Echoing the comments above as somebody who dabbles in web development. It’s a baffling decision to change your forum URLs without a redirect. Alongside Google search results you’ve broken all users’ history and bookmarks. For what benefit?

I wonder whether it’s an ignorance or malice thing, is it just a journalist on a deadline who doesn’t understand the difference? Or do they deliberately muddy the waters as they know it will create engagement? Really poor from the BBC, last time other media outlets including local news and the DM got the terminology correct.

Just sent this over – tired of the inaccurate demonisation of “e-bikes” by the BBC.

Dear BBC News,

I am emailing to report a factual error in this online article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c981d8n7452o

The headline and article mentions e-bikes, but the vehicles shown in the video and photos are not classified as e-bikes under UK law. The vehicles shown in the article are motorbikes or mopeds since they are not electrically-assisted pedal cycles (https://www.gov.uk/electric-bike-rules). Sur-ron dirt bikes are illegal to ride on public roads unless the bike has a license plate, lights, mirrors, and a horn, and the rider has a CBT license and insurance.

I feel this is important to clarify, because the terminology in the article does not match the images that are shown. This could lead a reader to coming away with a false conclusion about legal e-bikes, which I see as a positive invention for health and confronting the climate crisis. I agree that electric motorcycles which are being illegally and recklessly ridden on public roads are a menace and I wish the article was clearer at describing this accurately.

Halfway down the article, I see some attempt to clarify the use of the term “electric powered bike” but I don’t think these sentences are sufficient to clear up the confusion created in the rest of the article.

I note that a correction was made recently on the following video, which originally mentioned an e-bike rider, but which has been correctly edited to “electric motorcycle rider”: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/crlry1rd9w3o

Kind regards,

Whenever I’ve clicked a link to a specific bike or comparison on that site, it’s brought up a “Prove Humanity” captcha to solve first.

That’s annoyed me enough that I’ve never bothered with the site and just use 99spokes or bikeinsights instead.

From a quick google other news sources (Wales Online, Mail) correctly call it a motorbike. You’d expect the BBC to report at a higher standard so bad for them to make such an obvious mistake.

Been an annoying year for the SDW – my goal was to do the thing in 2 days this summer. The few weekends where it’s been bone dry, I wasn’t free. I had a go one weekend but bailed out on Sunday after a fair amount of rain and spotting  green patches around on the chalk plus an unexpected rear wheel slide. Possible that I’m being over cautious but I’ve read enough tales on here to put me off.

I think the main question about this bike is whether the Isospeed decoupler makes a noticeable difference or if its a gimmick? If its a gimmick, there are several similar XC race bikes in the price range which have a better spec, are lighter etc.

I looked into this and found really conflicting accounts both anecdotally from owners and from professional bike reviewers. There were a bunch of people saying Isospeed is great and comfortable, while others saying they couldn’t notice it. One reviewer seemed to have done more work testing it than others, and said it basically felt equivalent to reducing your tire pressure by 0.2-0.3 psi IIRC.

It’s a nice looking bike but the proprietary nature of the Isospeed and the knock block puts me off. It looks like the newer version gets rid of these and makes several other changes too. If the Isospeed is really that great, why have Trek removed it and replaced it with an “Isobow” technology on the new version?

I did give the Procaliber and the Xcaliber a test ride and I didn’t notice much difference so I went for the cheaper and less proprietary Xcaliber. But I’m very far from a racer, and a complete novice to MTB at the time so wouldn’t be able to detect marginal differences.

i.e you’re walking without a dog and people are looking at you suspiciously because you haven’t got a pooch, why on earth would you be out walking otherwise

Is this really a thing? Dog ownership does look like it’s exploded recently, with the number growing from 10 million to 11 million in the last 4 years alone (https://www.pdsa.org.uk/what-we-do/pdsa-animal-wellbeing-report/paw-report-2023/pet-populations). But that still means the majority of the population don’t have dogs and I think it’s bizarre for anyone to assume you’d only go for walks to walk the dog.

@munrobiker This whole episode really sucks, and I wish you a full recovery. You inspired me with how strong you were up those hills in the Pentlands 6 months ago, so it’s even more humbling for me to know you were far from peak form then.

