I’ve got some Float X2 envy going on right now! I’m pretty impressed by the standard Monarch RT3 to be honest, so a well setup X2 must be incroyable!

51mm Pike 140s on mine. It’s awesome! That said, I’m probably going to try some Fox 36s in 160 as theirs A2C is pretty much the same as Pike 150s.

My orange medium one is a month and maybe 20 hours use old and is fine still.

Wrong type of sweat maybe?

Can see what you mean. Think 32T on a 29er is the sweet spot from my little pedals so far.

Cheers chaps! SC claim 12kgs with the Enve wheels but that excludes pedals (Mallet E 450g ish) and the MRP AMg V2 guide (150g ish) and probably the Stans tyre jizz, so it’s around 13kgs I think.

Does feel a tiny bit heavier than my V1 Bronson which had more travel but obviously less frame length, wheel diameter and cassette! May well end up putting somwe 160mm 36s and a Float X2 on it next year for the Trans Savoie but will see how I get on with it.

Had a better test ride today and found it to be a bit noisy under load. Turns out that it’s very sensitive to the B-tension setting being spot on. The MRP guide also needed spacing out a little (due to the Boost I guess) but a quite fettle by the trusty LBS (who also trimmed the steerer tube down) and it’s now running like a dream. Muddy shake down in the morning..

I think the first round of applications/plac offers have now been done. I think they run a second round in December to fill any places people haven’t taken or if anyone has pulled out.

No one else on here entered?

Just built this beast up over the weekend. Apart from the cassette looking ridiculous, I’d say so far so good. Shifts as well as XX1 11 speed from what I could tell on the quick test ride I did I earlier. I will probably fit an oval 34 or 32T ring as 30/50 seems a bit daft even on a 29er. Might change it back for the Trans Savoie next year though!!

orangespyderman – Member
It’ll probably get cancelled if no-one is.

LOL. I’ll set them up and you hit them out of the park!!

Aeropress are great. I use the inverted method and let it brew for a couple of minutes usually for a little extra oomf.

I’m a fan. Have had mine for two years and have given them a hard time and only managed to snap one spoke butr the wheel stayed totally true. The guys I ride with have all either had to true their wheels several times or replace a rim riding similar stuff. I managed to split a sidewall on my rear Magic Mary racing the Tweedlove international landing on a rock and then did the front this weekend (three bloody times – first time split the sidewall and then I pinched two tubes riding Cadon Bank at Inners) and in all cases the rim was completely unmarked and the wheel perfectly true. Alu ones may gave done exactly the same but again, my mate’s wheels came back from the weekend needing a true.

Worth the cash? If you have it then sure, if you don’t and it means your kids won’t have any shoes, then certainly not!

Already on it but thought I’d try my luck here too!

Cheers

Well fitted them last night and they went on fine. Didn’t have anything that would cut through the stays though so just sliced the end off the plastic caps and slid the excess through! Bit of a bodge but looks fine and not long enough to impale anything..

May trim them down if I get hold of any bolt croppers but probably won’t ever bother getting around to it.

Thanks for the advice.

Quick bump!

Bars aren’t thinner as my son has regular lock on grips on his Isla.

Islabike grips are superslim and they make a gripshift ready version if required.

http://www.islabikes.co.uk/products/accessories/accessories-for-your-beinn-24

Thanks for the tips – will see what happens this weekend!

Ordered. Thanks!

When you say ‘swap the smarter interior’ what do you mean? Is the California Beach lower spec inside?

scuttler – Member
Or swap the smarter interior for a factory fitted poptop, awning, heater, hookup + 240v interior, folding chairs in tailgate = California Beach. Caravelle is the perfect family wagon (petrieboy), California Beach is the ultimate family wagon with a subtle STW dose of confirmational bias.

Now you’ve gone and done it.. Just spent 20 mins on the California Configurator…

Cheers guys. Sounds like it will be ideal. There’s five of us usually when we’re heading out with the bikes so removing the swivel chairs and sliding the bench forward wouldn’t be an issue. Are the removable chairs heavy and hard to remove?

I chatted with Graham at Tweedlove and was very impressed. My new Hightower is coming with Enve 29ers so am looking at getting some Sixth Element 38mm plus wheels as a second set. Communication has been first class and he’s happy top source me some matching Industry Nine hubs for a very good price.

Spoonik – one of the coolest dining experiences I have ever had. Amazing food (fine dining, slightly off the wall Heston-like at times) and very cool venue and hosts. Was drinking with the owners/chefs until 3am… The 3 chefs have worked in about Michelin starred restaurants between them to get experience before opening their own. Good value too.

http://spoonik.com/index.php/la-experiencia

Tapas 24 – fantastic Tapas eaten by the locals and recommended by the chefs from Spoonik.

http://www.carlesabellan.com/mis-restaurantes/tapas-24/

Sagrida tickets cheaper online and you avoid the massive queues – you can just book on your phone the same day and still avoid queuing.

