This! is quite a good summary on the topic

Coed Y Brenin is Snowdonia, isn’t it? 😕

Anyway, I currently plan to go there for the first day and then head to Nant yr Arian for the second day. I’ll try to stay 2 nights and add 1/2 a day of travelling upfront so that I have 2 full days worth of riding and a late-into-the-night drive back.

Squashing in Cannock or anything else just because I pass by doesn’t really work for me. I want to fully enjoy and focus on the area I choose. Does that make sense?

I save Cannock for a 1-day-trip. I’ve done Sheffield in a day and back before. So should be possible to do 4 hours riding and get there and back in a day.

Thanks again!

Sounds like a plan! 🙂

Ah, OK, thanks! It sounded more like a medicine. Or an illness for that matter.

Coed Y Brenin and Nant yr Arian are now on the short-list with Cannock and Suffolk being an opportunity for shorter trips. 🙂

I’ll also have a closer look at mbwales.com.

Many thanks for the massive feedback!

Can you say that again please? 🙂 Syfyfyfyfyfyfyfyfyryyddrydyn? 😕 😉
Is that a part of Nant yr Arian or something else?

you’ll probably get hooked and want to visit them all

that’s exactly what I thought after reading through the posts – many thanks to all!

stumpy01 – I like your video(s) a lot, I am pretty sure they give a more relevant impression than any sugarcoated promotion video of a trail centre – thank you! And I do hope your cold was suitably impressed by your stamina and buggered off soon! 🙂

I like the Cannock idea. Hock in Cannock, not too long a drive… But I am a little bit confused by the contradictory comments here. Either it’s a huge area or it’s not clear where it is and where it ends. 😉
Anyway, the current What MTB? has a story on that area and I’ll try to make sense of that.

It will be a long drive to Wales in any case but I can be an early bird if there is a good reason and I don’t mind driving too much. Maybe I’ve got to stay 2 nights to make it worthwhile though.

@joemacca: thanks for your offer! Exploring some more of East Anglias fine tracks sounds very good to me! I just send you a mail.

Very pleased with STW forum today! 😉 🙂

Have major hassle with new shoes and new cleats (SPD). Right knee and hip hurts after just 1h ride 3rd day in a row. Knee feels unstable for the whole day as a result. This despite carefully trying to align new cleats on new shoes in the same position as with old shoe (using spanner method as indicator).

Tonight clicked old and new shoe into pedal at the same time on opposite sides of pedal to see what’s the difference on the bike just to find out… tadah!… that the old cleat is so worn that it allows much bigger movement angle than new one.

Adjusted cleat a little. Will see if that’s better.
Don’t want to file the new cleats, don’t want to use the old cleats.

If it all fails:
– which pedals/cleats allow for more rotational movement on the pedal than the SPDs?
– while delivering similar levels of controlled click-in/click-out, mud shedding, stable platform?

LOOK, Time, Speedplay, Egg Beaters…?

Many thanks and frustrated regards!
(I knew that getting new shoes and cleats would result in this kind of never-ending-adjustment hassle)

nothing to see at Cannock

THAT good?! 😯 😀

FOD – where or what is that?
Urban dictionary rings all the wrong bells… 🙂

Coed Llandegla sounds good! But high speed? Is that still narrow with nice sweeping lines weaving through the trees?!

or

Shame. Could have been an interesting thread.

Well it’s good to see the lack of understanding of what HIIT really is has started already.

Why don’t you keep your cynicism to yourself and share your wealth of knowledge with us then? 🙄

In the same way I find it utterly pointless to state that pie eating and chatting casual mountain bikers are less fit than your average roadie. Would you ride on the road just for fun? Or is road riding by the nature of it (focus on fitness rather than fun) attracting on average more fitness orientated riders than mountain-biking?! Think about it before telling the world that road riding is better for your fitness than mountain biking. Please!

Those chatty pie eaters enjoy themselves and do it for fun. Fitness is probably not even secondary for them. Similar – by the way – to the pot bellied cappuccino drinking stop-over at the next cafe and the cafe after that experts amongst roadies.

The only thing that I’d like to add to this thread is that cycling as such is unhealthy in terms of locking you in more or less the same position for a long time and using only certain muscles. By the nature of it mountain biking is not that bad in this respect. But any cyclist interested in fitness and/or health should do some stretching after cycling and some ((core)strength) exercises to counter-act the one-sidedness of cycling.

