What frame is it?
Why 100 or 120mm of that range?

Scott Ransom with an F100 fork up front?
Why?!
For what riding?

Would you not be better with a frame suited to a 100mm fork? (Not 160mm)

[Wasn’t the genious in the previous issue?]

Where are you based?
How far/long are you willing to travel?

Some places have nearby rail access but would take ages to get not being on main lines and/or at ends of the country

Not repeating others above, but still within ~ 3miles of a station might be:
Golspie
Kyle of Sutherland Trails (Carbisdale/Balbair)
Witches Trails (Fort William)
Cannock Chase

Under about 10 miles:
Moray Trails (via Keith)
Laggan Wolftrax (via Dalwhinnie/Newtonmore)
Ae (via Dumfries)
Nant-y-Arian (via Aberystwyth/Vale of Rheidol Rlwy)
Cwm Carn (via Cwmbran)
Dalby (via Malton)
Stainburn (via Burley in Wharfedale)

There must be more

Surely the ‘teeth’ on the inside of each sprocket connecting the the freebub means they can’t move relative to one another and the connecting rivets are just to keep it in one lump when putting on/taking off the casette to/from the freebub?

I’m 6’3 so fear an 18″ would be much too small. A 20″ would be more suited I think going off my current bikes
Thanks for the offer anyway

What size? Are Units SS only? I’m (my knees/back/lungs are) a bit rubbish at SSing where I tend to ride

No, I haven’t ridden a 29″er. (the closest being a 26″ bike with tyres that measure nearer to 27.5″ pumped up)
Would be wanting to compare to a 120mm forked hartdtail and a 130mm forked, 120mm rear full suss for drop ability vs. rolling anyhow

I’ve looked into getting a demo of some similar 29″er bikes such as a turner sultan. Silverfish? only had a medium on demo?! (according to the web)
I’ve not had a full-on look for demo tbh, more just this rolling vs. dropping ‘issue’ had popped into my head so thought I’d query on here

I should probably point out that I’ve never opened up a fork, so everything I’ve said about making a suitable cut is all guesswork ..

As fatmuthahubbard said, would you not be better with 2 bikes?
Assuming your commute is on the road you can get a carrera subway for £230 new, or easily pick someting up off ebay/here for much less. Or get something really cheap and source some slicks and spray guards for it?
The intense can then be centred around just MTBing (and getting there) rather than having to think about the commute when considering its build/setup?
It’d probably save a fair bit in tyres and drivetrain too, and when/if the MTB is out of action, the commuter isn’t

Probably the squareness of the cut. You’d have to take any burrs off the cut edge and probably chamfer the edges a little to match the non cut end maybe. Just so long as the cut edge can’t damage any internals

If it we me I’d be much happier using a genuine 10mm spacer instead (the recon 327 comes at 120mm so their must be a 10mm version). Else a 15mm spacer (Supplied with ’09 dual air revelation apparantly) maybe easier to get as a spare?

I was just trying to sum up a bit at the end after realising the post was getting a little lengthy

a)
c) – meant to do b) after riding past it having locked the car when starting, was then so wet and cold afterward I had other things on my mind when I got back
f) – Put in a bit more for forgetting last time

How new is it?
Could be the cables stretching a little causing the gears to not behave as they should

Antony: Is that with a rigid fork as well as a lack of gears though?

“might be able to squeeze a P7 under a grand if he would rather have steel “

Or a genesis, charge, voodoo, rock lobster ..

How heavy is the frame?

I thought specialized had switched to 150mm Fox 32 QR15s on all enduros this year and dumped the 150mm E150 25mm?

EDIT: Sorry, the Carbon SL one still comes with an E150 fork
Also, aren’t triple clamp forks slightly more cumbersome on tight switchbacks?

But what size single ring was he running?
If it was just the big ring he was using (tinker jaurez stylee) then maybe top speed wouldn’t have been an issue

How about a higher RRP, lighter, same colour, but being sold cheaper Truvativ Version?

With a 34T/11T as the ratio that lets you go fastest, yes I do spin out, but mostly just on the road. Running SPDs could have something to with it maybe? Being able to spin faster more easily perhaps, just making guesses

1×9 is on my 2nd bike which I ride on local terrain where the steep climbs are much shorter but generally the hills aren’t as steep. I don’t have a lot of flat out descents either.
Not having any choice other than to use a 34T front ring (the 32T rear isn’t engaging properly at the moment either so its a bit harder) forces me to put a little effort in on shorter local rides where I may otherwise get lazy and drop down to the granny ring

On my main bike I do have a standard 3×9 setup which gets used for longer rides elsewhere, where long steep climbs are commonplace and not destroying myself on the first hill helps to get me round the rest of a ride with ease, though I don’t always drop into the granny ring. I find it being a full suss bike means I drop into the granny ring more often/easily, it doesn’t seem to put the power down quite like the hardtail does
The big ring is good for any road sections between trails. I often tend to use it on faster downhills too