My first proper off-road adventure was almost ruined by a newly-installed tubeless tyre that wouldn’t stay inflated. I was on the SDW and having miserable time as I had to keep pumping up the rear tyre every 20 minutes. And also because I was stupidly trying to do it on an endurance road bike, while cursing myself for failing to bring an inner tube.

I pulled over to work out my options for abandoning the ride, and the next person to come by was an MTBer called James who had recently returned from the Tour Divide. He offered to help and had a complete repair kit with him. After some minutes of ruling stuff out he diagnosed the issue as a dodgy valve core. He put in a spare one and soon after I was good to go and enjoy the rest of the day.

Maybe a small gesture for him, but for me it was an inspirational moment in terms of wanting to learn about bike maintenance, and carrying tools and spares to be self-sufficient and help others.

For ~£1k I think it’s hard to find a better deal than this, if you’re happy to build the bike: https://www.merlincycles.com/felt-breed-30-grx-gravel-bike-boxed-bike-316151.html

I just don’t understand why you’d be so motivated in gathering feedback for a bike which most people haven’t received yet, and which you have no interest in owning. Yes this may only be third thread you’ve opened on the Chisel specifically but the Chisel is an alloy Epic/Epic Evo with small geometry tweaks. Before Chisel you’ve started at least 5 threads about the Epic Evo.

I didn’t notice the pattern apart from that this forum seemed particularly interested in the Specialized Epic Evo. I was curious if that was just Specialized’s marketing being super effective or if it really is just a much better bike model than others in its category. But now I see that it’s the same poster constantly asking the same questions about Specialized FS bikes and seems to be hesitating over buying one for the last 6 months.

I can’t speak for everyone but I’m very interested in reviews and feedback for particular model right before buying it. After I’ve bought the bike I’d rather enjoy it and not read any more bike reviews as it just starts up the n+1 desire cycle again.

I’d thought this forum had an strange fixation with the Specialized Epic Evo. But looking at coconut’s post history, it’s clear that they are responsible for most of the threads about it. It doesn’t seem like Specialized stealth marketing but more a case of chronic buyer hesitation.

The dark prismatic paint on that and a few other Treks is gorgeous.

I did that half of the King Alfred’s Way the day after summer solstice. Was a great ride, so many druid types near Avebury and the remnants of a rave further up the Ridgeway.

I rode it on an XC FS bike, not too different from the Chisel. At first I wondered if I was overbiked but in the end was very glad I used it due to all the bumps and ruts, and getting to fully enjoy the descents. At one point I dropped into a deep rut hidden by grass that ate most of my suspension travel, which would not have been fun on a gravel bike.

Logistically would you plan to camp somewhere, or ride the whole thing in one shot?

Your name is Dave so go for the Hello Dave

I put that exact fork on my Xcaliber which came with a 42mm offset fork. It made the handling rather twitchy, as the increase in offset reduces the trail so much it feels like a 1.5 degree steeping of the head angle (according to this link https://www.fanatikbike.com/blogs/engage/who-the-heck-cares-about-fork-offset-and-what-the-heck-is-trail).

Great fun when using the bike on easier trails and if you are using the caliber for more gravel oriented stuff, but it exacerbates the already steep head angle compared to modern XC MTBs.

What’s better about this Chisel than your current Carbon XC bike?

@jonwe I think it’s a shame that you skipped Ox Drove, that was some welcome fast gravel with great views along the top of the ridge after the slog through Cranborne Chase!

I agree about mountain/gravel bikes. I reckon a lot of people will try taking gravel bikes on that route and regret it.

That sounds like a bizarre run-in with the verderer. It’s often the people who are breaking the rules themselves who are first to accuse others. She was claiming that bikes are banned in the New Forest when you were riding one of the recognized bridleways with the regular posts with bicycle signs on it?

Why do I want one of these even though I don’t need it?

Specialized make some of the best frames however they tend to have crap builds for the price. But these Chisels actually have decent builds. But the best colour is frame-only. And according to Guy they will switch back to most likely lower-tier SRAM components for the second phase. All cleverly planned to get loads of sales ASAP.

I did this route a few days ago, I wish I’d seen the comment from @jonm81. That “Nettle Alley” part was nasty. It seems that the route creator is a fan of rough bridleways, but with this year’s weather it’s involved fighting through this sort of thing for almost 2 miles:

Apart from that, the route was absolutely brilliant.

