not local banned for not being a local

this is a local shop for local people!!

Croesus

Kirwans

Autumn has hit here in NZ, and there is snow about! Bit of a write up on the Easter riding over here http://www.mountainbikingnewzealand.co.nz/2009/04/14/mountain-biking-the-croesus-track-easter-09-part-1/

We sleep in our Van all the time and it definitely seems warmer than sleeping in a tent. One heck of a lot less hassle too!!

Our van is fully carpeted etc tho, which might make a difference?? We also sleep on a platform which is well off the ground and has great insulation under our bodies.

From what i have seen, most bikes with a coil shock on the rear will not bounce, and most with an air shock do…

I think it is just a bit of stiction in the air shock that mean that there is not enough give to stop the bike from bouncing on its tyres.

DH tyres do a lot to stop a bike from bouncing too.

I like the birdys better

James, there are a bunch of different shoes in the X-Alp series. Only the very top level one has the buckle.

The sole basically has the same sort of foam padding under the heel as a running shoe, and a reasonably chunky outsole for grip.

Try having a gander at the Pearl Izumi site… http://www.pearlizumi.com/shop.php?pc_id=43&mode=products

Do you guys get Pearl Izumi over there. Their X-Alp series sounds exactly like what you are looking for.

I did a mini review of them here http://www.derailled.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=132&hilit=alp

yeh, I hear ya. Many of my mates are getting sprogged up too…

I have managed to avoid that trap so far…

Oh and I have not done Karapoti since 94. Was on a rigid heavy steel bike, thumbshifters, cantilever brakes etc. Did a 3.05, but possibly could have done something quicker if my rear derailleur had not blown apart halfway through…

Expat. You need to get out of town some more. There is fantastic technical riding about 1 hour out of Chch. I am sure that many people in many places in the world travel a lot longer than that to get to technical riding.

The Port hills are nice to have an after work blast on, or if pushed for time on the weekend… but the riding out Mt Grey, Mt Thomas, Mt Oxford, Craigieburn, Mt Hutt is awesome. Only thing is you might have to learn to hike-a-bike to get to some of the best stuff… Most of these rides I ride as loops.

If you have a bit more time then Croesus, Kirwans, Waiuta etc are good riding. Nelson Blenheim is fantastic with Nydia, Wakamarina, Whites Bay, peaking ridge, Hackett/Browning and Kill devil to name a few.

The other place I really enjoy riding is Alexandra, but you need a local to show you where the trails go (not that they are hidden, just there are tracks everywhere and you need to know which one to follow.

20 mins past midday here in NZ….

I think I have survived the foolings…

ahhh… now you need to buy a Rocklobster from this lot to go with it 😉 http://www.groundeffect.co.nz/product-detail-ROC-SUM.htm

JonEdwards

The “pedal under the arch” idea might be more secure, but to me it feels *totally* wrong, whether on flats or clips. A lot of my suspension comes from ankle/calf movement,and I tend to flick the bike around (especially in clips) purely by ankle movemnet and if I put my foot further forward on the pedal I lose that – the bike feels completely dead and I’m unable to get near as much control or grip – all impacts just go straight up my legs and I’m far more likely to bounce off the pedal.

Do you ride with your legs dead straight and knees locked Jon? I agree that you can use your ankles a lot, and even with the cleats back as far as they go in the slots I still use my ankles a lot. The difference in travel you can get with your ankle might be slightly reduced, but I find the stability more than makes up for this.

More than this, with the cleat right forward you are relying on the smaller muscles of the shin and calf to control the bike and the body weight. Once you move the cleat further back you start engaging the glutes and the quads which are way more powerful muscles, giving you more control and less fatigue…

Pedaling with my arch, again, just feels so wrong – no power, stiff legged and dead. I have to faff about moving my feet to the right place (ball of foot over axle) before I can concentrate on anything else.

If you are used to using a specific set of muscles to pedal, and these muscles are the ones you utilise when the ball of your foot is over the pedal then trying to pedal with muscle groups you are unused to will feel a bit dead and less powerful. When I changed my cleats from right forward to right back it took about a month for my legs to feel as strong, but now I am just as fast and strong up the hill, and I have more control and am going faster down the hill.

You have to do what works for you… There are a lot of people out there who will tell you what is right and wrong, but there are not often a lot of them basing what they tell you on actual evidence. This cleats back thing works well for me, and for other people I know… but everyone has to make up their own minds.

