Yep it’s the CS version he’s ordered but in standard can rather than XV, sounds like that was actually the correct thing to do. Bike is only just getting built up just now so won’t be finished til next week when hope enduro wheels arrive, can start setting up the shock then.

Then my torture will really begin……

OH just ordered these jn 650b for his new bronson c build. They look great, may order some myself once I’ve seen them in action. Website says ” Wheels machine built and hand finished in Barnoldswick ”

Hobnob yep should have said I have some men’s TLD skylines and they’re a perfect fit lengthwise. I prefer a slightly baggies fit but could always size up as they have adjustable waist Velcro.

The otherjonv – totally agree, always telling my OH that it’s my engine, that’s why he has to try to catch it going up the hills whereas I’ve no chance of catching him going down them (plus he accused me of cheating when I was faster down spooky woods in the snow).

Ks562 – thanks will have a look at the Madison’s. I’ve tried the royals (another pair just sent back today) but still slightly too short. I wear poc vpd pads which sit just above the knee, so really need shorts to sit just mid way across knee. My dakine are absolutely perfect in this regard, but it’s like the holy grail trying to find decent shorts that actually fit. I see loads of women out on the trails and many of them are of above average height so why is it so difficult to find shorts that fit properly….

Bravessirrobin – at the risk of sounding daft what exactly does a push tune involve? I’ll prob stick with the kash ctd on my bronson, so far it’s been ok but only had it two months and it’s night and day from the old bike.

Thanks all for the replies.

Mega – there is something sooo wrong with you LOL

Tracey – you are brilliant! Just ordered some from start cycles, brilliant prices and they’re not black! Will give these a go and hopefully problem sorted.

Yep seen that. He will no doubt love the faff…it fits perfectly with his OCD. I, however, will just have to suffer it until he gets it right. The bugger is he’ll probably be able to catch me uphill now!

One of our bikes is a 2014 650b orange five pro. Had the 150mm kashima on from the start, recently swapped them out for pikes 150mm. Performs brilliantly on both options.

Thanks golfchick. I have the kashima ctd on mine too but OH got fed up of how good the bronson is and is currently building himself a yellow bronson c. He’s bought himself a ccdba but not with the XV can so just need to decide whether he should buy that too. Sounds like he should start out with the standard can and work from there. Currently just waiting on the wheels arriving and it will be good to go!

Julzm

Would highly recommend the POCs both elbow pads and kneepads. Very comfortable and I forget they’re on even if the heat that was today and 19miles of black and red. If using when cold, stick the on the radiator for 20mins before wearing

Buy a tubeless conversion kit. Stans do one which has the rim tape, rubber strips with valves and sealant. 30 minute job. Did my OH mavic 319s last week (650b). Been perfect. Remember if you need to use co2 to pop the beads, remove it next day and replace with pump air to prevent sealant going off and/or co2 leaking out and tyre going soft.

If you’re not too fussed on colour, they are just simple grub screws. OH recently changed the pins on his hope pedals. Son, who is an engineer, brought us home a massive bag of them and said they are way overpriced on ebay.

661 do youth ones which are actually very small and fairly reasonably priced. We bought some for our 10yr old and had to send them back for a bigger size.

It was narrowed down while they were working around if for a bit but last time I was down it (about two weeks ago) it was opened back up again. They’ve altered the exit line and it’s actually harder than it ws previously.

Some of bike hire shops sell off their hire stock after around 35 rides. The likes of alpine bikes at glentress offers genesis core HT at pretty decent prices. Not been on one myself but had to hire them for family members at times and they’re ok for the money. Tend to have quite a bit of cosmetic damage though.

I’d definitely recommend a slackish head angle. I’ve been MTBing for a year now and started out on my old Scott Navajo HT, Followed by a full susser (giant trwnce x1 at 69deg head angle). I was scared of anything steep on it. Got a bronson 2 months ago and doing stuff on it I’d never have attempted before. Did innerleithen at weekend and few months ago I’d have been walking lots of it, Sunday I rode it all, drops offs and all.

Wee bit of coaching also helps.

White101. Not sure if you know the area, whilst it will be very easy to ride to the braes from EK the ride back won’t be quite so enjoyable, it’s uphill all the way. There are about 3 different routes depending on where your hotel is. 2 of them (head towards carmunnock are country road most of the way). The other one is dual carriageway over the top of a hill.

The braes itself is ok for a few laps. Approx 3.5 miles round a lap which you can do in about 25 mins. Enjoy.

I’ve got a medium bronson and also demoed a medium heckler. I’m 5’8″ with 32″ inside leg (female syndrome as the man calls it). Both fit perfectly. He rides a small five pro 650b and that also fits me perfect due to the smaller reach so reckon you’d need a medium in the orange. All three bikes are awesome.

