“only available in a steel bead so i’m not sure how heavy they are”
iirc claimed weight was about 1000g, ie heavy

Plantation I assume you mean the flagstoned narrow trail that switchbacks near the top before going into trees and then out into the open over grass before the road

Apart from variations on the Stanage/Jumble Rd/Blackamoor/Houndkirk/Redmires/Stanage loop the only other time I’ve done stanage was to include some road:
Up from Ladybower? (the grass) dam on the backroad, down bamford clough (the badly concreted rough one) into the back of bamford
Up Hurst Clough, up roads to and up Long Causeway (a bit techy up .. ), down Stanage plantation, then down on road to the valley bottom past brookfield manor into the back of hathersage
Up through leadmill and up/skirt the hill to Shatton Moor, down bradwell edge (guessing very cow trodden atm
then add in what you like. Cavedale, Greenlands, Beast made it a big ride for me

Im in the middle of doing this, so am interested too. Have been putting off putting bushes in

“You can buy them off Ebay for about £30”
You can buy them on ‘normal’ internet retailers for £20-25?

“made my own bushing puller by using a thin M6 threaded bar with a similar elongated centre hole flat washer with the sides filled down so that it would slide through the bushings at an angle then sit on the nut/washer/nut tightened captive at the bottom of the threaded rod – then pull upward on the threaded rod and the bush should come out with a bit of force”
+1
probably M8 and washer (with sides chopped) welded to a nut.
Another nut in vice so the bar below has the lowers dangling by the bush, them tapped the lowers with a rubber ended mallet

“pair in each leg must be inline and the other side match too otherwise they’re trying to ‘twist’ the forks when the stantions are inserted and will be sticky”
Really?
How so?

“there is also the argument that they don’t protect as well as a bike helmet at bike speeds”

And the larger size will mean more whiplash effect in an impact where whiplash plays a part

I can’t rememeber the full argument/reasoning
TJ must have had something to do with it?

Switch fronts are easy. The thru axle adapters will pop off in your fingers (20mm ones do, so I assume 15mm will). The QR ones might need a little leverage with something due to the o-rings. Though if you lose one of the 2 o-rings per adapter they’ll still stay put but you can pull them out with your fingers

“upgrade to 10mm rear QR too, its about a tenner for the axle and £7 for the qr “
The only thing against the superstar 10mm QR thru-axle would be the steel axles make them not the lightest. The american classic 10mm thru axles appear to be the same apart from being lighter due to iirc aluminium axles, £17
If you’re a worrier or just don’t like external cams then DT RWS (QRish) 10mm thru-axles are lighter again and aren’t thaaat much more, £30/35
Off the top of my head I don’t konw of an internal cam’d thru-axle (ie like shimano/mavic)

“shims = superstar”
but they don’t offer a 30.9-31.6mm shim?

I quite like the plastic USE ones. seem to slide against a post okay, better with a little grease/carbon paste. Treat them a bit cack handed ime and its then that they crack

If you’re basing the 30.9mm requirement around a current/future dropper seatpost, remember you can get 30.9mm-31.6mm seatpost shims so you can run a 30.9mm dropper in a 31.6mm frame if needed. USE, problem solvers, others?

“HT11 is supposed to be stiffer because the bearings are further out”
And the axle is much wider

between my old (low end) Truvativ 5D,CompG,others square tapers and hollowtech (LX/XT/SLX) I can notice the difference in flex.

Also, I rounded the squares of I think all my sqaure taper cranks. Hollowtech (and octalink) I’ve not done so

“ignore the cheap price and keep an open mind”

before they went bust the 2010 V1 frame retailed for £1700 with RP23:
bikeradar review
afaik* the onlu on-one tweaks to the V2 were a tapered head tube, colour and cable guide tweaks
and afaik* the V3 is about equivalent of sticking a 1 degree angleset in the V2/V1 and a 10mm longer top tube (for shorter stems)

*going off what on-one said about them
so afaik they’re still kinesis/taiwanese made (not US as some of the other alu. titii) so why coupled with on-one being brand/distributer/online shop they can be £600?

the landowner (or agent) can ask you to leave etc, but how do you know they are the landowner and not somebody else pretending to be?
Presumably the landowner doesn’t have to pop off and fetch the deeds/some ID if you get ‘caught’?

