Doug – and the past :-). If I had a spare £350 I’d order those forks from winstanleys right now.

Will be interesting when I return them I expect, and I’m bracing myself for a struggle. I hate returning things. Although I’m pretty sure TF are authorized rockshox dealers/servicers, as they sell the forks, and Tim used to work for rockshox I think. If he isn’t allowed to service them, and yet you’re meant to get them serviced as your end of the warranty bargain, then it seems a bit catch-22 to me.

Clearly the importers know **** all about what a fork is meant to feel like… as they had them returned to them once and said they were fine (even thought you could feel the bushings binding – I didn’t even put them on the bike, you could feel it just by compressing them)

Nice try. Give me £450+ p&p and you’ve got a deal.

Nice find Nigew, thanks! I used to have a set of the 170mm ones but sold them when I got rid of the big bike they were on. Weighty but fantastic. If Evans refund me (surely they should?) I’m having a set of them – hope they stay in stock!

I did ask for a replacement, but fishers sent them back saying there was nothing wrong with them. Not what TF said when he saw them! I’ll see if I can get a replacement next week. Although then I may have to send that one to TF too… so annoying!

Does anyone have a 150mm 2006 66 2RCX they want rid of?

I agree :(

Primarily his bike :-)

I tried to buy a bike he was selling and he stopped answering my mails, which was a shame. I stopped bothering trying to contact him after a while but it would have been nice to know he’d changed his mind/sold it elsewhere or whatever happened. He didn’t take any money from me though! I’m guessing he is just a bit unreliable with communication rather than malicious.

If he reads this I’m still interested!

Thanks for the tips, I appreciate it!

Cycleworks is the wrong size, and I’m really after a 4″ drop gordymac. so still looking!

Thanks. No joy there though!

I’ve got Lyriks, and they were awful until I had the bushings resized by TF, but now they are fantastic.

Love the adjustability of both travel and damping on the Lyrik – it is a very easy fork to set up for different kinds of riding, and being able to instantly dial in a bunch of low speed compression to stop diving is great on steep slow trails. You’d need the RC2 to do this with a 36. Maxle is a better axle system than the fox too.

Silly money now, but if you want on the fly adjustable travel the Lyrik is the way to go.

36s are great forks too though, so if it were me I’d run them til they died then replace with Lyriks.

2.35 roll like highrollers, i.e. not fantastic but are best all round tyre I’ve found.

Sidewalls are ok but I’ve split 2 LUST highroller and 1 LUST ignitor at the bead, so not the toughest.

those Fratellos look good but are three times the budget specified. I’d just get a road bike that can take 25s and mudguards. A bottom of the range trek or giant probably.

I was skeptical until I went to see an osteo, buthe is excellent, sorted out some lower back pain I was having and some knee problems. I’ve been back occasionally when something flares up and so far he’s done well by me. Never tried the ‘come back every week for x weeks stuff, either’.

He tends to give me a load of stretches, and tells me to come back if I think I need to. I’ve had a couple of good physios over the years, but mainly I’ve found them a bit rubbish – just give you generic stretches and exercises. My osteo does all that plus has some consideration of biomechanics – so he tries to work out why you’ve got the problem in the first place. Good stuff IME, but some of them may be rubbish for all I know.

It’s about the same by the looks of it, but possibly with less side effects from the gel. Quick trawl of pubmed doesn’t show much on this topic, but here is one relevant study. There is another paper showing gel is better than placebo gel too. I’m sitting here with ITB syndrome, so I thought I’d look it up.

Titre du document / Document title
Comparative efficacy of a proprietary topical ibuprofen gel and oral ibuprofen in acute soft tissue injuries: a randomized, double-blind study
Auteur(s) / Author(s)
WHITEFIELD M. (1) ; O’KANE C. J. A. (2) ; ANDERSON S. (1) ;
Affiliation(s) du ou des auteurs / Author(s) Affiliation(s)
(1) Dermal Laboratories Ltd, Hitchin, ROYAUME-UNI
(2) Combermere Barracks, Windsor, ROYAUME-UNI
Résumé / Abstract
The efficacy of a novel, proprietary topical formulation of ibuprofen 5% gel (Ibugel) and ibuprofen 400 mg tablets (1200 mg daily) was compared in a double-blind, double-dummy, parallel group study in patients with acute soft tissue injuries. Patients received either active gel plus placebo tablets (n = 50) or active tablets plus placebo gel (n = 50) for at least 7 days. The gel was applied and one tablet was taken three times daily. The two treatments showed similar efficacy. There were no significant differences between the groups for either the primary efficacy endpoint, the median time for the injury to be rated as ‘completely better’ by the patients (>14 days active gel, 13.5 days active tablets; P = 0.59), or for other efficacy measures including the times to clinically significant relief from pain at rest or on movement and swelling. In summary, ibuprofen gel shows similar efficacy to oral ibuprofen 400 mg and may offer improved tolerability.
Revue / Journal Title
Journal of clinical pharmacy and therapeutics ISSN 0269-4727
Source / Source
2002, vol. 27, no6, pp. 409-417 [9 page(s) (article)] (10 ref.)

