RE Trefor – I walked that track once and thought it would be good on a bike but then having checked a map there is not much else to link up to it. Nant Gwertheryn DH doesn’t count.
You know that Trefor quarry has just the right kind of granite for making curling stones!

Parking your bike upside down also slows down/confuses a scrote.

The new seat QR’s are flimsey and don’t torque up tight enough. I went back to the old ones (that hurt your hands) and they are fine.

I love the brakes – Mono Mini’s, Mono M4’s and Ti-6’s. Only time I boiled some was the Mono Mini’s one time down Snowdon so I’ll let them off, Mono M4’s are fine on the same descent. Once the lever get old you need a bit of loctite on the reach adjusters but I can live with that.

I know the quirks of it all and am happy with it. I think the issue may be with newer designs. Apart from the newer wheel QR’s the rest of my Hope stuff is getting on for 10+ years old and plenty of it is available on ebay to cannibalise to keep them all going.

Perhaps reinvention of the wheel is eventually going to end up with a square which won’t go round very well.

acer2012 – loving those Hope Team Green cable ties.

I have a some old Hope XC hubs and some Hope Bulb hubs and all have been running for years with no new freehubs and no new bearings. I do hear more woes for Pro II’s but dont see any rush to replace mine.

I rigged my shed with booby traps. “There is nothing wrong with storing pEtrol and fireworks in a shed” is what the fire investigation people said so the police dropped the manslaughter charges. The titanium components survived the fire but the scrote did not.

Head out on the North Wales coast mainline Bangor/Holyhead bound but get off at Llanfairfechan Station – for an ascent of Drum. A quick scoot along the cycle track to Abergwyngregan and then cycle uphill for 2 hours. Get to the top of Drum, look at the view, sit in the cairn and then turn around. However at the cross roads halfway down by the pylons carry straight ahead rather than retrace your steps by going left, it’s signposted on a wooden 4 way marker post. It’s a better descent and takes you straight down to Llanfairfechan. Dependant on weather and fitness – 2hrs up 30mins down.

That result and how it is arrived at is pretty much like The X Factor for trail centres. I’d take it with a pinch of salt.

Gisburn is good but you can’t stretch it to a long weekend can you? That is where Afan, Glentress or CyB would have it for me.

Unless you have massive hands then that was a puny vice.

Presuming an internal bb? The last one I did (which my LBS gave up on) I did without a vice. I heated up the bb with a gas canister type blow torch focussing the flame at the spindle from both sides. The only reason for aiming at the spindle was to minimise paint damage.

Then after a few mins of heating/c ooling/heating/cooling I fixed the bb tool in place with a big washer and a bolt and put the frame on the floor up against a wall. Then with my 6ft aluminium lever pole slipped over the adjustable spanner I got it moving. Some eeiry sounds echoed around the garden but it came loose, I was also in a contortion keeping one foot on the frame and one arm on the pole! Lots of white powder evidence of corrosion came out too.

Lots of Berks in Mercs this morning including GAZ 2000.

That Kirk Revolution frame was made of magnesium from my recollection. Magnesium frames – what a Revolution that wasn’t!

The 4 Seasons MTB

Martin,

I saw your post title and had to click on it for personal interest because I came across a similarly poorly illuminated cyclist this morning. Once I read your post it hit me that my experience could have been with the same guy. I came across him at the last minute on the as he went around a roundabout heading south on the A470 coming out of Llandudno – the A470 joins the A55 at the Black Cat Roundabout. My encounter was at 07:15 this (Monday) morning. I know the A55 is long so it could simply be coincidence and maybe there are loads of them that started this summer and have not really got with the plan yet for the winter. My thoughts are with you and I hope this/these fellow cyclist/s gets with the plan sooner rather than later this winter.