Aye, nou inglisch

then casually ride on?

“revelations are getting a bit tired on the front of my sanderson soloist – they’re usually in 130 mode sagged to about 120mm”

130mm forks running 10mm sag? Not going to help them feeling tired?
Wants to be more like 30-35mm sag (With lockout off)?

“I’m after something with a lock-out”

Whilst not strictly a lockout the compression (And floodgate) dials turn all the way on (more lockout) ought to give an almost lockout.
If it still feels like its acting like suspension with both these dials turned to give max ‘locking-out’ness (I’ve seen it on rebas) then I’d suggest a service to get it going like new again
Either send away or do it yourself. It can feel a little faffy but not difficult with a few of the right tools (eg circlip pliers)
There is (or was) a guy on ebay who sells a complete set of seals that’ll fit dual-air (not u-turn) rebas/rev’s/pikes for £8

Granted even when they’re as they should, grunting up/down on the bars of a soloist is never going to make them feel as solid as a rigid fork

“10 speed has more range than 9”
Not in all cases

1×10 over 1×9 can yes
*3×10 sram over *3×9 yes
3×10 shimano over *3×9 no, has less range. Even with a 11-36T casette. The 42-32-24 combo has a higher lowest gear and a lower highest gear

*44-32-22T

“I can’t get my head round weight weenies with dropper posts…?”
On certain downhills you can go faster with the saddle down, you have to stop to put the seatpost back up, which is slower?
On those rides where you can go faster with the saddle down, it’d be faster to have a dropper than leave the saddle all the way up
That or they’re something else to throw money at

“3 x 9 for 2 x 10. What you lose on the front chainring you more than gain on the cassette particularly if you go for the 11-36”
eh? egs?
afaik available 2×10 setups use at lowest a 24T inner ring no?
a 24-36 combo is a higher/harder combo than 22-34T?
Same at the top end. No 2×10 combo has a 44T chainring?

“to simulate a careless landing by a heavy rider”
iirc that particular test is something like a langing to flat with an ‘acceleration’ of 9G ? (ie fighter pilots black out 5-6ish G?)

(Awaits correction)

My ’07 carbon Stumpjumper rocker links snapped (magnesium alloy). The seatstays then crashed into the back of the ‘ladies legs’ (the part of the seattube that makes a hole in the seattube around the shock. They appeared battered. Specialized reckoned they’d be alright. They’ve yet to break (touch wood)

Downtube is also covered in dings/chinks/etc from rock strikes. In places carbon shows through the lacquer

and upto 15.5stone during ownership (creeping back up .. )

“not all of the same forks are the same some oem models may be heavier or not have the same damping carts and nobody tells you if it’s oem – there is also potential warranty issues with them”

Which is why I’d always check the model name and the advertised fork spec against the model names and fork specs on the manufacturers website. If they don’t match 100% then likely a ‘custom’ OEM spec. Not that it’d really matter. If the spec suited what I was after and a decent price then I’d be happy
If I recieved a fork that didn’t match the spec the retailer advertised then it’d go back

Warranty issue shouldn’t on the face of it be different. ie you buy it from the retailer so the warranty is with them
Whether in reality the retailer are a PITA to deal with, or your options are more limited (eg replacement/refund/repair) etc will depend

“995g so hardly anything in it weight wise”
-889 = 106g
a lot or not a lot?

certainly much better £/g than between XT>SLX

no, but I found clipping in with race style shoes a touch more fiddly than race style shoes into non-cage shimanos (M520,M540 etc)

5secs in, both mirrors are half ‘full’ of just the cab. Obviously they’re trying to show a point but in what situation is this useful? The other half of the mirror is to the end of the trailer.
If the mirror was adjusted more so that the ‘inside’ half of the mirror was the back of the cab to the back of the trailer then there’d be the ‘outside’ half of the mirror looking to the side of the trailer. Granted once he turns (more) then you’d only be seeing the trailer, but as it is as soon as it turns you’re not even going to see the trailer itself.