I loved the Picasso museum and pretty much everything about the whole place. Only recently surpassed by Copenhagen as my favourite city break destination.

Enduro MTB mag have a test of some XC bikes in a recent issue and a couple of those were quite DH orientated. The Giant Anthem SX and Pivot Mach 4 get the most stars for their descending ability.

Great pics! I’ve still got my ML8 in the shed (no forks though).

They are/were great bikes and way ahead of their time. 165mm bikes that didn’t weigh much and climbed well – an enduro-ists dream! The geometry is obviously of its time, but I loved riding mine and did many happy alpine jaunts on it.

I test rode a Large and I;m just 6 foot too. I could standover an XL just fine, but a 150mm reverb was almost full inserted and I like the idea of a 170mm version. After my V1 Bronson, the L feels very long anyway so I didn’t see the point of an XL.

A guy I know who used to be a 90s club DJ has recently dusted off his 1210s and made some mixes.

This is my favourite..

Never tried an Airshot but have a Topeak blaster on order from my LBS. They lent me their Bontrager for the weekend and it worked perfectly, but I thin has Topeak is a better design as you can bypass the chamber completely when in normal pump mode whereas the Bontrager always has it connected so you need to pressurise that as well as your tyres when using it normally.

If you already have a decent track pump then Airshot is probably the way to go.

Possibly a daft question, but I assume identical hubs will be needed to ensure the rotors line up, or are they all built to a standard position?

Tracks we often use to sell/demo speakers include:

Jamie Woon – Night Air (great bassline)
London Grammar – Hey Now (very well produced for ‘pop’ music)
Fleetwood Mac – Big Love (acoustic version off The Dance)
Dire Straits – take your pick from Brothers in Arms
Propellorheads – Oh Yeah!
Lincoln Mayorga – Dock of the Bay
Lady Gaga – Just Dance

All of the above are very well produced and can reveal shortcomings in most systems, BUT, only if you know what it should sound like. Ergo, you are far better off using something that you know and like.

Do you have two cassettes and sets of rotors? A second XX1 12 speed cassette isn’t a tempting prospect although it’ll even out wear I guess.

I did a back to back demo on one at Aston Hill with 29er and 27.5+ wheels on the downhill tracks. The 29er felt very similar to my Bronson, just a little more stable and faster. The plus wheels felt like I was cheating! They smoothed off so much of the chattery stuff and braking bumps. Only time they were crap was on slippery gloop but I suspect that was due to tyres (Maxxis Ikons had very small treads).

I’ve got a 29er on order (waiting for 1 x 12 Eagle XX1 in July) but was chatting to Sixth Element about a second set of plus wheels. 150mm forks and both wheel options really should make it the perfect one (and a bit) bike does it all.

Fancy mine with 36s and a FloatX2 but will try it with the standard RS stuff first and see how I get on..

A dedicated two channel amp WILL sound better with music, but for TV/Movies and Streaming, an AV Receiver like the RX-V679 will be ideal. Yamaha sound great and are very reliable so it’ll be a nice system. If you found some speakers with bi-amp inputs, you could use four channels to get some more grunt.

Northwind – Member

Northwind – was that you who was giving us a pep talk telling us how short the stage was compared with the EWS version and that we should be thankful?!!!

Aye, that was my recurring theme for the weekend! Lot of that at the bottom of stage 1 too, where usually you have to pedal it out all the way to the bottom through those endless up-down-right-hand-bends. Eddie Masters wasn’t too impressed hearing he’d done the Lite version of the pedal Next day he comes up to me “Suppose you’re gonna tell me this stage is normally longer too” “Well funny you say that…” “Aw **** off!”.

Well we found the Lite version GNAR enough for our first attempt! Might be dropping you a line for some off piste trail tips or possibly some advice on local guides in September when we plan to come back for a weekend of non-racing!

What an incredible weekend! 9 hour drive up on Thursday afternoon (with a nice meal near Penrith) meant we were pretty tired on Friday so only managed to ride stages 6,7 and then 5 once each so we raced the rest blind (all first time racers and first timers at Inners!). 5 and 6 were the steepest stuff any of us had ever ridden so I’m pleased we got to try these once at least before the race.

Had a good first day on Saturday but was a little frustrated that we hadn’t had chance to practice these stages, not necessarily to go much faster, but just because they were so much fun! The weather held up and we had a great first day. The second day was always going to be tough but the weather turned against us near the top of the climb as a hailstorm came in just as we started stage 4. It was great fun but the mud was going everywhere and again, it was a shame we hadn’t had chance to ride it beforehand as it was a total hoot! When we got to the bottom, there was group who came down 10 minutes earlier who were all clean and dry who wondered where the hell we had come from! We heard later that the temperature had dropped 10 degrees in 30 minutes… Welcome to Scotland!

