end cap?

Gary – The council did the same to a bridleway near me about 18 months ago. They widened it and covered the surface with a gravel made up of stones as big as a raspberry. The difference with this track to the one in your picture though is it points downhill and there are twists and turns along the length. It's a popular BW with local riders and because of the gradient and the turns the bridleway surface has cut up nicely to make it entertaining again.

The bridleway now has berms in the corners with braking bumps before you enter the corners, imagine the sort of surface you find at trail centres.

It seems to me that somebody must have permissive access to drive along the bridleway in your picture that has been 'improved'. A few trips across that in a Disco and it wont be so flat and feature-less.

Have you considered that it may have been a local farmer or resident who has done this and not the council?

You'd need a big front room to put that in

I measure my pole in inches. I may change to altitude gain though.

First watch thisYouTube vid of a Niner carbon fork being bashed with a hammer, then read about the same bashed up fork[/url] passing the CEN test.

If carbon is used properly it will be just as impact resistant as common alloys used in bike construction.

Has anybody mentioned top-tube length yet? In case they haven't I will.

I looked at getting a Rock Lobster a while back and didn't because they have a very short top-tube. One of the reasons that shorter stems have become more popular is that top-tube lengths have gotten longer.

I would have to have used a 110mm stem on a Rock Lobster to get the same reach as an Inbred/Soul with a 90mm stem.

About a year ago I was bidding for one on ebay. It sold for £280!

Ermm, I don't understand. That eBay ad looks pretty normal to me.

Do you think SaxonRider realises that the Saxons are a German tribe that invaded Britain?

The extract below is taken from 'Cessford, G.R. 2002. Perception and Reality of Conflict: Walkers and
Mountain Bikes on the Queen Charlotte Track in New Zealand.'

Environmental concerns often feature when people discuss problems associated with
biking in natural areas. In a sample of walkers, Horn (1994a) found that 75% considered that
environmental damage from biking was a problem. A similar focus for concern has been
found among park managers, including 35% of those surveyed in Chavez et al. (1993), and
42% in Chavez (1996a). However, it is important to note that these impacts have almost
always been related directly to the tracks on which bikes are ridden, rather than on the
environments though which the tracks pass. Like any outdoor recreationists, riders will have
impacts on the environment, including the soils, vegetation, water, and wildlife. But because
most walkers and riders stay on the tracks, wider environmental consequences are minimal
because the direct physical effects are generally confined to the track surface.
Only in particular cases may the passage of bikes or walkers result in significant impact on
important environmental features, as opposed to normal wear-and-tear on tracks. For
example, Goeft & Alder (2000) described a case where bikes were included along with
walkers, forestry vehicles and wildlife as potential vectors by which a particular plant disease
could be spread. Woehrstein (1998, 2001) noted that numerous European studies had found
little difference in effects of walkers and bikers on wildlife. And Papouchis et al (2001) found
that bikers had far less disturbance effects on Bighorn Sheep than walkers, mainly due to
walkers more often moving off tracks and surprising or approaching the animals. To date
there appears to be no evidence of bikes having any more significant impact on important
environmental features than other recreation uses (Cessford, 1995a; Woehrstein, 1998, 2001;
Weir, 2000).
Biking does have an effect on the condition of tracks. These effects are often highly
visually distinctive from those of walking due to the basic differences between tyre tracks and
CESSFORD: PERCEPTION AND REALITY OF CONFLICT: WALKERS AND MOUNTAIN BIKES
ON THE QUEEN CHARLOTTE TRACK IN NEW ZEALAND
footprints. Related to this visual perception, the main concern expressed is that bike tyres
create linear channels that may promote runoff and erosion, as opposed to the puddling caused
by footprints (Keller, 1990). Bjorkman (1996) and others have made extensive investigations
that clearly demonstrated impacts on tracks from bikes, although these were not compared
with those of walkers. What is not clear is the relative significance of bike and boot impacts
on tracks. For park managers, this distinction is particularly important when they are
considering the costs of track maintenance. The usual perception is that biking has
disproportionately higher impact on tracks than does walking. However, when the
comparative effects of different recreation activities have been investigated, the real
differences identified do not conform to these perceptions.
Comparative research on track impacts by Weaver & Dale (1978) found that motorbikes
had the greatest effects while going uphill, but that when going downhill, the effects of horses
and walkers were greater. Including bikes, Wilson and Seney (1994) identified a similar
pattern, and noted that lighter and low-powered bikes had much less track impact potential
than motorbikes. And European research has found that while bikes had greater uphill effects,
walkers had greater downhill effects (Woehrstein 1998, 2001). This draws attention to the
basic distinction between the mechanical effects of rolling wheels and stepping feet (Cessford
1995a; Weir, 2000), which both have impacts in different ways.
Despite the general perception otherwise, most available comparative reviews and studies
have concluded that while visibly very different, the physical impacts of bikes on tracks were
not any worse than those of walkers overall (Keller, 1990; Wilson & Seney, 1994; Chavez et
al. 1993; Ruff & Mellors; 1993, Cessford, 1995a; Woehrstein, 1998, 2001; Weir, 2000;
Thurston & Reader, 2001;). This appears to be the case whether considering important
biological features or the physical state of the tracks. On this basis, selective restrictions to
biking based on physical impact concerns may be inappropriate. Any physical impact
problems that arise are more likely to be the effects of greater use-levels overall, or from
tracks passing through physically sensitive environments, particularly related to bad drainage
characteristics. Here it seems that the problem relates more to how biking is generally
perceived rather than the actual effects it may have.

