First ride on Sunday over at Woburn and I love it. Definitely makes a hero out of a fool, even with 'only' 100mm forks on.

Looking forward to riding mine at the weekend round Woburn, although the weather looks atrocious.

Downloaded a cool angle measuring iphone app yesterday (suprisingly accurate) and it's showing 66.5 degree head angle with 100mm forks, no sag. I guess that'll be somewhere around the 67 mark once I'm sat on the bike. Other observations are that it's a good inch longer wheelbase than the inbred it replaced, looking at where it hangs on the wall in the garage.

Tiny frame? It's 18"

And I assume by clips you mean the pedals? Are they wrong?

Quick and dirty mobile pic.

Yes, the tyres are dirty and it needs a shorter stem. Maybe at the weekend…

I didn't get any confirmation of dispatch or anything like that. I got a payment confirmation when I placed the order last week and then the frame just turned up at work on Monday.

Got recommended it by a physio type after suffering back probs due to poor core strength. I found it very slow and dull TBH – the exercises are good for the core but there's a lot of emphasis on relaxing and laying about a lot between exercises. Most gyms have 'abs' type classes that replicate all the same exercises but at a lot higher intensity.

It's all simple stuff you can do at home though.

My wife (honest!) has a Davina McCall DVD which has a whole section on decent core strength stuff.

Front end done, just needs a drivetrain now.

Complete bikes only? So you don't want a little sneak preview of the frame sat at my desk then?

Have to say I wasn't expecting it to arrive till at least the end of this week.

Mine's just arrived at the office – orange summer season 18". My god it's luminous, much more so than it looks in photos!

If it won't go back in at all (as opposed to being a bit sticky), then you may need a new piston. One of my Mono Mini pistons wouldn't go back more than half way – turned out there was a bit of debris stuck behind it (which I think chipped off the side of the piston). A new piston is only a few quid, plus another couple of quid for the seals, and relatively easy to pop in if you're comfortable with dismantling stuff, bleeding, etc.

Looks like you've already found some, but JRA sell the 20" BMX tubes with removable presta cores. As for the nozzle size issue, I have a small JRA wheel milk bottle with a small nozzle which only cost a couple of quid. You can then just decant 50ml (or whatever) of your favourite jizz from a larger bottle into that each time you need to top up.

On that note, and apologies for the hijack, is there a sealant that doesn't clog up as much as the JRA milk? I took a worn tyre off the other day and there were bloody greak hunks of dried up latex all over the place. Is the Stans stuff better?

Thanks, though to be honest I don't really fancy spending money on a new frame. The S-Works I have at the moment is mostly OK and I was more seeing if there was a way to make the inbred work with those components. If I'm going to spend any money it'll be in a forwards direction by eventually getting some new wheels and discs.

Got an LX hub off the bay a couple months back for £4 so I'll keep an eye out for something like that and a cheapo rear disc brake.

Hmmm, ok, thought as much.

Cheap SH disc hub for the rear and a bargain disc brake is prob a better idea then.

Cheers for the info

Another +1 here for master cylinder seals. I had the same problem, sounds like exactly the same symptoms.

Air in the system or an external leak would feel totally different.

mk1fan -> not the diaphragm, no, the seals on the actual piston. It only takes the tiniest imperfection in the seal for it to happen. You won't neccesarily feel roughness, but sustained pressure on the lever will evetually start letting fluid back past the seals in the wrong direction which lets the lever pull to the bar. A quick sharp few seconds of braking doesn't usually cause a problem though.

No servo assistance at all in early Elises. They need plenty force to press the pedal down but it's SOOOO easy to modulate the brakes nicely.

Agreed that modern cars are over-servoed. Our A3 is horrible.

If I could just add another little question into the pot…

Is the only difference between High Roller XC and High Roller DH the width? I need to replace my worn Kendas and fancy something chunky, say 2.35ish, but can only find DH versions. Is that what I have to go for? (i.e. presumably there's no 2.35 XC?). Not that I especially care about the XC/DH label but I don't want to be riding an unnecessarily heavy duty tyre for my reasonably tame local trails if there's an XC version available.

Just to close up this thread, I managed to get out on the trails around Hanmer – top stuff, cheers. I went and met Neil in Krank who was totally helpful and annotated a trail map for me with all the best bits. Also spent a few quid on some gear in his shop too.

Hire bike from the shop next door was pretty shonky but was all I could find. Krank had actually ordered a fleet of Specialized bikes to hire out but sadly they hadn't arrived yet.

Thanks for the tips, much appreciated!

Gratuitous inbred touring pic. The chainstay disc mount is dead handy

Pointless post as I've not tried propedal, but… I have an 09 FSR XC Expert. First full suss for me after 20 years riding hardtail so I can't comment on pro pedal. Took a while to get the pressure and damping just right on the rear shock but I love it now. I used to use the lockout sometimes on long climbs but to be honest I don't bother much anymore. I'd usually forget to turn it off again at the top and then fly down the other side of the hill with the shock still locked.

Personally I find climbing fine with the shock fully active. It took me a while to change my style from stomping at the pedals like pistons to sitting down and turning smooth circles but once I'd done that it was all good.

Built my first wheel a couple of months ago using the sheldon brown website and it was perfect and dead easy. Although I have been truing for about 20 years.

