Hobnob – how does the Stoy compare to the CCDB?

Twas an awesome ride. Too busy riding them to take any photos of the descents, but this gives a good flavour.
More here…..
Peaks Biking

It’s a shame as they produced some stunning bikes. I was lucky to pick up a Motolite Exogrid off ebay a few years back and it’s a work of art. As noted above, they are nothing innovative, and ride no better or worse than a lot of other designs, but some of them are quite stunning pieces of engineering

One of the problems here in the UK is they never built up much of a reputation in the same way Turner or Intense have. They therefore never sold the volumes, and second hand prices are just grim – I’ve recently built up an alu Motolite for a mate with some very nice parts, and frame is virtually new, for £1500.

Sad, but in the current economic climate, you have to think there are too many manufacturers around.

Think you’ll be struggling for anyone who’s ridden both for any prolonged period of time so I’ll offer my thoughts having ridden the Covert and owned a number of linkage bikes.

The Covert is a great bike – the geometry is spot-on and can be built sub-30lbs so is light enough for a trail bike. For the money I think it’s great value, and looks the biz too. It’s only downside is the single pivot design as it does suffer from brake-jack. That said, some people think the simplicity of design outweighs this. Linked to this, the shock on the Covert is pretty short for a 150mm travel bike so some riders may feel there’s some lack of control on the suspension, but I didn’t feel any problems.

A good linkage design offers a number of advantages over the single-pivot: no brake jack, the bike rides high in the travel when climbing so no need for a travel-adjust fork, and really responsive under power. The key question is whether the Evo is a good linkage design. It’s Chumba’s first linkage design and is their own take on it, so unless you get to demo one, or we get a trust-worthy review, you don’t know if they’ve cracked it first time. If they have, then the Evo is v good value vs other boutique linkage designs such as Turner, Pivot, SC etc.

It might be worth testing a Covert vs something like a Turner 5-Spot, a Giant of some sort, or a SC Nomad. This should give you a sense of how the different suspension designs work.

Running 1×10 with a 32 ring and 11-36 cassette. Find it perfect. Any bigger ring would have me walking quite a bit, and yet to spin out the 11t, but ride v little on road or fire roads.

ashfanman – sadly not yet. Chris from Kingdom isn’t fully happy with the prototype Foia, so I’m waiting for the production frames to arrive in the next month or so. Once that happens, he’ll get me one to try. I’ll def post once it happens!!

Has anyone actually ridden from the top of Fleetwith Pike down to Buttermere? How much is rideable??

Tried it a few years’ back and walked 80% of it! Weather was pants and was on an 05 5-Spot, so good weather and a bigger bike would make more of it rideable, but still would be v difficult.

A year or so ago there were some awesome photos on Pinkbike (one of them made POD) where the guy maintained they’d ridden the whole lot, but think from memory they were semi-pro downhillers on full-on DH bikes! Nuff said!

Sell you mine for £360. 2010 model not had a huge amount of use, comes with 450lb steel spring (am 12.5st) and the little adjuster thingy.

I put a CCDB on my DW 5-Spot and it was a massive improvement over the RP23. Bags more control, and the best way I found to describe it was like riding with a rear tyre 50% wider!

PS As I’m selling the 5-Spot my CCDB is probably for sale if you’re tempted!

T-M – I had to buy a pair in HK and am only using the rear – make me an offer on the front if you want to save some cash!

Sweet – makes me want to go to the Lakes again! Shame it’s a 6hr drive!!

Yep prices on the XTR are the same as they will be here – more about availability for me.

The only downside of Flows (and other Stans rims) is they need tape & jizz to work. This means that if you change tyres much, you’ll need to replace the jizz and from time to time retape them. As a result, they’re a bit more of a faff than tubeless Mavics, but ultimately lighter, wider, and just as strong.

Got some 2011 XTR kit from Bull Bike in Kowloon last week. Had a load of bling kit in there including a full suit of Moots, Intense, and Pivot frames.

