I own this exact light and like it very much (minus the screw connecting the light body to the clamp bit coming loose and needing a ever so slightly wider screw to fix it…). Does need charged after 2-3 hours riding (on full blast), but when paired with a helmet torch to light where your head points, it’s great value for £

musttryharder – Member
Planning on Afan this weekend with a friend.
Not ridden many trail centres.
We’ve ridden Twrch and got on fine.

If you’ve not ridden the new trail at Cwm Carn, Cafall, do it…it’s bloody awesome, especially in this dry weather.

Really enjoyed Afan too (Y Wal and Penhydd = great day out), but overall had a better experience at Cwm Carn with Cafall and Twrch.

The 2013 Zestys looked spot on though, so maybe consider a secondhand one and add a Pike?

I’ve got a 2012/13 Zesty (2012 bike with replacement 2013 frame) and it kicks ass. Rockshox revs are fantastic for my kind of riding and seem to hold up well on rough terrain when pushing hard. Few bits and bobs changed to try and keep weight down – sub 30lb, climbs really well.

Aldi/Lidl for about £3.99. All my failed Cateye/Sigma/etc bike computers have been replaced with these, and they are perfect. Battery life is fantastic, lasts 2 years easily with daily use. There is no reason to spend any more.

I have an Aldi ‘Bikemate’ computer that is surprisingly good. Not wireless so maybe not up your street, but worth a try for a fiver!

Got me totting up my savings now and calculating a mortgage…DAMN YOU!

numbnut – Member
Try Hotlines.

Failing that these look pretty similar.

I asked Hotlines a while ago for my 514 and they didn’t stock any, but said if they found some they’d let me know – worth emailing them either way I think.

Half mug oats, half mug water, half mug milk, easy…medium/low heat on hob till pops like lava for about a minute…then lemon curd or banana and honey or nutella. Awesome power meal, flying up the hills for about 45 minutes after a bowl of oats!

I can understand why you’d want to do it for a 500£ shock, but there definitely looks to be a lot of places selling RP2/RP23 with big discounts.

I’d worry that after shelling out a huge whack for a service I wouldn’t notice a difference! Although I’m sure a lot of it comes down to prolonging the life, I keep it clean enough myself.

Cost me £212…

😮

I don’t get the whole full service thing for some of these shocks – isn’t a brand new RP23 or even RP2 less than £150? And a simple oil change and clean, change the seals is easy enough to do by yourself…

If the bullseye comes up, the doc will usually prescribe antibiotics. You need at least a 2 week course of them.
IIRC the blood test isn’t that accurate.

Cheers – will remember that!

Out of curiosity, does anyone ever think of getting a blood test done after a tick has been feasting on you? Is it what you ‘should’ do, as I’ve heard they can spread certain things?

Nobeerinthefridge – Member
Welovemountains.com have formula the ones for your budget. I have them, and also new XT on my other bike, the formulas are 3 years old, and every bit as good as the XT, if not better.

Sorry to hijack a bit, but do you find the Formula brakes a PITA to get set up properly? Seems to be VERY little room between pads & disk to get the calipers straightened. I’ve spent whole evenings swearing away while trying to get them silent! The front has a tendency to hoooowl down hills, even if dry, if I get them slightly off.

FYI, never had such an issue with Shimano Deore brakes on my old Cube – considering ditching these Formulas for some Shimanos…

I happened across a herd/pack/gang

FYI – family groups called sounders

SELFIE Aaaaarrghghfhfhfhr!

It’s gone from a picture of yourself taken by yourself, to a picture of one or more people taken by one of those people (or anyone in fact), self portraits, pictures of animals taken by people…basically a picture with one or more people or things with a face in it. FFS.

Not done it, but heard about it through friends, the Forest of Dean Classic sportive on 13th July.

http://www.wheelsinwheels.com/FOD/forest_of_dean_spring_classic_cycling_sportive.html

The long route is 90 miles with close to 9200ft of climbing – some of the hills are pretty challenging!

Not used them but can vouch for Paisley Freight;

https://www.paisleyfreight.com/

I guess it’d need to have pre-loaded maps and just work off th gps or something as I can’t see a good data connection being available on every ride.

It also has a rather good (if not hard to use on a small screen) tool for downloading a variety of online maps to use offline to save on data usage – or find a friend with the unnamed, expensive to purchase, national maps of great britain obviously legally sought to put on an SD card into your phone, providing it has a slot… Very handy tool indeed once you have these!

