all these years I didn’t realise there were actually woods behind nationwide in Swindon, just assumed a high street branch, not the HQ
Strava throws up the Croft trail in front of nationwide and a micro enduro stage behind ..

Bear in mind that fully compressed on a full suss won’t always be the position that requires the most amount of chain, it could be at some other point within the bikes travel, it may be more fiddly but check through the bikes travel for the point that uses the most chain
Big-big + 2 pins (1 inner set of links + 1 outer pair of links) worth of extra chain (assuming full suss requires no more chain) cant go wrong
why would you ever be running in small-small? unless you’re taking the wheel out?

just to add to the slightly off topic amusing signs

“That’s cheaper than a lot of non adjustable seat posts”
And by the looks of it has a better clamp than a lot of them at that price too

“Lower Cliff which is the final descent on The Monkey and which is closed for the foreseeable future”
WHAAATT??!!!

” If you had air leaking from the bottom of the stanchion into the lower leg you would find that your wiper seal would pop out”
It takes a fair bit bigger hit than you’d think for it do actually do so though

Bought some of these for my mum to walk the dog when its muddy out:
http://www.tenn-outdoors.co.uk/tenn-mens-driven-5k-waterproofbreathable-cycling-trousers–black–xs
Turns out they’re so good, fit well, don’t heat up, keep the wet out, wet conditions no longer put her off bike riding and have been used upto 3 weeks ago (still not overheating) for proper mountain biking
For £30 they’re a no brainer
I definitely cannot say the same for the £70 Alturas I bought a few years back. Cycling trousers that don’t fit my legs, but slip down from my far arse, and the crumpled waist lets water in. Trousers so hot that the two half day rides I managed to ride them I felt physically sick from the heat. This in winter snow/rain

The slabby bit (with the wide hairpin corner near the start) is still a bridleway. Its made of slabs so unchanged
It might just have lots of walkers on it though, pick your descent time to suit

timber, you are correct
My rough understanding is that case new Holland were made to sell of the European bit of case by the European competition commission (or whatever they’re called). McCormick the brand was resurrected to cover this buy by a an Italian group of agricultural manufacturers. Hence why early McCormick’s as they are now look like case of a few years earlier

if you wear the braking surface unevenly, ie pitting. You can get the middles of the braking surface to wear more than the edges. ie worn more where there are more holes and thus less metal
I didn’t notice in the UK other than a suspicion I was gtting through brake pads more often than usual. Didn’t really look into it

Got on an alpine holiday to discover the bike wasn’t braking all that well and really getting through brake pads. noticed the pads weren’t wearing evenly, but loads of the edges of the pad, turns out the pads were wearing to the very worn rotors, which were massively more worn in the middles. By the end, the middle of the worst rotor was very thin
New rotors 40euro a pop and by the end of the week was making pads less than useable in half a day. wasn’t going to keep popping 20euro a pair on pads so got by with the lesser worn rotor and lots of squealing and single brake braking. I went quite fast …
Avid G3 rotors at 2 years old. Had lived a fair amount of their life on superstar sintereds, but mostly I think it was wearing one or two sets of pads down to the metal

I used my Tahoe Sports when I hike a biked around torridon*, when on a Scotland roadtrip (inc. Ben Lomond/Fort Bill), they use the same vibram sole as the rime. A shame Spesh UK no longer bring them in
Have used them hike-a-biking around the lake district**, and have since buying a dh bike, use them for pushing up/downhilling***

*loch/ben damph, annat-coire lair-achnashellach-coulags-annat, coire dubh mor push up the descent
**Sticks pass (W->E), rooking-boredale hause, Nan Bield clockwise,
***As a newbie downhiller

Walking wise, maybe the best SPD shoe to walk in I’ve used (have used original Tahoe’s****, and ‘normal’ nylon/carbon spesh shoes so not so many).

