I wouldn’t expect any of those things to be supplied with a new bike, although I would be pleasantly surprised if they did. The last couple of new bikes I have bought came with tubeless valves (one had the wrong type for the rims!) and one came with a shock pump – although it was a high pressure shock pump which is fairly unusual.

Also I bought a bike from Evans a few years ago and I don’t think it came with valves. I popped into another branch to buy some and they gave me a couple from the workshop FOC, which I thought was pretty good of them.

Mine is the same. Riding no handed means I have to lean the bike very slightly to go in a straight line, although not really noticeable. Strangely I notice the lack of turning more when I go back to a ‘normal’ fork that doesn’t try to turn.

My wife has a Specialised Crux, with a 49cm frame. Looking online they also do a tiny 46cm one too.

I have checked the Rons as I have fitted them and honestly haven’t seen any problems. My son was using them on a fairly wide set of rims, with tubes, now on my daughters bike setup tubeless on Crest rims. My daughter is only 6 , so isn’t giving them a tough life yet, but my son used them loads. Everywhere from Swinley to Afan. The biggest issue he had was a series of snakebite punctures from heavy landings.

My kids have used the 24″ Rons for a few years. I haven’t seen any of the problems mentioned above. Originally running tubes, now have them set up tubeless.

I bought a Chinese carbon cx frame and forks from Ican Bikes this time last year. Quality seems good and it is still going strong. I bought mine via Aliexpress. For £300ish it was a great buy.

Thanks. Just bought a new rear hub and a spare dive computer.

Kevin, not much help to you but mine sets up fine. I did post a link a few pages back showing how to setup the shock. When you screw the pump onto the +ve valve, it does need an extra twist to fully open the valve. I am not sure why, but seems like it is needed depending on pressure.

I am not a fan of the wheels. They are narrower than I would prefer, I think the internal width is 19mm. They make a strange pinging sound when they take hard hits, I think this is the straight pull spokes moving. In the past I have had issues with Mavic wheels and hubs breaking, so slightly biased against them anyway. I find the tyres need too much pressure not to burp on hard cornering, the high pressure is fine in the dry, but gives no grip in the wet. I am currently waiting on some rims to build up new wheels with. Having said all that for just over £200 they are okay.

Never played it, but do play Boom Beach. My son started on it earlier in the year, and I took over the account. Now part of a pretty good international Task Force.

Posted a pair of wheels via Parcel Force last week, I think I booked via Parcel Monkey. It was about £10 on a 48 hour service. I dropped it off at the local Parcel Force depot, which was more convenient than waiting for a courier to turn up and collect them.

Interesting to hear that you think you are quicker on a HT, how so?

Purely looking at my Strava times on trails I ride often, I can see that I am slightly quicker overall on a carbon hardtail 29er (apart from the frame it is a similar build) however the Epic is always quicker on the downhills. I am happy to be battered around a bit when I am riding, so don’t miss the extra comfort the Epic gives. I guess the difference is down to my riding style, as the likes of Jaroslav Kulhavy seem to make them go pretty quick! To be fair is an amazing bike, and if I could only have one bike it would probably be an Epic 29er, just because it does most things very very well. However I have several bikes and don’t have the space for the Epic.

Epic Expert 29er. I bought it to use on bumpier race courses, but have found I prefer to race on a hardtail. I think I have only actually raced on it for a few hours in a 24hr race. Up for sale soon as I just don’t use it.

On the Carbon 2 you will need a GXP direct mount chain ring. A BB30 one would fit, but the chainline would be slightly out. It is a BB30 crankset with a long spindle. Absolute Black have a nice illustration on their website : http://www.absoluteblack.cc/mtb-chainrings/ (2nd box down on the right)

To agree with above the cranks took alot of force to remove. I thought something was going to break before the bolt finally moved!

I don’t see why not. For shipping the Carbon 2 is supplied with the KS Lev post fully inserted in the frame, I didn’t check the length but I am sure it will be 385mm or more. That is on a large frame, not sure what it is like on the smaller ones.

Here is my brake/dropper/suspension arrangement. Works fine, although don’t think it would fit if I was using a front shifter.

Yes. Switch on the left. It looks much neater and works fine there. I will post a picture later.

I was there in Janaury a couple of years ago. I think the day time temperature was around -12 degrees most days. It did snow towards the end of the stay which meant it warmed up a bit. I was there on an architecture tour, so we did spend most of the time outside looking at buildings. As long as you take the right clothes it isn’t too bad.

Jason, them’s some funky looking wheels on your lad’s Cube.

They are a pair of Crank Brother Cobalt 26″ wheels I was using years ago. I put them in the loft as the 2nd hand value was so low it wasn’t really worth selling them. My son has finally grown into them.

allthepies, that is Tanktraps at Swinley. It looks a bit different now all the trees are gone. And the pill box is the one between Labyrinth and the Old Dean Estate.

I went out for an early morning solo ride starting in the dark (picture already posted in the Trigger thread)

Got home had some breakfast and then took my son out for a spin

Great day for it.

Have fun. I have just got back from an early morning spin on mine.

The cafe was open last weekend.

If you want to miss out the first up and down bits then my suggestion would be do Blue 1. At the end turn right on the fire road. Take the first fire road on the left, follow this all the way to the junction at the top of the hill. Pick up Blue 5 (short flat bit of single track), at the end of this go straight on and pick up Blue 9 on the right. This has a an up and down bit in it, but you might be glad of that after the fireroad! Then you get to Blue 10. Follow the trail back from there. You can miss out Blue 9 by following the fire roads, but I am not sure how to describe it.

The Red trail also has some flat sections on that are easy for kids, basically the loop west of Lower Star Point.

