4 hours! Cool. Sounds excellent.

GB

Aidan – I live in Lightwater and have the same plan as you – leave Sat am and come back Sun after the race.

I have a Honda CR-V so plenty of room for bikes/tents etc without having to cram or pack carefully! You could come to me and I’ll drive up?

GB

I ride mine round Swinley – never seen another one.

Maybe it’s a territorial thing.

GB

You need to get yourself a whacking great big van full of spares for 10 team bikes and 2 full time helpers to clean bikes for 24hrs straight. Then you need 4 EZ-ups, chairs, tables, gas stoves, 3 Dirtworkers, enough food for a small country, lighting, DVD player, stereo, generator to power it all… (Ducks)

And a girlfriend to massage/make food as required :)

GB

SS really suits 29″ wheels, the way the bike rolls over stuff really helps with an SS. As for rigid – why oh why… I just don’t get the attraction.

That’s an 18″ (M) by the way, I’m 6’1″ with long legs and little arms.

GB

Salsa Selma. 29er, very light and very compliant. Great bike.

32:19 on a 29er Selma. Get up everything all over the place.

GB

http://www.xcracer.com

http://www.britishcycling.org.uk

Agreed. I just broke yet another one in a head on collision with another rider. Glad it’s the helmet with a crack in it, rather than my head. I find whacking on low trees is when I’m most glad I’ve got one on.

It’s the only event I’ll do until I stop riding bikes. NPS, Gorricks, Southerns may go by the wayside as life rolls on but that weekend will be in the calendar forever!

GB

V Heavy wheels and tyres.

Go with Stans / normal tyres and spooge.

GB

Yes, good point. I like those 9.9s too… Apparently none until 2010?

Oh yes – did they fix it again? Surely last chance saloon for Spesh now? If that was mine they’d have had it back by now. You did very well not to a) kill yourself or b) launch the bike into the trees at Dalby.

GB

Heh Nick – yeah it’s a way back! It looks worse than it is – it’s only in the middle of the rails.

You know – the last time I crashed badly was into you. Something of a habit.

Not doing Crow tomorrow – only a Cat E and I’d rather go for another 3-4hrs on the Selma! Trying to cut down on the driving this year, even though Crow is only just up the road I don’t need to do it so I’m not going.

You going?

Fancy a ride next weekend?

GB

Yeah it was unavoidable – there was a big, dense bush on the inside of the bend and we hit literally on the apex of the bend. We both agreed it was no-one’s fault. Where we hit the trail is sort of downhill leading to it in both directions. The trail is usually ridden the way I was going, but there are no one-way signs at Swinley so people do what they want. I’m surprised it’s not happened before. We were both very, very lucky not to get more seriously hurt.

GB

First ride!

Very smooth to ride, way more compliant than the Rig it replaced. Very stiff, very quiet, very lovely. Faster handling than the Rig too – TT is 15mm shorter and head angle is a bit steeper. Seatstays are a smidge longer though.

Brilliant.

Well, it was until I hit someone coming the other way round a corner pretty fast, totally blind, no-one’s fault and thank god the bike’s fine. Blew the front tyre off but no big worries. Somehow the other chap’s rotor got bent, not quite sure what by. Big thanks to his riding buddy who stuck my eyebrow back together again. My helmet nice and mullered. Scary. Apart from the eyebrow, neither of us were hurt at all, absolute miracle.

There you go boys and girls – wear a helmet.

GB

No you don’t need new bearings. Remove the wheel from the bike, stick a 5mm allen key in each end of the axle and undo the end cap. You may have to give it a tweak as it’s sometimes got threadlock on it. You then need to tighten “slightly” the bearing cap with the little knurled holes in it. Then re-assemble it and stick it back on your bike. You need to do this every now and again with King hubs.

Don’t know yet! Should find out next weekend…

Thanks for explaining it – I’m glad it’s a Bushnell as I’ve heard they’re the best EBBs, but until now I’d never seen one! Happy days.

Tyre clearance is better than pre-production – the one we had at the Bike Show was very tight but this one is fine – as good as my 26er race bike anyway. It’s fitted with 2.1 Crossmarks and it’s fine, finger width at least all round. Its bent around the tyre – square section tubing.

Ison seem to have some larges in stock now http://www.ison-distribution.com/ison/english/product.php?part=FMSASE9L

Just need some new forks now…

GB

They do indeed – it’s the same as the Moto Rapido. If you ride behind one round Thetford you can see the rear brake hose flex up and down as the stays flex a bit. I’ll be at SSUK on it doing a bit of shameless Salsa promotion!

Oh and the King’s now 11 years old and in it’s 8th frame!

Mountain Mayhem 2003.

We had a university team in (Durham) and managed to get a bit of a ringer to ride for us (Jody Crawforth). We weren’t a bad team, just not quite as good as:

“Well here come the leaders after lap 1, it’s the Raleigh World Team from Giant World with, er, hang on, Durham University in 3rd”

Brilliant.

GB

Do the tubeless dance as above. It is very normal to have to re-inflate the tyre a few times over the first few days.

How much spooge did you put in? Can you see any bug cuts in the tyre where the spooge/air is coming out?

GB

Just got some 2.1 Crossmarks. £21 each and fantasticly fast. I can’t beleive the difference compared to the ACX I had on there before.

GB

1997 King Headset. Been through 8 frames. The first decent component I ever bought when I got into MTBing and it’s now on my SS.

GB

Golf R32 – more torques, 4 wheel drive and loads of space for bikes. Loving mine. The Focus RS is the mental one nowadays…

1995 aged 13.

Many years of fun since, loads of happy memories :)

GB

I’m using an old XTR one – go beg at your LBS.

GB

One of the Tune ones was mine – very crap really. Used on a race bike for one season. Happened to flip the bike over one day to clean it and spotted a long crack running 1/2 the length of the underside of the stem, away from the steerer tube end. Had been fitted with torque wrench.

Some products are just crap.

GB

Some of the ones in Norfolk are collapsed glacial pingos.

GB