"Urban Trail"
Looks like the 'wrong' side of the barrier ..

Mmm, perhaps La Clusaz? (between Chamonix and Lake Annecy. Perhaps you could visit on the way/way back if you're driving. Thats what I did
Its not exaclty nice smooth flowy singletrack, but its not crazily steep or technical either.
Theres not loads, but is fun to play around on 'sessioning' for a day
The Red and Black (I though the black was just more flowy?) DHs are fun, man made affairs. Sort of like a steeper trail centre trail, but goes on for much longer, and is lift assisted
It wasn't crazily busy either and seemed in decent nick (okay, so there were some braking bumps)
My mum (competent red grade rider) rode both and enjoyed them (on a 120mm SJer FSR)

The only english speaking locals were in tourist information, but I got by with my not quite sentences french, and people seemed pretty friendly and helpful

some pics:


Mum up front

Brother up front

Now for some that aren't mine:

34T front (Was cheapest on SJS), 11-32T rear (what I had when 27spd):

As above (unramped chainring only) coped on smooth(ish) terrain (nothing rough)
Have since added a 32T bash ring (it still guides/covers the chain) and have pressed a zefal style pump frame mount into service as a jump stop on the inside of the chainring
Seems to work for the type of riding this bike gets used for, though has been used as a replacement bike when the main bike was out of order

****. Just noticed my typo. That should be: Are you taking it down on the 26th November?

I thought it was unlucky to have it up for longer than 12 days?
Are you taking it down on the 16th November?

seat right down pic:

Now the stem looks horrendous (if it wasn't before)

The pedals are one sided SPDs .. just because thats what I had lying around

I don't intend to climb with it. I'd need the seatpost to be about 100mm longer and the frame a bit bigger

The only orange parts I had were the orange valve caps ..

I'm thinking the stem looks so wrong because the saddle looks as if if thats pedalling height, whereas its low for me, just thats as high as the 250-300mm ish seatpost goes. I could try my 400mm one?

Digging a bit further on geogrpah, there is also:

looks like it might be alright

Also from geograph, this looks promising

If I'm thinking of the same drop, teetosugars, its a little poorly designed. About 5ft drop to flat fireroad, which aside from bike/skills/balls isn't a problem, but you're dropping blind into a section of both the red and green routes.
On a 120mm marin FS (known to have high BB), with a 19mm fork taller than standard, bigger tires and a 32T bashring to prop the BB clearance up it still clipped the lip ..

As per nicko and thom, weight back and if you can try to lift the front end over the soft patch (even if only for a second) seems to help me get by

I thought a speed wobble was something that happens with (very) steep angled bikes (XC race/road bikes) at (very) high speeds and is nigh on impossible to regain control from? I remember reading a lengthy thread on here a while back anyway ..

"How can a bike shop not open weekends!?"
They aren't really a bike shop though are they, its more of a shop front to a mailorder warehouse?

"dodgy goods
..
I expect to get OEM with Merlin"

I thought they explained this ages ago, that they buy in the sort of bulk that bike manufacturers do and so a lot of stuff isn't individually boxed etc
The descriptions seem to match the products IME re: OEM versions

"nothing should be open on a sunday, close everything!! "
Are you including churches? ..

203mm (centrelock) rotor for £10 posted
203mm rotor for £13 posted
203mm rotor for £14 posted
203mm rotor for £20 posted
Shimano 6-bolts are around £26-28ish

I could go on ..

Have a look at the pads/rotor as the wheel spins to see which side(s) its catching and try to work out what the issues are (if you haven't done this already). You should be able to see the gaps between

Just out of interest, why would you prefer a five over a mojo? especially when in order to sell your bikes you want to buy one? that on paper at least, is inferior (in terms of DW link vs. single pivot surely?)