Miguelo – Member
I use Oruxmaps app. It’s free, you can download maps and load a gpx file then use it off line for navigation. Or just use it as a tracker then export to Strava/endomondo if you fancy. I think it’s great.

+1 for Oruxmaps – extremely powerful tool, just takes some time to get used to, but once you do, it’s fab. The forum for it is very handy too – http://www.oruxmaps.com/index_en.html

I’ve not used them, but they are a very reputable and popular brand, especially among freeride/freestyle skiers. If that’s the king of skiing you enjoy then I’m sure they’d live up to their old, and new reputation. I found them too wide for my girly-thin and long feet! The ‘last’ goes down to 99mm IIRC.

AlexSimon – Member
Nice that!

+1, like the turquoise.

CheesybeanZ – Member
They’ve done a fair bit of maintenance on freeminers and put some gentle kicker and a bit more boardwalk in

Might have to try it again in that case

Freeminers has some pretty hefty table tops at the start – but not many drops or other jumps IIRC…someone may mention otherwise. I did it once or twice but it’s pretty knackered trail now – and I’m a wimp when it comes to roots all over, before and after berms… 😆

What time you thinking of going? I was there maybe end of March and there was an Enduro event on – X-Fusion I think. No parts of the trail (Verderers) were closed. I tend to get there pretty early to get a quiet lap of Verderers in, have a coffee and cake, then one more lap and I’m gone by 11:30 or so.

Trail was fine in the AM, but was getting extremely busy when I left – car park completely full too. I park at Cannop Ponds for free and take the family trail in. If you’re wanting to do a mix of Verderers, Freeminers and some DH trails and spend all day there, I’d go somewhere else, not sure where though! If you’re not too far maybe keep going to cwmcarn? An hour west of FOD… Or head to Crickhowell and do a big natural loop around some of the Black Mountains. 🙂

mrbelowski – Member
Will the £700 offer include giving you your old broken bike back?

Definitely not – I think it would be fitted with new frame and sold as PX’ed in store…

totalshell – Member
so you bought a 2012 bike for 33% off, a couple of months down the line unsurprisingly they ve discovered they havent any bits to replace it with and have offered a replacement new 2013/14 frame.. id have thought that was a win but to be offered a grand store credit as well as.. blimy can you ppick some lottery numbers for me

Couple of months – it’s four months next week! I’d have expected Cube, when the warranty claim came through, to check their stock which might take some time, but within a number of weeks go, “oh…yeah we don’t have that chainstay and to ‘manufacture’ a new one will take months and be silly, so the only alternative we can offer is a new frame”. From what I understand a new frame on warranty isn’t exactly unheard of?

I agree that the grand to spend in store is a good offer, but I don’t actually want/need to spend a grand in store. I also did expect less than £700 for the partial refund in cash, so overall the situation has come out well. Now to decide what to do – the issue is that I’ve got my eye on a friends 2nd hand bike that I’ve been using on and off since this went in for warranty and want to buy it. The 700£ would go towards that but I’m at 300 store credit loss…OR try and get the best bike in store for £1000 and make another 150-200£ trying to sell it. Can’t put the warranty in someone else’s name however, so I imagine this will put people off…

Yeah, tbh I think they’ve done what most would consider to be reasonable.

They’ve called and offered me a partial refund – RRP of bike was £1500, I got 33% off when I purchased so £1000 and they are offering a partial cash refund of £700.

Or store credit for £1000.

First world dilemmas hey?

Spoke to store manager today who’s been more useful and made more sense than any of the other staff members, but I’ve still not come out with what I was hoping – which may have been unrealistic TBH.

After all that’s happened, Cube are sending a new frame and possibly new shock/other parts as my bike 2012 AMS 100mm XC bike was discontinued and I think they only produced 110mm AMS bikes in 2013. Still don’t think I received the full story. The frame won’t be with the bike shop for at least another week!

They are now offering in store credit for the price of the bike (new) to purchase a new bike with. I have said I am after a full refund on the card I paid with which they are not willing to do. If they could come up with a partial refund price then I might be willing to take it – they are also not willing to top up the partial refund price themselves to compensate me.

What does everyone think? Is that reasonable? I don’t actually want a new bike from in-store as I have another 2nd hand bike in mind. This will mean getting it for the sake of using the credit and then selling it on…hassle for me no?

They are calling me Tuesday with what they find out from cube. I don’t care what they find out to be honest, I’m past the point of wanting my cube back. From what everyone here has said I’ll be asking to talk to shop manager and requesting a full refund or else I’ll take things further either with my bank via charge back or small claims court as I’m not waiting any longer for my bike to be returned to me. I’ve been a customer for a while now but will disown them if they don’t sort this out on Tuesday in a professional manner…

They said I’d have it back first week of April and if I didn’t chase it up yesterday god knows when I’d have heard about it. My expectation of them is to keep me in the loop and chase it regularly if the 8 week period they quoted had passed… Which they have failed to do!

