Uphill. Hmm. Any damaged teeth on the middle ring?

Hang on – it comes off and then back on again? Doesn’t sound like it is slipping off the chainring. More like gears skipping at the back. Readjust. Or might be new chain and cassette time?

hI agree tat there might be a market for such. Not sure there is actually a need though. What has become the mainstream trail bike is a very very capable all-rounder just as they are. Not as if they can’t be ridden fast. If I wanted to change anything on my aged Stumpjumper, for example (which I use with the forks set @ 120mm, 10mm shorter than max) it would only be to make the bearings more durable. No way does it lack stability – it doesn’t start darting around all over the place at speed!

Because they have that durable trail bed which is quite bumpy a fs would prob be more enjoyable around there. No need for anything beyond a regular trail bike I’d have thought, since that’s pretty much a definition of the terrain a regular trail bike is designed for. Any of the mainstream Stumpjumper class bikes would be ideal, or even their shorter travel counterparts.

I’ve got a Purgatory on the front at the mo – love it. It’s nice and big without being ludicrously chunky, and very confidence inspiring. Eskars have a good rep too. Never used Captains, but I imagine they are more of the same. The old Resolution Pros were fab too, but you can’t et them now.

Unfashionable, but Specialized tyres are excellent all-rounders and great value too. And tubeless compatible.

How can you efficiently load and unload your weight on the bike to “pump” the track with the seatpost at full extension? Disk brakes btw – would give up front suspension before them.

Full extension – even for optimum pedalling efficiency the saddle shouldn’t be so high as to be a total hinderance. I mean, the length of a crank (difference between fully down and horizontal cranks) of clearance over your saddle gives you quite a lot of freedom – sufficient for a surprising range of steep stuff, especially if said steep stuff has a clean exit.

Very often these days you her people say things like they (an organisation/land owner/whatever) are worried about injuries because of the compensation culture – in fact most people just don’t want to see another person injured, even if they are being a dick at the time.

Chain might be too long. What gear are you in at the back? Are you cranking fast downhill when this happens? For the top (faster) half of the cassette when going downhill, use the big ring to get less chain slack n slap. Just remember to get back to middle ring when you need easier gears.

I think he does risk other people.

As pointed out, he risks the trauma to others that may end up colliding with him.

He also puts all cyclists at risk to a small degree, but being yet another example to feed-in to the idea that all cyclists are dangerous and therefore asking for it.

Plus, just by arrogantly trying to beat the normal flow of the road to such an extreme degree he is taking to the road as a confrontational, rather than cooperative, system. If you go out there fighting, you’re going to get in a fight – quite different to being assertive.

Even if he’d made the gap, he’d set himself up for danger because he let the bus and truck obscure him from view. Bad riding on just about every level.

When making a calculated risk I think you have to say to yourself would I be happy if the other vehicle took the same risk with me – if you wouldn’t be happy for a bus to wander over so close to you then why the f would you do so close to it?

We’re in to that snake on the trail trying to get warm time of year now. Did a last second hop over one a couple of years back that I took to be a stick at first glance.

A badger is a whole different proposition – I’ve had one snarling around my ankles in the dark whilst on foot… quite alarming, especially when you can hear it but not see it!

I agree that the drivetrain is probably the number one area that could do with improvement. Longevity is not good enough, so as soon as the option gets light and cheap enough it should gain ground.

That’s a great non-story then. My mate lives in Denmark, and you couldn’t buy Marmite there anyway. He takes loads of it back – now in the cargo hold, because in hnd luggage it counts a liquid which might be a bomb :roll:.

Another way of thinking about this debate is “in which order would you do away with various features?” I don’t use a dropper ‘post (in fact I never drop the seat, choosing to just leave it where I like it)…
I’d get rid of, in this order:
dropper post (if I had one)
rear suspension
rear disk (replace with any rim brake)
front disk (well set-up v brake would a sensible minimum)
suspension fork
…and even after that lot goes you’ve still got a whole lot of fun, just like the good old days.

When you look at a bike, a hell of a lot of features have been there for a hell of a long time – diamond frame, chain drive, pneumatic tyres, derallieur gears – when design features pass that sort of test of time it puts other stuff into perspective.

These bikes won’t all be equally as easy to ride no handed. Taking your hands off is a very good rule-of-thumb quick way to get a feel for bike stability. Stability which comes only partly from steep or slack-ness.

As for the second bit, I’m very tempted to say all sorts of things, but really – I don’t have anything non-rude to say about that, so I won’t say anything at all. Funny though.

There is nothing dumb about that. A bike that you can take your hands off without fear of it flitting about (in the manner of a narrow tyred, steep angled 80’s xc bike) has enough stability for most people’s purposes. I fail to see why you even disagree with that, let alone declare it “shite”.

That was just my way of saying that as long as it’s not silly steep and twitchy it isn’t necessarily wrong, and slacker (as the OP stated and you agreed) isn’t necessarily better.

What, the “shite” I said that several other people repeated in their own way?

You just rail up every time I say something which which you disagree. And you are a rude **** with it. Maybe you just think you’re funny. I know what I think.

No different to anyone else then – except most people don’t take every opportunity to be rude to another person for no reason. Is it some sort of on-line tourette’s that is reserved just for me?

GW – what exactly is your problem?

It does not show there is no need for the flight ban! It only shows that that particular flight had no problems.

