I’m in for this weekend. Done a couple before, pretty relaxed but the stages are nice and interesting. Well organised too.

Just hoping my bike is ready in time!

I do find the grading to be kinda out of whack

Grading should be taken as comparison for that venue only, rather than at a national or international level. If people are saying that BPW trails are harder than other trails centres of same grading then should all BPW trails be marked as black ? Then what about Revs or somewhere?

£40 for a 720 camera of unknown quality isn’t an amazing deal. As said plenty of 1080 versions can be found cheaper.

This wowcher link claims £12.99 , which seems pretty good. No idea if it’ll be £30postage or something though.

https://www.wowcher.co.uk/deal/shop/8921419/hd-waterproof-cam-12-99?st_cid=GoogleShopping&ito=CSS_BL_GoogleProducts_RevenueMarketing_8921419&gclid=Cj0KCQjw3KzdBRDWARIsAIJ8TMQQXeR_fDGAtJEKtzGBFjm7vaFxmO5pB-WFA-XnnbUwDqzkVZQ_RukaAg6tEALw_wcB

More discussion on it https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/buckled-tyre-after-puncture/

It’s pretty common I think.

I had a RCT3 and the compression lever one day stopped having any effect at all. Sent them back for warranty and got a brand new one in return.

On mine the firm setting was pretty firm, not full lockout but not something you’d want to do any descending on.

Is there a Roots and Rain style map for a unified list of CX events across the country? Google not helping me.

From the top of Mt Baldo gondola there are some marked loops, which take you round to Torbole. I did one of them (purple? ) and it wasn’t great, stunning views but only a bit of good riding, but could see the potential.

Did some research and found some gpx files like

https://360gardalife.com/en/sport/402/enduro-bike-trail-monte-altissimo-lake-garda

http://www.gardamtb.com/tours-Downhill-The%20Skull%20(Val%20del%20Diaol)-1043-1024-0.html

And pieced together a way down to Torbole from the top of Mt Baldo.

This route had a bit of everything, some techy rocky climbs, beautiful views, flowing singletrack and ended up on the “Skull” DH track, which wasn’t steep or full of big jumps just very rocky.

Can send you the gpx if you fancy it.

It definitely works. Agree that you’ll make your money back when it’s time to sell.

Yeah an air can service is cheap and easy to do your self, just replace and re-grease seals basically. It’s unlikely that will solve the knocking issue as Bigyan said.

A full damper service is much more involved.

Again, not the 4, but I rented the 2018 2 in Italy. Fair bit of climbing and rocky tech descending.

The frame is light, geo is pretty much spot on for a do it all bike. Seat tube could do with being a little steeper but other than that it climbed and descended well, and I instantly felt comfortable on it.

200×57 fits the 14 Trance, but standard is 200×51. 200×57 gives you ~157mm compared to 140mm in the rear if I remember correctly.

The Trance REALLY suits a coil in my experience. A 200×51 DB Inline would be mint in my opinion. I found Monarchs to be overdamped and nothing special. I’m fairly light though.

Rons likely have bigger volume too.

The Maxxis “wib-wobs”.

<span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”>I’ve had it happen to a Shorty and DHF WT and friends have had it happen to DHRs too. </span>

It seems to happen to me if I land a jump a bit sideways, but Boxxer on here managed to do it just doing cutties.

Don’t think there’s a fix for it, but I did manage to improve my DHF a bit by pumping it up to 60psi and leaving it overnight.

Had tickets for Dyfi. Pretty gutted as was looking forward to a big race in Wales.

Sadly seems that a national series just isn’t workable.

 RS recommend a service every 40 hours. 40 hours! It’s a joke.

The website says this:

https://rockshox.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/206125658-What-is-the-recommended-service-interval-for-my-Reverb-seatpost-

I have E4s. If i was going Hope again I’d go V4. But I doubt I will.

The E4s lack power compared to my old XTs and lack the adjustability range of them too. Just been out in the rain and both are squealing like mad too.

At half the price I wouldn’t even look at the Hopes again and just buy Shimano.

Used to see a lady who would walk around with a parrot on her shoulder.

A guy on the middle of a trail in a hammock asleep.

A group of about 20  people of all ages dressed up as wizards, they told me they are looking for dragons.

