Maybe add kielder into that, though going by the state of the forest road from the end of the black trail I’d be looking at heading to newcastleton area and go in by road from there

The deadwater red trail is worth a ride* add in the black bit near the end if you like raised-ish wooden stuff (i assume its still there?) and some drops.
*the descent off deawater fell I can see isn’t upto much. I rode it in october snow and made discovering lips at the last second at speed fun at least

The lonesome pine ‘red’ trail (the one with the 1km ‘north shore’) wasn’t upto much. A lot of it was a rougher surface than the worst of dalby IIRC (and its an if), it flowed okay but nothing special and the 1km north shore was a waste of time/money imo, I/we rode side-by-side and just had a conversation while soaking up the view iirc

Newcastleton I really liked too

Guessing GT/inners are too familiar?

Hamsterley was a lot better than previously when I rode in march, though some mix/matching of trails will be required

afaik although the red has some great new sections (and perhaps going by other english black grading, ought to be black) there may well be some fireroad bashing in the red loop.
Id be looking to follow the black until the watersplash, then try heading upto a radio mast? above a load of the red descents then up the DH push up track and then follow down red/black to finish, or something like that. Map checking will neccessary

“fast and swoopy or tight and rocky? “
Both. Add in roots to that too.

“home-made, propelled, log lifting and winching trailer?”
That explains the lack of guard ..
but as previously, that needs a guard on it

The two combines AND header on the low loader was abmitous

“Because a John Deere can’t work at 110mph “
Guessing not the UK?
I always wonder how you can switch on/off in the right place and/or follow where you’ve been, ie so you’re not overdosing? Its not like/I guess there are no tramlines for planes or GPS that can ‘work’ for sprayer-planes?
That and how does the ‘draft’/wind effects of a plane effect the evenness of the spray?

“Whats with the relatively tiny hopper thing on the back ?”
For spreading slug pellets
Though normally it’d be used attached to something else doing another job like a sprayer or maybe a seed drill/piece of cultivation eqpt/rollers. Else if on its own, then maybe something with less compaction that a tractor, such as a quad-bike

Here are a few, Ill thin them down a bit by biasing the mishaps:

went soft quick

something flicked up

wet spot

another wet spot

just poor stacking

is mount talas from 2008?
im most likely wrong, but i (in the back of my head) thought 2008 fox were post mount? not sure why
I know 2008 F120’s are post mount? though obviously they’re not talas 32/36

IS mount wouldn’t bother me, if its a 36 and its got bolts to clamp of the axle instead of QR levers then I’d more concerned (pita, risk of rounding/stripping bolts etc .. )

Post mount (with post mount caliper) will be lighter in 160 with no adapter or upto ~185mm with longer bolts+staight through adapter (203mm pm-pm ime require more bolts)

I prefer IS fork with a pm caliper for lack of thread stripping woes and for fork lowers servicing you can leave the caliper adjustment of the pm caliper on the adapter and just remove/refit on the is fork-adapter

IS caliperscan be a pita to setup trying to get the right combo of washers, or worse if your choice of hub/caliper/fork means it will rub but spacers would make it worse ..

unless im at work, im there

where have you not pootled over the last couple of years? Ive not kept track

“Is it just me who gets suck down?”
My 2010 150mm revs also suck down to 140mm within the space of a ride

My 2008 130mm revs leaked the other way loosing the -ve air, so it became very firm over a ride or two. A seal change did cure that

My borhters 2009 recons had a leak but being solo air it kept equalizing as it lost air

“so modern rs and fox are out”
Some OE Fox have open bath. Still doesn’t stop oe F120’s from wearing the stantion out. And when it does its not just the lowers oil thats weeping out, its your damping too

Newer RS I’d say will be worse than pre 2010ish, with the ‘powerbuldge’, when the lower bushes go, the manual says to replace the lowers ..

I’ve some ’04 ((I think) MX Pro ETA’s with some noticable bushing slop, stantions perfect.
RS I’ve had have stantion wear before I can notice any bushing wear. (I’ve got mor eon top of RS servcing since)

Winstanleys have a few unused?/new oldie ‘zocchis:
http://www.winstanleysbikes.co.uk/index.html

I have a superstar switch evo hub with 20mm adapters. I too have play in the adapters, but once I’ve tightened up wheel in the fork its solid?
Or have you still play when you tighten everything up?