That guy is shameless about grabbing publicity – he’s even done tv bragging about getting millions of pounds’ worth of advertising on the back of being cheap and controversial.

What?

I’m not surprised the OP found he liked the way the bike handled on the normal side of slack. A bike that is easy to flick about is a pleasure to ride. Gotta go way back to the 80’s to find bikes that were a liability, steering-speed-wise.

One more thumbs up for Alonso – moving back to Spain, despite it costing him £50m in tax.

There’s just a widely spread view that slacker is better – no account seems to be taken for either the kind of riding that most people do, or the fact that mountain bike designers might actually know what they are talking about in the first place! I can’t see why anyone wold want a bike that is reluctant to turn – provided it doesn’t dart around all over the place like a crit bike – if you can ride it no handed fairly easily, it’s slack enough in my book.

Molrips. You wouldn’t put drops like that in a trail centre, especially to rock – certainly not without liberally flagging-up what lies ahead. Much as experienced riders might scoff, trail centres must go for a lower common denominator – the skill in building trail centre stuff is to make it feel exciting without it actually being life-threatening!

As for the rider going over – yep, bit further back would give him a lot more margin… much more heel drop, higher brake levers and a lot more hip movement would be far better…as long as he doesn’t touch the brakes he’ll roll with it though. Again – imagine that in the middle of a trail centre – this guy rolls in only to see someone in a heap at the bottom. He’s already got nowhere else to go – can’t brake/stop/avoid.

Alonso was brilliant in both qualifying and on the soft tyres in the race.

Crying? WFT you talking about?

It’s not built anything like a trail centre – that’s the point. They could re-shape it all to make it easier to read and more suitable for all levels, but then it wouldn’t be a very good top class xc course.

Funky Monkey you haven’t a clue, clearly! I can’t see anywhere in that article that Ferrari want to change the hard tyres to suit them and not others. Nothing. Tat is 100% your own inflection on it, guided by prior prejudice.

Technical regs-wise one of the big stories of the weekend was Ferrari not being allowed to use their new rear wing. Oddly, you don’t mention that.

Ferrari are merely correctly pointing out that they need to understand better how to make the hard tyres work on their car. They know they need more downforce too – they’re not blaming anyone but themselves for any of that.

Apart from generally having a dog that pays attention and comes when you call it – it’s almost essential to get them to trot alongside and match speed. Nose level with front axle is ideal, so you can see them in your peripheral vision. Then when you get going fast on singletrack having them behind is better – in front hey tend to stop or run across your line unpredictably.

Setting aside the doping, which personally I am certain that all the winning riders have been part of, he did of course race on in the Tour 2003 with a broken collarbone – and won a stage in that condition. Hard.

We are so obsessed in our fully black vs fully white western mentalities that as soon as some measure of discredit falls on one party then that party can no longer be right in any way shape or form. And that’s just nuts. Tyler Hamilton was a doper, and has been caught – that doesn’t mean everything he says is a lie!

You need to get your head around masking. The mask is a greyscale image – can be a spray-painted splodge, whatever. You then use that spray-panted mask to reveal your colour image only where the “paint” is.

Put another way, have a layer with your image which you wish to use, then mask it fully and use a brush to rub away the full mask in the areas you want to use.

Use a mask and a new layer – don’t clone on top of your other layer, because you won’t be able to edit it after.

If you are not meant to ride two abreast on busy roads, narrow roads, or when going round bends – that means there are very few occasions when you should be riding two abreast really doesn’t it.

Except that guidance is 180 degrees wrong, isn’t it? Road too narrow for bike and car on your side? You must ride out to cover yourself if there is a blind section ahead – that’s the last place you want to invite an overtake.

I’ve still been hooted at by a car who had absolutely no difficulty overtaking anyway, and who we filtered straight past less than 10 seconds later as he joined the obvious queue in front of us.

When that happens to me I just filter past the queue of traffic and pull in in front of the car that dangerously/needlessly overtook me. I never bother to filter if the queue is just one phase of traffic lights, so normally I would sit in the middle of the road in the queue – in this instance I do that, but in front of him.

To be honest I think it would be better for the default, taught, position to be to ride far enough out to allow space for a second rider on your inside.

Number one most vital road riding skill – force overtaking cars to recognise that they are overtaking you. Never – never ever – just let cars stream past as if you weren’t there.

To be fair, JV did mention some of the more esoteric facets of the debate – perceived vs actual safety, space given by car drivers, all that.

Having said that, the Jeremy Vine show’s stock-in-trade is mis- or under-representing the argument, which was managed quite nicely overall.

As ever, the single biggest omission is that all kinds of road users are killed every year, but some groups are targeted for helmets whilst others aren’t.

Two abreast hardly takes an entire bus lane?

And why not just cruise up behind and say “excuse me”? You seem to want them to improve their manners without regard for your own.

That’s exactly the same level of impatience that car drivers exhibit whilst endangering cyclists! Why not just wait for second or two, nip out of the cycle lane to overtake them and then get back in the lane?

I wouldn’t discount the Core without trying it first – they are actually a very comfy ride and I doubt you’d be hung up on the difference vs steel on ride quality alone.

My default opinion about all components is you need a good reason not to choose Shimano. My XTs are six years old and going strong. One bleed on a back brake when I accidentally pushed the piston all the way out, no other problems whatsoever.

SLX full set are nearly half price on Merlin…

We don’t lock the house, nevermind the shed.