****can’t remember if they were better to walk in or not, certainly quite flexy, especially once each of 3 pairs soles snapped, not vibram either and massively hotspotted around the SPD plate, bought M530 pedals to reduce the hotspotting

However the Tahoe Sports have failed, Freeborn/Spesh wouldn’t warranty them either. The inside side of the shoe around the ball of the foot, came away from the sole of the shoe, also the tread away from the sole at this same point, after not all that much hike-a-biking. Am still using them for DHing where its less of a problem

I bought a pair of Rimes for trail-riding/hike-a-biking recently, but have only pushed up half a grassy climb on the Long Mynd so far
Seemed very good. With the Velcro/boa uppers they feel much better to ride in and felt plenty good enough uphill, they’re meant to be 7/6ths stiffer than Tahoe sports too
The key difference is that they have rubbery anti-wear pads on both sides, hopefully this will stop the sides/sole parting from one another
Ride well with M520’s too. Time will tell if the soles can manage it. Only ever rode the vibram soled Tahoe sports on M530’s

Felt a bit of ‘special’ with shite shoes though. Got them for £55 (sigma sport) so can’t moan

Also, like the Tahoe sports and original Tahoe’s, I found the Rime’s size up smaller than sports, experts, trail 110’s, defrosters

Yes that’s all you do
until eventually the bearings develop play

“It’s going to put a couple of thousand miles on your car (if that bothers you) “
Its all well totting up the fuel, tolls, ferry/chunnel costs, plus you might be sticking European breakdown cover and insure other drivers

As well as the 2000mile depreciation you’re putting on the car, you’ve obviously got the wear/tear its sticking on as well, its like you’re fast forwarding the breakdowns/garage bills
Plus your own insurance. If you’ve upped your policy another 2000miles, it could set you back
When I did it, that one trip (as a proportion of the policy as a whole, not how much the extra miles would cost to add on), was £200 for just me insured. Different car/less costly policy now but still

On balance I prefer driving just so I can take some spares for the bike (ideally a whole bike) as well as selection of riding kit and shoes
You’ve still got to make the ferry, though there may well be more scope to get another one than another flight
I worried I’d get a puncture just as I left the alps, and have to stick the 80kmph space saver spare on, to then drive the boring eastern france with the lorries overtaking all the way

“considering Bikes on roof (Estate) or inside – less passengers or higher fuel bills – personally I’d like to try bikes on roof but think it’ll cane the MPG”
Remember your roofrack may well have a top speed of its own. Thule I think say 130kmph which ties in with the paege’s 130kmph, not that I would have sped without bikes on the roof..
You’ll want to check the weight limit for the car’s own roof mountings too, on a 60 plate a4 avant for eg, I think it works out about 150lbs, which once you’ve taken account of 4 thule 530/532s and the rails, is 30lbs for each of 4 bikes. How many people’s bikes are 30lbs or less when setup for the alps?

Also, if the wind gets up (unlikely in summer maybe?) bikes on the roof with the wind gusting above about 40mph the car can get blown around, if the bikes haven’t blown off

If I were to drive in one stint, I’d leave Yorkshire at the same 3am as I would to fly via luton. Yes I’d get there about 2hours later, but I wouldn’t have to reassemble the bike. Quite probably got a fair bit of scope to save faffage time when stopping on the drive down too
a paege TAG, take own food instead of from the services, not stopping/driving in convoy etc .. would help

I think most of the popular/legal descents in the middle of the dark peak are here:
on a map:
or in a list

EDIT: Actually, theres a few missing, mostly of the more pedally variety, though that could still fit your remit.
Whinstone Lee Tor-Cuthroat bridge-ladybower inn, oaken clough, jaggers clough, Coldwell clough, mam tor-hollins cross, rushop edge
Then less popular might be shatton moor-Offerton Hall, bridge end pasture-south to A57,

“cant get caught in the rotors and jam them up”
Off the top of my head, ime when you open a QR lever from being closed (and being correctly adjusted to be closed), the lever won’t travel far back enough on itself to reach the disc
If the QR has opened fully, there’ll be so much play that you’ll have stopped before the nut could loosen significantly to allow any lever to travel any further back on itself?