Really loving the XR and have been riding it loads recently. However I had my first maintenance issue already – loud clicking headset. I disassembled the headset and it was pretty filthy especially around the top bearing.

It seems obvious why it’s happening too. There’s several millimetres gap between the custom cover and the frame, letting the dirt in. On my other MTB there’s no gap there. Fortunately the bearing is sealed so just a clean and regrease seems to have fixed the issue for now, but I can’t help but feel this is a design flaw?

I rode through the airfield as part of London-Brighton off-road and it was pretty magnificent to travel through a big open and abandoned area in such an expensive corner of the home counties. I’ve been wanting to go again since, but it’s not been clear if access is possible so I’ve avoided Wisley altogether in all my routes. Doesn’t look like there’ll be any more opportunities with the new development going up.

First of all, check to see if there’s an SD card inserted, if you’re lucky the files will be on there. And presumably you’ve checked this also but there might be backups in Samsung Cloud

If the files are on internal storage, and the tablet is running a more recent version of Android, after a factory reset no files will be recoverable as they’re encrypted and you’ll have lost the encryption key. It would helpful if you’d say the model of the tablet as the recovery procedure could be more feasible if it’s very old.

Thanks for the great suggestions from everyone. I hope to try them all at some point. There’s loads of information about road climbs, books, top 10 climbs in Surrey etc, but seemingly nothing on the net about off-road climbs. Even though off-road climbs are more fun

@J-R Your message is like gold to me, since North Downs is my closest stomping ground too, looking forward to trying these out. “Cyclists Dismount Climb” – I remember coming to the top of that before and thinking “nope”, and thought that “Cyclists Dismount” was a sensible warning on the map because it’s blooming steep, I didn’t realise that was the name of the climb!

@bigdaddy Hopefully that climb is easier than the one on the South face of Holmbury that I foolishly attempted (https://www.google.com/maps/@51.1735415,-0.4199598,3a,75y,273.01h,76.53t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sTe5kJ-mbLLkI3R1dSaVJPw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu). I got some distance up, lost momentum, hopped off my bike and it was so steep I found it challenging to walk either up or down it with my bike. For a moment I thought I was stuck. I can’t believe that’s marked as a bridleway!

My first try with a torque wrench, tightening up stem bolts. I didn’t realise how subtle the click was, carried on tightening, before hearing a snap. I thought that was the feedback from the tool of 5Nm being achieved but it was the stem cracking around the bolt. Fortunately not an expensive stem.

I learned that a torque wrench needs to be respected and ironically can be worse than simple hand tightening if you’re not paying attention.

Maxxis Rekon would be way overkill on the KAW in summer, even Rekon Race which has shorter knobs probably would be, I’d go even slicker than that. Bear in mind there are long road sections and very little challenging technical terrain.

I’ve used a Lezyne Side Load bottle cage which fits in there well. Holds a 600ml GripGrab bottle securely enough, a 750ml bottle would not leave enough clearance for the compressed shock.

Nice one! Do you have that as a pdf or just image?

They just sent that small image. I wonder if it’s worth acquiring a set of replacement bearings in advance, or whether they’re common types that could be easily sourced.

Second proper ride today. Winchester to the sustainability centre via the SDW. Ride was great, bike was great and I set PRs on 3/4 of the segments.

Cool, how’s the ground conditions down there? I’m itching to do SDW again this year and just waiting until a nice weekend when it’s dried out.

Now having thoughts that the hardtail can go as not sure when I’d ride it!

I’m keeping mine for winter, but I agree with you, this XR is a better ride than my hardtail in every way.

Only negative currently is what I think is BB creak (only manifests under heavy pedal load, not under deliberate suspension compression and can cause it by pedaling hard either side).

That’s annoying, possibly not enough grease in the threads?

Spec diagram from Lapierre support for future reference

@lovewookie you could have been describing my proportions too. I’ve fitted a 125mm dropper and that’s about right. Makes me happier I didn’t go for that Vitus Rapide FS, did you sell yours because you didn’t get on with the fit?

@import I’m just a few cm taller than you and the bike fit is great, doesn’t feel like I’m at the bottom end of a range and doesn’t feel super long. But bear in mind I’m coming from road biking so the lower front end XC geometry suits me and I don’t have much experience with comparable FS bikes.

