Theres a guy on ebay doing the seal kit for rebas (that also fit my ’08 revs) for about £8. Sus oil isn’t a lot, you might need some circlip pliers and maybe another tool but with the service guide on RS site its straightford to do it at home

As above get the brakes bled, rotors cleaned, pads roughened up etc. XT’s should be able to be great

Basic cables/outers with some middleburn cable oilers to push out the crud with WD40/GT85 etc don’t cost a lot and keep gears working through the worst weather

I was going to suggest getting a high mount front mech to keep it out of the mud low mount ones build up around them, but you’ve already got one

“”Too slack = too slow on fast and tight singletrack!”
True, but its a stiff 140mm FS, is being too slack for tight singletrack that big a concern?
Older (at least 2009?) DW 5spots were 69deg with a 140mm fork, which is about the steepest you can get a bike designed around a 140mm fork
The 100mm Flux DW has a 70deg HA with a 100mm fork, so front end bottomed out (say as you go over the bars on something steep – where the rear is fully extended) or with a 140mm fork the 100mm flux is actually slacker than the 5spot? Surely the ‘need’ for the 140mm 5spot to be nimble in tight singletrack wasn’t so great that it was made steeper (with equivalent fork) than the 100mm flux?

Newer (current) DW 5spots are more middleground with a 67.7deg HA with 150mm fork

“the Mojo and couldn’t afford one if I did!”
I thought a mojo about the same as a blur lt and a bit less than a 5psot?

“head angle is more suitable for long rides with plenty of climbing compared to many bikes with slacker head angles. DW link is great for saving your energy over the course of a day’s ride”
In this regard the stiffness and weight of the frame aren’t a help though?
There are other lighter (almost 1-2lb lighter) DW 140mm frames about for about the same or a bit less money (eg ibis mojo/mojo sl/mojo hd 140)

“you want it for alpine duties as well as general XC stick some Fox 36 Talas’ on the front”
Now they only them in 160/120mm, not 100-130-160mm, they won’t work as well on 140mm bikes. That leaves you with ‘well heavy’ RS Lyrik coil U-turns

“there seem to be a lot of happy 5 spot riders out there”
Probably because the thread has 5spot in it?

“can you get the Reign as a frame only?”
They used to be available for £800, but since they’ve slackened them (from 69deg with a 140mm fork) I think they’ve dropped them frame only

“sektor; coil, with 110 to 150mm adjustable travel”
105mm to 150mm surely?”

I realise there could have been a certain slant on it, but I went to an IMechE talk by Cy Turner (of Cotic) not so long ago and the comparisons of the 150mm hemlock with the 5spot, mojo, 5, blur lt etc were pretty interesting, especially the theoretical linkage driven single pivot ‘hemlock’ vs. a DW 5spot
If you can get past the ‘looks’ and 5psot sort of weight (it is £1100, can take 160mm forks and the new chainstays are 1/2lb? heavier) then going by the ST review it looks pretty good

@ spesh jamie
Is the saddle/post at full ‘proper’ pedalling height in the pic?
IMO (of course) you need to flip the stem and get it against the headset (no spacers) and get some flat or very* low rise bars (5/10mm)
It just doesn’t look like it will ride right (or at least as well as it would if they were at least level with one another)

*5/10mm bars just so the bars don’t dip after the oversize middle clamp area of the bar like flat bars do. I think at least Ritchey do one, not sure on width though

What do the Distance Selling Rules/Regulations say?

It wouldn’t have happened at your LBS no, they wouldn’t be offering to pay for any of the cost of returning it to them ..
Though yes, you would have tried them on in the shop, and all would have been apparant there and then. Illfitting bike parts on the other hand could have been different, depends whether you get them to fit it or not I suppose ..

An hour away?
I’m guessing (and merely that) unless you live in lincolnshire, then at least one of Cannock Chase, Dalby Forest, the Peak District are closer?
I’d go to one of those if it were me

I bought an SLX triple for £65 in 2008, I’d like another – now they are £130!?!?!???? WTF

With 4% off for spending £100, merlin looks pretty cheap for a UK seller atm
If you can find another £150 of stuff you want from them then you’ll get 10% off?