A decapitated deers head

A crucified Woody from Toy Story doll nailed to a tree.

I have Evoc Fr Team lite. In the smaller size. Its great and sits really snug.

If you don’t wear knee pads then I wouldn’t bother with the back protector. It’s a warm backpack and I prefer more freedom personally.

I’m no expert on this but had a similar thing with new bike (which was a lot longer than old bike). I found I needed to really focus on keeping weight over the front more on shallow gradient corners. I also dropped the bars down a little but for me it was more a technique thing than bike setup.

I have literally never used “I might hurt my bike” as justification for sacking off riding something.

Yeah I’d say if you’re not riding something due to fear of breaking the bike rather than yourself it’s time for a cheaper bike.

Been covered a bit on here, but my experience of Racematrix was the same as Ultra. Popped a set in mid week in the Alps, noticeable drop in bite and power over the OEM pads, and after 2 days were nearly done so went back to Shimano.

Ultimately, SRAM (or anybody else) are never going to be bothered to support a shrinking market of older tech, wrong though that may be.

<span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”>I think a better plan would be for a small company to offer simple replacement damper kits for older forks, that way assuming you don’t crash and bend the lowers the fork/shock can continue indefinitely.</span>

Maybe the damper could be built to be “universal” and then the sleeve which makes it fit to different forks internals made cheaply.

Nice.

Website design goes well with the product, and I like the design of the shirts.

Personally I would only be interested in purchasing technical breathable versions of the shirts. I find it very hard to buy long sleeve riding tops especially that aren’t gaudy logo ed monstrosity’s, where as nice casual t shirts aren’t so hard to come by,

Bookmarked and good luck.

Mine bite just before the bar which is where I like it actually – I find I can grip the bar better under heavy braking.

Out of interest how far do you have the lever from the bar? I have the lever pretty close :

BPC: All the way in

Reach: 3 turns from all the way out

They look well spongy, mine are nothing like that.  You’d trap your fingers behind the lever.

Interesting. I’ve got these setup now to be easily the least spongy Hopes I’ve used (out of maybe 4 other pairs on friends bikes.)

I don’t trap my finger as I have the levers set further in on the bar to avoid this.

How did you get yours setup @Rockhopper ?

I’m afraid that with the overfill method, there will be a problem in the long run (eg seals), cause the fluid needs space to expand (dot absorbs water). What do you think

I’m no expert, and so take other opinions over mine, but personally, given the choice of either having to have the lever too far away from the bar , having so much dead throw the lever goes to the bar or overfilling and having the feel I want at the risk of damaging seals, I’ll gamble with the seals.

As I said earlier, I’ve tried all other methods multiple times, plus brand new rotors. On all my other friends Hopes if I adjust them to suit my hands then they all have the same amount of dead throw (~70%).

Therefor it is this streachiness of the seal that governs lever throw which is decided at design time.

This is interesting, thanks for posting such an indepth response. Does this mean I’m kind of stuck with lots of throw without overfilling?

If anyone else with Hopes can be bothered, I’d be interested in seeing how much throw people have with my setup:

BPC: All the way in

Reach: 3 turns from all the way out

So basically, as close to the bar as possible minus 3 reach.

@freeriding Here is a video showing how much throw I have at the moment:

The first few pulls are to the point where I can feel some good resistance, then the big pull is trying to get it to the bar. I’d say my dead throw is about 10mm,maybe a little less.

Do you think i can get less lever throw than this?

I have a little bit less than that, but that’s because I didn’t.like it quite so grabby. Using the overfill method I got less than half what you have in that video with the adjusters wound all the way in.

don’t overfill. As the pads wear the brakes will revert to previous bite point and the seals could blow as they will be permanently distorted.  Lube the pistons and set up the centralisation as hope recommend will get you minimal dead throw

I tried re-centering and rebleeding multiple times but still had lots of dead throw (maybe 75%) when I had the levers setup where I like them.

I have a couple of friends with Hope brakes, with their levers setup how they like them there is little dead throw, however, adjusting their levers to fit me, they were both back to huge amounts of dead throw. Hence why I tried the overfill method as a last resort. The dead throw is so annoying I’m happy to take the risk of damaging seals unless I can find another better solution.