Buzz. Both those articles are aimed at road cycling and so are talking about efficiency and power etc… What they dont talk about is the benefit of moving the cleat back for mountain bikers once they are on technical terrain.

From my own experience, having the cleat at the back of the slots on the shoes has given me:
-more stability.
-feet more relaxed = less tension, less cramping, better blood flow/warmer feet
-power and efficiency that is as good as when my cleats were forward.
-ability to keep weight on feet when going downhill rather than falling forward onto arms/hands… less arm pump etc on down hills.

Different brands of shoes allow for cleats to go back different amounts. Have a play… and if it does not work you can always change them back.

I dunno, but melissa certainly does it for me…

google image search

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Tried it some years back with some Nokians… had the tyre totally leave the rim while cornering.

If you can find a tyre that is a tight fit then i would say have a go… if the tyre is easy to get on/off by hand I would stay well clear if you like your face the way it is at the moment 😉

roughneck
what are Eskar 2bliss like.

I like them. Roll ok, grip in most conditions really well. Plenty of volume without being too heavy.

Some people have had problems with sidewalls being munched in sharp rocky conditions… but I have not really had that problem.

Buzz. Have you thought about moving your cleats back on your shoes??

As you have noticed you are much more stable when standing on the pedal with the arch of your foot over the axle. Having your cleats too far forward will make it feel as if you are standing on tip toes (along with the balance and muscle tension that would go with standing on tip toes). If you put your cleats at the very back of the slots on your spd shoes you should find that you are getting much closer to the arch of foot on pedal feeling.

There are people out there specifically manufacturing shoes with cleats under the arch of the foot, and saying it is better for your pedaling, and I have seen studies that show the same pedaling efficiency for cleats under arch, cleats 1/2 way between arch and ball and cleats under ball.

have a read of this (from a roadie perspective) http://www2.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2007/01/cleat-position.html

and this also from a roadie perspective http://www.cyclefitcentre.com/pdf%20final%20docs/question_of_leverage.pdf

I am running my mtb shoes with the cleats right at the back of the slots, which puts the cleat somewhere between the arch and the ball, and am considering grabbing an old pair of shoes and drilling holes in them to try with the cleat under the arch.

In my opinion once you train your muscles for the new position you should be able to get up the hills just as fast, but should have a whole lot more balance and control on the way down.

You could just buy a complete one of these and blow a good wad

http://www.factor001.com/

sedatives in the doggy food…

woof woooof ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

You first need to train your wife… then you will be able to train the dog…

Nice volume, plenty of grip and pretty light. I quite like them, but have gone back to my Eskar 2bliss because the Eskars work better tubeless for me.

brack

NZ Col how long have you had that DB?

Looks very similar to one I had when in Christchurch….?

That DB in the picture is mine. I have only had it about a year… It is all pretty original and in good running condition and I even have the original smoke tyres for it. There has been talk of running some retro racing (and there was one race run last year).

@alexathome. I agree, the driving and idiots in boy racer jap cars here in nz are appalling. Drivers and road manners etc in NZ are terrible!!

I9 wheel sets are reasonably pricy…

kiwijohn
How old is that Diamondback?
Or is the photo from back in the day. I used to live in Chch in 93 & rode all the trails I could there.

That Diamondback is probably 1992 or something. That photo might be almost a year old…

There have been a lot of trails built up the hills since 93, and we are still building a lot more!!

Inzane – I would go stir crazy in the UK, but I place a very high priority on being able to get away into the mountains very quickly to go biking/skiing/tramping.

molgrips – Yeah cos you can’t do that in the UK

Britain isn’t the South East. Go and live in Wales, the North, Scotland, the West country if you want that.

Not trying to be nasty, but Britan does not have what I consider to be real “Mountains”, not like the French Alps, or the Southern Alps. There are however lots of big hills, with trails for miles… but it is different to what we have here, or what you find in the Alps.

Oh, and I have lived in Wales 😉

John_Key – Member
But Inzane you live in Christchurch which is a white trash filled smog ridden place which is flat boring and folk think their coffee needs a litre of milk with it

Yeh, I know… but I put up with it for this sort of stuff…

and these sort of trails on my doorstep

Awww… are you jealous John?? 😐

Depends what your priorities are. If spending time with close family is a higher priority then there is no other way to get that… unless you convince them to move over to NZ…

I would go stir crazy in the UK, but I place a very high priority on being able to get away into the mountains very quickly to go biking/skiing/tramping. Here in Chch I can wake up in the morning, look at the ski-field webcam and decide whether I should go skiing today or not (yep, we are snow-snobs). I have great mtb trails on my doorstep, and fantastic mountains to go biking in only an hours drive away. i can go tramping and walk off into the mountains and not see another person for days on end. I like that it is so easy to get away and into nature here, and that there are large chunks of land that are barely touched by humans.