I walked down those in Newcastle once, I thought they’d be a good challenge, they get a bit tight in the middle, the slimyness of the worn steps looked entertaining

There are a fair few all over durham
From the park behind the station (littered with them) you can drop through the station and down to the river on fairly testing steps. Great fun

“that’s under forked”
When they first came out they sent them out with Fox Float 140 QR to WhatMountainBike etc
Tora’s at 130mm are only 1-2mm shorter, with the same sag % on both the fox would run slightly shorter than the tora. So its not underforked really ..

Bar the pedals I quite like it
I reckon either Wellgo V8 copies for £12ish(new) or Shimano M520’s for £20ish to match
What are the tyres though?

Is that an elite or masterpiece thomson seatpost?

XTR pedals? There are lighter pedals (caged or not) out there for less money, Probably not as good ‘feel’ though

Nice bike though, I’d probably have a dropper post in it if it were me, a reverb or an i950r I reckon

I have the BBB one, does the job. Clicks nicely, sockets seem much better fitting than any allen key I’ve used (park being the next best I’ve used)

My thinking was while I could find stuff for £38ish like the one above, by the time I’d found suitable decent sockets and most likely added postage on each I’d be upto around £55 anyway. With a ‘bike specific’ one I have a box designed for it plus the ‘bike specific’* sockets that I can keep/carry them in

*as in the ones I’ll use on a bike

I was under the impression it could used to be lighter than most aluminium alloys and cheaper than carbon (though perhaps not as light)
Whether it is cheaper not having the layup/mold per frame design/size costs of using carbon fibre etc I don’t know, but kona for one use it in some of their full suspension models
Perhaps unusually for the size Kona is as a bike company they do seem to offer a ot of frame sizes
The cadabra/abra cadabra full suss (the 4/6″ish magic link one – only 2 models) is available in: 14″, 16″, 17″, 18″, 19″, 20″ and 22″. Who else offers 7 frame sizes? On a high ish end framed full build full suss bike? Its not like kona are known for selling loads of frames only, at least not in the UK?
The frame size specific layup/molding costs for carbon would be huge for kona I’d guess?

EDIT: They also offer the scandium 2+2 (50/100mm magic link, just 2 models again) in 6 sizes, and the scandium 100mm Hei Hei (1 model) in another 6 sizes

“22-34…never understood the logic behind riding slower than walking pace”
I can overtake people pushing in 22-34T
Don’t think it as a gear for slowly grinding away in, unless you need a gear to limp home over that hill with
Think of it as a gear to frantically spin your way up the steepest of loose rocky climbs, then it comes into its own IME/IMO
Plus you’ll never be able to blame the bike for not having a low enough gear ..
Its hardly closely geared though

So long as you haven’t chipped the piston centres, you don’t need the pad retention clip off the top of the caliper. They just make changing pads a lot more difficult

“Only in you run the pads right down to the metal is the spring destroyed”
Mine get caught by the rotor and snap off mid ride when the pads get down to the thickness of the pad seperating spring?

“nevegal basically pants in comparison to other tyres”
I wouldn’t say that
I reckon they’re more of an all round chunky tyre, not brilliant at anything in particular

“178mm / 152mm rotors “
My guess is someone has converted that from 6″ and 7″. I was under the impression 140mm rotors were referred to 5″, 160mm rotors as 6″, 180mm as 7″, 203mm as 8″

Measure the outer diameter of your rotors, you’ll know then

“fact they’re still using that pattern on their latest rotors must say something”
Hayes aren’t the most progressive brake company around ..

Perhaps in a StickE 50a compound?

The side tread isn’t much bigger than the centre so don’t bite quite like a maxxis High Roller/Minion in turns

I’ve had 2 nevegals go on the sidewalls, with plenty of tread left on them (grooves/sipes in top of tread just starting to go). I know a few others with the same problem. Only on the rear, so perhaps for the front?