I’ve fitted a bog- standard Cane Creek one for the time being with a view to putting an Angleset on it when they become available next month (I’m running standard 1 1/8″ forks).
The downtube protector is extra sadly, as is the custom MRP chain device. The neoprene chainstay protector comes with the frame but I’ve added inner tube around the dropout area as on my previous Mojo this got some damage from chainslap.

psychle -Roj mentioned you’d called in to take a look. As I’d managed to get some new XTR stuff in HK on my business trip, they ended up having to do a bit of a rebuild this morning to convert it over to 1×10.
I’ve got the limbo chips on order to convert it, and when they arrive I’ll keep a lookout for a second hand RP23. Not sure what I’ll do for forks though.
Also intend to get a Cane Creek Angleset when they are available so I can play with different head angles, although it feels spot on at the moment.

rocketdog – agreed on the saddle. It came off a white bike where it looked good. I’ll probably change it at some point.

is this the one where the edge is an old fallen tree and the landing is short before you run on to the roof of the pill box? slow and steady is the order of the day here, otherwise you might miss the ramp onto the pill box and hit the side of it instead :o)

Yep thats the one. Beyond me!

According to Cane Creek will be with their European distributors at the end of this month.

Yes General Major Fuddly Dudley and his pack of corgis didn’t quite get how sweet the hip jump was.

Ha ha ha. Love it!

Back to the original q, I really like the trails on Ranmore, and think they are the best combination of flowing trails and bigger jumps. I took my Intense Slopestyle up there earlier in the year along with the full-face and nailed a number of the bigger jumps, including the final one onto the road. You need a fair amount of speed into it due to, as noted above, the lip is receding. I rode it 3-4 times and cased it quite heavily once or twice.
Simon’s new trail is good – more in the mind than technically difficult. The run in is very narrow, the drop lands onto roots, and the double comes up very quickly. Nice trail though.
I’ve heard talk of the freeride gods dropping through the tree gap – while the drop itself is not huge by modern riding standards, the entrance is ugly, and the runout not pretty either. There is also a big drop off a tiny ledge that then runs onto a pill-box, which you can then drop. Never had the balls to do this one though!
The other good one, which I haven’t ridden in a while, is at the other end of Ranmore, called Grevious Angel.

HD for me. Better geom IMHO and sl longer tt.

My VitP is sitting in Head for the Hils in Dorking waiting for me to get back from a business trip to Asia. Have gone with the 160 and have ordered the Limbo chips as and when available with a view to picking up a used RP23 to run at 140. Just bought some pimp Twenty20 flats in green so I hope it’s not too yellow or else they will clash horribly!!

Definately – otherwise the chainslap start to chip away the paint pretty quickly. I used the old cut-up inner tube trick.

Yep it’s good. Wish mine would hurry up!!

Yep – Ridethelakes has it nailed for me. It’s an awesome all-round do-it-all bike if you just want to ride one bike for everything. Trouble is for me the” jack of all master of none” applied – it didn’t inspire in any one area.

Didn’t really get on with it when I tried it around Surrey Hills. Much preferred my 456, and more recently an Evil Sovereign. I found the ride position a bit odd -I’m sure you’d get used to it pretty quickly but it wasn’t for me.

Interesting comments about The One’s in winter, mate has a set that give him no end of issues in the wet and recently I’ve noticed mine go “spongey” on prolonged wet rides. Anyone have similar experiences?

Yep that’s exactly what I mean! I had this happen a couple of times last winter, and its the pads wearing down rapidly. The pads on high-end Formula brakes seem to sit closer to the discs than for example Hopes. I suspect it is one of the ways Formula reduce the weight. As such, if you are doing one of those lovely rides where it is continual mud, then this will wear away a pad in the space of a 3hr ride, even one which is well bedded in.
I now run a set of Hopes on my hardtail which sees most action when things are really grim, and leave The Ones on the full-suss.

Worth noting The Ones are the old lever design – nowt wrong with it, but just so you are aware. Awesome brakes by the way but they don’t like winter much.

heihei, did you buy through headforthehills? Will they be doing the build?
I’d quite like to see the colour….