Apart from on the maxle, I’ve always gone for nds/left/disc side. rear allows easier wheel removal, front to match. On shimano QR’s I find the lever fits better around the fork on the nds/left/disc side. I prefer it pointing up in front of the fork leg anyway

I can spot an error in that table above

My 150mm KS i950r, minimum seatpost insertion ‘F’ is not 100mm. Its more. I think its 120mm

Also bear in mind, that (if correct) for eg, all the reverbs (including the 150mm one) say the ‘F’ min insert is 80mm. A large amount of frames need more than this
I can’t imagine many companies freely willing to warranty a frame that broke because someone was running a 435mm post with only 80mm in the frame?

The jump from 13 to 17t could get annoying, depends how much you use that end of the block. 34 to 40t wouldn’t bother me at all. jump from 34 to 40 is about the same as 26 to 30 anyway

What width bars are you running?
Especially if they’re on the narrow side, and if the bike is on the compact side already, I’d say if you do, you ought to go wider bars as well, to offset the sharper steering and shorter cockpit

“I wouldn’t take Arch EX for the alps myself unless it’s fairly tame stuff”
They’ll be fine ime
So long as you don’t land them hard really sideways with very dodgy spoke tensions, or land in a rock garden just after pinchflatting from using tyres too tight for the rim so they’ll won’t stay seated with inappropriate tyre pressures for poor tubes. You know stuff that’d likely kill other rims too

2.7″ maxxis won’t be very much bigger than a 2.4″ Schwalbe Fat Albert, and I’ve run mine on arch EX’s for a year or so. I don’t think they’re too big. I got archEX’s after troubles with finding anything bigger than a schwalbe 2.25″ on a Mavic XM719 being a bit squirmy and pinchflatty

Remember because of the BST2 low wall of the archEX (and flowEX, crest etc) Stans claim the internal width (21mm) is equivalent of around a 25mm rim with ‘normal’ height rim walls

What rims are you on?
Which DH tubes?
What bike?

Most likely you’ll be fine. So long as you’re not running the tyres too soft. the DH tubes ought to take care of punctures

Most likely not. My wrists would likely not be happy

Where is grey cragg though? is it high stile?

Whats the fire extinguisher inflator? Like the ghetto pop bottle one but with a fire extinguisher instead?

Shimano is usually very regular. XT was released 2012, 2008, 2004, so new XT should be 2016, which in reality means June 2015 onward

afaik
XTR was 2015, 2011, 2007, 2003?
SLX was 2013, 2009
LX mtn* was 2005, 2001?
Deore was 2014, 2010, 2006, 2002?

*as in the pre SLX groupo, not the current touring groupo

“I can finally UPGRADE MY FORKS!! “
You probably already can, to tapered forks. You just need to find a top cup for you headset that will run a 1 1/8″ steerer in a 1.5″ headtube. It’ll probably be an internal cup one
By the same token there’ll be a bottom cup to do the same job that’ll allow you to use a straight 1 1/8″ steerer

When changing the cassette why aren’t many changing the cassette as well?
I’ve always swapped chainrings and cassette together as the chainrings always look well past it. Before SLX steel toothed middles, on LX and XT aluminium rings this was ridiculous

Having tried the 3 chains (change at 0.75, 1%) approach I didn’t like that the middle chain didn’t spend long on the bike. As to a 3rd chain slipping on a part worn cassette, it used to take me 1-2 short-medium rides to ride the chain in, which never really slipped all that much tbf

Am currently on a 2 chain system. Change at some point between 0.75 and 1% stretch whenever I catch it
Reason being my problem with running it all to death (one chain) is I’m finding the chain is regularly snapping before I consider the slipping to me a problem, more so at the end of a casettes life smoother and smoother pedalling becomes necessary
Having that extra chain seems to get some more life out of it all