2.5″ High Roller 60a were much better in (morzine/les gets) slop than 2.35″ Nevegals, not sure on compound, they were on a hire bike for a day

Pitch is going to be more downhill biased?
Though obviously it depends how uphill/downhill biased you want the bike to be?

Giant Trance X, Specialized Camber/Stumpjumper FSR, Trek Fuel EX sort of bikes are relatively middle ground full suss bikes in terms of up and down ability

Where/what do you and where/what do you want to be able to ride?

No braking, of course you have to be confident enough to know you won’t, amongst a number of other things

A pic of your bike could help if you’ve a slightly odd hindering cockpit setup

I remember mbr having some fairly tight rocky bits earlyish on, and the woodsy/rooty descent down to the bridge about half way has potentional to be hairy. Saw a couple of people over the bars while I waited for another in my group to fix a puncture at the bottom

Though the start/end are the same, I’d think dragons back could be better, though with certain shortcuts to keep the distance/fireroads down, though with some potentially killer ups, my mum can ride both so ..
from here:

I’d go striaght up the road from Big Dug to Hermon (omitting Beefy)
Up the road again after Hermon taking the 3rd fireroad after the cafe (rather than the 1st) and picking back up at Gomez (omitting a loose uphill – or so I’m told thats what it entails)

I see, currently wondering whether having the second year covered by a rockshox warranty is worth an extra £60 ..

Not to go onto a conventional 9/10mm shimano threaded axle (as per XT 6-bolt) but for 2008-> XT with the oversize axle and end caps like this:

ie, getting/making up an end cap without the hole for the 5mm QR skewer, but having a 9/10mm extrusion onto that end, to extend beyond the frame, and a threaded nut hold it all in place

Going by my chain wear checker, that also measures roller wear, replacing at 0.75% I didn’t notice any chainslip. At 1% it took about 3 rides for the chainslip to go away
Hardly scientific I realise, but I have an idea how a new chain will run going by my inferior chain tool

4-bar (so pivot in the chainstay) skinnyish chainstayed 5″ FS I’m thinking about (though play HT as well)

“Hope Pro2’s mean any combination will fit”
They don’t fit with me though. Noise, 24 point engagement, price rule them out for me
Looking at for eg the internals of ’08-> XT’s (~£50, 36point engagement) they have screw on QR adapters to fit on the oversize axle, I wonder how possible it would be to get some made up with nutted/bolted ends?

“If it only costs £88 to upgrade to blackbox then that answers that”
Yes but that was on top of the TF tuned service charge. I’ve had my (’08 QR) revs to bits a couple of times, so I’m pretty unlikely to send off my fork off anywhere in future

Another question query? Are RLs OE? Are RLTs? And thus won’t have a 2 year RS warranty, only a 1 year merlin/etc one?

Those 20mm RLs do look very tempting though,
My hardtail would be nice with a 115mm Rev as well ..

“James, stop using Halfrauds as your LBS. Find a good one”
I’ve never used Halfords
I live near(ish) Rotherham and sort of near Sheffield if that helps narrow it down ..
There is a local road shop I’ve used for straigtening/tensioning wheels better, else everywhere else I know of is a bit too much of an outing to get to, given that on the whole I can’t bring myself to trust much of what bike shops say or do with some of the stuff some of them come out with

“when the l.b.s.’s are gone, the only people who will be able to ride bikes will be the people who know how to fix them”
How do you think these people learnt how to fix them in the first place? Only wheelbuilding is not just following instructions really?

Thats my thinking too, being able to tighten with an allen key you ‘ought’ to be able to go tighter than even a decent QR, how much difference it makes given the lack of stiffness with a QR dropout/axle I’m unsure of?

pugster, you say the rebound is better with the blackbox unit, which AFAIK is the same as the dual flow rebound in ’11 RL/RLT models
Do you reckon you noticed much/anything with the different compression circuitry?

