Ontor got it one really.

I did loads of hiking when I was a teenager doing ten tors (0840 & 0819 finishes on a 45m route got me on local telly each year), perambulation & South moors walks, scouts, etc. Knew the place off by heart and could navigate myself around N&S dartmoor without a map and compass…until the mist came down and you could easily walk past a tor and not know it even on a bearing.

As for boots. There are few smooth tracks and as soon as you get into the bastard grass it can be a lottery if you are about to put your foot into a soft hole which can do your ankle in, even in boots. Even then, you can pop your knee back if you aren’t careful.

Water? Take puritabs. There’s plenty of it up there and I never knew anyone get ill. My friend never bothered with tabs and he was alreet. Just make sure to fill up from a fast spot. I used to carry a 3L platypus and rarely needed to fill it up on a 45miler.

If you do walk in through the bastard grass in the wet or the bogs embrace the wet feet and wear shorts or get yetis. I found gaiters delay the inevitable.

Have fun!

I’ve always had loudly clicking knees and saw the Dr donkeys back when I was a lad. He told me just doing cycling was my undoing and I had to exercise my legs in other ways so I took up rollerblading, for a while. They still click, they still ache.

I did go through a period of clicky hips which were more painful. It was a more of a “snap” that I could feel throughout. No idea what it was but I no longer get it.

I do not recommend a works component N/W. I bought one 2 months ago and have used it for ~5days dry riding. It holds the chain reasonably enough, even without a clutch mech, but it has noticeable dings & wear marks on the wide teeth. Also, the narrow teeth are noticeably rolled-over. This was with a new chain.

There’s no mention of hard-anodizing on the product page so this might be why. The ring is noticeably heavier than my Renthal SR4 which i’ve had for over a year and has been through the grittiest of conditions. The Renthal looks in better condition too.

Cost me £15 from a well known place down on the dock to chase & face. After copious amounts of brake cleaner and brushing I found out they had chased the threads nicely and not packed my shell full of swarf.

Never bought a bike. I’ve built my bike with parts that were on offer, looked like that they’ll last, are rated well or are hand-me-downs. Consequently my 1×8 bike weighs 35lbs, has a mixture of DJ/DH/xc/road parts. Not too much of an issue as I prefer descending although rear-suspension, a dropper and some knobblies would be nice at times.

I’m currently building an 02 Patriot on the cheap too. It’s a bit of a museum with the mishmash of parts.

Stay loose in the corners; the SW limestone has continued to polish up nicely & is interesting when moisture is added.

Is that the run down along the road all the way to the gate? I was up there a couple weeks back after a few months hiatus. I thought I’d forgotten how to ride. Even in the dry I was crapping my pants and had a few front-end tuck and both tyre washout moments. I used to be able to flow through those corners leant over. Not really sure what to do about it now.

90s Ball-burnished GT Zaskar. Pimp.

Saw the premiere at Bristol. It felt a bit drawn out/mis-directed at times but the nostalgia and some of the unbelievable footage of Nico i’d never seen before made up for it. Warner was funny, as always.

Damn it. Now I feel even nastier for my comments

Maybe I just haven’t looked hard enough. All the ones I’ve looked to show routes to show my brother are some guys mincing about with a shakey headcam mount.

Great vid, probably best video of BP i’ve seen yet. Also, nice cut at 2:42. Those roots further on look like a right mare in the wet. What route is that for the first 1min 55? I don’t recognise any of it.

I know its Wales but, has anyone been to BPW and had dry, dusty and sunny day?

One BH weekend it was fast, dusty and awesome…until I ended in an ambulance (the change on Bush Whacker is because of me). The last BH weekend was sopping but on the sunny Monday it was still surprisingly dryish on most of the trails. The place seems to drain really well except for Dai hard maybe.

The only negatives I have is that it doesn’t have much techy stuff (excluding the jumps), it’s quite flat and therefore quite pedally so stringing something from top to bottom in one fast run is exhausting.

If you want to practice your gnadgery tech skills i’d go to FOD or Triscombe. If you want to practice something with a bit more length, steepness, pace & rockyness go BPW.

Personally, the value of the Flyup at FOD is borderline. I only manage to get a few more in over just pushing. No one else like jumping into the drop sections at Ski run? I will agree with others, Sheepskull is a nice one to session on. GBU is ok, just that the mid section is a bit meh, better to dive off onto corkscrew.

As for BPW the level of grip negates the perceived technical difficulties. For me, the main issue are the jumps, mainly not having the bottle&/or skill to do the big gaps on the 2 blacks. I doubt i’ll ever do them. Insufficient funds seems to be a good one to get your jumping skills up but you have to be careful as casing badly could pogo you off into a berm. From what I hear from others, the main issue you might have at BPW is arm pump.