Thanks for your replies folks.
Had a really good look at the cassette and it needs replacing. Just realised it’s done 600 miles since Nov. LBS for new chain and cassette this week.

Another +1 for duo lingo. I’m using it to learn italian just now.

I find that if you immediately ask parisiens to “parlez-vous francais” they will rebuff you. However I was taught a phrase many years ago ‘je parlez un peau (?) francais’ which I believe is I only speak a little French. I use this after the greeting bonjour etc and most are then ok and try to help you with the lingo.

Check this out
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vISqNUCzF-Y
It’s Sam and Ruth from the Breakpad at kirroughtree doing it a while ago. That will give you an idea. I think Sam did it on her Solo….

Couple of recommends :
Callander and the Trossachs : auchenlaich farmhouse service second to none, on an NCR, folks that run it do dinners etc and kids can be fed earlier if required, they got DVDs washing facilities etc and are bike friendly.

Also, for something different there is an old railway sleeper carriage just north of Dornoch which you can stay in. For around £10 per night each, each old carriage (think of the old films where there is a sliding door into a small compartment with 3 seats either side of the window) has the three seats one side and bunks on the other. They have cooking facilities, BBQ, lovely gardens etc.

Aviemore in summer would be a must but will be very busy. Anywhere around crianlarich etc for west highland way. Would definitely recommend Oban, seil island,etc for lots to do.

Got one fitted to our orange five pro last week, running xt cassette. So far liking it v much

Gorgeous bike….enjoy! I demoed one before I got my bronson earlier this year and loved it. It would have been my choice but I wanted slightly more travel.

Thanks everyone. I’ve done a wee dance and so far all seems fine. Gonna leave it overnight and check in the morning but so far all seems well….no bubbles at hole site anyway. Will get some more sealant in the morning just in case, plus probably some tyre patches.

P.s. Phoned evans Glasgow City to see if they had any tubeless repair kits in store…..didn’t have a clue what I was talking about and offered me park tube patches instead! Usual level of non-expertise from that particular store. Glasgow braehead is a different matter, very helpful indeed.

Just bought 650b pikes fro the Irish….. £620. Did get a price from LBS beforehand and asked them to order but they couldn’t get them for sometime so had to go CRC. Price from LBS was £680 fitted.
I’d say £400 would be fair price second hand considering steerer tube has been cut.

Sealskins?

Maplin

Brilliant well done! Best of luck with the Tour….go show them what the British ladies can do !

10 mins from junction 2a Cambuslang (outskirts of Glasgow) cathkin braes commonwealth games trail. It’s only. 3.5 miles per lap but you could do a few laps. Average lap time is 25 – 30 mins but plenty feature in it.

@blur boy…. Very female reason for not going carbon, although makes sense to me. Occasionally I do very stupid things and I was afraid I would break it. I was told that the carbon is extremely strong with blunt force but a sharp force in one spot could break the frame. Case in point….first ride out, I went OTB on a flat trail through the forest that I’ve done loads of times before….because I picked a really stupid line.

Must admit the colours on the carbon are much nicer.

I was very up for a Heckler before I’d tried the Solo and it was the VPP that totally changed my thinking.

Have you used the grease gun the ‘nipples’ underneath? Apparently they should be greased every month …..

@blurboy… My experience of a Talas was not good on my trance although ’twas a 32.

The solo really surprised me tbh. It does not feel like a 130mm travel bike. It was a small I demoed and I would usually run a medium. I was really I impressed by it. Very similar to the bronson indeed. Only reason I went for the bronson was because I intend to take it to lake garda in the summer and think the longer travel would suit better. All our bikes have Fox front and back but our experience with the Fox on the 650b Five has been so hit and miss that I was tempted by the hype around the pikes. I’ve not been dissappointed. I particularly like the progressive compression as hadn’t experienced this before.

Both the solo and the bronson climbed amazingly well. Hardly any bob at all. The solo hadn’t even been set up for me, but I could not fault it.

I dint think you can run 2×10 XT on an orange five. If it’s a 38t big ring, the front derailleur could foul the pivot weld when changing from big ring to small ring and vice versa. We had the same thinking with our 650b five pro. We’ve ended up converting it to 1×10 with a race face narrow wide 34t. Orange do give specific advice on their website about 2×10. Some owners say that a 36t is just about ok and others say it fouls. I’d think a 38t will definitely foul.

I’d ditto what captain mainwaring said…. I’ve only had my Ali bronson 2 weeks (XT build with pikes and kashima shock upgrade) but I absolutely love it. Previously I’d a giant trance x1 which I was getting on ok with but there were certain trails I just couldn’t get right….I got on the bronson (after demoing a heckler and solo) and on the same trail (Kirroughtree) it was like night and day. The thing climbs like a mountain goat. It’s the same one every trail I’ve been on since (Mabie, GT, Cathkin).