Fox are pretty low in arch-to-crown-height for their travel
For the frames you mention they usually come with 140mm fox so I would’ve thought the vanilla wold be too low/steep/twitchy/etc

One of the orange 5’s does come with a 130mm rockshox, but rockshox are a little bit taller than fox for their travel. The recon 130mm would be (I think) about 13mm taller than the 125mm Vanilla

Lapierre do the Spicy, Froggy and DH920 frame only, but not the zesty according to their website

Thanks for the offer, but after a quick google search it looks like the end connector (as with the rest of it except the handle) is the same as my rockshoz one and doesn’t work too well with the too few threads on my rear shock

According to (Some) suspension manuals you are supposed to check the pressures every ride. I don’t use a shock pump anywhere near that often, but when setting sag or messing about with how shock/forks feel they get taken off/put back on a few times
Also mates borrow it now and again

Anyone remotely interested?
Anyone care to make any unfounded speculation?
Anyone reckon it might be a good MTB trailer?

Avid Elixirs seem to be getting good reviews as a more powerful than a juicy, but lighter than juicy 3s, 5s and 7s I think

Merlin have them for £160 per pair at the moment too, I’m very tempted, though my current juicy 3’s are techincally just fine

“had bearing changes once since I got it about 9 months ago and the rear (475) is now feeling grindy and loose again! I’ve stopped jet washing them because I thought it was that”

Proper jetwash or a little bike specific one?

Anyhow, shimano hubs are designed such that as the bearings wear out you adjust them up a bit more. I’d have a go at that first. I’ve ended up retightening mine every 6 months

As Algore said, put a little pedalling in through the sections and it becomes alive

Some pictures (mostly the more technical bits):



If you are smooth the boardwalk is/was perfectly rideable when soaking wet (unlike this one)

Under a layer of frost/ice it is/was rideable, more so than when wet



this isn’t actually part of the loop, just off to the side

“I was think of getting the Fox float 140 QR – but having less travel up front to the rear – I just cant get my head around that?”

Fox 32 140mm are 511mm arch to crown and are low for a 140mm fork
The heckler is recomended for 140 – 170mm forks(?)

According to the website, a 2009 Rockshox Revelation 140mm QR is 521mm
[a 140mm 2009 20mm Revelation is 518mm, as is a 140mm pike]
So maybe a 2009 140mm QR Revelation for a bit more tallness for the frame?
I think they’re 1750g, which for the travel I think only QR fox and magura thors are lighter (and probably some DT swiss ones)
Here for just over £300

What type (or make/model) are your cranks?

Pipedream Torero 140, = £699 (singletrack reccomended)

’08 Giant Reign?, 152mm (were £800)

Commencal Meta 5.5, £850 on merlin at the mo

Cotic Hemlock, 120 or 150mm = £980

Santa Cruz Heckler, 150mm = £1200

Orange Five, 140mm = £1275

How much more do you want/are you willing to spend?
There must be more than that for less than a 5 frame costs

“Not going to be used on anything that technical, for a standard XC HT setup”

Then for 99% off the time you can get away with just an unramped chainring.
Even when it does get technical (drops, loads of stairs, roots .. (I’ve not took it anywhere rocky yet) my chain doesn’t come off very often. When it does its usually when chucking over gates or when the chain is being pulled to the extremes of the casette ime

“gears are XTR so good kit. The LBS set the gears up”

you should set them up, not the LBS, not because it’ll be cheaper but because you can fine tune it when your riding and as the cables stretch over time

“I’m starting to wonder if the rocking horse effect of suspension is worth the hassle”
Sounds (to me from reading this) like your forks is setup too soft, so is giving you the rocking horse effect

To rule out descrepencies in your ‘experiment’ you need to try the rigid fork with 2″ tyres and of course the 100mm fork with 2.5″ tyres

Carrera Subways start at £230

As per the reccomendation in issue 49 of the magazine?

£500 Specialized hardrock with hydraulics and rockshoz fork?

Why is it SO wide?

They’ll be 140mm

To get them down to 125mm travel you add a spacer internally which would lower the height of the fork by 15mm also

Have another read of the manual on setting them up and what everything does, play about a bit with what you’ve picked up from there and see if its any better?

Hayes 9 are £100/pair on merlin
How much are avid juicy 3’s on CRC?

I want one, though it may mostly be the colour ..

Why would a short cage mech make any difference?
When in the two biggest rings (34T front, 32T rear) the mech is in the most tension position (almost horizontal) due to shortening the chain by the looping round both big rings plus one pair of links
When in 34T-11T the mech is pointing downward, so still under lots of tension. Surely because of this (A short cage mech being under less tension in 34-11T) a long one is better?

The main reason is that sometimes the other rings (plus front mech, front shifter, cables and a little more chain) go back on so a long cage mech still lets me run a triple setup should I decide it maybe useful

What is a chaincage?