What made me fitter in the recent month:
– riding with roadies off-road because – yes – they stop and chat less and have on average a higher pace (but they choose rather boring routes, while I can totally second the blue collar humour aspect!!!)
– riding on a singlespeed because it makes you ride in attack mode more often and is much more of a work-out for your upper-body

Pukys come with or without brakes. While a nice idea the brakes weren’t used a lot by our two kids. They tend to be hard to pull and at that age it’s difficult to get across the rather abstract concept of pulling a lever to stop if you have your feet already on the obvious braking surface. So you could save the money.

Anyway, the Puky are robust and good value. I would go for the rubber tyre version anytime.

BUT I would also look at the (suspended) Kokua balance bike. Especially if you take the kids off-road or anything mildly bumpy for that matter. Mind the kids sit on those bike all the time, no chance to stand up and suspend with your legs. Apart from that the suspension seems to support the stride movement and I have seen kids on them which were very fast with very smooth natural movements.

You might also want to look at this one from BMW (…) which is 2-in-1 and might make the switch to bicycle mode even smoother.

Balance Bikes in general are great. It takes less than 10 minutes to teach them cycling as soon as they get on a bicycle.

I would be interested, too, especially in terms of handling and agility.

Looking at the following 29ers:
– Solaris
– Nimble9
– El Mariachi
– …

http://www.bikeradar.com/fitness/%5B/url%5D has a few articles on nutrition amongst others
– how to recover hard rides
– why milk is the perfect recovery drink
– home made sports drinks
(links didn’t work here)

Cocoa![/url]
Apparently.

Ah, I see!

The “breakaway / come off the mounting easily” part is ticked.
The “low profile” part only to a certain degree…

I could try to apply your O-ring approach to my B7 torch for the time being and the sake of my neck.

But I still hope to find a front mount for one of the Magicshines.
Or another moderately priced but proper solution.

IMO its essential the light will breakaway / come off the mounting easily and be as low profile as possible in case of it hitting / catching on something

Yes Jeremy, that’s what I am looking for! So how did you achieve it? Which light with which mount(ing method)?

otherwise you are just adding a lever to break your neck to your helmet

Yeah! I wrecked a helmet and almost hang myself in the process by catching on a big bad branch with my B7 Led lenser torch which was strapped on top of my helmet with a strong velcro strap. Ouuch! And just for the record: I ducked! Just not low enough…

Result:
– helmet broken, one helmet strap ripped from anchor point
– some sort of strange sore throat for a few days
– slight dizzyness and head ache for a few hours
– B7 torch just fine…

Hi dst,

just to be sure before I order:
– you are using the original Magicshine helmet mount pictured below
– you have attached it to the front(al area) of your helmet (i.e. not on top of the helmet)
– and you can adjust the light so that it the beam points forward?

My main concern with the Magicshine mount was, that it doesn’t look as if you can still point the beam forward when you mount it to the front of the helmet.

Thanks for confirming!

Neither. I followed the step-by-step instructions on their HOW TO MAKE A WARRANTY CLAIM page.

They ask you to send the broken/faulty item to them with a brief description and if possible a receipt. I had a receipt for one of the frames, explained where I had the other from and when/why they snapped.

More or less a week later they phoned and offered the replacement.

🙂

EDIT: Not sure if they replace lenses though.

Just to let you know the outcome of this:
– sent the two old broken frames away a week ago
– was phoned today by a friendly lady from Oakley and offered two replacement M-Frames
– GBP20 per frame, choice of available colours, free shipping

I think that this is a very generous policy and makes the purchase of Oakleys – beyond their actual product performance – very good value. Especially considering I sent in two ancient frames which I had used for more than 10 years while the warranty card mentions a ‘1 year’ warranty.

Thanks for the advise I got here!

Hi sparks,

that’s a good point actually, taking one mount and tying it to the front with cable ties.
I’ll consider that!

Especially as the Lupine Pico is selling at more than GBP200… 😯

Did anybody tie the Magicshine helmet mount to the front, yet?
Or are there other helmet mounts that would suit a Magicshine?

Cheers!

Thanks! 😀

I thought I had to bump on about the additional friction created by brushing through the undergrowth which quite possibly is even higher than the wind and rolling resistance.

Any further advise on low/front mounts appreciated! 😉

And that’s cool. I wear the bruises with pride as a testament for the human resistance against the supression by the plants. But loosing a light a few miles into every ride is expensive and makes the whole upright riding thing even more of a struggle.

(bump)

Try ducking?

