Thanks all.

I’m not too fussed about them being noisy, based on the above maybe I need to adjust my expectations of how noisy they should be!

I got refunded a couple of days ago, emailed pretty much straight away when they sent out the cancellation email

https://www.teamcycles.com/components/gears-drivetrain/shimano-cs-m7100-slx-12-speed-micro-spline-cassette__18201

Cheapest I’ve seen 10-51 slx cassettes since Merlin were punting them out for £57.50 over winter.

+1 oceanskipper

What hub/wheel is it?

Finally got round to trying the exorail today. After a lot of swearing getting it to work with my seatpost I tried to fit it to my bag and I think it made things worse! The bag and the rails weren’t mating together at all so leaving a gap and actually preventing me from pulling the straps tight which meant there was a lot of sway.

I filled the bag with a load of heavy clothes, fitted it and cranked up a steep climb out the saddle – I barely noticed the bag was there. So happy enough to crack on without any extra support I think.

Bike parts.co.uk/woolly hat shop have been good for me. Competitively price and they rival SJS for the extensive range of Shimano parts too. Merlin is the best for clothing IMO.

I think I did this on a ride planned by a friend. She’s Belgian, so before we got to the canal itself we were sliding through some very thick mud in some waterlogged fields for a bit but from memory the canal ranged from well surfaced towpath to rough (for gravel) narrow singletrack as we got closer to Worksop. All rideable but some bits clogged my (sks edge al) mudguards a bit. We peeled off it and had lunch in Retford then returned via a long bridleway towards Clumber Park which I enjoyed a bit more.

Thank you to both the recent Shimano cassette deals. Order now processing and they both seem to have sold out.

No haven’t tested yet, work and job interviews have been getting in the way. I’ll try and post back when I’ve had the chance.

Sorry if this has been done but Merlin are selling a workshop box of Shimano gear cables for 1/3 of its RRP. Good timing as I’d just run out of the 50p Clarks cables CRC were selling around a year ago. 100 seems excessive but I counted up 15 gear cable systems in use in the house at the minute, and sure, they don’t go off…

https://www.merlincycles.com/shimano-road-mtb-steel-inner-gear-cable-box-of-100-cables-257424.html?utm_source=PHG&source=PHG&utm_medium=Affiliates&utm_campaign=genieshopping

Thanks both for this. I’ll wait for the 15l to arrive then fill it up and go ride up some hills to see how bad it is first. My mates got an exorail which is cheaper than Topeaks own solution so will see if I can get that to work with the back loader if needed, then can pop over to alpkit to get one if it’s a goer.

I did consider the cheap imitations but I came to the conclusion that they’re cheap for a reason – and I’d rather not have it fail on me somewhere remote if I need to rely on it!

I only have basic Komoot, but with worldwide maps. I found the easiest way is via the Komoot IQ app on Garmin itself – when connected to my phone I just tap download and the route loads after a couple of minutes.

https://support.komoot.com/hc/en-us/articles/360023082291-The-komoot-app-for-Garmin-devices

I agree. Given they sound quite neglected, it might not be such a decent price once a specialist has taken them apart and find what state the internals are in…

Hope 20five ticks all those boxes. The only negative might be that they can be a pain to set up tubeless (according to some, others say they’re a piece of piss…)

Thanks for the input all.

The route we have to do is going to be 1000km over 72 hours. I think pushing a laden bike over slabs whilst undertaking that is something we definitely want to avoid so I’ll be looking in to how much longer it is to ride round to the road. Great Dun Fell will come in around 400k – I reckon we’ll be getting there around 24 hours after starting at 8pm the night before so we would have to be doing this at dusk/night as well. Definitely not the one.

The 2 brake sets and groupset I bought after I started that thread above a couple of years ago are still going strong FWIW. No warranty so did have to pay to replace a caliper that started leaking 9 months in but that doesn’t seem out of keeping with Shimano brakes anyway.

True, perhaps I’m being a bit too stoic and mild mannered about it. Possibly a reflection on my personality somewhat

Thanks all for the responses and advice.