That and the bottom mirror appears to be a flat mirror? If it were more convex although the image would be a bit more difficult to make out at first glance you’d be able to see much more?

SLX 44-32-22 9spd (inc. BB) claimed is 889g
[XT ’08-’11 44-32-22 9spd (inc. BB) claimed is 853g]
BB’s are the same. XT inner is alu. instead of steel, XT middle carbon/steel? rather than compostite/steel? XT outer lighter too. Must account for most of the 36g diffference

no idea on deore. BB will be fairly similar to the SLX/XT one but iirc they will have different part no.s?
Deore has completely steel inner/middle rings? alu. outer?
Crankarms I think are forged rather than hollowtech (hydroformed?)

bottom brackets do have a torque setting though no? Seem to think something like 55Nm (or is that something else?) so loads. Loads more than I’d ever crank up with a BB tool so never bother

For crankarms, stems, brake *calipers, etc I’d reccomend what I have, the BBB one for about £50 or so. Came with a decent selection of bits that have yet to show any sign of rounding at all, goes down to 2Nm and the box is quite useful

*brake and gear levers I can’t see the point of torquing, nor doing tight. I do them just nipped enough that they won’t move when operating, that way when I crash they spin around instead of being the taking the brunt of it. Plus I can tweak them pootling along flat stuff

iirc from stuff on here trek warranty upto 130mm?

“or other answer?”
surely?
MXer for hitting you?

the other factors of course still not irrelavant

“on full pro pedal and ehen i sat on bike went down a third with 200psi”
pro-pedal shouldn’t affect a ‘sag’ (the gone down a third bit), all it should do is limit the choppyness of the suspension when riding/pedalling
Still for setting the sag the pro-pedal should be in the off position I think, as it ought to make it easier to get a better reading. If it sags a third with just you sat on it (ie no more bumps to make it sink more) then I’d be putting more air in. Try to get it to ‘go down a quarter/25%’
I used to run my specialized shock (on a stumpjumper) upto about 220psi
Most shocks are good upto 300psi

“You could get a shorter stem on there, improve handling, and then slide your seat back a bit maybe”
eh?
Its already fairly short, no?
If you went even shorter wouldn’t it be a bit too twitchy when really cranking out the saddle?

bontrager race 25.4mm, 10deg, perhaps a bit cheap looking

thomson elite 5deg, not going to be cheap

carbon cycles, superstar, on-one do anythng?

“I thought the KS I got was convertible but it’s not”
Which model? The i950 is, I was sure the i900 is? Or have you an i850 or i7

“how many descents are there that warrant a saddle dropped?
Say 3 max.”
Maybe on a medium length ride in the peak that I knew
I find a dropper useful when I don’t know whats coming, ie whether or not it’ll be worth dropping it or not
Trails where the ups are worthwhile a proper pedalling position, and the downs (especially ridden blind) it will help to get more out of with a down saddle (ie drops/jumps/TTFs faster). As can be found in sections of trail centres

“In the end I figured out how to drop a saddle without even stopping”
I did get pretty good at this, it certainly put off buying a dropper for a bit making it hgarder to justify

“I also usually get to the top first or second any way giving me time to drop the necessary 1″ of post to then go and ride what I want”
Its alright for some, but waht about all the fat biffers out there? ..