I had play when the stock bearings developed play ~6months in. Swapped bearings to something I found on eaby for a couple of £ and running smooth/solid since. Though it’d seem odd if it were bearing play for you to only notice when you swapped adapters? or maybe not?

“I looked on Merlin but they have a standard steerer and im after a tapered one”
You know you can get headsets to fit a tapered headtube that will fit a standard steerer tube?

Kind of suprised/interested in not seeing any mention of the specialized defroster?

IIRC reiews of the outgoing model were that it wasn’t very warm, anyone any idea what the newer/latest model is like?

Quite like the sound of a class 60

A 91 in IC colours I like:

Guessing not last 40 years, but obscure stuff like a 13 I like also:

shimano m520 should be able to find online under £20 with cleats

You ride a bike named MrSchmancy?

despite 2minutes of spotting rain at the end of my ride, All was dry or loamy-dry for me this afternoon

Having gone september or gone september 21st, yes it is autumn

after some searching thinking where on earth is that, I’m going off you’re talking about ullswater singletrack?

Ii rode it in may, it was still rocky, iirc not* sanitised, at least between the sections you mention
i did push a couple of bits, but rode most of it, though still an energy sappable up/down rockfest?

*though havening never ridden it before and not remembering entirely I couldnt rule it out?

“work adequately in the dry, poorly in the wet, squeal like a stuck pig in both”

Have they been like this since you bought them?

Sounds more like a problem with your pads, either the intial compound, they’ve glazed over and/or the pad and/or rotor is contaminated/just needs a clean
I’d be tempted to clean the rotors and roughen up the pads first

A problem with your brakes, hey go buy SLX
My brother did this, instead of starting to look into why his hayes weren’t quite working right, went and bought some SLX. Worked fine for a while before they started to play up, wierdly had no power in the dry but worked great when wet. Tried loads of new pads/brake rotor cleaner etc, multiple rebleeds, eventually put it down to failed piston sealing after finding leaking. Couldn’t seem to find a seal kit/piston kit* so bought complete new calipers. Problem sorted, for now
*I can’t back up his search abilites for spares

I like my elixir r’s btw, hence my leaning to at leasty try to get your elixirs running properly
I liked my juicy 3’s too (once I’d chukced the clip thing of the top of the caliper to make pad changing a doodle)

an oldie:

I think I’ve only ever carried my FS bikes. Both have had horisontalish shocks so carried by the shock with closed elbow sort of thing

I put an on-one mixer taper headset (came supplied with 1.5″>1.125″ reducer crown race) to ‘prop-up’ my 150mm revs in my EG, getting it within a few mm of a 160mm fork with an internal(/very low stack) lower headcup.
Being a 1st gen. on-one tweaked EG (a bit steeper HA), I’m thinking I might get a angleset type headset with fat lower cup, though this will lower the BB more

Its lower than my old SJer FSR but I wouldn’t say its that bad, certainly winding the fork to 120mm on any techy ups and its becomes an issue but at 150mm it just requires a little riding adjustment backing off, powering up a bit more kind of thing, though the multiple-parallel rutted trails of the peak district can get annoying (think up edale>hollins x)
Maybe if you want to run a lot of rear shock sag then the low BB would be a big problem on techy (rutted) ups, but I’ve yet to run it like that

ta muchly

where/what do you ride?

what fork has your 08 enduro? the triple clamp spesh e150 fork? or fox?

maybe this one:

last lap, pretty unfit/very tired, cheered on to take the hard inside line

or maybe this one:

“i couldent be assed to stop with allenkeys in the middle of a ride”
QR levered collar?

“It’s flat and it’s boring”
You’re not riding it fast enough

I used to and was quite happy with it on the whole. Descending feeling like I was constantly about to go over the bars was kind of entertaining but never that fast

I started to learn to get the wheels off the ground, and started to drop the saddle more and more (though not a lot as felt unstable without my thighs on the saddle) as a way to make doing more out of my comfort zone eaier

Got to the point that the ~80mm seatpost drop of my frame (post was chopped so on minimum frame insert at pedalling height) was getting a problem on steep steppy stuff, went with a dropper in an attempt to stop me ‘justifying’ a new frame

2 and a bit years later the post breaks, never got round to getting it fixed. Ran with old post for ~8months, could ride everything I could already ride, but progression/new things were evident as a potential issue
Feeling bike was getting abused/perhaps keeping me back from more stupid stuff I was making it do, so got a longer travel frame with full saddle drop. Now riding with saddle slammed more often
A 6″ dropper appeals, but for dropping more than 6″, would actally be more of a faff than dropping my normal post. Also I find dropping a normal post on the move quite easy

What is it about the Five O that concerns you for the 7 stanes?

