As spchantler says a bit of cash will get any rubbish removed. We used to take anything if some gaves us a tenner or so.

I worked as a bin man during the summer holidays while I was at university. This was before wheelie bins. For a summer job it was fairly well paid and kept me pretty fit. Great on sunny days working in a nice country side area, where I was being paid to go for a nice walk and empty a few bins. Less fun on wet days in run down areas where bins were over flowing and every house had about 10 black bags.

I think the biggest problem with ash is when the rubbish get crushed any loose powder can fire out the back of the lorry and cover anyone standing there. Also the council pay by weight when they empty the lorries, so are keen to collect as little waste as possible. your small amount of sweepings won’t be a problem, but someone will have left a wheelie bin out filled to the top with soil in the past.

The problem with paint tins used to be that if there was any paint left in them as soon as they were crushed the paint would dribble out of the drain holes at the back leaving a nice trail down the road. I think the drain holes are now sealed up, so no longer a problem really.

You will be fine on Ralphs, just carry a couple of spare tubes. Even if it was wet I wouldn’t go for a mud-x, far too many road sections.

I did this a couple of years ago. I think the long route took me about 7 hours, although I was dragging my wife around too. The one thing I remember was all the hills are in the long route extension, the bit at the start and end are fairly flat. Also the distance between the 1st and 2nd drinks station felt like a very long way. The 1st food stop had loads of drinks and cakes, by the time we got to the 2nd one there wasn’t much left, as the riders on the shorter routes had got there before us. We had carried some food with us so wasn’t an issue, but could be if you were relying on food stations.

If it is dry fast rolling tyres are definitely the best choice. If you can downland a file of the route and put it on a Garmin, that helps massively if any signs go missing. I would go with a lightweight hard tail, rather than full suss.

Today’s Southern XC race was at Matterley Basin, which has hosted British GP Motocross races. Today’s course totally avoided the MX circuit and was on a purpose built mtb course in the woods. I don’t think an mtb race on a MX course would work.

I think it is only Fox forks that they fit in. I haven’t heard of a 650b conversion with Rockshox forks, although happy to be proved wrong.

My wife has been riding her Whippet with 650b wheels since last Autumn. She is very pleased with it and doesn’t plan to switch it back to 26″ – although she did a couple of weeks ago for a muddy race as she hasn’t got any 650b mud tyres.

She mentions the wheels on quite a few of her blog article’s on XCracer: http://www.xcracer.com/viewblogpost.php?blog_id=483

I have found them fairly mixed.

I have bought a few Hope bits from them which have turned up pretty quickly and have been well priced. The only negative I have had was placing an order for two 24″ rims that they were showing in stock. The next day I got an email to say that one rim had been despatched, I then got another email to say they had cancelled the order for the other rim as the manufacturer had stopped making them. To be fair I rang them up and they were pretty good about and understood why I didn’t want mismatched rims. On their advice I simply rejected the rim when it turned up in the post and they refunded me when they got it back.

Yes there is tunnel under the M3. I often ride to and from Swinley that way, but generally stick to the tarmac on the Maultway, as the test track area never seems much fun to ride.

I will hopefully be entering the 8hr solo, I just need to make sure I survive Exposure24 before I press the button. Entering 8hr as it means I don’t have to leave home too early in the morning. Probably heading to The Southern XC on the Sunday, but I will let my wife race that one.

I did the race in 2011 and really enjoyed it.

It depends on the rims and tyres.

I have a set of 29″ DT Swiss rims that I have converted to tubeless with some Stan’s tape and they go up fine, but can burp if I ride them too hard, even with lots of pressure. I also have a set of 29″ Chinese carbon rims I can’t get those to burp whatever I do, even with little pressure it is hard to get the tyre to leave the rim.

My experience with 29″ tubeless is a bit limited, but from my 26″ days narrow rims with a wide tyre also tend to be more prone to burping.

My ti frame failed in the same place. I spotted a an inch long horizontal hairline crack on the top tube/seat tube join. I was the 2nd owner so the frame wasn’t covered by a warranty. I had a cheap repair done by Vernon Barker, was fine, but not that pretty. Eventually it cracked on the other side too.

My last set of rims from China cleared customs in a couple of days. I also have a new sent on the way, but still waiting for those to get put on the plane, hopefully they will clear customs promptly too.

I also just stick a normal inner tube patch to the inside of the tyre, I normally rough the tyre up with some sandpaper first. If it is a big hole than maybe use a small patch first and then put a larger one over the top. It has always worked well for me.

jamiea, they are Thule aero roof bar, Giro bike carriers and a Thule roofbox (sorry can’t remember the model, but looks similar to yours).

From memory I think I had the outer clamps on the box outside the roofbar fixings, which gave a bit more space for the bikes on the other side. It looks like your bars are a bit narrower, and you have to fix the box inside the roof mounts. I had three bikes on mine, so you may be okay with two. The box would’t open when the bikes where fitted.

I don’t recall being charged extra when we went in 2011.

Just make sure you don’t drive under any of the height barriers around the terminals.

I have RX1 brakes on one of my bikes. I think the RX1 is RX caliper with R1 lever, and is an OEM product. I am very impressed with them. I had to swap them between bikes, which meant fitting longer cables and they were pretty easy to bled.

Lots of stopping power. As mentioned above they have a very small amount of modulation, you pull the brake and you stop. I have XTR brakes on my other bike, and power is about the same, just more lever travel on the XTR. From memory my Formula brakes are pretty similar in weight to the XTR.

I have them paired up with Sram shifters and the matchmaker clamps are very neat.

