I didn’t measure them but I’d say closer to 80mm wide (they were Maxxis Chronicle 27.5 x 3). It’s not just the width but the greatly increased air volume that the 40mm wide rims bring. I ran them at about 17psi and didn’t bottom them out once.

Unsure what the cutoff is though!

I’d like to try a full sus bike with plus tyres – if the new Tallboy LTC has Boost hubs it could be a great all rounder. 29″ wheelset for normal use and some 27.5+ for uplift days!

Come on Fox – make a 150mm 36 with Boost spacing!

I think the Pine Mountain 2 looks stunning – love the unpainted brazing of the cable points.

After my 27.5 plus hardtail test at the weekend I think it’d make a great n+1 bike, but £2.2k is a chunk of cash for something I probably wouldn’t use much. The PM1 at £750 does look like great value though.

nemesis – Member
But isn’t that point equally true of any more capable bike – be that rigid to hardtail, hartail to FS or FS to more DH orientated FS?

I don’t disagree that beginners could find them more confidence inspiring but isn’t that essentially true of anyone not riding a rigid mtb with 22″ bars and 1.5″ tyres pumped up to 60psi?

The crux being that I reckon pretty much any rider be they beginner or expert could get something from the different wheels/tyres so long as the trails aren’t too tame (same argument for FSs again…)

I guess so, but I personally am not just interested in going faster down any given trail, which is all I could see the extra grip doing for me, especially if it’s less fun at the same time. Each to their own though.

cokie – Member
hughjayteens- what shop did you demo this from?
I’m looking to give one a go before committing and Swinley is local to me.

It was from the Chiltern Bike Barn in Chalfont St Peter. Not that close to Swinley really and I believe that they only had it on loan from Orbea to see what they thought. I’d imagine any local Orbea dealer could get one in for you though.

Not sure I dare ask and certainly daren’t click it, but why does the link below your picture say adult image sharing..?!

nemesis – Member

I have to concur about the ‘beginners’ comment though – this is what people came up with for front suspension then full sus, then droppers, then wider range gears, etc – basically just a bit of a veiled insult as I’ve always seen it.

I don’t mean it in an insulating manner. The wife (who’s ridden off road a handful of times but is getting into it now) came and met me with the kids and we all went for a ride together around the blue. She was nervous on some of the looser sections when her bike was moving around a little, but if she’d had plus tyres on it would’ve been rock solid amd given her more confidence, hence my comment about them probably also being good for an enduro or DH racer as there is just more grip at any given speed, so they could just go faster to reach the grip limits of the plus tyres.

It reminds me a little of the BMW v Audio quattro debate – a BMW arguably is more fun and involving at any given speed, whereas an Audi quattro is more reassuring and possibly safer in wet conditions. I’ve always had BMWs as prefer to ‘drive’ the car rather than it drive me.

However, I’ve got a quattro on order – go figure!

nedrapier – Member

Like full sussers?

Touché!!

glasgowdan – Member
. Towbar racks also have a huge impact on fuel, so it’s horses for courses.

Must be car specific – on my Range Rover the towbar rack had almost zero impact on fuel economy. Got an Audi saloon coming so would imagine that would be affected more. Will report back!

I was there with the family yesterday afternoon too and only came across one lycra’d up strava arse who had forgotten what manners were. The kids managed another full lap of the blue and got some good comments when they rode past some guys pushing their bikes up the hills!

I have a the BMW badged version of the Thule 591 with the ratchet dial and it is good, but I much prefer a tow bar carrier and have ordered my next car with a tow bar just for this reason. My main gripes apart from lifting the bikes on (fine if you just have two on so are either side, but can be a pain if there’s more in the middle), are the impact on fuel economy (about 20-25% on the motorway), the wind noise (hideous on the motorway) and the mud falling on my car when the bike is filthy. The tow bar carrier addresses all of these.

If you will only use it for low speed short journeys then they’re fine I guess, and obviously much cheaper than getting a tow bar fitted etc.