Yeah, I tried that. But it always felt humiliating. You know? To duck below the flora. It felt like surrender to nature. Anyway, I couldn’t bear it and ever since ride upright no matter what comes into my way.
…
..
.

One of my work colleagues is German

That’ll help! 😉

Schönen Gruß!

scud Heckler [26″] (…) doesn’t need to be “muscled” round the turn

fenred I have to ‘muscle’ it [the 29er] more through the trail

exactly my experience and one reason for me to conclude that the 26″ feels more agile and nimble in the slower, really tight and twisty stuff

I head the feeling that I had to heave the front wheel around from one side to the other, it described a huge arch in front of me before changing direction. Much less of an issue in faster flowy sections.

Custom colour with a decal choice would be popular I guess. The bike would be official but special at the same time. Colour coded to existing components etc. People could and would go wild! Especially if they could indulge in the whole RAL range for example.

Sounds fun!

Who else does it? And what do they charge? Does anyone know?

Found some more links, some with english language versions:
– Selection of Black Forest bike parks
– MTB related information for the area around Todtnau
– Forum post by a Black Forest based tour guide with contact details
– this link talks about GPS data but actually doesn’t provide any, still good general information about the region AND in English
– I guess official tours like this one stick to fire roads to obey the law and be family friendly etc. see pdf on the right

Is the Schwarzwald stunning, though? I don’t know. I find Wales or Scotland more stunning. But that’s probably because it’s new and special to me whereas the Schwarzwald is just another region in Germany for me. Then again it not being extreme in an alpine way more hilly and woody is probably a good thing for less extreme tours.

I second the soapy water. I fill my sink with very hot soapy water, leave the tyres in there for 10 minutes so the rubber expands a little and they go on a lot easier.

Trail-side puncture no problem then. In Iceland. Close to a geyser.

Hi faint,

the <2m rule applies in this county of Germany but as mentioned is not necessarily sanctioned in a hard way. In doubt you can always claim to be a foreigner and that you never heard of such a (stupid) rule.

Under this Link[/url] you’ll find detailed German descriptions but also maps and GPX files for several trips in the St. Georgen area. That’s between Freiburg and Offenburg but more ‘in’ the Black Forest. On the left side you will find a bar with ‘Leichte/Mittlere/Schwere Touren’ (i.e. easy/medium/challenging trips). Kirchzarten is another good place to be based in the Black Forest. They had the Worldcup in 199X…

Here’s another (German) overview of several trips, again in the southern Black Forest area: Link

I’m amazed to find these links without an English language version. But hey! 😳 Still most people should be able to help you when you are there in more or less understandable English.

You could also consider 3 other areas in Germany (which by the way havn’t got the <2m rule and are more into sport tourism (pros and cons for that):
– Allgaeu respectively Allgäu which is more alpine, a good place to stay would be Oberstdorf, the local bike shop owner Andi Heckmair is a TransAlp legend from the very early days of MTBing
– Tegernsee is more eastern again (south of Munich), rather alpine too with good access to several mountains and valleys
– the Bavarian Forest/Bayrischer Wald is more woody like the Black Forest but they have a Bike Park or two and the area is vast

A Mountain Bike heaven is Riva del Garda in Italy. They have fully embraced the mountain bike and there are lots of tours, guides, etc.

Was it Singletrack Magazine who recently did a feature on why guided alpine tours are always so performance oriented and not that much fun? I think they recommended some guide companies they thought were alright (if you consider guided tours at all).

Enjoy!

Would be interested to hear from people who switched from Inbred26 to Inbred29 with the same set-up.

And first impression from people who switched from Soul to Solaris.

P.P.S.:

I see a future where we will have both sizes alongside each other. Some companies will offer certain sizes of the same model only in 26″ and other sizes of the same model only in 29″. And/or certain types of bikes only in one or the other wheel size. Others will specialise in this or that wheel size to underline their overall approach of more technical trail fun or more CC efficiency.

650B or what it’s called? I’d still have to understand why. With the differences between 26 and 29 not being THAT big I don’t see the point for a 3rd format. It could be the golden mean (or gold mine?!) but going back to only one wheel size would mean less choice.

By the way: I am still hankering after a 24″ jump bike!
So my ideal bike shed could look like this:
– 24″ jumper
– 26″ HT (or cross-country biased FS)
– 29″ rigid SS.

That’s 3 different wheel sizes! 😀

P.S.:

So now why do we have the lovers and haters if the differences are tendencies more than anything else?
Well, many of those who hate just seem to try to defend their personal choice (or lack thereof). Some ‘hate’ for the sake of arguing. Very few based on personal experience (because those in the know don’t see it that black and white).