So the “few weeks ago” bit I said in my original post wasn’t true. This was all payments scheduled for yesterday. I was  a bit dramatic and emotional about it all yesterday so made that bit up for dramatic effect. I lied on the internet. Sorry.

As per advice from a few of you I put in a formal complaint. They initially said I couldn’t put in a formal complaint because the relevant team were “looking in to it”. It slowly dawned on me that them saying they were looking in to it should not be a reason not to let me complain, but they obviously realised this too as before I was able to protest I got an email saying my complaint had been logged with a reference number.

I received a phone call from the fella I spoke to on the phone with whom I initially raised the issue with yesterday morning. He said the payments team looking in to it had manually calculated all of my transactions and have indeed found a discrepancy – and think it’s to do with the largest payment I had scheduled in to the account. They had admitted it was a problem on their end and it wasn’t me being a lemon, or forgetting about a pending/scheduled payment from some weeks/months ago. I suppose I don’t have this in writing yet, but the customer services representative phoning me back said this was all logged as an update on my case file at least.

I feel better about it now, and I’m lucky to be in a position where I can wait a little bit for the money – I don’t need it to pay the gas/leccy/feed starving children etc. However, I’m still somewhat ambivalent about the fact that this even happened in the first place, and even though they’ve admitted fault, they haven’t updated my account balance/put the money back in yet!

I’ve moved all my money out of this account back in to my other account now. I got enticed to them by the 1% cashback promo, but I’ve lost all trust in them now after this.

They fit both the mt520 caliper and Deore m6020 calipers that I use them in so assume they’ll work for slx/xt also. I always thought the pads for zee/saint were the same as well, maybe Matt’s alluding to the 400 series brakes?

https://www.inspiralcycles.co.uk/components/brakes/swissstop-disc-27-endurance-brake-pads-for-shimano-4-pot__13133

Inspiral cycles are selling off my chosen pads for £10 a pair – I thought these were really good value when I found them at £16 a pair a couple of years ago! They are really consistent and give noticeably better modulation than other pads, and stood up to alpine descents that racematrix pads didn’t even last an hour on.

They have pads that fit SRAM brakes in stock for the same price.

https://www.firetrail.co.uk/bike-components/drivetrain-gears/shimano-rear-derailleur-rx812-grx-11sp-shad-sin-42t-black-gs–medium__315

Very reduced GRX 1x mechs. They’re also selling free hub seals for hope pro2 evo hubs for 4p. Sorry to see that it’s because the shops closing down.

I managed to use the Shimano part below to mount a 12 speed xt shifter to some mt501 ispec ii levers. Worked fined for 2 years until the levers died and replaced them with some slx m7100 – made that work by removing this part and bolting the shifter directly on to the lever.

Shimano Spares SL-M8000-I right hand bracket

Because apparently copy and paste is too hard…

https://www.cyclestore.co.uk/altura_esker_dwr_polartec_long_sleeve_trail_jersey-ID_88540?opt=198059&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiA4NWrBhD-ARIsAFCKwWvWkRPLKaT9u765QlU4cDfgzctL7QRj_Gp33lo_KDyUOeuGtCJhNLQaAmu2EALw_wcB

I had this problem and I just cut the struts down. As the mudguard length stays the same by bringing the guard closer to the wheel at the struts, it pushed it away from the wheel at the top.

DHB Waterproof Running Jacket – £10 from £150!

Absolutely no need for yet another rain jacket but hard to justify not buying that given the savings!

Cotics are quite big frames. I’m 5″11 on a medium so a small might be good.

If you’re close to Sheffield you could sit on my girlfriend’s small BFEMax to see how you feel on it?

Anyone know how the Kestrel compares to the non-clip Five Tens in terms of sizing?

FWIW I’m a 47 in anything Shimano. I got both some Kestrel pro boas and some freeriders in 10.5 (45 1/3) and 11.5 (46 2/3). The 11.5s both fit perfectly.

Annoyingly the boxes for both the 10.5 came quite tatty, hope Evans don’t get funny when the returns department process them…

I ended up getting SKS edge AL guards 56mm that fit g-one 40mm tyres no bother. The front stays needed cutting down but was easy enough with some bolt cutters.

