans Dampfs properly in terms of rim width is not to be sniffed at considering it’s a £500 wheelset too!

Well I know a guy who’s running this pair on a Spesh Demo with no roller type chain device underneath, so I reckon it’s certainly going to be robust enough. I’ll let you know on the ratios. I’m actually going down to a 34T cassette just because I’ve got one in the garage and I figure I might as well use it before buying a 36.

It’ll make me fitter if nothing else.

Well 32×36 is quite a bit easier than 38×34, even when you factor in the bigger wheels IMO, so while you lose the granny, you’ll have a much easier gear than the 38×34. You’ll have lost a fair bit at the harder end though. I personally don’t suffer too much on 32×11 and it’s only a pain if you’ve got prolonged road sections where everyone else is on triples.

Speak of the devil, the posty has been:

Nicemates, depends on how fit you are I guess. I’ve been working up to being able to survive on 1×10 by ignoring the granny lately. When I did the wales Coast to Coast last year (320km non-stop) I naturally ran 3×10 and needed it, but day to day I can get by on just 32T which is what I’m going with on here.

32×36 is fairly good on a 29er, feels like 32×32 on a 9 speed 26er. So yeah, 1×10 on a 36T cassette is the way to go. I’d struggle if I was grinding up big welsh hills for more than about 40km but it all depends on your definition of ‘all day’ and your fitness.