[disclaimer] I’ve only ever been to FOD in the pissing wet and still enjoyed it.

Oh yeah, I forgot about Meadowlands

And similarly we’ve all forgotten Sparkwell. Admittedly it’s not that near Tavistock but it does take you through some nice spots if you avoid Plymouth i.e Cadover Bridge

It’s still here.

Good to know, not been there since a lad.

If you head out of Yelverton towards Princetown it’s a nice drive on a sunny day. Ponies and ice-creams along the way which your 10&12 (girl or boys?) might be interested in.

In Princetown there’s the Prison Museum, Dartmoor Visitor Center (i’ve been to neither) and you can go for a walk heading SE along a very obvious path to at least South Hessary Tor for some more nice views. You can ride along the track to see more but the drainage channels & rocks might be challenging for a beginner or a small wheeled bike. There’s plenty of pub food and cafe’s in Princetown for afterwards.

There’s a steam fair in Tavy on the 1st July IIRC it can get v’busy when that’s on. Also there’s a pretty cool (for a kid) swimming pool in Tavistock, at least if it’s still there.

My Drop off 2 has had a 203mm rotor on it since 2007. It’s never been serviced and has only had its oil changed this winter. Bushings aren’t knocking; the seals are stictiony.[/anecdote]

Turns out the car park attendant had cropped the (£40) lock off and taken it to lost property with a £10 release fee on it.

I’d keep my money and let him hold on to the lock.

I’ve been up Snowdon in the winter without crampons. Those slopes sure are slippery.

:popcorn:

I experienced the same about a month ago with some 29er forks. Only after I chased they did something and was told they would be sent out next day, and got 2 different emails saying that.

Did you create a thread too? Reading the op’s post I got deja-vu and assumed this thread was necrobumped, then I saw the date.

Yes.

Compared to an excel spreadsheet of what I’ve actually used

Oh

My

Lord

Do you actually have a life? [/quote]

[Quietly hides his spreadsheet and fuelly browser tab]

How sad are graphs then? 😀

My Civic get’s it wrong from -3% to 19%. It gets more accurate over longer (~150mile) runs hence the -ve values.

Cut my Hussefelts down to 670, now I can pass right through the gate at Ashton court coming over from Leigh woods without stopping. It’s noticeably sketchy compared to the 7?0s on my other bike but not too much of an issue when i’ve used them at FoD or Rowberrow where wider bars would have been nice.

Good iff possition is set up right.

Seat position? If i put my seat up ~1″ too high my knees start hurting within 30mins.

Changing tyres for where you ride is taking riding pushbikes too seriously.

People question me for riding Kenda Small block 8s through sloppy winters but even I’m not daft enough to use them for descending at Triscombe or FOD.

I don’t ride Small blocks in winter because i’m tubeless but because i’m a cheapskate, also because i’ve had 2 punctures in the last 5yrs, (both were caused by glass on pavements) i don’t feel the need to switch.

Also start blipping the throttle on upshifts

Unless you take forever to shift gears there shouldn’t be a need for it.

As for heel-toeing, it’s much easier when you are on it than when you are pootling around town and there it is, imo, pointless. I also double clutch when I need to drop a couple gears as my car has just about enough low-end torque to pull the skin off a rice-pudding.

Though i’d reckon you’d have to have no guide seals to foul a plug

I meant to say “load up a plug” which is different and sounds like what you’ve got. More of 2t thing.

catsplums got most of it. An easy way to check to see if it’s valve guide seals is to get someone to follow you and and see if you get smoke when engine-braking. Though i’d reckon you’d have to have no guide seals to foul a plug.

When doing a compression test do a wet & dry test. If the compression is low when the cylinder is dry squirt a few drops of oil in the cylinder to wet the rings. If the compression comes up you’ve got worn rings (lots of oil through the breather is a symptom of this due to excessive blowby). If the compression is still low you’re looking at knackered valve seats.

If you’re mildy mechanical and aren’t to worried about minor mishaps you should think about fixing it yourself. The 1-cyl, jap, sohc thumpers are relatively easy to do top-end work on although access may be a bit difficult on a quad. You will need a 1/4″ torque wrench (5-30ish Nm).

What’s soak? Leaking of heat from the steel through to the alloy axle?

I meant to say heatsoak but that wouldn’t be quite right either (conduction). Unless you could only heat the race in isolation you’d be wasting your time.

I soaked it in plusgas last night, and it’s now in the freezer (the axle, not the plusgas ). Any metalurgists know whether both metals will contract by different amounts? I’m hoping the aluminium will contract slightly more than the steel.