My OH has a 2014 orange five pro. We swapped bikes the other day to see what the difference was. They are very different bikes indeed. The bronson handles so much better than the orange and feels much more planted. The orange was better on the tight twisty stuff but we’re not sure about the fox kashima forks, so swapping these out for pikes when we can get hold of some. Where the five bottoms out, the pikes hold up very well.

As others have said a bike is worth what you’re willing to pay for it. I’d definitely recommend the bronson but I am entirely biased.

Daisy duke. I don’t use it for commuting and it’s not the abs version but I do have a 2012 blade that I rode all the way to Italy last year. Very comfortable indeed. OH was an a S1000rr and we ended up having to swap bikes from time to time to give him a break. At one point we went from Southern bavaria to Folkestone (via Chunnel ) in 12 hours. No issues with comfort at all.

Absolutely love this bike. I too always loved italian stuff but will not consider it now. OH has a panigale now. No doubt he’ll be complaining about comfort again this year.

Trev worsley in trail Scotland is selling a monarch for an orange five just now.

Avontyrell – rules changed from jan 2013 and commission is now banned, so it’s all transparent pricing now that you agree with your adviser what they will be paid. This is usually split between a fee for the initial advice and an OPTIONAL ongoing adviser fee (usually a small annual percentage of the fund value expect around 0.5%).

Qualifications wise – all advisers had to sit exams to get them to a minimum of Diploma in financial services (actually quite onerous for many). However next step up is Chartered Financial planners. You’ll pay more for their advice perhaps but feel free to negotiate with them. You can check a website called unbiased for local advisers around you.

Iffoverload – the trustees of the pension scheme have a legal duty to invest the funds for the benefit of the members/beneficiaries. There are different ways of looking at ethical investment – green funds tend to be higher risk due to the narrow nature of the underlying assets. However you can choose to go with funds which operate negative screening, e.g. They wouldn’t invest in arms companies for example. A good way to do this is normally to ask your adviser about multi asset funds as these are well diversified across different asset classes ( different asset classes are affected by different factors so don’t all go down or up at the same time; an asset class is things like shares, gilts, government bonds, property, etc). These types of funds often operate negative screening and will provide lots of info about what they do invest in.

I’m a pension specialist. Firstly, you can access a pension before age 55 in the following circumstances :
A you are deemed to be in severe ill health (life expectancy of less than 12 months )
B you have paid into a company pension scheme for less than 2 years, in this case you get a refund of the contributions that you have made, but not any that your employer has made.

After 55 you have the following options:
1. Tax 25% of the fund value as a tax free cash sum and use the rest to buy an income ( either via an annuity, which is buying an income for the rest of your life, generally you can’t change your mind on this at a later date OR by using a thing called income drawdown, where your money remains invested and you draw an income from this within set limits; tends to be higher risk as funds need to match your attitude to risk, capacity for loss and maintain your income levels). With income drawdown it’s possible to take the tax free lump sum and defer income but if you die there will be a 55% tax charge on the remaining fund
2. Leave it where it is until a later date but you should access it no later than age 75 to avoid penal tax charges on death.

Currently if under 55 and none of the above apply to you:
1. Leave it where it is
2. Transfer it to another scheme, either an existing company scheme or a completely new scheme. Again like income drawdown you will need to select funds that match your objectives and attitude to risk. It’s not all about performance.

If you’re not familiar with terms such as alpha, beta, standard deviation, etc, I would not recommend managing your own portfolio. Unskilled investors tend to make basic mistakes like investing when stocks/funds have already had most of their growth and dis-investing at the bottom of the market when the best thing to do would be to ride it out and wait for gains.

Get independent advice from a qualified financial adviser. Rules changed last year so that all charges are very transparent and upfront and you can negotiate on costs.

Thanks for the replies. Ordered the 150mm solo air. Can’t wait!

Most bikers don’t use go pros due to police attention.

Roverpig, sorry didn’t explain that properly. You’re right that it can run a 32t second ring but that seems too small for a main ring, most conventional 2×10 systems run more teeth on the main ring, e.g XT is 38.

Trance X1 is a fox 32 TALAS 150mm fork, never had any probs with the travel on it. one of the monthly mags has a long term test on the trance 650b and it’s looking good so far. My new bike has 150mm pikes on 650b and is truly excellent around GT now, massive difference from the trance which was a decent spec bike but I just couldn’t get on with the steep head angle. New 2014 version is back to a 67deg I think. (2013 is 69deg). Conversely the orange five never has any issues with any of the trails, drop offs, etc, it just takes everything in its stride.

Alpine bikes at GT might be able to get you a demo on an orange five and I think dales in Glasgow have demos on the giants fairly regularly. Alternatively contact Sam at The Breakpad at kirroughtree as she has orange fives on hire and also very competitive price wise too if you decide to buy.