I’d split the cost/postage with if you like, STM, I need one too! email in profile if you fancy that…

More riding, less weights. Even the pro roadies seem to knock the weight training on the head for the summer (and many don’t do any weights at all).

I’d do a few shorter, more intense bike sessions instead (2 by 20min threshold intervals, 5 by 5 min hard intervals, etc., then some real speed work near the dates)

I had a nomad, and the waist strap came off after about 6 months. :(

Currently using a camelback HAWG, but htink I will go Deuter when that dies…

hit a few bumps in a row/any chatter/a rock garden and you’ll see the issue with Jr Ts. they jsut don’t work proper! Good enough for single hits though!

I used to have one of those in the exact same colour, very nice.

I had a set of Super Ts, which I snapped, and got a set of Jr Ts exactly like those to replace them. Terrible forks unfortunately :cry:

Have fun though, great bikes.

Actually, you may be right – some people do use the term LT in the way you do… but still, that point you’ve marked on the curve is the anaerobic threshold, (or LT2), and just before that I think your burning mainly carbs not fat.

…which isn’t to argue with your main point that low intensity fat burning training is a good thing, by the way!

In the flat part of the graph you are burning fat and producing no lactate

that’s not strictly true, is it? At just below LT you’re working aerobically, so probably burning carbohydrates mainly. Above LT you’re anaerobic and lactate starts to build quickly. At a really low intensity you’ll be burning fat mainly, but that intensity is not just below LT (which is nearly 1 hr time trial effort). If you were burning fat at LT, your 1 hour average power would be pretty much equal to your 6 hour power, which just isn’t the case.

Not to say that training your fat burning metabolism isn’t a good idea, the more fat your burning at a given intensity, the better, and base training is the way to build this system.

thanks Gary.

Done bikeradar and SDH too.

yes just cross posting now to BMBC, where else do you reckon?

Best keep the addresses quiet, eh? Although far richer pickings at your house than mine, I’ve only got two bikes ;-)

Nice vid, good riding, looks fun. Call it what you like!

Stumpy01 – pumping/hopping/jumping IS a lot of fun, so I don’t really understand your comment really – they look smooth and flowing to me. Are they not just larking about enjoying the ride?

Compared to £850 rrp for an internally identical new one, it seems like a bargain to me! Even with an £80 service should that be necessary, which I doubt, as I’m pretty sure Fishers will warranty it.

It seems that everybody has QC issues these days – bushing problems with rockshox, stanchion wear with Fox, general crapness with Marzocchi since 2007 (I say that as a long term Marz fan, too).

They were new (£449, an absolute bargain). It’s annoying, as I could confirm it was a bushing issue by cropping the lowers off, but if I did that I can imagine the shop kicking up a fuss…

Just spoke to TF, very helpful as always. They reckon it is probably a tight bushing problem as I thought – apparently bushings on lyriks are a bit of a lottery. Other alternative is that it could be a bone dry bushing as the forks have probably been sitting for a couple of years. I’ll leave them inverted for a while to see if that helps, and maybe whip the lower legs off to inspect the bushes.

Not sure whether to:

1. take them back (I can imagine this will be a pain, trying to report a fault on a brand new fork, although I may be able to exchange on the basis that there is a moderate scratch on the lowers and the disc hose guide has been slightly ground off)

2. relube and attempt to ride them in (which won’t work if it is a bushing problem according to TF)

3. cut my losses and send them to TF for a busing resize/tune (for £80).

AndyPaice,

that happened to mine, it is the cartridge leaking into the main leg. Bad luck – it’s effectively giving you a big, undamped positive spring :(

Windwave won’t sell you the O-ring you need, so you’ll have to investigate that yourself, or send it back to them for another £80 service. Or, flog it and buy a trouble free 06 66SL like solamanda & me :-)

pedalon have a decent range of mavic spares here

I agree with yodhimi & steel4real on this. I had no end of troubles with my 07 66 SL ATAs, even when they were ‘working’ (i.e. fresh back from windwave) they didn’t feel great. I went back to some 06 66SLs which are much better feeling (not as good as the 06 coil 66 RC2s though). A fork that even the manufacturers don’t know how to set up must surely have some serious design flaws. No air in the +ve chamber and very high pressure in the PAR is pretty much the opposite of marzocchis reccomendations, and it didn’t work for me very well.

I sold mine to MrNutt. He loves them though, so each to their own!

I’m 36 and have a max when riding around 168-170, resting low 40s, so pretty low by some of the standards here. I wouldn’t worry about it, Indurain was rumoured to have a max around 160, and he didn’t struggle up the cols. Associations between Max HR and athletic performance are so weak as to be meaningless according to many sports scientists.