Sorry for slow reply. Code worked OK for me on some fox gloves.

nemesis – Member
Always wanted one (and a ’95 LTS to match), haven’t ever had one and I’m not sure I ever will now.

I had one EXACTLY the same as that with a Suntour XC Pro groupset, back in the day before SRAM were Shimano’s rivals… I still have the fork boots in my toolbox. The rear end got bananad when it was d-locked to a fence and some twonk tried to remove it with sheer force.

Straightened it out (ish) with a vice and wooden blocks and sold it cheaply to my mate’s brother!

Loved it and have always had a soft spot for them. They just need to make a long slack 27.5+ version and I’ll be in!

CaptainFlashheart – Member
Nicely matched top/tights enduro colorway, doodette!

yes she was ‘stoked’ with her outfit choice.

Gunz – Member
Having looked at the banana phone picture I’m now imagining a great automatic feeding system for my next endurance race, wonder if the Wife would mind.

Pat. Pending!

He was eyeing up my wife at Marylebone station a few weeks ago one Friday evening. He was as smartly dressed as he always is and although I obviously was going to go and have a word, I had to run and catch my train!!

I always loved watching boxing in that era – I even liked Prince Naseem when he was at his entertainingly arrogant best!

His son is pretty handy too it seems

Wookster – Member
Can I just say I love the Bannana telephone in the second pic!!

LOL – It did make me smile too. She doesn’t like bananas but did seem to like making calls on it!

infidel – Member
Hughjayteens – told you it’s awesome!! Glad the seat has a good new home!

It’s great – although she’s almost 3 1/2 she’s very dinky so I think we’ll get a good year’s use out of it. She has a balance bike which she’s a whizz on, but is still probably 3 or 4 inches away from being able to ride her hand-me-down CNOC16, even though I trimmed the seat tube down for her brother who rode it on his 3rd birthday.

bruk – Member

Looks like a great day out Hughjayteens. Love the grin in the 3rd piccie.

I wish I had had a GoPro on the bars looking back at her face on the downhills as she was making some brilliant whoops!

Why on earth is there still a limited selection of 650b tyres from companies like Bonty/Trek when they sell so many 650b bikes?!

We went to a few of the top 5 tripadvisor places last November and they were all OK. However, we were advised to try http://www.spoonik.com and I can honestly say that it was one of the best dining experiences I have ever had (without trying to sound like a t*sser, I fortunately get to eat in a lot of London’s nicest places) . A little off the wall but truly incredible if you like special food.

The chefs there have worked in dozens of Michelin starred restaurants to gain experience and the place is within their former home. Only seats about 12 covers and we were there drinking with the chefs until 3am! (the last course came out after 1am).

The chefs here recommend Tapas 24 as the best tapas place and said it was where all the locals went.

Amazing city – one of my faves for sure.

I suffer from poor circulation and wore overshoes for years with limited success. Invested in some MW91s and haven’t looked back since. If it’s really cold I can put overshoes over them, but rarely need to.

This is much better for that. My wife ended up at the docs with bad hips when we first got the wee-ride as she had to have the saddle low enough to touch the floor, but this exaggerated the knees out pedalling much more. Fitting a reverb helped a lot but it’s still a big heavy lump compared with the LOCT. Wish I’d had one years ago.

Awesome! Have the exact same bike ready for my 3 year old… How much for you to do another…!?

The LOCT is fantastic – much better than the Wee-Ride my wife had on her bike.

Firstly, hats off for doing a good deed for charity and secondly, ARE YOU INSANE??!

I went to watch a white collar fight a couple of years ago and was inspired to give it a go, so started training twice a week at a local gym and 18 months later feel like I’m a year away from being ready! In 6 weeks I’m unsure you’ll be able to learn much technique (my left jab was pathetic but it’s one of the most useful punches for wearing the opponent down). Get as much time on the bag and pads as you can and start sparring asap. Throwing punches and learning combos is one thing, but remembering them while being hit is quite another!

Also re,ember to breathe – amazing how easy it is to hold your breath when scared/being hit and that will really tire you quickly.

