I wish there was a way to sort the results of a search by delivery time – I hate having to scroll for ages to find the one I can get quickest..

Unless it’s a big ride when I’ll take a pack, my everyday kit is: Pump/CO2 inflator, tubeless repair kit, multitool inc. chain breaker, quick link, gear cable, cable ties, tyre lever. Crammed into the smallest possible frame bag.

Levo with Gen1 Brose: Motor still fine after 3 years/6000km. Has broken 2 wiring looms though, they bend too tight when you have to unplug it to charge and it breaks the wires. One of the battery LEDs has failed due to water, still functions fine though.

Think my OH’s Gen1 Levo is suffering from intermittent power cutouts that I think is the loom or the connector, and it too has a couple of battery LEDs out but opening the battery up looks simple enough and it’ll just be a couple of SMD LEDs to replace.

I was happy to buy used out of warranty tbh, as the industry I work in means that I can have a crack at sorting any issues myself anyway.

I have to say, I’d be surprised if the boards inside the motors don’t have some sort of conformal coating on them – I believe the main board inside the Levo batteries does, so I’d imagine the Brose/Specialized motors would at the least.

Is the thought process here and experience that a 19.5 /large for a 6ft rider?

That’s my height and what I’ve got coming 👍 Was on a Large Parkwood which fitted great and the geo looks similar.

For £200 extra, I’d go for the On One Whippet and get full carbon. Which is exactly what I did! Two weeks til delivery..

Edit: it doesn’t have rack mounts though, but I think you can get clamp-on ones, can’t you?

’05-plate Audi A3 3.2 V6 Quattro Sportback and an ’09-plate VW Tiguan TDi 4Motion.

1936 Cord Phaeton 812

I can’t see why you wouldn’t just go SRAM Direct Mount with the Boost (3mm?) offset – the steel rings have only a marginal weight penalty over ally, last forever, and are £15.

Actually, I’d find it easier to not own a car than to stop eating meat completely.

As they both have a similar reduction in carbon footprint; go on then, do it. Put your money where your mouth is.

But where you have the opportunity to make a small change that costs you little but reduces your footprint, then I think it’s morally good to do so and if you don’t you should feel ashamed.

Still eat meat and dairy do you..?

One of the biggest ways to reduce your carbon footprint is by giving up both, according to almost every climate group.

Funny how the majority of people complaining about the environmental effects of technology are the ones who won’t do that..

Bird AEther 7/9 (depending on wheelsize) is around £1300-1400 for the basic shock version with headset, rear axle and seat clamp. Again, not sure it passes the simple linkage though, but then are there any non-linkage bikes out there apart from Orange anymore?

@milfordvet – saw you posted in the Whippet thread – is that what you’ve got those tyres on?

Just pondering tyre choices – spec says 2.35 max in the frame, and it comes with 2.35 – but how much room is there? Given that it comes with 30mm internal rims I wouldn’t want to go much narrower on them for fear of squaring the tyre off.

Replacing a gear cable and getting the indexing spot on first time, hearing it snick up and down through the block. Love it.

Chainstay-mount wheel tensioner?

https://www.gritstonecycles.co.uk/chain/1697/mr-contriol-chain-tensioner-chain-stay-mount-rotating-floating.html

Or search for “emergency derailleur hanger” – MuckyNutz do one but there’s loads on eBay.

Get tyres that you actually want and work for you and your riding and forget about whether they have pretty tan walls or not?

Yeah, no.. 😁 Do that on the FS. It’s not like there’s only one perfect tyre for everyone – if I can get something that does the job AND looks how I want, why not?

Cheers for suggestions, especially MSC as I hadn’t heard of them.

If someone can learn to lift the accelerator pedal when changing gear in a car, they can learn to ease up when changing gear on a bike.. Learned to do that back in the days of Shimano 400LX! Never trashed a rear mech. Some people just don’t appreciate the concept of mechanical sympathy and will always break stuff.

Alloy not carbon but boutique and not common on the trails – Banshee? Rune or Spitfire would fit the bill nicely.

As has been mentioned above, and in stock – On-One/Planet X Big Dog?

https://www.bird.bike/new-29-hardtails-2021/

Big Dog in stock in Small in black, orange and raw 😁

Worth waiting for the incoming Bird steel 29er HT?

On-One Big Dog? GX Eagle beats Deore imo, and MRP fork trumps Marzocchi I reckon.