Its only because they've decided to use a non suspension corrected fork (probably to use full guards) that they've had to put an extended head tube on. Being a 700c would account for the steep head angle on tha massive frame

It does make my 21.5" (non suspension corrected) Trek look comparitively normal though*:

*Or so I think

"is anyone else but Fox doing QR15?"
Marzocchi, DT Swiss ..

"140mm fork but would they be all right on a 456?"
The clue is in the name ..

456 is suitable for 4", 5" or 6" forks (so 100-150mm)

Chris S, sounds like you need to find some steep(er) hills with some nice techy and some super fast descents ..

I find I don't use my rigid (geared) bike very much anymore. I used to commute with it, but only really use it now when I haven't fixed the hardtail back to being useable
The hardtail only gets ridden when the full suss would be more of a chore, though that seems to be less and less often

For some reason I've bought me a small jumpy/play frame to build up into a 'winter singlespeed', so I'll see how my bike use goes after that

"they should limit the the win to say 1mill so more people can win"

But surely that would reduce the appeal of it? You can't buy that much with 1 million or have a rich style for the rest of your life on it either. How much does the government get of it?

I'd stay anonomous, though my LBS might be able to guess somethings up ..

"they should limit the the win to say 1mill so more people can win"

But surely that would reduce the appeal of it? You can't buy that much with 1 million or have a rich style for the rest of your life on it either. How much does the government get of it?

Why a 10spd rear casette? A 9spd or 8spd will cover the range just fine

It depends, if you're only riding on smoother stuff (no stairs/rough stuff/drops/jumps) then with an unramped (dedicated single ring) front chainring you can get away with no type of chainguiding providing the chainline is in the middle

You may need a chain device of some sort though. Whether it be a bashring and an N-gear jump stop or something else to stop the chain from falling off on the inside or a full on 4X/DH race type guide/roller device

A front mech will guide it just fine too, but isn't the most tidy, but will work for you to try out

map here on singletraction

"Low miles"
"Mileage: 86000 "
Its a petrol from 1993?

Also:
"The mileage is not warranted"

You get the stiffness of 1.5" and can use 1 1/8" stems (which you can get shorter too)

Though for a freeride bike I agree it would be better to have a 1.5" headtube, and have a 1.5" cup at the bottom and a 1.5" to 1 1/8" stepdown cup on the top if they want to use a tapered fork and still alow people to use 1.5" forks

what online spoke calculator for off centre hubs? ..

The retention clip/spring on the back will hold the pads in
But if you'd ditched it in the first place, pad changing would have been a doddle

If you've still got it, clean up the surfaces and make a good job at supergluing it back on. Then ditch the retention clip on the back. I've not used them for a few years now. The spider/spring between the pads has held the pads against the piston centre just fine

According their websites:
a meta 55 has a HA of 68 degrees
a remedy also has a HA of 68 degrees

A pitch is 67
A 2010 Specialized Enduro is 66.5
A Cube Fritzz is 67

There'll be more, just keep looking

I can see a few problems with that particular bike storage machine

The guide rails don't look anywhere near wide enough for Surly Enomorph's or even a 3" Maxxis
The gap in the central bike carrier doesn't look wide enough for 800mm handlebars
What if the chip falls off the bike?

Oh wait, its for commuter bikes, only one of those should be a problem ..

"Giant Trance"
Aside from they aren't made anymore, they were 100/106mm travel?

As above, just look through all the manufacturers at similar (travel) bikes

Trek Remedy 150/150
Gary Fisher Roscoe 140/140
Specialized Stumpjumper FSR (2010) 140/140
Specialized Pitch 140/150
Giant Reign 140/150
Kona Dawg 140/150
(Kona Cadabra 150/160)
Scott Genious 140*/150
Cannondale RZ140 140/140
Lapierre Zesty 140/140
Orange 5 130*/140
Iron Horse MkIII 140/5"
etc etc

*for £2k

"but it fits fine in my commencal cromo?"