Do you mean the 2 bolts that hold in the plastic insert that you attach your Garmin to? Countersunk m3x6mm if so. I bought a bag of them a while ago and would send you them but I can’t find them now!

This was linked to a post I made asking this question a few months ago:

https://k-edge.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/K-EDGE-Garmin-K13-520-Instructions.pdf

Ordered some kestrels for clips and freeriders for flats, and some new freeriders for my girlfriend when her current ones knacker out on Saturday. Got processed all together tonight, hopefully they’ll all come together in a few days…

Mine are still stuck on processing_promised! Glad I don’t need them in a hurry…

Fair enough TJ, thanks for that. If it turns out to be something as simple as that it’ll be well worth the money!

Can anyone recommend a good sports physio in Sheffield?

Unless you’re wanting to splurge on some nice hiking boots like those listed above, I’d check out a local builders merchants and see what they have. They’ll be cheap but functional and if they’re designed to last all day in a yard in current conditions then that should translate well over to a workshop. Or as someone mentioned above some pit mat to put down if you’re working on a cold concrete floor

It might be worth considering leaving the off piste tech until it’s a bit dryer. I rode on weds and it was holding up pretty well but there were rivers running down some of the tracks even before the weekend, and given the flooding that Derwent had over the weekend it’s going to be in a bit of a sorry state for at least a few weeks.

It’s hard to describe how to get to a lot of it too. Strava heatmaps or a friendly local are your friend for where the good stuff is.

They have given up on it but there’s some incredible off piste to be found on the hill. We’ve ridden there for a couple of days on our trips the last couple of years and it’s been some of the best riding we’ve done.

If you make your way up to the top of the Nauchets lift in Morzine, using Trailforks you ride along/down the road a little bit to the Joux Plane lake. Before it starts dropping down you take a left off the road and do some mild hike a bike up to a big cross at the top of the hill. There’s then a lovely natural enduro descent all the way down to the valley floor. It’s on Trailforks – there are 2 reds from where I described it so best to use that to get there. We did the one that hooks left early on and it was amazing.

If you send me a message closer to the time I’d be happy to point you in the right direction of some of the Samoens off piste. I bumped in to some other guys who were friends of friends in the park and took them down some stuff they were adamant was the best trail they’d ever ridden. There’s on trail that’s like a Golfie trail with 1000m of elevation drop, I’d hoof it over from Morzine to Samoens just for that!

<p style=”text-align: left;”>I fitted some Edge Als to a vitus substance SRS which had eyelets halfway up the inside of the fork. I had to cut the stays down with a hacksaw which was a bit of a pain but once done was fine. Bolt cutters would be easier but I didn’t have any…</p>

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/394610270233?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=revcl4mcqec&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=6YfCa0A_QQi&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

I’ve got one of these which does the job fine. Slides over the axle. Clamp the tool in a vice and then turn the crank to tighten/loosen.

Edit: I’d also recommend getting the relevant size security torx and loctiting all of those 8 bolts holding ring on to spider – they can come loose as per my post about a month ago.

I got a Gore Endure a few months ago and it’s been ace! Was kept very dry today on the commute from Sheffield to Chesterfield using it today, and equally was very breathable over the summer when pedalling a RocketMAX up climbs in Samoens. The cheapest I found it was on SportPursuit – it took a little while for one in medium to come up so had to keep checking for a week or so. Think they only have it in ultramarine blue.

Working in A+E, I saw a roady who got taken out by a car whilst coming down a fast hill. He had a pneumothorax, several rib fractures, knackered helmet (no head injury) and a broken pelvis. His phone, keys, wallet, gilet and flapjacks were all still in his jersey, which had made it on to the helicopter with him. For me that put a lot of confidence in jersey pockets holding on to stuff, as long as the pockets tensioned by either being properly fitting or full of stuff.

I had the same. I changed the caliper and it stopped doing it. Either warranty or just suck the cost up of a new caliper. Deore calipers aren’t too much and are just as powerful, can just cut the banjo off the hose and connect with an olive and barb. You get a set of resin pads with the caliper which makes the price feel a little more worth it.