I’m thinking alu should be _slightly_ smaller than steel
http://aluminium.matter.org.uk/content/html/eng/default.asp?catid=217&pageid=2144417175

How big is your biggest hammer? 😀

Assuming that is an alu axle, the problem with applying heat is that the metals are in the wrong orientation. You’d have to heat the bearing quickly to prevent soak. Do you have any freezer spray?

Personally, i’d rest the bearing face on a vice and give the axle a tap to see how stubborn the bearing really is and proceed from there.

A top guide may not be necessary if you are only looking for 95% reliability. With a Zee & N/W on my Patriot the chain has only dropped twice both whilst going through/out-of bumpy compressions (only 3 days on it though). On a hardtail I would guess you’d still drop chains but it would be a rare occurence as you can run the chain tighter and there is no growth.

Overall, I’m impressed but not overawed by N/W & clutch-mech combo. It’s a marked improvement over stock ring & mech but not a chain-device killer.

I found out migraine symptoms can vary quite a bit. I had them coming on/off for over a year and never thought it could a migraine as it wasn’t as bad as other people described (no vomiting or retreating to a darkened bedroom). 1st Dr thought it was Neuralgia but meds did bugger all. I just had a jabbing pain (like someone has poked a finger into your brain) that would come out of the blue that would knock me for 6 for a bit – vision goes a bit funny and you just hold on and bury your head until the pain passes. Then, at some random time later, bam! Starts all over again.

After seeing a Neurologist (thank you NHS for the 1 year wait) turns out I did have migraines and the meds eventually worked. I say eventually because the side-effects I experienced at first made me question if I’d rather deal with the migraines. I still feel wrong calling them migraines as they’re nothing like what you poor guys describe but i’m not sure what else to call them.

Afan isn’t that bad at all though, Whites Level/Wall is doable in the big ring quite easily (apart from one 20m stretch that is a pig in the big ring but still doable).

I put that in as that’s probably the longest hills I do. Quantocks are probably the hardest for me despite being considerably shorter though Dartmoor on a bad day can be worse on the flats.

So what it boils down too is the fact that you’re all clearly mental, and have recently developed a new found masochism?

I’ve been running 1×8 for ~8years. Before that, 2×7 and I only used the granny ring for doing flatland/trialsy stuff.

Genuine question here: where do you lot who run single rings tend to ride? What are the gradients like?

No idea what the gradients are but my typical locations are Quantocks, Mendips, Bristol, Dartmoor, Plym/Cornwall. That’s with a 34t x 11-32t. Also went to Afan for a weekend not too long ago and didn’t feel undergeared.

The only issues I find with steep gearing & steep gradient combo is keeping traction which means I have a minimum speed to maintain otherwise i’ll wash-out on a pedal-mash. That, and blowing up somewhere near the top of Weacombe hill.

jonnouk – you’ve been using a headset that can be picked up for 25 quid? For 7 years? And its still going? And you’ve replaced one set of bearings in that time? In a country where stuff spends 90% of the year caked in filth with the consistency of grinding paste?

So we’re looking at a cost to you of £3.50 a year. And you regard this quality and life-span as unacceptable?

Just out of interest – how long do you expect a drive chain to last?

Suggsey asked for a well-sealed headset. The orbit xl2 isn’t. De-gritting the lower shell and re-packing with grease is part of my regular maintenance. Every now and then I pop the seals on the bearings and repack too. Why MTB headset mftrs don’t copy dirtbike headsets beats me.

As for the chain? I usually ultra-sonic it after every ride if it’s been in a wet & gritty ride. Current PC991 has lasted me a year so far. Previous Wipperman lasted 4.

When it comes to MTB’s I use parts until they are properly stuffed.

Someone correct me if i’m wrong, but headset makers dont make the bearing cartridge, just the cups and the crown race etc. You can buy the replacement cartriges for peanuts on ebay and they are the bit that goes wrong when muck comes in.

FSA use TH industries.

FSA Orbit XL2Basically bomb-proof. Sealed bearings that are as good as stuff well over twice or 3 times the price. They’re cheap as chips at On One at the moment. Just put one on my new build. It’s the default setting for any new build. Stand up to filthy north west winters without complaint

Meh. I’ve had one on my bike for ~7years. There is no sealing on the cups to speak of. The bottom has a token rubber square-ring which is useless. I regularly have to degrit the lower.

Last Thursday I found my top race was seized solid but because I had packed the shell with moly-grease I never noticed until I inspected. The entire cartridge bearing had been acting as a bushing.

Saying that, i’ve only replaced the lower bearing. The top I had to hammer apart, get as much rust off with a wire brush and put it back together again.

Warren House inn on a good day.

I’d happily save 50 quid and have 1 chain drop an hour.

I experimented with my Works Component N/W with my non-clutch hardtail on Friday. 1-drop an hour was the rate I got. PITA as the granny-ring & ISCG mounts are perfect chain jammers.