Jimm

Solution for me 12 years ago was to move to Snowdonia, your choice Maxxis tyre works here fine all year. Prior to the move from biking in Kent/Sussex (Weald and London clays)through the winter I was getting by with 1.8″ Panaracer Spikes. Not so sure that tyre exists anymore or what is similar but I’d say thin with a tapered spike. So it slices through the clay(thin) but grips (spike) when it bites but clears (tapered spike). When the inevitabe happens and some organic matter with substance meshes in and it gets clarted up then the tyre will make it through your frame/fork (thin again). If the spike is too spikey you trim it down with carpenters pincers or wire cutters like the DH boys do ot wear it out on a tarmac training commute. All IMHO of course and based on 12yo experience.

Stretch your hamstrings – same is happening to me after a riding gap of a few months. I expect that mine and your back will sort themselves out in time though.

Have a look at the wikipedia entry on swastika.

It is an ancient symbol with plenty going for it until the nazi party adopted it in 1920.

Pretty certain that the cancer is the only thing that Lance didn’t make up.

Support Cancer Research in the UK.

For better headroom I’d get a pent roof rather than pitched. The other things to look for are solid wood floor and roof, ply or a particleboard are money savings that manufacturers go for to hit certain pricepoints.

Any independant local shed/fencing supplier can build you a better shed than one from B&Q etal. and most gaurantee against rot for 10 years too.

For maximum plushness, insulate and line with ply and paint a light colour. Remember additional flooring and ceiling will eat into your headroom so check the dimensions.

You’ll love it.

That would be a Snorkel Parka that you are after, been around for decades. The orange lining is so cozy looking. £30-£50. Next question.

I got some great box section aluminium vinyl dipped hooks from my local builders merchants*. That was after faffing with different inferior and overpriced weedy bent wire hooks from the cycle retailers for a while. No pics, sorry.

*Richard Williams in Llandudno Junction – not that you will be anywhere near there I am sure!

My different opinion: On Thomson Elite stems that I have the threads on the gold bolts and the black bolts did stretch if I cranked them up too tight. Eventually they snapped, not whilst riding along but whilst tightening. This stretch is visible and isn’t elastic so you will see it when you remove the bolts if it has happened, they go into an hourglass shape. I invested in new bolts and a torque key from Ritchey. IMO Thomson spec’d a hard cheese for bolt material, they rounded out easily too so I am happier having replaced them with silver bolts from a fastenings counter.

I have 5yo, 6yo and 7yo float 32’s on my bikes. No noise yet. Is this a newer fork issue?

For those with the noise and out of warrenty can they get the steerer pressed out and pressed back in with said loctite at any sort of engineering workshop? Or would you say that wasn’t worth the loss of their looks should they fail.

RE: Removing pins
If it works for you then fine but since pressure over area equals grip. I would expect that less pins equals more grip. I used to file every other tooth off caged pedals for exactly that reason.

Most of what I use is 2nd-hand and I do stockpile spares. I use XO shifters and X9 mechs. I have had X9 shifters but X0 feel better, could never stretch to XO mechs because I do wreck mechs from time to time but rarely **** a shifter. Those new trigger levers are silly money.

Those Rollerboys are cheaper than SRAM but if your jockey wheel is ok you can get a bearing from ebay for £1.38.

Sorry this is duller…..

I had the same happen to me (miles from anywhere, without a 2.5mm allen key to undo the bolts*). Anyway once I walked/rolled back home and looked at the cost of replacements I decided that the plastic jockey wheel was fine so I replaced the bearing with a cheap 6801 2RS bearing from ebay. Push it out carefully with sockets in a vice.

*Whilst you are at it upgrade the bolts to well greased stainless steel since the stock ones are made of a cheese-soft metal and round out very easily.

£20-30 labour for the build is true but £1 per spoke too so it’s more like £60 for the build if you turn up with your own hub and rim.

Oh plus another £1 for a rim tape!

I my line of work I stick by the adage “The customer is always right” (until I prove them wrong).

But I dont work in the cycle industry.

The nearest bike shop to my house boils my pi55 whenever I am forced to go in there. As such I try to use others closer to where my work takes me.