(having never ridden one) I thought they were still large in the frame to climb okay (despite not being specced lightweight)

Iif you feel confident enough to do a frame swap or most of it, then there should be loads of s/h FS frame options for that money including any headset/seatpost/etc required
sub £200 there should be loads of options to work with the fork from the five-o

The issue might be that going FS with the five-o build is going to be heavier again. something overforked/not setup well/that doesn’t climb well and you could be worse off?

what is damaged exactly?

Snapped/cracked or just bent?
If just bent I’d try bending it back. There are disc straightening tools available but I’ve had okay results with just fingers and a bit of patience

2.2″ purgatory isn’t going to be much smaller than a 2.25″ advantage, though perhaps enough (and tread not super tall) to do it?

Maxxis sizing amazing you, At some point they started with a new set of sizes. Advantage/crossmark were some of the first ‘big’ maxxis, AFAIK (having not tried any) eveything after are also ‘big’ size, eg ardent/high roller 2/aspen/ikon/etc

High Roller/Minion/Ignitor/LarsenTT/medusa/swampthing I think are all the older ‘small’ maxxis

theres a downhill bike. k…something I think? (and not knolly, khs, kona)

one or two others I think Ive come across(on the interwebs). Dirt jumpy-ish things

EDIT:
One of which being the DMR Bolt
[125mm rear/120-150mm fork, concentric BB/chainstay mount]

You’ve not refitted the chainring the wrong way round have you? The ramps/pins trying to drop th echain now rather than hold onto the chain?

Just home service the air can and fork lowers, ie just the slidey bits. Some oil/grease, and maybe a strap wrench you might need on top of normal tools. Damping/air stuff maybe leave until you get a problem?

Maybe a spesh storm in 2.0″, which come up about as big as a 2.25″ schwalbe albert or 2.35″ maxxis high roller
Certainly much bigger than a 2.0″ Bontrager MudX

If they could get the background noise down in the ‘studio’ I think it’d help
I’m not sure whether a top gear style audience milling around would be benficial or not? rather than seemingly uninterested people in the background?

Agree on the need for helmet cam footage/vidoes, they wouldn’t have to be long or well edited ‘features’, just stick them over the top of the guests as they talk, or get the guests to talk over them or have a big tv and zoom into it?
Might make Dan and Sam for eg to be a little more interesting to listen to (for at least)

“GT are still making the same basic suspension design as they were nearly ten years ago”

So are orange?
Doesn’t seem to limiting their appeal

How many shops (bar halfords) actually stock/carry GT FSers though? If nobody really sees them, they’re not going to buy them?
To a lesser extent marin too?

“fsr frames and the front mech cable pinch bolt
Swing arm gets in the way.
Even Spesh changed the bolt to a hex head “
From the setting up the front mech perspective it wold seem a bit rubbish. Ii guess theyve decided saving a little bit of weight in using a straight, not dropped nds chain stay was worth the extra hassle
When I built my spesh frame up I couldn’t worjk out what that bolt was for, until I came to setup the front mech

“‘tool free pad replacement’ on Juicy’s.”
Get rid of the clip thing on the back of the caliper, unless you get the knbobbly bit on the pistons to fall off, you don’t need the clip. It makes it easy to swap pads
The clip looks like an after thought anyway

“shimano pedals just go on and on and on”
The bearings might, but ime the bodies don’t and while new cleats aren’t as bad, my worn m540 and m520s I can pull up/out of far too easily

cant believe nobody has mentioned superstar yet

A crank brothers multitool half the tools/bits on it were rounded within 6months. The other half I had rarely used

erm, Kenda tyre standard wire or folding sidewalls. The sidewall breaks (3 tyres) before I’d rounded the squares of the knobbles. At least on the rear. Front’s just looked very worn around the bead. Before being assigned to a certain death on the rear

erm. maybe non-black chilli conti tyres
pumps that use the cam locking lever arrangement. why not just screw on ala zefal/leyzyne?
‘power buldge’ rockshox lowers. Once you wear the lower bushes, you have to get new lowers

Quite a lot up there Im questioning
shimano external BB for one, aside from Stainless steel/ceramic vwhat BB standard do you prefer? (square taper for me is flexy and is too easy to round out the squares)