As always it depends on how quick you are. I based those times on a ride I did there with my wife last Saturday. We did Pynhydd, W2 and Blue Scar in 4hr39min moving time and 5hr30min total time (stopped for Welsh Rarebit at Glyncorrwg) If you rest/chat at the end of each section then it will take a bit longer.

If you find W2 takes too long you can always short cut at halfway and take the cycle path from Glyncorrwg back to Afan.

Nothing too technical at all, it can all be ridden with your wheels on the ground.

For a 3 hour ride I would do W2 starting from Afan as that normally takes me around 3 hours. When you have finished you have the option to do Penhydd (about an hour), or even Blue Scar (30mins) which is smooth, but good fun.

Lots of packaging to remove. Fit front wheel. Fit handlebar. If it has a dropper post, then the saddle needs fitting. The cable guides need tightening up. The shocks need setting up. The Lefty is fairly simple with just one valve. I posted a youtube link a page or two ago showing how the rear shock is set up. The suggested pressures are in the book supplied with the bike. Let some air out of the tyres and/or convert to tubeless. And that is it really 🙂

Be sure to fit some helicopter tape where the cables rub, I think mine came with some patches.

Epic 29er (100mm travel) to a Trigger 650b (140mm). So bikes designed for different things really. Can’t say the wheel size has really made much difference, whereas the geometery is more noticeable. Having ridden the Trigger a fair bit now, I am glad I went for the 140mm travel 650b, rather than the 130mm travel 29er. I also have a 29er hardtail, which is great and I can’t see me ever changing to a 650b hardtail.

On my Trigger I took the double chainrings, front mech and shifter off before I rode it. had a spare direct mount chainring in the garage, so there didn’t seem any point using the new bits. At some stage I am sure I will sell the chainrings, although not sure how much of a market there is for front mechs and LH shifters. The rest of it has been left as it was supplied.

Easy jet can be quite strict on weight, have got very slick at taking my laptop out my bag before the weigh it without them noticing….

There isn’t a weight restriction with hand luggage on Easyjet.

I think the rotors are the same size on all the bikes. 180mm front & 160mm rear.

Strangely enough I ordered one of those cable guides yesterday. I got mine from Qwerty Cycles, it looks a bit different to the one above, but same idea. There are also a few for sale on eBay.

I think they gave up due to the production costs being so high. I am not sure if they still make to order? A great product, we had one for a couple of years and got many many miles and smiles out of it – eventually sold to some one off here. AFAIK the people behind it did have an mtb background, although Surrey Hills rather than Scotland, it was certainly aimed at proper mountain biking and full suspension bikes.

paulkm, a shame for that to happen on a new bike 🙁 I had an issue on mine that the b-screw wasn’t screwed in far enough, so while the mech would shift up the block okay, it would get stuck on the largest sproket and wasn’t able to shift back down. That problem was evident on the first ride, so I doubt yours was the same issue if you had ridden it a few times.

60mm stem on the large frames.

Here is the YouTube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saLQNNLVLgw

parkesie, well spotted 😀

rustynisssan, there is an online video of how to set up the shock (it might be linked to in this thread?) Basically let out all negative air, then connect shock pump to positive valve, once the connector is screwed on enough to register pressure it then needs a further turn to open the second chamber, at this point you can see the pressure rise on the gauge. Set the positive pressure and then set the negative pressure. When I set mine up I didn’t see the second rise in pressure, but suggested pressures worked fine. 2015 ones are fitted with the sag-o-meter, and a rubber chain stay protector.

The only reason I could think of for swapping out the Lefty, would be compatibility with other front wheels. It is a really nice fork to ride.

You do get a few strange looks due to the Lefty fork. My wife has one as well, so it looks pretty normal to me:

My trigger carbon 2 delivered a week ago and looks great but the wife is making me wait till Christmas Day!!! It’s killing me!

What happens if there is a warranty problem? I think you really need to test it out now 🙂

I took my Trigger 2 to Afan today, and did a 40mile loop taking in W2, Penhydd and Blue Scar. It was great around there. I don’t ride at Afan much, but last time I did a similar ride there I was on an Epic 29er (admittedly that ride was a bit further, with no stops). Looking on Strava I was surprised to see that climbing times on the Trigger were fairly similar to the Epic. Riding it was noticeable that on loose rocky/pebble climbs the Trigger in the 85mm mode had loads of traction and just rode over the loose stuff, whereas the Epic would always skip around a bit. Although on the ups the extra bulk of the Trigger was evident. A lot of the descents at Afan are fairly xc, but in some areas the shallower head angle and extra travel of the Trigger gave a lot more confidence and speed, Time to sell the Epic I think.

No squeaks from the rear shocks. In my experience those sorts of noises could come from anywhere, on one of my full suss bikes I eventually traced it to a cable moving in the cable guide.

Yes mine was TNT. Number didn’t work for a while, but updated eventually.

I am running a direct mount 30t chainring on the Sram cranks that came on my bike, Trigger 2. I can’t say I have noticed it being noisy, it just works fine.

For anyone planning to do this you need a GXP direct mount ring, rather than BB30 direct mount.

I had the equivalant Autoglym system applied to my car when I bought it. For some reason after I agreed a price for the car the dealer then added the system into the final price, with no extra cost to me. I got the impression that some dealers are targetted on how many of these sort of upgrades they sell. As it was free I went along with it.

I am very careful with my cars paintwork, it is always handwashed by me. In winter it gets snowfoamed before washing etc. I don’t think the finish these systems give is any better or tougher than a decent wax. However it appeared to be applied very well, and 18 months on the paintwork is still in great condition with no swirl marks – but that is down to me not the system.

Overall the best thing about it was a large bag full of Autoglym cleaning stuff that is included in the system price (admittedly I haven’t used half of it). So for free I would go for it, but no way would I pay for it.