The top 10mins down is mainly a carry/walk but the rest is ridable. More gnarr than the Rangers. Not better but just different. Just use the Llanberis path for the ascent.

The reading books we had at primary school were called Gay Way Readers. I sat on anyones knee to read them my way though.

You know those plastic molded electrical plugs – the ones that come on most new electrical gadgets now, whereby you cannot get to the internal wiring etc? Well they have a pop out fuse holder to enable you to change the fuse. I superglued on to my frame to hold my braided brake hose 3 years ago presuming it would be temporary until I got hold of something better. Well it’s still there and cost me nothing because I had the cable just lyeing around.

I remember when skinny 700c Mavic MA40’s were rerolled and rewelded for 26″ MTB’s so we could run a rounder tye profile and lighter wheels (and break our thumbs fitting tyres). Someone will always be able to do that for us with a longer circumference rim if we choose to stick in the past.

I got fed up with tech and standards running away from me and my paperboy wage when I first started this MTB thing. For that reason I have always been a late adopter and watched things from the sidelines usually only going for a ‘new’ standard in it’s 3rd years incarnation or more. From recollection in 1994 I decided my new bike had to have an aheadset and SPD’s. Then in 1996 I got a suspension fork; 1997 V brakes and 8 speed; 2003 I went full-suss and 9 speed; 2005 disc brakes; 2009 HTII.

I am now too set in my ways to worry and have left the race. Sticking with my 9 speed, 25.4 dia, 660mm wide, Beetamax, 26″, 32mm, 6-bolt, IS mount and non-dropper standards for the forseeable future. It is/was all good top end kit and I’ll still enjoy myself. Maybe if I begin to fall off the back then I’ll have to join in a new standard or two but I may just blame it on my age and get try to get fitter.

Tomorrows World did get a few things wrong you know!

Apologies (schizoid embolism)

Sorry…

I have that frame at around that spec and it is a great bike. Mine is the US only red version of the Elite so like yours looks a bit different but it is well used so I dont mind further wear and tear. IMO it’s a keeper.

Last year I upped the travel (and plushness) with a 140mm Fox Float up front and a longer (200mm x 50mm) RP23 giving 135mm at the rear and I will be riding it for a few more years I’d have thought.

I do have a scruffier s-works Hardtail though so am not really in the same position as you. If it must go break it for maximum wedge. You could put half the bits into a neo-retro build on an old frame.

My 1994 Stumpjumper M2 was 27.2 so I’d treat that M2 story as a story. It also had a 1″ headtube (I dont think Spesh comitted to 1 1/8 until 1995).

Yes. Your technique would revive your shifting with no cost other than that of the two lubes so if you already have them it makes perfect sense. Do it.

Ha ha ‘Aerodeck’, Honda speak for estate. Mine always started first turn of the key even if I had not used it for a few weeks. Sh1t brakes despite mahusive discs front and rear. Air con as well as a sun-roof was novel, although the later had an intermitent fault on it so I stopped using it for fear of it getting stuck open. You’ll get loads of Tesco clubcards points from fuel purchases because they are thirsty, unless you drive like most aged Honda owners! Oh yes mine had the taste for oil too. Its a 12yo motor, so long as you don’t pay over the odds most of it is to be expected

Stick a heater in the shed and she’ll be happy. I bet it’s a bigger shed than the airing cupboard so an upgrade really.

Good quality polish is what I do every few months. that stuff in blue bottles.

T-cut is to harsh to use more than a few times.

I’m sweaty too and use vented m frames but still fog up from time to time. In the mid 90’s I tried Dr Zogs anti-fog (or something like that) but to no avail so I’m not to believe those sort of things but perhaps they have moved on.

My solution however is regulary cleaning (degreasing) with neat Fairy liquid at the sink and then a rinse off and buff with a clean cleaning cloth. Alas once you get them mucky again they do begin to mist up again.