“What’s the reason for tapered, and not just straight 1.5?”
The use of 1 1/8″ stems. Not just for availability, but you can go shorter, or rather you don’t have to go longer. IIRC you can only go down to a 50mm stem with a 1.5″ steerer. Maybe you could get down to a 45mm, but its no 35mm that you can get down to on a 1 1/8″ steerer

I suspect the added weight of a full 1.5″ steerer, headset, headset spacers and 1.5″ stem put together over a tapered setup (including frame) would be a bit more than you’d think

you’ve managed to make that sound very much like a plug

“or Moray Monster trails on the Black Isle”
Moray Monster isn’t on the black isle, its south of elgin. Rode a bit dated I thought. Gully monster interesting, but not sure I’d return for it, at least not just yet. especially when there’s the rest of Scotland to squeeze into a roadtrip. That bit out the way too
Learnie is on the black Isle, I’ve yet to ride it

Balbair has a very distinct style to it. IIRC it was designed by Rik Alsop? Who iirc also did Drumlanrig
Balbair is a funny one. A black yes, No individual section super technical, but the relentlessness of the technicality, especially on the ups mixing tough up brief down straight back into techy up requires good fitness, commitment and riding ability
The downs mixing fast flowy straight into technical rises and downs. Takes commitment, speed and responsive gear shifts to always be in the right gear to keep on going
The last section of black I thought a little lacking though

Carbisdale over the water, although tiny and ‘only’ a short blue with a little red tacked on I thought for what it is, perfectly formed

Golspie is still by a margin the best trail centre I’ve ever ridden, I’ve been to a lot of them. One of a few places I just had to do laps of, regardless of limited time and tiredness. Just a shame it seems to take ages to climb all the way up there (yes I did try straightline fireroading it all the way from the bottom 2nd time around). I suppose to get descents that good you have to use quite a lot of height.
I can see they’ve gone for making interesting and featureful blue/red/black climbs, but for the purposes of doing laps (one full lap still takes a decent effort) the climbs are arguably a little flat and windy
The very top section of black once smooth when first opened is now a little beat up and eroded. Still good, but doesn’t flow quite like it should (and used to)

Theres so much (proper)* Scotland I need to go back to
*north of the central belt, the 7 stanes are great but they’re not the same. I can make a weekend of the stanes, the north wants a ram-jammed week at the very least. And you’ll still feel like you missed loads of the few choice picks you planned to ride. Next year ..

“Certainly questionable if it’s any stiffer “
My El Guapo is noticeably stiffer with a 10mm RWS over a 5mm QR. Though that is with different wheels in. 10mm SS Tesla, Sapim 1.8/2.0, ArchEX vs. 5mm ’04 XT, dt 1.8/2, XM719disc

Superstars aren’t particularly light. Steel axle
American Classic do an alu. axled one that’s a fair bit lighter

You can also get bolt up 10mm hubs. Meant to be a lot stiffer than QR
And then theres the old school/cheapo threaded axle and nuts. Must be stiffer than QR also

“one of the older RWSs, it broke after a few rides. When I warrantied it, the response was more or less “Yeah, they do that”. But I think they changed the design more recently?”
Mine did that. CRC warrantied it no questions
The new ones are apparently metal ratchets, not part plastic like the old ones which eventually strip their teeth at an awkward time

If you want more width, but don’t want/need want the DH strength, I’d suggest a pacenti TL28. About 30g heavier than a crest iirc, and as wide as an original flow (ie not ex), iirc 23mm internal?

That said I don’t know quite how a pacenti holds onto the tyre. With Crest, Arch(2.0) and FlowEX being ‘BST2’ the low walls mean Stans claim the 21mm internal of a crest/arch is more equivalent to a ‘conventional’ 25mm internal rim

as illustrated above, remember just because it’ll just fit beneath the arch on the lowers, doesn’t mean it won’t foul the crown on the uppers on full bottom out?
Or at least I seem to remember reading somewhere its possible with some forks

“445mm is suspension corrected for 26″ wheels”
Yes but for 100mm forks.