“More would be better but 5″ drop reverb is definately a good start”
Why I got a 150mm drop i950
the remote kit being a rip off* imo and the the 430/435mm post length could be problematic for many frames
*I had access to a scrap i900r to rob the remote/actuation levers from

“storm control are the go to guys, but is there anything out there thats 2.25ish”

A 2.0″ storm is about the same volume as a 2.25″ Schwalbe (albert), so about the same/ever so slightly bigger than a 2.35″ Maxxis (high roller)
Of course niether a 2.25″ schwalbe or 2.35″ maxxis is big for the claimed size

somewhere in here:
http://service.specialized.com/collateral/ownersguide/new/assets/pdf/FSR—2005-SJ-FSRxc-FSR-Manual.pdf

edit: pages 12 and 13

“Summer Season – am I being thick in wondering what the “Summer” means “

iirc, originally it was going to be a close to £100 unbutted tubed, somehow less well finished (paint? lacquer? either way can’t rmemeber), but much slacker than a stock 456. Slack enough that it’d still be be plenty slack without needing a long divey 160mm fork
The summer element being you could afford to buy one to rebuild your UK trail bike onto (without needing to buy a longer fork), trash it in the alps for however long without worrying if you broke it
afaik it got slightly specced up along the way (paint?) is it still plain guage tubes? and the RRP crept upto stock 456 levels?

Or something like that? Am sure I’ll be remembering something wrong in there

re: the op’s question, what fork are you building around? It maybe for all day ‘fast’ that an inbred, scandal, whippet might be more suited?

“chain stay has snapped after a 6foot drop to flat”

which model year? either way I don’t think any of them were designed/marketted/sold as huck bikes were they?

“spent the whole time trying to convince everyone that cycling was terrifying”
And if he did the opposite it would have been a failry bland one sided peice (plus the generic tax/insurance thing thrown in) likely with few people to call in?
There must be a team (ie not him) planning the subjects and the argument to come from which will get plenty of people to call in to get a range of viewpoints on which to draw?

“significantly wider bar is best to buy as you can then cut it down to fit”

Not neccessarily. You’ll end up with the ‘reinforced middle’ of a wide bar, rsther than a bar ‘designed’ around the width. Not that will make much difference
Also its not impossible you could end up with less ‘usable’ clamp space, ie the bar could dip ‘sooner’ on the wider bar. Whether this is an issue will depend how wide you like your grips, how far in you run your brake levers/shifters/remote levers/bell/gps/lights and so on

re: triangles, the higher your grips* are relative to tyre, you ought to need a wider bar to retain the same sideward stability

“Jeremy Vine, well he’s just a professional sh!t stirrer isn’t he”

eh?
He’s a professional journalist/presenter/etc so its his job to ask alternate arguments for the interviewee to counter argue, so to make a discussion of the subject? ie the point of the programme?

“feel too stretched out with the 456’s long top tube even with a 50mm stem”

How layback has the seatpost and how far back is the saddle on the rails
The adjustment here could be much more than the difference between many a frame size?

imo with that short a stem, to try to balance the cockpit a bit, for up and downhill, I wouldn’t want a layback post, else if it had one I’d be pushing the saddle quite a long way forward

“long= better pedaling efficiency”
also, generally assuming similar head angles/chainstays/forks etc, longer top tube is obviously going to mean longer wheelbase and thus better stability at speed?

“120mm of insertion with a 400mm post”
Obviously depends if the frame or seatpost have a specific minimum insert more than that or even if have some kind of ‘non-standard’ seattube-toptube bracing/flared top tube/elongated seatpost arrangement, but generally that ought to be plenty

carbon/lightweight everything minus the big fat WTB saddle

Based on numerous previous threads, there may be (9 letter) clue word somewhere in your post ..

“all seem tight as i regularly check them, and its only needed minor tweaking”
They may all be tight, but are they all equally tight?

I just got some big plastic stackable storage boxes from asda (tried tesco but the selection in my local extra was poor and much pricier)
Handlebars, wheels, forks, frames don’t fit in them

better storage?
split the bits up somehow (boxes, drawers, etc) so you can find stuff
eg: scrap parts, parts, (little) spares
ie, not a pile

I seem to end up arranging a lot of my spare parts into more complete bikes though

works components will do a few

“don’t do 456 anymore and just do the 456 evo “
In steel yes

For 140mm forkability with 456 (not evo) geometry there is the 456 carbon for not much more. There was a thread on here the other day of people saying how they went from a 456 to a 456carbon and most reckoned the ride was much better iirc
The headtube will take an angle adjust h/set to make it 456evo angles if you wished in future