“Look at Lapierre. No own branded junk on their bikes”
eh?

apart from seatposts, front hubs, handlebars, stems, saddles, rear shocks
I guess there’ll be more, thats only a quick spec check off their website

spec lists dont include seatpost clamp, grips, QR skewers etc but I’d not be suprised if they were ‘own brand junk’ on lower models too

I think I must be guitly of brand snobery too though. Id like to think its more that Ive always gone frame only fpr a while, but I cant say niche doesn’t appeal

maybe also look for 2008 SJ FSRs as IIRC they’re the same as 2009 models

IIRC as stock all came with 120mm forks, except for the second from bottom 2009 that came with a 100-120-140mm fox talas

“These looks almost identical”

Tubeset is ‘lesser’ than on the cotic but still a decent tubeset, not gas pipe.
Singletrack magazune had one in something like issue 33 Ii think. The tester loved the frame and recommended the frame only option. The rest of the complete build he had issues with IIRC

also bear in mind the hiehgt on the headsets too. Mnay headtube lengths are the frame only. I’d guess giant and boardman will use some form of low stack/semi-intergrated headsets so won’t affect all that much

“you will be able to replace the stem for one which is 5mm smaller”
Unless you’re already on a low stack model?

I could be slightly out of touch of the ‘cutting edge’ with this but:

“modern tractors can do upwards of 40-50mph”
Most can’t though
Off the top of head exceptions would be:
JCB fastrac, factory limited and 40mph legal. I’ve heard they can be chipped to go 50mph+ but there might be possible warranty and perhaps insurance issues
Mercedes Unimog, not really a tractor, more an offroad lorry that will take agricultural implements. Not sure but geussing going to be 50mph+. Price tag goes toward explaining why there aren’t many about
There is/was a Mercedes Sprayer than would do 50mph+ or at least one that overtook me on the A1 must have been doing that speed. Nnot impossible it could have been chipped?
Some Fendts I think can physically do 60kpmh (~38mph). I don’t know how they fit in around UK 40mph regs though
There could be others?

“always do exactly 40kph”
They’ll be ones limited to 40kmph, either revs in top gear for economy or don’t have the gears to go faster
40kmph is normally ‘base model’ speed, with 50kmph an optional extra for many. Some 50kmph as standard or more

“big John Deere 6920”
big? big?! pah ..

“60kph ‘boxes but there’s certain criteria for them (independent wheel suspension, air brakes and possibly abs”
Along with the independant wheel suspension I think having the steering wheel mechanically linked* to the steering wheels is a must too? JCB fastracs** and unimogs also have rearward opening doors (like most cars), though not sure if this is a requirement

*most tractors only have the power steering element of the typical steering setup on a car, ie no steering rack or other mechanical linking between steering wheel and wheels, which I think dictates the UK speed limit for most tractors displayed in most of the cabs. I should think (almost?) all the 40kmph and 50kmph tractors out there fall into the UK legal road speed limit

**At least the ‘original’ shape/layout fastrac (and mismatched wheel size one used on top gear). The ‘conventional’ layout ones have forward opening doors, though not sure if they are 40mph capable?

If you’re to print your own OS map off t’intwerweb, I reckon streetmap (And click on the expand to 5×5 squares) would be better. I think you can view more map at a time than mutlimap/bing

“right up Chapel Gate. This is rideable just for someone very fit and strong”
Hmm, I suppose kind of. Drop the ‘just’ and ‘very’ from that

Since they’ve levelled it its not really any worse than climbing out of roych (north/anticlockwise) in one to the gate as it levels off. Trying to ride (albeit with a gazillion dabs) up the back of where it runs alongside/into oaken clough upto the back of jacobs ladder is much tougher?

Last time I rode jacobs from edale I quite liked going up chapel gate, down/up roych clough, *down the campsite descent (stones house/elle bank) upto kinder reservior and then up SE toward oaken clough/jacobs ladder

*I prefer to go via stubbs farm descent, but (legally) requires the grassy up after stubbs farm

Favourite Jacobs Ladder ride I’ve done is probably to up Jaggers Clough from edale, down Blackley Clough/Hey(potato alley), up A57 (via quick detour through snake plantations), down doctors gate, skirt glossop to SE, up/down A624, up/down middlemoor to kinder reservior and up SE to oaken clough/jacobs ladder. Big day, for me anyway