Atera Strada Ebike ML is what you’re after. Ours is superb.

Three words only!

surely all work ethic disappears the moment you know you’re leaving?

Depends on how professional you are I suppose…

At my last job, when I went into a managerial role, my notice increased from one to three months – when I left to go to a non-managerial role, my new company were quite happy to wait the full three months for me to join.

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/56246134

So, the OH has gone and ordered one for my birthday 😁 Her words were “Well, it looks good, they’ve got it in stock, and it’s 4 years since the last bike I bought you so you need another new one. Also you’ve never had a carbon bike, so..”

Cheers – it’s to do with a being headhunted/counter-offer situation that isn’t covered by the usual business/recruitment advice websites, so will drop you a line, thanks!

Thread bump – how are people getting on with these? Thinking about getting one to replace my carbon rigid-forked Parkwood now that I’ve decided I like rigid 29ers.

I ran mine SS for three years (34/18 offroad) and never had an issue with the dropouts moving – I use the tensioning bolts – nor the chain falling off. Maybe I have ridiculously weak legs..?

With the dropouts fully extended a 29×2.2 rubs on the seat stays but will turn. As above, I think 700x42c is about the limit. Forks take the same 29×2.2 no problem.

Source: that’s my frame on eBay 😁

I’ve got nothing against ebikes, but how the hell do people afford them?

2x good jobs, no kids.. 😉

I’m partly on chevychase‘s side, and partly not. E-bikes are absolutely an amplifier of crap behaviour, and allow people access to locations they wouldn’t have otherwise been able to.

On the other hand, without one my other half wouldn’t be able to, or even want to come riding with me, and it wouldn’t have re-ignited her love for cycling. She’s courteous and polite on the trails, and only uses enough assist that we’re going the same speed uphill. So I’m conflicted.

Nice Seeing Sunshine

Same here, but with the GRX Camino.. Just waiting to see if my work’s going to do C2W!

Born & raised in Guildford – my parents’ first house (bought the year before I was born, they were in late 20s) cost £12k iirc. 3 bed Edwardian semi walking distance from the train station. Now sells for £550k upwards – can’t imagine young couples affording that now so no idea who’s buying then!

They sold the family home (4 bed detached) on the outskirts of Guildford 2 years ago and upped sticks to the Malverns into a bigger place for the same money, both now retired. I think most of the similar size properties in the area are owned by similar people.

If I’d had the nous to buy in my early 20s instead of spending my money gigging, pubbing and clubbing then I’d have bought something at £100k that’s now worth £400k, more fool me. As it is, self and OH both work in engineering (me for an EV R&D company, her as a manager for a bus manufacturer) and live in a modest 2-bed terrace on the Surrey/Hants border. Our 1970s estate is mostly £450k+ detached, seem to be split between older families (parents in their 50s) and retirees. The fewer smaller places like ours seem to be young professionals, a few builders/plumbers/etc. Just normal people.

I’d say definitely have a good look at Bird’s offerings, if only for the superb customer service if nothing else (the bikes are awesome as well though)!

A massive difference between the UK and placed that have high levels of cycling infrastructure implemented (Netherlands, Denmark, etc) is the average size of supermarkets.

Suburban UK relies mostly on vast out-of-town massive supermarkets, whereas in my travels round the aforementioned countries all I’ve ever seen are much, much smaller places – similar in size to a typical local Co-Op, or maybe a Lidl/ALDI as a push but that’s it. There definitely don’t seem to be the massive retail parks either, everything is more integrated. You’d need to fix that via planning restrictions to even have a hope of getting people out of cars (which, tbh, I don’t see happening).

As an aside, there’s an interesting study which shows a strong correlation between supermarket size and obesity levels: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4511521/

To quote:
“From our data, it is clear that the lowest store size and obesity rates were from the three northern European countries sampled. These countries have high urban population density combined with infrastructure that encourages shopping trips by foot, by bicycle or by public transport rather than by car [10]. As a result, shopping trips in these countries may be more frequent, involve active transport and the carrying of groceries, and be more likely to include the purchasing of fresh, perishable foods. As such, large supermarkets may be a useful marker for a cultural and social pattern of shopping and consumption that promotes obesity [11].”

https://www.samsung.com/uk/support/mobile-devices/i-smashed-my-screen-and-cannot-use-the-touchscreen-is-there-any-way-to-access-my-data/