If it wasn’t for my dad’s spare mtb and being busy at work and out of country a few times I’d have spent more time harassing them after the 8 week period I expected to get it back in…

Wonder what the chances of full or partial refund are on 11 month old bike if I kick up enough fuss to the managers? Paid via debit card unfortunately.

Called the LBS today to query why it’s taking so long – I handed the bike over to them 7th Jan! Coming up to 15 weeks now then…they haven’t received the part yet, but told me mid-march the bike should be ready by the start of April. They didn’t contact after that. Said that Cube will most likely have to re-manufacture the rear triangle and this is why it’s taking so long.

Mentioned this being an unreasonable time to wait and I’m getting sick of the situation and chasing them up and I’d like either a partial refund or replacement and they have said Cube will have to decide this… I’m feeling like the LBS I purchased this bike new from are distancing themselves from the issue and giving me very few options here, other than just sit and wait.

Thanks guys, monkeychild and ichi, think I will go with this reasonable time argument and see what I can get out if the situation. If they can offer a partial refund I may take it, but would like to know who has actually caused these delays. Ichi, how old was the reaction?

Lbs did say this chain stay crack is a known issue and that’s why they noticed it.

Yeah I agree I think something has been mucked up, maybe the initial logging of the warranty was forgotten or something, but I never received any kind of paper work regarding this? Lbs have given me very little information about why it’s taking so long, I’ve chased them but with little time on my hands and other things to worry about right now I’ve not kicked up a fuss… Might start doing so next week and try to find the full story. If lbs are useless again I’ll log complaints with manager to see where it gets me… Just want my bloody bike back! You’d think a manufacturer as big as cube would have spare parts for last year’s bikes to hand?!

Fantastic live performer and I’d go to watch him if you’ve got the chance – he’s used to it from when he was in Million Dead, who are IMO far better live and on CD than what he’s producing now. Sleep Is for the Week is the best solo album IMO, but what has followed has been a bit too polished, for the masses songs to sing along to at gigs – whatever, he’s made it so big in such a short space of time, good on him. Very nice guy who I’ve had the privilege to have a beer or two with in Vancouver of all places.

Anyway…go see him!

Start/finish in Talybont and visit the Star – proper good pub!

http://www.starinntalybont.co.uk

After 12 years or so of owning Camelbaks I honestly wouldn’t buy another brand – their customer service is excellent and they always live up to their lifetime warranty.

I had a 9 y/o camelbak that the zip went on (probably from packing it ridiculously full) and they replaced with a whole new backpack! Bladder from the original pack where the lid leaked and they replaced the lid section with new O-rings etc., now working perfectly. Happy customer!

I feel your pain pondo.

The roads around Cheltenham are so bad I’m continuously swerving to miss the potholes, and in turn probably hitting more! I had to replace the spring in my front right shock as it was annihilated by hole – whether it was one bit hit or continuous stress put on the shock by potholes I don’t know, but the garage said I’d be extremely lucky to get any money out of the local council for it. I did a little research in trying to claim and came to the conclusion I’d be best off just taking the bill and forgetting about it. If it happens again I might try, but unfortunately I doubt I’d get anywhere.

binners – Member

People ride in winter without sealskins socks? Are you mad?

Best 25 quid you’ll ever spend

Totally agree – seems pricey for socks, but they work a treat. I use same shoes all year around that drain easily if wet…but got to make sure something is covering the top of the sock if you’re planning on getting properly drenched, as they will fill up like water balloons!

I certainly wouldn’t write them off because there have been numerous ones that have cracked – I have a 2013 carbon zesty and it’s aweeessome. I’d hoped that any frame issues back in 2011 and ’12 had been rectified by 13 models.

I have a Cube in the shop at the moment getting the frame replaced on warranty (hairline crack – chainstay) going to take 8 weeks!

No matter what you buy there’s a chance of a crack!

Yes sorry… I don’t hold grudges for long. I doubt people with their mental capacity could plan such a heist anyway.

Jesus! 😮

I grew up very close to Congleton and know this shop – safe to say there are quite a large number of scummers in and around that area. I wonder if they are off to Europe to try and shift the bikes…?

Deserve to be locked away for a very long time – I trust our fine justice system will simply give them a slap on the wrist however…if they even get caught.