Perhaps that is bent (it is steel)? But in such a way the wheel fits (either the wheel being out of dish, or perhaps the spacers are wrong

"You won't make up all 20mm of stack"
It may be as much as 34mm of 'stack' difference if its something like a Fox 32 QR 140mm and a Fox 36/Rockshox Lyrik

"I'm just really after something to make up for reduced tyre tread depth on older tyres"
Does only your front tyre wear down then? If both are worn together, it won't make any difference to the angles

Its probably either the wheel trueing is out loads (All to one side) or the spacers/nuts/etc are arranged in the wrong order/on the wrong sides on the axle. Have a look through the tech documents for your hub on shimanos website and try to figure out if its been (re)assembled correctly?

Could be a number of things:

Bent (not centred) frame (should be visible by eye)

Wheel (massively) out of true, the whole thing off to one side (again should be obvious)

I reckon most likely though is that your hub has been rebuilt wrongly. For eg if its a cup/cone (one with nuts on a threaded axle) and the spacers/nuts/etc.. have been rebuilt in the wrong order/sides shoving the whole wheel off centre when in the frame

Could be something else though, or a combination?

"Why is Ae rubbish then? I was pretty impressed with it – the last descent is ace"

I was the first time I went abotu 2 years ago. Revited in June this year and they've ruined a lot of it. It looks like they've forrested a lot of it and the trails they've put back in are very rough, slow and don't really flow very much with no techincal interest
There are still some really good bits, but around half of it has been turned to slow rough stuff, more like a wiggley cyclepath than well thought out involving singletrack imo
I prefer dalbaettie if only for the rocks/techy bits

I prefer both Ae and Dalbaettie over Mabie Red though. I'd like a(nother) go on the double black there but the red did very little for me at the time

Here you go iainc:

You need to use the url of the picture, not the page (right click on the picture, go to properties, copy from there)

I find it easier to type [/img] after the url and before the url, rather than use the img button (As it dumps the 'code' at the top of what your typing)

"I have an Anthem X2 "
"or a complete new set of Saints?"
You want to put DH race brakes on an XC race bike?
I'd imagine your tyres would lock up all too easily without DH tyres too

"bigger rotars, sintered pads .. if i go to big without a bolt through axle the wheel can be pulled out of the forks under breaking..?"
No. A 203mm rotor will only give around 25% more power than a 160mm anyway
(Most) forks have a raised edge around where the QR sits when done up to stop it from sliding out. I think your fox's should have 45 degree (rather than straight down) dropouts anyway which massively reduces any disc braking force trying to push the wheel out
Sintered pads will generally give less power. They keep on biting wet when wet, unlike 'normal' pads which start to give less power when wet

"i think there was one incident where the front wheel pulled out and Fox tried to cover it. not 100% sure though. think it had more to do with the QR not being tightened fully"
I thought it was that the fork dropout pointed straight down (where disc brake forces can be big enough to push the wheel out) AND there were no tabs/raised edges on the dropouts to stop the skewer head/nut from stopping the wheel from sliding off the dropouts.
Don't quote me though. Thats just what I'd gathered from what I've read

Your i2i is 14mm shorter, but the stroke only 8mm shorter
It will sit as if its 14mm further into the stroke with no rider, but will bottom out a further 6mm into the stroke. As above I'd make sure that doesn't mean (it probably will though) your tyre (or any of the frame componentry) don't hit the frame when you bottom out the shock

I suspect being a further 14mm into the stroke with no weight on will mean the BB, head/seat angles, effective top tube, chainstay length etc will drop loads too

"pad replacement is a bad joke (especially compared to Hayes)."

You need to simply ditch the pad retention spring thing on the back. Just rely on the pad seperation spring/spider to push the pads onto the raised part of the piston. Then they're a doddle

"the air blows out of the Schraeder hole whilst trying to inflate a presta valve"

I know it probably is broken, but just in case, (at least my) Blackburn dual head pumps require a little air in the tube for it to be able turn off air to the shraeder head (when plugged into a presta tube)