Yep – frame due in today or tomorrow, and they are building it up for me. Unlikely I’ll get there before Saturday, but even if you do, I’d obviously be happy to hook up some time to see it / test it, assuming you’re local. Just ordered some Twenty20 flats in the same colour!!

One of the many advantages of the Mojo HD is that you can use the Cane Creek Angleset headset with it, so you can adjust the headangle by up to 1.5 degrees in either direction, so you could dial in the SL’s 69degree HA easily

As well as the fact you can run it at 140mm or 160mm with a change of shock & shock mounts, and use forks from 140mm to 180mm.

My Vit P Mojo HD arrives today or tomorrow……not excited at all….much!!

Titus – dirt cheap second-hand, and the Ti ones are a work of art.

RQs are pretty good in the wet (hate MK’s by the way), but swampys will always be grippier when it gets really grim.

Think there’s a British Racing Green – review on bikeradar has pics. Looks tasty.

have to find somewhere with the ac to try. Anyone got one?

Head for the Hills in Dorking have a medium demo built up….currently sitting in my shed though!

Get an AC with custom geometry to slacken the HA. With good parts it will come in under 30lbs.

I reckon the AC is a great do-it-all bike but therefore a bit jack-of-all trades, master of none. The AM is more heavy-duty, although have ridden with guys who have done all-day rides on them (and the FR) without too much problem. Mate of mine is going from an FR to an AC for a lighter ride.

Just ordered a Mojo HD….turns up tomorrow or Wednesday…nuff said!

As above, Ibis come up quite small.

Single Pivot

Thought that was the case. With the non-UST you gain Black Chilli so should grip better, but obviously lose the improved rolling of a tubeless set-up. I’ve run a set of 2.4″s on my Slopestyle – amazing grip but huge!!

Mikey -2.2″ RQ’s (UST version) are my tyre of choice around Surrey Hills. They roll well, grip well including when wet, and are very predictable when they let go. Funnily enough I rode a demo bike yesterday with High Rollers on, and whilst impressed with the grip, they are draggy compared to the RQ’s.

Whatever the latest and greatest is or talked about in the mags and forums

There’s always an element of this if nothing else the mags get to ride stuff before the rest of us, and to be sure, technology and design moves on. That said, I love riding the Titus and that’s a brand / bike that has never had particularly good reviews or a following in the press / on UK forums. I also ride the old HL 5-Spot and like that a lot too.

I must sell my DW Spot now, it just doesn’t cut the mustard anymore

I’m a big Turner fan and really like the DW so this should have been the perfect bike for me, but as noted above, I never really gelled with it. I’ve had it almost 2 years so feel it’s time to move on.

May be able to help here as I tested a Covert back-to-back with my DW 5-Spot (assuming that’s the version you mean).
Covert – geometry is spot-on (no pun intended) and is really confidence inspiring. It builds up to around 30lbs with decent kit (not sure where Transition get the idea it can be built to 28lbs) so not bad weight-wise. Finish is good, but am surprised they specced quite a short shock (7.5″ x 2″ – same size as the 5-Spot but with 10mm more travel). It also looks “right” if you know what I mean. The only downside I found was brake jack due to the single-pivot design – even substituting a CCDB couldn’t tame this. If this doesn’t bother you (and many riders reckon it’s bull anyway) then I reckon it’s an awesome bike. For me it put me off.
DW 5-Spot – DW suspension action is awesome – plush but taught when accelerating, doesn’t sag under climbing, no brake jack or pedal kick-back – for me it’s the best design out there. Adding in the CCDB just makes it sublime, like riding a tyre 1 size bigger in terms of grip. The main problem for me with the 5-Spot is the HA is too steep and on my large frame the front too high. I ran mine with Float 160mm forks to slacken it a bit but then the BB was a bit too high. Interestingly, Turner has addressed the geometry issues for 2011 with a slacker HA and slightly lower BB.

Conclusions – if you’re happy with a single-pivot design then the Covert is a no-brainer and great value for money. If you want a “better” suspension platform then the DW is very good but you should wait for the 2011 version which is supposed to arrive this month. Hope this helps!