The testing was done by Fibrax in Wrexham. This is the same company that sold hydraulic brake hoses that would explode under braking pressure.

I'll give you £30 for the saddle.

This letter from your boss may prove quite lucrative to you.

If you are not allowed to use the car outside of work hours as you see fit then you shouldn't be paying tax on it. Lots of people who drive a van as part of their job are expected to keep the van at home (or somewhere safe) when they are not working, they don't pay additional tax though as the van is not intended to be used for personal journeys.

If your boss requires access to the vehicle at any time, at a set location, without prior notification then you shouldn't be paying for the privilege of having a 'company car' for personal use. Your boss is within his rights to ask you to log any mileage, whether it be work or personal though.

Do you not think though that by using a car from work (I'm presuming you work at a funeral directors) to go to a funeral that your boss might have thought that you were doing a 'foreigner' on the side?

If you've got Memory-Map I can email you some routes.

There's a good trail near me called 'Keegans Run' because the perm meister himself owned the house at the bottom.

Have you recently moved to Scotland or something? Scotland is famous for it's atrocious weather and disgusting meat dishes. MTFU.

Halfords sell their own brand 'electrical contact cleaner', it's a solvent based degreaser so it blasts away any grease then evaporates. It's £3.99 for a 400ml can so it's significantly cheaper than the disc-brake cleaners.

numbnuts – blooming heck you're a local. I used to live in Rhos, now reside in Caerwys (It's just off the 55 at the top of the Rhuallt hill). If a 3 1/2 yr old blasts past me on the Sustrans 5 at least I'll know who it is.

el_creedo – Member
ddmonkey – I'm just curious, I refuse to buy them because when I was first into MTBing (almost 20yrs ago, yikes!) both Maxxis and Kenda were bargain bin options for when you didn't have enough pocket money to buy a nice Panaracer Smoke/Dart combo!
I am, basically, an old fashioned subversive snob.

Amen Brother. Maxxis are for tight gets who won't stretch to purchase tyres from a real tyre brand. How can anybody say that Maxxis know how to make good tyres when two of their most popular tread patterns the High Roller and Ignitor are blatant copies of the Hot S/Comp16 and Vertical.

numbnuts – Your 3yr old girl did 15miles! She'll win the Tour De Femme before she's turned 10.

Pretentious precious prat with a penchant for pilfering.

They don't fetch much I'm afraid. Made after the Trek buy out, and weren't that expensive when brand new. If you look at the welds you'll see that they are not smoothed out like a 'classic' Klein.

wwaswas – Obviously in business there will be quantity discounts offered to customers. I work for a business that supplies coffee to every size of business, from Tesco's to your cafe at the bottom of the street. The difference in margin between our biggest customer, a supermarket, and our smallest customer is 11%.

A conservative estimate on the difference between what Merlin pays and what an LBS will pay is 26%.

Now if we don't rip off the little business just to keep the big business happy then why do they do it in the bike trade?

LBS's are the life blood of the bike trade. As far as I'm aware it's one of the few remaining retail sectors where the independent traders still have a significant percentage of the market. If manufacturers/distributors carry on taking the pi$$ with LBS's then they will cease to be. I don't know about you but I get a shiver down my back when I think of a future where the only place where you can throw a leg over a bike before you buy it is Halfords.