Training wise, 3 minute circuits are a good idea. We finish off most sessions with 15 seconds of burpees, 15 seconds of press ups, 15 seconds of squat thrusts and 15 seconds of high knee sprints on the spot for three minutes, repeated two or three times with a 1 minute break between.

It’s a killer but does work a lot of the muscles that you use when boxing, so maybe try starting off with 2 minute rounds of this with a 1 minute break between. I honestly don’t think running or cycling will make any difference at this stage but it certainly can’t help as a warm up.

Getting your hands wrapped properly is also essential – I was amazed at how much zinc oxide tape was used and how solid that makes the wraps before the gloves go on. I managed to fracture my hamate bone (between knuckles) when training once when I mis-landed a punch on the heavy bag. If I’d had my hands properly wrapped that day I’d probably have been ok.

Good luck and keep us posted!

I bought a Wicked! Fat Chance in 1994 when I was 16. From memory it was about £850 and I was paying it off by working in the LBS from whence it came. Sadly (?!) it closed down a few months later and I’d only ‘paid’ back about £350s worth..

I wish Marin’s new steel HT came in frame only – it looks lovely!

wolfrider – Member
Anybody compared the talas conversions to pikes?

I’ve ridden pikes a lot and think that a tweaked float is every bit as good (or better if it’s the new FIT4 version). The talas keeps getting better, but it’ll never be as good as a float and the travel adjust is more hassle than it’s worth I think. If I was buying new I’d get Pike’s as they’re great value, but if you have 34s already, spend a bit of money getting them tweaked and they can be awesome.

I’ll be getting 36s on my next bike..

I had the same forks and had issues with the Talas jamming, so sent them to Mojo and had them converted to Floats and had them fiddled with.
Best £200 I have ever spent – they’re now super plush and don’t dive like they used to. I was on the verge of changing them before but I now prefer them to Pikes as they work every bit as well and are more bling!

I did a little write-up here:

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/fox-34s-at-last-i-am-very-happy-with-them

aracer – Member
From memory, I wrote 1m25 instead of 1m25s
In a physics exam? Well I’d have marked you down for 1m25s, given minutes aren’t an SI unit

LOL – Maybe it was 85 instead of 85s then!!

[quoteLeeW – Member
Jon Taylor – Member
I am also still annoyed with myself for ‘only’ getting 99% in my physics mock for missing the ‘s’ off a time value in seconds…
That’s valid. 60 Whats? 60 Watts? 60 Minutes? 60 Bananas?
I’m guessing from his post he wrote 60 second rather than 60 seconds.[/quote]

From memory, I wrote 1m25 instead of 1m25s

Fair enough, it was more of annoyance at myself.

Just remembered another (quite cathartic this!). I started buying 3 1/2″ floppy disks and storage boxes for them from an advert I saw in the back of ST Format magazine and realised they were 1/4 the price that school sold them at. So, I made a few flyers advertising them for sale at 25% below the school prices and had a very profitable few weeks, mainly selling to teachers, one of which pinned my flyer in the staff room, resulting in me getting dragged into the deputy head’s office to be congratulated on my excellent charity fund raising initiative…

I can’t remember how much of my actual profits I declared, but it was annoying to be handing over anything. Still can’t believe they weren’t encouraging such things!

This thread has made me chuckle. Mine is when we went on a residential trip to Whitehough near Pendle, and I was accused of pulling apart a sponge football one evening. I hadn’t even touched the bloody thing and when i asked who had accused me, the teacher wouldn’t say. Still to this day have no idea who it was and was later told by another teacher that the incident cost me the head boy-ship! (I was a bit square at school…!).

I am also still annoyed with myself for ‘only’ getting 99% in my physics mock for missing the ‘s’ off a time value in seconds…

http://www.victorianplumbing.co.uk – have used them a few times and always been happy.

Nope – sod all. Am sure it’s only there for looks or to protect the pedal from bashes. DXs were much more platformy..