I work a job that is a 5 to 10 min commute from the house I own and I can afford toys like bikes, skis and a vehicle.

My partner is from Auckland and would like to be living there again, but I would miss the access I have to the mountains here, and really dont like the idea of living in Auckland at all! I would have to put up with higher house prices, rush hour traffic, hours of driving to get to trails etc etc.

To me the thought of the UK is just an even more extreme version of moving to Auckland. More people, more traffic, even higher house prices and even more effort to get out and into the great outdoors. There are some great things going for the UK, but my priorities mean that i would prefer to be here.

To be honest the History of a place is reasonably irrelevant to me. I lived in La Paz, Bolivia for a couple of years but would rather live here in NZ. Their history goes back a looooong way back too.

Sure, we Kiwi’s dont have a lot of culture, but I can easily find friends who are always keen to get out and play in the mountains with me, which is really important to me as well!!

by changing the springs. Lighter spring = more sag.

I have seen a tyre with literally over 100 thorns in it, and the slime tube inside was still holding pressure. This was in Perth Australia… some places there you have to run something like this or you will stop every 2 minutes to fix a puncture due to all the thorns!!

milk in last, paper on the outside??

Blurb says they need it to stay inflated… and I have never tried them without gooo…

Pump them up and find out for us 😉

The tyre pressure you run will be a factor of
1. Your weight
2. Tyre width
3. Rim width
4. Tyre/rim combo (some tyres are tighter than others).
5. How hard out you ride. If you never push your tyres very hard then they are never going to burp.

Without all of the above info your “what pressure” question does not tell us much…

I run 27 psi in my 2.35 Specialized Eskar 2Bliss controls mounted on DT 5.1 rims with the DT tubeless conversion kit. I only weigh about 70kg (11 stone) and push my tyres pretty hard on my 5-Spot.

Oh, and I have found you can go a lot lower in pressure with real UST tyres and UST rims. Conversion kits and non-UST tyres run with goo are much easier to burp!!

Huh Milf??

Where??

So what brand of tea are we talking about… I mean there is tea and then there is tea…

I have found Sunday sessions to be some of the most pleasing 😉 Especially the ones at the “Cott” back when I lived in Perth… Hot weather + pub next to beach = lots of people in swimwear. http://www.cottesloebeachhotel.com.au/html/s01_home/home.asp

Oh yeh… I forgot about moderators… most of those other sites have someone sitting there and cleaning up the porn etc that spammers post to forums!

Since Vorb (the nz equivilent of this) went through an upgrade at the start of the year there seems to be a bit more spam turning up on the boards…

The upgrade over there did not run as smoothly as it possibly could have either… but all the regulars are still there.

aracer – Member
How exactly do you suggest making posting pictures any easier?

For this setup (i.e. a forum that uses very little bandwidth or storage space) there probably is not an easier way. However many sites allow you to attach the picture straight from your computer to the forum, rather than having to post the photo on another site and then link to the other site.

GrahamS

If I had a button that automatically quoted your entire post and I only wanted a bit of it then I’d have to perform a pretty similar set of actions anyway. (Click button then delete all the bits I don’t want).

it would be very useful to be able to put the name of the person who posted a comment in the quote as well… which I guess I can just paste the name in as well. 😐

The current way of quoting ensures that only well versed forum users and people who have been around long enough to learn how will quote. New users and others just wont bother… same goes for the posting of pictures. Which i guess is fine…

You go ride your rigid single speed… 😛 I can still ride a rigid single speed and have fun doing it, but my geared full suss goes more places more easily. 😉

Ah, i had not caught up with the fact that the old site was Hacked and the new site was put up very quickly.

I agree with you on the flashing from all sides crap sites. They annoy me as well. Signatures, post ranking etc is all superfluous stuff that does get in the way of a discussion.

However I believe the ability to quote a reply easily would enhance the conversations/discussions… and it is the conversations/discussions that really make this site what it is.

Full length outers make a huge difference to both brands, but I have found Sram to be less fussy than Shimano.