Mine came with a FSA SL-K, which is a bit of a weighty beast for a carbon bar. specs wise FSA say it’s 215g, vs 145g for the progress carbon bar it’s supposed to come with.

I got the Progress bar from the official spec, FSA seems to be a more recognised brand

Weight weenies will be horrified but I’ve already added 1kg to the bike:

• Forekaster front tire to get us through hopefully this final month of horrible mud
• Big coverage mudguards. Crud XL fits on the front but it sticks out at an angle for some reason, trying not to be OCD about it
• Brand-X Ascend dropper, 150mm just a smidge too high so I went for 125mm (to fit tomorrow)
• Alloy 760mm handlebar. I thought about it and just don’t feel super comfortable riding a lightweight carbon handlebar from a brand that’s not talked about in this forum. It’s most likely fine, but I figure I’ll ride more confidently with an alloy handlebar from a trusted brand.

Finally had a chance to go for a big ride with the XR 7.9 today. Impressions very positive coming from my old-school hardtail. The place I noticed the most benefit was on technical climbing, the bike was a beast at that. The geometry feels comfortable for me and I only needed a few tweaks to dial it in perfectly.

@lovewookie You were definitely right about the mud shelf, I had to clear this out multiple times during the ride, seems like it’s a normal feature of this type of design though?

Finally had some time to start setting up the bike. Not a whole lot of clearance between the fork crown and 2.35″ tyre at the front, when I tried out the Proguard that has been good on another bike, there’s not enough clearance. What front mudguards are people using? @steve_b77 looks like your son is not running mudguards :D @lovewookie you seem to have one? Crud XL looks like it would work as it mounts around the crown rather than under it

@lovewookie (or anyone else) did you get a chance to ride it in the nice weather today? I still haven’t had a chance to set it up tubeless, add some mudguards etc. The remote lockout on the rear shock is not really working, possibly the cable just needs tightening – how much should the blue lockout wheel rotate when fully engaged? Mine is only going about 30 degrees.

Great, mine arrived today too and agree the paint scheme looks lovely in the flesh. Paul’s Cycles included an easter egg which was a nice touch, and spec was slightly better than listed with a Progress carbon handlebar and SRAM Level TL brakes. I’ve assembled it but not had a chance to ride yet.

I can’t proclaim it’s the best, but I did this New Forest loop a few months back and it was great https://bikepacking.com/routes/new-forest-gravel-taster-uk/

Actually felt like what gravel riding is supposed to be, rather than a bitty set of muddy bridlepaths.

I also just pulled the trigger on the XR 7.9. My current riding is 35+ mile loops around Surrey with a mix of bridlepaths, gravel, woodlands, and blue trails. This bike will be lighter, have squish and more confidence-inspiring geometry than my hardtail which is currently leaving me feeling knackered after longer rides. If I really don’t get on with the frame or rear suss in general, the parts could eventually be used to build up a Chisel frame.

I have been interested in these Lapierre XR/XRMs too, the problem is that there’s not much information about them online apart from a Pinkbike review that absolutely pans the XRM.

The review said that the shock barely functioned and the carbon frame was cracked by a rock strike. Probably the worst review I’ve ever seen on that site, but you have to wonder if they are able to more critical about a brand that doesn’t exist in NA.

You can find other reviews online if you change your language to Dutch and translate and those are fairly positive.

Would never buy at full price when stuff like Epic Evo is around the same, but at the discount I am considering it. The components alone are worth a bit and could be swapped to a better frame. And the frame could be a pleasant surprise.

The Prorace looks like a safer bet, Bikeradar liked it but again I would worry about the durability of the carbon plus the chainstays at 420mm seem awfully short for an XL rider, that’s out of proportion with any other comparable frame.

It seems like I’m finding a reason not to buy these bikes, but searching for information about Lapierres online it genuinely feels like a ghost town. Even on STW barely a peep. Even at a 60% discount its hard to find the will to buy something that nobody is talking about.

Are superb, especially for £1500

I love the look of the Scalpel too, but isn’t that an Italian retailer, and ordering to the UK you’d have to pay import duty as well as Italian VAT? Closer to £2000 then.