It was very wet and windy at the top of 5. No idea what happened but I managed to have a high speed off backwards into some trees on one of the fast traverses. Scared myself a little but nothing hurt so I hopped back up and had an OK-ish run through the rest of it. Clean through Jawbone but messed up a couple of the less tech sections when my brain switched off.

I enjoyed 6 – (Northwind – was that you who was giving us a pep talk telling us how short the stage was compared with the EWS version and that we should be thankful?!!! – If so, nice to meet you and thanks for doing such a great job along with all the other marshalls) – managed to ride the super techy bits cleanly but again dropped it a couple of times on the ‘easier’ bits including twice on the very bottom section once out of the woods crossing the stream!

7 was great fun – had what felt like a fast run and as I crossed the finish line I looked up to see my mate’s bike flat across the track right in front of me. With hindsight I should’ve tried to ride over it but I grabbed the brakes and went OTB and managed to punch his chainring!! The GoPro footage is a little gory as my hand is stuck on there and leaves four clean teeth behind as I un-impaled it!!!

Turns out he’d hit the stump (possibly not the best thing to have in the middle of the track 2m after the finish line) and rag-dolled at high speed, thigh first into the tree.

One very dead leg and four perfect narrow wide holes in my finger but nothing is broken and we had an absolute ball.

I’ll upload some GoPro clips when I get some time.

What a way to pop our Enduro cherries.. Unsure much else could live up to it with first class vibe, organisation, trails, marshalls and fun!

We’ll be back…

Managed to do stages 6, 7 and then 5 yesterday – 6 was a bit of a baptism of fire as our first run of the weekend having never ridden Inners before! Was tough but we all made it though and I only dabbed once. 7 was a hoot – very fast and some nice techy bits. 5 was great – had got in the zone by then and managed to ride it cleanly with a few whoops at times. Slightly nervous we didn’t have time to ride 1-4 but c’est la vie.

Good luck everyone – enjoy!

I’ve currently got Magic Mary’s on front and rear but will be bring my HR2s – will see how it’s looking. Would rather have extra grip when tired and a bit of drag I think.

Quick question re Feed Stations. Do they have food or just drinks at them? Is it just energy bars etc?

Think I’ll take some ‘proper’ food in my pack as I’d imagine I’d be sick of energy food after 4 or 5 hours.

Any tips?

Cheers

Northwind – Member

Absolute first rule is, only try and let folks past when it’s safe. Sometimes that means a little delay but it’s way better than trying to pull some mad evasion and ending up taking you both out.

I don’t know what timing we’re using… I’ll be at the start of stage 6 so if there’s a capacity to give you a gap, let me know and I’ll do it. But tbh it won’t make a massive difference on a stage like that because a fast dude will have caught you in prespacker never mind prospacker. So don’t freak, just get on with it and as far as possible don’t worry about the other guys, except for the brief moments when you have to.

(in EWS last year the alphabet seeding meant I had Tom Dowie a couple of places behind me and he passed me in literally every stage, sometimes even while I was catching the dude in front. It got slightly old! In waterworld I was freaking out about being caught in the narrows where I knew I just couldn’t make space, so I ended up distracted and riding slower and got caught faster. Doesn’t help anyone. (I actually had a ghost rider and pulled over in a wide spot for… nobody at all, I’d imagined it)

Thing with prospacker that makes it different to the other trails is basically a minimum entry requirement; even if you’re struggling with the other trails you can probabably tripod and skid and generally fall down them. But prospacker’s crux moves, if you can’t do it you just can’t do it. It’s a different proposition

It’s not actually that hard! Honestly. It’s committing but once you’re in you’ll come out the bottom, guaranteed. Not necessarily connected to your bike. Lots of the other stages require more skill to ride well, the difference is mostly about alarmingness. The lefthander with the rock in the entrance especially is actually just a big pussycat but if you’re thinking about that rock it will **** you. You just have to calmly ride round it then down the steep, same as you would on any other short steep. But it feels like aaaargh! Rock! Corner! Steep! Even though it’s really flat corner, then a steep afterwards.

This isn’t skills advice btw, I’m not that good… So if I can do it, it’s attainable and it’s mostly headology. Better riders than me will fail to ride parts of these stages that I’d do no bother, because they’ve let it shit them up. In EWS practice 2014 I couldn’t really do jawburn at all, it totally beat me. On race day I had my best stage of the weekend and passed about 10 people

Thanks Northwind. Will be sure to say hello if I can still speak!