Watching with interest.

I emailed Mojo about it the new Fit4 is £192 plus £119 for a service so £311 all in.

tuffty – Member
Oh so you did the Buccleuch Challenge then. I did it in 2008 and the River Nith was bloody freezing then too! I work for Buccleuch but in England

Yes I did – first time and loved it so we’ll be back!

YoKaiser – Member
Glad you enjoyed it! Glentress is fantastic, oodles of fun.

Yes it was a lot of fun although I’ve since been told that there is a lot of off piste stuff which is much better if you know where to look?

Quick update for anyone interested! Had and amazing day on Friday doing the event – 45kms or so around Drumlanrig having to find 29 checkpoints, half of which had challenges such as Highland games, body boarding through some Rapids, a river crossing (Christ that was cold!) Orienteering on foot, a short fell run etc etc. Teams of three and we lost a member two months ago due to injury and his stand-in wasn’t very fit, so the other guy and I used the opportunity to ride some trails and have fun as we were never going to win! Did a lot of Red 7 and a good chunk of the black which was all good fun. We then decided to make the most of the sunshine and drive up to Glentress the next morning where we did two laps of the red and had a play in the bike park.

Stunning scenery on the drive across on amazing roads (fun even in a hire van) and then a great days riding at Glentress. We headed off to do the black but got chatting to a local on the way up who reckoned two laps of the red would be more fun for our first time.

Fell totally in love with Scotland and can’t wait to head back, hopefully sooner than this time next year when we’ll be back with a full strength team hopefully!

Lucky people if you live in the midst of all of that although I suspect the blue skies and sunshine made it slightly more welcoming..

Thanks for all the advice.

I wonder if Isla have been having broken frames? I guess most of their buyers don’t do jumps and the like so not likely to lose any sales.

Good point re the front suspension forks making the Ramones much heavier – I’m unsure how good the cheap forks are and given they are probably coil sprung, I doubt they’re too tuneable for kids.

Depending where you ride I think gears are useful although my 7 year old still needs reminding to change gear – his 9 year old sister has them sussed now.

A little un doing uplifts made me smile!!

The Commencals look cool but seem to weigh much more than the equivalent Islabike – 13lb v 17.5lb for the 16″ wheel one and 19lb v 24lb for the 24″ wheel version.

My kids all have Islabikes and although I’d rather they had something a bit cooler and different, they do seem to still make the best small bikes albeit at an increasingly extortionate price!

Thanks guys,

I’ll be on my Bronson and my mate on his Canyon Strive CF Race shapeshifter thingy so they both pedal/climb well but are always more fun on the downs.

I am erring towards spending the day at Ae as we’re riding around the Drumlanrig estate on the Friday so I think we may take in some of the trails whilst doing it.

Cheers

grahamt1980 – Member
I thought they got the order wrong. I think minions would have been way better I they had released it before despicable me.
Was a good film but not as good as the other 2

My kids said the same thing although I suspect the Minions on their own wouldn’t have got the backing for a film without the success of the previous films (which are far better).

Northwind – Member

@hughjayteens, Ae is alright but it’s too close to better riding to get many recommendations, unless you fancy doing the downhill and shredder or finding the offpiste stuff that comes off the top of the uplift. If you’ve not done the others around there, I’d definitely do them first.

Kirroughtree as just a red is a bit weird, it’s not terrible but the outbound still feels like the start of a big ride then suddenly you’re done. It’s like only listening to the first and last tracks off a really good album, it’s not just that you miss the good bits, it’s that it all works together.

Nobody’s done it yet… How about Drumlanrig? Not a stane but very very good. Haven’t been lately, last I heard there were some closures but I don’t know if that’s still the case.

Thanks Northwind. I am actually staying at Drumlanrig as Friday is a property industry challenge day – 45km around Drumlanrig estate on mountain bikes, orienteering with various challenges such as shooting and a river swim thrown in the mix. If Ae is a short route, I might ride the Drumlanrig trails in the morning and then Ae after lunch on the Saturday.