Truing skills are dieing out as disc brakes come in though. I used to have to true my wheels every 5 rides or so to keep the braking surfaces millimetre perfect for finely adjusted cantilevers/V-brakes. Now I don't really give a toss about a couple of mm wobble here or there so it's very rare that the spoke key comes out.

Excellent, thanks for all the info guys – noted.

I've seen that there are some other great MTB locations around the country but it's a honeymoon, my partner doesn't ride really and we have a bunch of other stuff planned (including OZ) so I'll have to settle for half a day's riding in Hanmer Springs really. We're being pretty felixible with the trip though so who knows.

The Kennett Brothers book looks great, might get hold of a copy of that, cheers. I'll get in touch with the Krank guy. Be nice to hire something reasonably decent if poss. A couple of the "mountain bike hire" places I've found on the web look dreadful – £100/40lb Halfords specials :S

Ah ok, ignore me then! I did think you were all getting a bit excited over not very much!

Another Woburn rider here. Couldn't make it this weekend though

Are you lot talking about The Beast at Thetford? I decided to drive out and check out the Thetford trails for the first time yesterday. Beast was a bit "meh" to be honest. Was fun for a coupe of minutes but not really worth bobbing along the bumpy black route for 45 minutes to get to it, IMO.

Was expecting to see more MTBs up there. Only spotted one or two at the side of the trail.

Going to check out Thetford, seeing as I'm over that way.

I have option 3. Mainly because I already had a DV camcorder that accepted the input from a bullet lens. The major downsides for me are the bulk of having the camcorder with you and the plethora of cables that go with it (inc 8xAA battery pack for the bullet cam). This all goes into my camelback fine for helmet cam duties but then you can't easily start and stop the tape without taking your pack off and rummaging around for the camcorder etc.

Also, mounting somewhere on the bike is tricky because you've got to account for all the extra gubbins. I can *just* about fit the battery pack, camcorder and cables into my saddle bag at a squeeze.

GPSbabel is a must have. It'll convert any format to any other format and read/write tracks, routes and waypoints to and from your GPS. Downloadable routes off the web come in a variety of formats – trl, gpx, kml, etc so having something that can put all of those onto your unit or convert them into other formats for use in your fancy mapping/visualisation software is dead handy.

There's quite a lot over the Back Woods area. I couldn't tell you exactly where as I haven't been over that way for a while but you can zig zag your way about heading south east until you come back to the road. Last time I was there I saw some north shore style wooden boards/jumps etc.

New Wavendon Heath has a few little trails here and there, nothing major just short little sections. Again, difficult to remember when I'm not there but you can ride from one side to the other in 5 minutes so just spend half an hour zig zagging about and you can't go wrong really.

First pic is correct, yeah. That second pic is, if you look at the map, the south end of a nice little drop below Fullers Earth Lodge. Start heading west up the hill and look for a little trail on the left. The singletrack approaching Fullers Earth Lodge from the north/west is also quite nice.

Cool. I'm usually on that or a red Specialized FSR. I try to meet up with Cyclone when I can on Sunday mornings but it only tends to be about once a month due to other commitments at the moment.

Here's a few trails, although there are plenmty more:
http://picasaweb.google.com/JaseMK2001/RandomWebHosting#5368640390014969362

Quite a lot, yeah. There's the massive jumps section, but also plenty enough nice tracks to put in a two hour ride. Mix of singletrack and wide tracks.

Was up there last night and took a couple of pics:

Agreed on not touring on a 456 Ti – it'll end up locked up outside cafes and at campsites and so on so you don't want anything too nickable.

It was only 3 days, but I just did coast 2 coast on an inbred with a low stem, flat bars and bar ends and it was spot on with semi slicks and plenty of pressure. Mountain man racks are pretty expensive from memory – not a great deal more cash would get you an inbred frame with rack mounts that you could swap out some kit onto.

I contacted Hope a couple of months ago about my bust rear hub – it was a 90s ti centre XC hub as you describe. I was told that they are too old and they don't carry any spares for them anymore, but would exchange it for a new Pro II for about £60.

I have the Halfords advanced ones, got the pair for £50 earlier in the year. Done hundreds of miles with them and they're absolutely fine. Only concern is that the frame clamp can scuff your down tube a little. Not enough to wear through the paint but a bit of heli tape would be a good idea if you're precious about your showroom shine.

A friend has the Thule version. Not the curvy expensive one, but the cheaper straight Thule model and it is exactly the same as my Halfords model. Not similar, I mean EXACTLY the same parts – identical. It just has a different logo stamped on it.

'98/99ish M2 S-Works – last of the US made metal matrix composites I think:

Mine:

Yep, works fine. Only faff is getting the rear wheel out – you need to pull the chain back with your finger (or a stick) so you end up with an oily finger.

I don't use the chain tug by the way, just let it go all the way forwards.

Maddie:

Daisy:

Missy:

…and all three looking cute:

Exactly the same problem here as mike_check.

Nice solid lever, indicating that there is no air in the system, but the lever would gradually make it’s way back to the bar. Basically instead of pushing fluid down to the caliper, it’s seeping back up into the top reservoir. You won’t necessarily see any external leaks.

I replaced the master cylinder piston seals and all was well.

Following something I read on here, I tried just a dab of contact glue around the problem area (near the valve), after failing miserably for about an hour with a track pump. Worked instantly and it peels off easy enough so shouldn’t cause any damage to anything.