“D’oh, they don’t have knowledgable staff in your area”
Niether do my LBS?

I don’t know about the rear cone buts, but I found the front cone nuts for a XT 756 front hub from SJS (St John St.) Cycles. Postage wan’t great though

From memory they might not have been listed as for XT 756, I ordered going by the picture and they fitted

What size headtube/headset has it got?
There are some good bargains on 1.5″ forks around

Marzocchi 44 is a XC/trail fork and I thought were all QR except for QR15 available on some of the higher up ones? (ie no 20mm)

When you say dh bike (and 140-160mm fork), what bike is it?

“I’m sure there was a test of a 456 that was 69d in a Dirt test of hardtails”
There was, the hardtail special. Issue 73 rings a bell, but its more likely to be a different issue

Purely guessing here but could Magura Wotans be stiffer than a Lyrik or 36, guessing merely by the double arch and maguras generally being pretty stiff?

“a new bigger and better pump track”
Is this one built on level ground?

“Given the handlebar/saddle heights”
Is that really your ‘proper’ fully up pedalling height on your seatpost?
“front end height is deceiving, its quite low”
It really doesn’t look it from here

“if i ran a 90mm stem i could remove the top spacer as the bars would clear the lefty leg”
For the sake of the bike I think thats what you’ll (/you’d) have to do, then you might be able to loose spacers, flip the step (lower the upper fork clamp?) etc ..

“to my (untrained) eye, the head angle looks pretty steep”
+1
“axle to crown on the lefty is about 490mm”
That seems very low. What travel lefty is it? 140mm? 110mm?
IIRC:
Fox 32 QR @ 140mm = 511mm (or used to?)
Fox 32 QR15 @ 140mm = 515mm
RS RVL 20mm/Pike/Sector? @ 140mm = 518mm
Magura Thor @ 140mm = 520mm
Fox 36/RS Lyrik @ 140mm = 525mm

Anyone?

710 on the FS, I’d like wider for cornering, but having relatively recently moved from 685, I think any wider would ruin climbing too much. Need to lower them a bit to gain the extra width vs. height, then at least they should ‘feel’ wider
685 on XC HT
685 on play bike HT
600 on rigid commuter/rollers bike

Old treads are small
New treads are big

New 2.1″ casings are ever so slightly smaller than old 2.35″ casings
New 2.25″ casings are ever so slightly bigger than old 2.5″ casings

Old:
High Roller XC, FR/DH
Minion DHR/DHF
Larsen TT (though in 2.35″ casing is slightly bigger than a 2.35″ HR/Minon, tread depth is lower so about same overall
Ignitor XC, FR

New:
Advantage (lower tread than HR/Minion so comes up smaller in 2.1″/2.35″ and same overall in 2.25″/2.5″
Crossmark
Ardent

Not sure about some of the newer more XC treads

A friend of my brothers kept blowing the headphones on his ipod by playing at full volume, bass etc
Every time he went it they offered him new headphones, or a complete new ipod
Guess which he (kept) choosing

Apple aren’t expensive for no reason ..

“My bike has braided on the front and not on the rear – no obvious difference”
No difference between braided/non-braided front or no difference between braided front/non-braided rear?

with non-braided front and rear it should be relatively easy to tell the front feels better than the rear? Or so I thought?. I thought it was down the longer length on the rear, so if I ever was to braid just one brake (no idea why) it would be the rear to try to get it match the feel of the front

I’ve always wondered whether due to not being able to expand as much, the fluid would overheat quicker? Or realistically does it mean your brakes work better for longer, so you need to drag your brakes less as they got hot?

At least try some others pads than superstar?

While I very much like the cheapness and the sintered last in slop (and the standards last in the wet longer than some organics), neither beds in particularly quickly, provide bags of power, deal with heat amazingly well (especially the sintereds) or modulate all that well
I’ll continue to use them in winter and on the non best bikes but the above is steering me back toward better pads for the best bike tbh

And make sure they’re bled up properly, then you’ll know if its the brakes?