And then there are those who always like to blame “marketing” for all the bad things that happen around the whole world. Keeping bike companies and bike shops in business is a good thing. Selling more bicycles is a comparatively good thing, too. Introducing people to sport in general is a good thing. If the dreaded marketing works and the 29ers (re-)introduce more people to the sport that’s a good thing, too. Getting people on bikes more is a very good thing (beyond the sport). And if 29er give more confidence to those who are new to the sport – great!
Marketing is a means of communication to sell (the right) bikes (to the right target group). Forums like this help to make customers more informed and less likely to fall for the odd marketing bubble blah that tries to sell (the wrong) bikes (to the wrong target group) by all means. Happy days!

Evolution and innovation is a good thing. Choice is a good thing, too. Even if it creates some complexity and multiple standards. We had this before 29ers. Some come, some die, some stay. It’s a normal process. Am I a little upset that my 1″ Syncros Cattleprod is pretty much obsolete these days? Yes. Would I want everyone to still ride around with 1″ steerers? No.

Stop arguing and start enjoying the variety and choice: go for a test ride!
If you like it, go buy a new 29er and support your LBS.
If you don’t indulge in the increasing numbers of 2nd hand 26″ bikes on offer. 😉

I did it. I have had a 26″ and 29er now in close succession.
And for a change quite comparable: both being steel rigid SS with similar enough geometry (Soul and Inbred29).
So I can tell! 😛 At least for me… 😕

Based on my experience and as mentioned by a few people before there’s not so much to hate and some things to love about 29ers. In the end – surprise! – a question of personal preferences. Mainly based on rider size (5’10 here), riding style (CC with a pinch of fun here) and terrain (flat’n’twisty here). Apart from things like budget and interchangeability between bikes.

Both are great in their own way, then again not THAT different. If at all it’s about tendencies: the 26″ Soul being more fun/chuckable/more in the air, the Inbred29 more steady/stable and has substantially more grip (same tyres on both). Saying this I am absolutely sure that you could find a steady/stable 26″ and a fun/chuckable 29er and claim that it is just the other way round.

And that’s not surprising because while wheel size does make a difference, so do other things that define a bike (geometry, material, tyres, forks etc.). So it can’t ever be just a 26″ or 29er decision. Thus it shouldn’t be just a 26″ or 29er discussion.

Still the tendencies apply and wheel size can help to emphasise the character you want to achieve. In other words: if you can ride like this BMX guy in the nice video above you can make almost any bike look chuckable (and I don’t doubt a second that the Cooker is!) but I’d argue that this trail in this style would be (even) more effortless for most of us (and him) on a 26″.

My bottom line: If pressed I would prefer the 26″ for my fun-biased CC riding on tight, twisty singletracks and for being the more universal bike for me (might be different for someone else).

If not being pressed too much though I will be looking to have both. In which case I wouldn’t build them up that similar again but have one as the fun and chuckable “1 hour in the woods” tool and the other one as the more universal “do it all” bike for longer trips and holidays in more demanding terrain. Still not sure which one for which though. Because somehow the 29er qualities lend itself to be the geared and suspended long-distance weapon of choice. On the other hand it’s a great basis to go rigid and SS.

Which in a way proves my point: it’s not so much about the wheel size but what you make of it.

RAL 7010 seems to come quite close to the Porsche slate grey above – so yes please! 🙂

RAL 7040

yep!

Black? Well, as with cars it seems to make up a large percentage of sales where offered.
Cotic will know more.

But it’s quite a stark contrast to your current colours and could be seen as inconsistency.
And I don’t see it work that well with your panel style (retro-ish).
I’d therefore suggest a dark non-metallic grey if you want to appeal to the less colour adventurous.
Like the Hummingbird in terms of darkness but grey.

Not as dark but maybe an idea: Steve McQueen’s 911 was non-metallic slate grey (6401)

EDIT: They’ve used a similar/same colour recently on the GT3 RS

Orange Solaris build pics here!

looks to me like On-One don’t do a single-speed Inbred anymore

they don’t currently but they have a 18″ Ex-Demo On-One Inbred SS for GBP799 on offer right now in the clearance corner

Apart from that On One does/did build complete bikes based on the frames and parts they have around.

(If you are selling/buying complete bikes anyway) you might not mind going the 29er route either
– Genesis Fortitude Singlespeed GBP849
– Kona Unit GBP850
– Kona Unit 2009 GBP750