–do i need to do this? If i make the bleed the normal way, with the pads on?

I guess that would be fine. I tend to just take everything out to avoid contamination.

-so, i will attach a syringe to the caliper? (normally you attach just a hose to take the fluid from the lever pushed)

I use the Epic bleed kits: http://www.epicbleedsolutions.com/products/bleed-kits/hope/basic-kit/#t-0

This comes with a syringe. You attach the syringe to the bleed port, undo the bleed port nut and then pull on the syringe to suck fluid/air out of the system, then keep topping up the lever container with DOT fluid until no more bubbles come out.

–Do you mean mm? I guess that i won’t be able to push the plunger from some cm, because there will be no space for so much fluid? Won’t the pistons come out if i do that or won’t the rotor rub in the pads after all?

Yes I guess mm rather than cm, I didn’t force it with any strong pressure, just pushed the plunger a bit, which moved a little. I had a tiny bit of rotor rub on the rear after I did this, but after 10mins of riding this went. The brakes now come on much much sooner as the pads are closer to the disc to start with, but that was the goal.

–how do i reduce the lever throw? I have the pad contact fully in, but would like a little less throw. I have avid rotors, think hope rotors may be a bit fatter?

I have E4s.

I spent ages trying to get the amount of throw down, the BPA and reach simply coudln’t get them close enough without having loads of travel before the bite would start. After multiple bleed attempts I read a solution on here that worked for me.

Wind both the reach and BPA all the way out. Add a brake block that ins’t too thick (or use an old rotor and tape in place.) do a bleed as normal to ensure no air, then screw the cap and seal back onto the lever, but leave the syringe attached to the caliper. You should still have some DOT fluid in the syringe from the bleed. Push the plunger in a few cm’s to force extra fluid into the system then close the caliper nut tight.

I found using this method it’s possible to get zero “dead” throw. The second time I did it I wound the BPA all the way out, then a few back in again to allow me to have a small amount of dead throw to make them a bit less grabby.

They now feel similar to my old XT’s,much less vague and I can have the levers where I want without them going to the bar.

This Fox one is available to download:

https://www.shapeways.com/product/FJZKXXATN/fox-float-volume-reducer-large-spacer?li=productGroup&optionId=40627889

Modify that file and then take it to a local 3dprinter? Or order it online as a batch with some other people on here?

Just googled it on a whim.  Is the circulation really only~10k?

Slightly surprised by how low the competition is too, MBR 17k, MBUK 28k.  What MTB appeared to be ~11k before it went under

 Circulation and readership are 2 seperate things. Readership assumes multiple people read the same copy of the magazine.

From this link https://www.abc.org.uk/Certificates/48696489.pdf

MBUK has a circulation of 25k

MBR has circulation of 14k according to https://www.abc.org.uk/Certificates/48699987.pdf

For offroad, as mentioned Puddletown is good. There’s so many trails there now its quite easy to explore and just stumble across something.

Okeford Hill bike park is also good and has uplift over the weekends and Wednesday night.

http://www.okefordhillbikepark.co.uk/

Just incredible

Off to Morzine in a few weeks and don’t want to take any unnecessary risks with bike reliability.

Depending on what you are doing and how long you are in Morzine I’d just buy some Super Gravity / Double Down style tyres and fit them. Being in the mountains can mean a long walk with a totally failed tyre.

 my first 2.4WT lasted about 10 miles before it “buckled”

My DHR II on the front  has buckled too

This seems to be a thing with Maxxis. I’ve had a 2.5 DHF WT do it, a 2.3 Shorty and a friend has had a new DHF do it too, then another a BPW the other week. Loads of life left in the tyre, just really annoying wobble.

Seems to happen if you land a bit sideways. Not had it with other manufactures.

Do Offcamber not have one?

You popped the rubber seals back into the bush? I forgot to do that when I first serviced mine.

The PB article about DH and flat pedals becoming obsolete.

There is a Dirt article arguing the opposite.

So fiddle with the two until you get the feel you want

Was chatting to someone with V4s last night and he said the same thing. Played around with them both a bit and you’re right. Winding the BPA all the way in doesn’t give the fastest bite, you need to wind the reach in a bit then wind the BPA out a bit. Doing this has reduced the dead travel a bit.