IIRC the simple was 100-130mm forks, so the op looking for forks upto 30mm higher than this would seem logical

“got mine from biketart and never had any issued with it”
I don’t get on with it. I can fit it to the frame just fine, but the slightest hint of a rock flicking up at it and it just chips and breaks up

Never ridden any of them nor have an extensive knowledge of the area but maybe:
Devils staircase/Kinlochleven
Ben Lomond the other way down (ie up the main/tourist path)
Ben Nevis,either to the top or the loop in the V graphics Scotland book 2. The goes about 2/3 of the way up, across and down the tourist path

“the sidewalls are thin and I managed to cut 2 quite quickly. They were also an absolute bugger to inflate without a compressor”
+1
Couldn’t get mine to seat with a track pump on an ArchEX
Used mine on the rear for one day tubeless, then had to swap wheels and ran tubed for a further 4 days. Since tried to set them up tubeless again (back on the archEX) and found they’ve split around the bead, just so I can’t try to patch them
Only other tyre’s I’ve ever had go at the bead were Kenda Nevegals

“Coed y Brenin in the morning “
So long as its all open, you want to spend the day there. Do the beast and theres a couple of mostly fireroad bits to chop off to make it a bit shorter. Basically stick on the two direct road climbs at the furthest away part of the dragons back loop

*Unless of course you’re a racing snake and can bash out a double loop in a morning

“get a Thomson (it’ll last forever and you’ll be glad you did”
Mine wore out fairly quickly
I think the machined, ie not smooth surface did it no favours in longevity

Am now on a Ritchey WCS in that bike. Plenty light enough (230g?) and I managed to get it for £25

Endura now do a full waterproof MT500 as well now. Just gets confusing trying to find them online, as many list the spray baggy as waterproof when you’re searching

It depends what gear you’re in though
In a low gear its enough to make balancing while the freehub engages harder

“Rear QR 9”
You mean QR 10, 9 only exists up front
Whether you mean 5mm quick release skewer or 10mm thru-bolt I don’t know

“Is 18 a problem”
Your formula will be 15 or 16. So basically the same

” I can’t tell any real world benefit at all from increased pick up. Marketing bollocks”
Disagree completely
If you’re ‘just’* riding around them fine, I don’t mean bimbling or pootling, but if you’re ‘only’ pedalling in circles everywhere then you’ll not notice it
If you’re jabbing part strokes in, trying to not strike pedals into obstacles in between needing to not pedal in order to hold better balance through the harder bits then it becomes apparant
Its more noticable between 16 and 32, than 32 and 60 or 72**
Going back to 16 after my 32 and 60 kept breaking is always a let down, its that free non-resistance playey bit before it engages, especially in a low gear that throws off my balance as I try to ‘ratchet’ pedal my way through a sticky bit
**i’ve yet to break the 72 though its not been along the hub breaker trail yet

“they last forever if you want to give them loads of love and care, cleaning and regreasing them every few rides”
Only if you’ve already trashed them?
Part of the problem is many of them don’t have a lot of grease in from new. If you pack them with grease from new of nearly new before they wear, they’re easy to set the bearings right and leave them be for long periods of time

They’re not all the same at all

Higher rise bars, raise the height of your bars. Cockpit length should remain the same, but the relative angle between bars and front hub steepens for the downhills because they make the effective steering length of your stem longer as the bars are raised vertically, not in line with your head angle
Uphill you’ll have less weight on the front wheel because the raised bars effectively go further back when uphill

More spacers below the stem force the bars back and giving less cockpit space and less weight on the front wheel for climbing, but doesn’t affect the angle between bars and front hub

Increased stem angle (assuming same length stem) makes the effective steering length of your stem shorter. It raises the bars and brings them back. So shortened cockpit and less weight of front wheel whilst climbing

Basically, the lower the better, so long as your back, wrists and neck can stand it imo/ime