The new blue trail seems pretty spot on for a blue trail. I rode a lap of it yesterday with my 7 year old son and he managed to ride all of it ( ups and downs) and really enjoyed the trail. He has previous ridden the new W9Y and Stickler, so had an idea what to expect. I went back later in the day and a did couple of fast loops and it has it’s a few more challenges when taken at speed. The bermed corners are great.

I was over there earlier this year. You can easily spend a day just wandering around the various memorials.

Overall the highlight for me was the Al Weiwei exhibition at the The Hirshhorn, but that may have finished by now.

We had prearranged entry tickets to the Capitol Building, and managed to get entry passes in the House of Representatives. Which was all very interesting. Someone arranged those for me, but imagine they can be sorted out online.

The National Archives Building is worth a quick visit to look at some of old American documents.

I think by June it should be fairly warm. While I was there in January the temperature varied from about minus 10 to 15 degrees. We also had freezing rain one day, which meant everything shut for the morning.

Also they have kept Stickler which is just brilliant.

Has someone hi-jacked your login Shortcut? I didn’t think you could get your big wheels around Stickler?

Does anyone know when the official opening day is?

The last I heard was that the 28th April was the planned day to open the trials, although the wet weather over the past couple of week might have delayed that.

Here is a link to the planned trail map:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=1kxZn3LhAacd0qAxCz-OJfweP16zClpJ6FF8R7eap-XZeVKCnhkgSEl2mGNd6

I can understand Gorrick’s frustration about this as they spent many hours making the trails what they are/where.

Are you sure 20 miles? I ride at Swinley a fair bit and can’t think that much is really disappearing.

A lot of the new routes incorporate the old trails away, so only a few sections will be lost. I think something needed to happen as alot of the singletrack was becoming as wide as the M25. Hopefully the new trails will hold up to the number of rider who will be on them now!

Mine is going well so far. I weigh 85kg and haven’t had any concerns over it’s toughness. I have it on an Epic 29er, so more XC than AM, but have no worries about hitting stuff at speed.

My wife has a Whippet and a singlespeed Inbred (gas pipe steel rather than 853). She much prefers the Whippet. I would agree that it is stiff compared to a lot of high end carbon frames that often have some give in them. However for the price I think they are great.

I am still pleased with mine.

A few comments and photos on this thread:
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/chinese-carbon-29-er-wheels-anyone-got-them-and-can-they-be-used-tubeless

I am 6 foot and also rode a large (19″) Scale frame. It was the right size for me.

I had a meting in Kent yesterday afternoon,when I got there it was snowing, but not settling. Three hours later when I left there was a light covering of snow over everything, it wasn’t deep but had made the roads very slippy – much more than it looked. I think the snow had originally been melting, then the temperature dropped a few degrees below zero and the water froze on the roads. I only saw one car that had slid across the road into an embankment.

I wondered at one stage if I was in for an epic journey back to Surrey, but oddly once I got on the M25 and past the M23, all the snow had gone and the roads were normal.

Lots of photo’s of my wife’s 650b Whippet on her XC Racer blog:

http://www.xcracer.com/viewblogpost.php?blog_id=426

I have been using a set of the 740mm wide ones since the end of last year. They are on the front of my Epic 29er. I am very pleased with them. I am 85kg and have given them some tough rides around the Welsh trail centres and they have been great.

a couple of pics of the wheels. These are the matt UD finish.

I have using a set of the Lightbike wide 29er rims since September last year. I built them onto Hope hubs. Before built into a wheel they feel a lot stiffer than a Crest rim. They built up easy enough. I use Bontrager rim strips in them, and they work really well tubeless, I have used them with Schwalbe and SpecIalized tyres.

I have done quite a few miles on them, including one 12 hour race, and so far they have stayed totally true.

When I ordered they had the ones I wanted in stock, so they turned in about 10 days I think.

There is a really big thread on MTBR about them.

When the new trails open they are going to all be one way, so should remove the chance of a head on collision. The Seagull trail used to be bad for this as you could carry quite a lot of speed in both directions, and especially in Spring and Summer when the bracken grows up there where a few blind corners. Hopefully the new trails will have massive no entry signs at the end of each trail. It still won’t stop people stopping in the middle of trails…

I have a set of their 740mm wide flat carbon bars on the front of my epic 29er. I am very impressed with the bars, no noticeable flex in use. My wife has a set of their Ultimate carbon bars on her bike, in comparison they have a bit more flex to them, although only weigh 85g.

I had the same experience with a dog on Stickler on Sunday. Riding along and suddenly a dog bounded across the trail in front of me, I think he belonged to a couple of riders who looked to be calling for a dog in the distance – he was definitely making his way towards them. That was the second time I have had a close encounter of the canine type on that trail, last time was in summer when the bracken was high and I came around a corner to see a couple of little dogs running towards me, they obviously knew the trail and were cutting corners to stay ahead of their owner.

The new signposts will say bikes only, but I am not sure if the plan is to ban dogs on the new trails or not?

We use a Wii for streaming from Lovefilm, it works pretty well. I would agree that the online choice is a bit limited.

I fitted Rocket Rons on my son’s 24″ wheeled bike. I find they work in most conditions on my bike, and they seem good on his bike so far. I got mine fairly cheaply from Amazon.

I always use Alligator pads and find they stop well and have a decent life span in gritty conditions:

http://www.xcracer.com/shop/viewproduct.php?productid=219

It is pretty easy to copy films onto the Playbook. Use something like Handbrake to copy a DVD onto your computer, then just connect the Playbook and drag and drop the file into the Playbook (I think you need to put it into the video folder). If you use itunes there is a nice app that will copy your music files from itunes onto your Playbook.