What I find interesting/annoying is the price comparisons with the SID's. To be fair it's been a few years now since I've seen a Fishers trade price list, but if I remember right an LBS can get RockShox forks for about 30% less than RRP, it may even be less than 30%. That obviously means that an LBS buys in that fork for about £450, Merlin Cycles were selling them at £369.95 and obviously making a profit, but even more annoyingly that means that for Merlin to make just 10% profit (I'd imagine they make more) they bought them for £333.

If a manufacturer/distributor can sell a product and still make a profit on it for £333 (remember they probably sold it to Merlin for less than that), why are they taking the pi$$ out of LBS's and us with trade prices of £450, and RRP's of £640?

Ohhh a shaved nad sack and cycling, that's going to itch.

Does he go to CYB? I've heard that's a Mecca for mtb'rs.

Oakley do a range of frames for 'normal' glasses.

If going to Mojo or TFT then make sure you weigh yourself correctly with what ever bike gear you would normally wear!! This includes filling your bladder or Bottle with Water as this can make a diff to the performance!!

I don't doubt that it does make a difference. But if it made that much of a difference then wouldn't you be able to feel the suspension getting worse after going for a pee?

cy – just out of interest, when you were trying to find a UK manufacturer how many frames were you asking them to build compared to how many frames you sell per year now?

Your thought process would work if you wanted to CNC this frame out of billet aluminium.

Sorry Brant I forgot that all that Hope do is have an un-skilled ludite throw a lump of aluminium into a cheap-as-chips CNC machine and out pops a complete disc brake, headset, wheelset. Each component fully built complete with all carbon, rubber and steel parts fitted ready to go. It must look like Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory at Hope.

There's only one problem stopping a UK built frame being a viable option and that's start-up capital.

To say that a UK company can't compete with the far-east in manufacturing is nonsense. HOPE seem to shift a fair bit of kit, often competing against massive companies such as Shimano and SRAM.

18.5mph for an hour offroad. You weren't joking about the warp factor

I've got a Lumilite version of the DX P7 and as far as I'm aware the switch lights up but it is not a power meter, it just glows red when there is power connected to the lamp.

you really ARE in hock to the manufacturers and have voided your journalistic integrity

God I hope that's not the case. It'll be sponsored 'control' tyres next.

I don't know if this has been mentioned already but under the pictures of the XTR groupset on Weight Weenies there's a chart with new Shimano product codes. If the chart isn't a wind up then XTR, XT and SLX are going 10 speed next year.

Hmmm, that old chestnut of whether to copper slip or not a square taper.

20 years ago bike shops would always have recommended that you don't lubricate bb spindles, then Shimano developed the cartridge bb. In the olden days if a bike was ridden regularly then every 3-6months you would have to take the cranks off to re-grease or tighten your bb. As the cranks were never on the bb for more than 6 months corrosion of the crank/bb interface was never that much of an issue.

Then when Shimano brought out their cartridge bb's, cranks seizing on axles became more of an issue. Shimano bb's can last for years and years. So if you have a crank which was installed dry and has not been moved for over two years then it dosent take a genius to work out that corrosion between the crank and the axle is more likely to happen.

So I think the correct is answer is that there is no correct answer. In an ideal world an interference fit will work better with two clean contact surfaces. But most bike shops will smear a very thin layer of copper-slip onto a bb before fitting the cranks, then they will apply thread-lock to the bolts. Therefore if the cranks aren't removed for ages there's less chance they would have seized on the axle.

I'm not aware of any manufacturer, including Trek, that offers a warranty on their frames that covers cable rub. If a manufacturer does offer a warranty that covers cable rub I'd be pleased to know about it.

Anyhow, the only way an outer cable could do that much damage in 3 months is if there was dirt between the cable and the frame to act as a sort of grinding paste. I'm not saying the OP is to blame for anything other than a bit of naivety, but dirt wears stuff out.

Imagine if the OP had said that he had ridden the bike for 3months and he hadn't used any lube on the chain and it's now rusted and snapped, would you also be saying that Trek should replace the drivetrain under warranty?

Early Inbreds had identical geometry to Airborne Lucky Strikes.

Hmmm, Lucky Strikes also had a 4 piece wish-bone back end. I wonder where Brant got the inspiration for the Inbred from? :wink:

You pushed through 8ft high snow! Did you wear a snorkel?

I thought we had it bad still in the Clwyds with bollock high drifts.

Bulls on Parade – Rage Against The Machine.

Red, white and green – Are you Welsh?