Really great stages today. Really good. Possibly my favourite race ever. Well organised again and great atmosphere.

I’m in for this. Did it last year, its good fun. Nice and relaxed, plenty of time to practice in the morning and then start times were ‘advisory’ it seemed. You could go pretty much whenever you wanted.

A few of us are going to camp close by on the Saturday, probably not in time to get a recce done

I think they tape the stages Sat. Pretty sure a few people I spoke to practiced on the Sat and then only did a brief warmup Sunday to stay fresh.

They had 3 stages last year, although I noticed on Instagram they might do 4 for this race. A good mix of stuff, a bit of twisty pedally, a bit of rougher stuff and some great natural offcamber thrown in too.

I did the exact same swap last week and didn’t touch the chain. Shifts fine.

Happened to me with a DHF WT, a friend with a Minion SS, and another friend with DHF.

I found it sorted itself out a little bit after a few weeks.

Not had it with other tyre brands.

If you’re having trouble unscrewing the can I bought a large boa strap wrench thing when mine was stuck. Worked a treat when nothing else would.

the next load of money to fix it up. There’s one section- ghost train? that was just ****ed, gully erosion like I’ve never seen, they’ve obviously built themselves a river. But otoh it rode hilariously for all that.
I’d drive to Afan just to session that section, for those of us who dream of barely rideable nonsense it’s a Mecca…

Yep. Last time I rode it I was trying to work out if there was a quick way round to hit it again it was so fun. Horses for courses.

I love Afan.

It’s a trail centre, but it still feels like you’re on an adventure when you do the loops, as opposed to places like BPW which are (quite literally) – bike parks.

The other trails in the area are some of my favourite that I’ve ever ridden, you just have to work a bit to get to ride them.

I can see the problem that if you aren’t great at climbing then its a long slog for each descent, which isn’t an issue at places like BPW.

SG sidewalls are like plastic they are so supportive. I can have no air in them and the bike still stands up. There is a weight penalty compared to Snakeskin though.

I have a range of Schwalbe and Maxxis, and overall I’d say Snakeskin is slightly thicker than the Exo casing, but it does seem to depend on the tyre. A Hans Dampf feels like it has a thicker sidewall than a Nobby Nic, a High Roller has thicker sidewalls than an Ikon.

Overgrown, broken gates, missing signs. Then do please report it

There is actually a couple of missing signs I’ll report. Cheers!

Landowners are not responsible for clearance. Only the growth from hedges and above. The council have responsibility for growth from the ground

Interesting. I did not know this.

I’m in north Dorset. All the BWs near me seem to get cleared by the farm owners pretty regularly.

Biggest issue for me has been the tracks being chewed up by horse riders with the wet weather, but that can’t really be helped.

I have 35 mm internal rims, used Magic Marys front and rear in the alps, they were great. Shape is similar to the DHF WT 2.5.

I’ve tried a few 2.3 Maxxis and they square off, tried Rock Razor and currently Hans Dampf and they have a good shape and loads of volume.

2.25 Racing Ralph blows up comically large.

I think some people overestimate what a lot of DH courses are like

Only been to a couple of DH races to spectate but they’ve all had chicken runs on the big features.

http://www.descent-world.co.uk/2017/08/09/what-does-the-future-hold-for-national-and-regional-dh-mtb/

Interesting read , not sure about the social media stuff but the whole f1 comparisons not helping grass routes is an good point I think

I can see the argument about social media, think it’s definitely had an influence on the need to race to make it big in mountain biking.

That article brushes over the effect enduro has had in my opinion.

I live in the south west, so not a huge amount of DH venues within a days drive, however what venues there are, also tend to use the same tracks for Enduro races. To me (as I don’t have a dh bike) I’m never going to bother racing DH when enduro gets me more time racing for a similar price.

My friend mounted my DHF WT 2.5 to 23mm internal rims and it was fine.

As Kimbers said, they aren’t massive, roughly the same width as a 2.35 Magic Mary.

if you motor up it’s quicker than the uplift by quite a margin.

I’ve beaten the uplift before pedaling up (using the road and the short cut rather than the XC climb) but the uplift now seems to have become more efficient so not sure I’d be able to manage it now.

At a steady pace with no wind it takes me about 20mins.

This happened to me. You should have one bottle of lower leg fluid and one bottle of suspension oil.

I gave TF a ring and they sent the bottle out straight away.

I have XFusion Metrics , before had Pikes. Metrics better in every way except weight.

My friend has non Roughcut/HLR
Xfusion Sweep and that is also really really good.

The best videos for getting your head around suspension setup are the Vorsprung ones I reckon.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIF1fjRe-xXWztlig1TiT5g

Simply put, having no low or high speed compression damping will give you the plushest ride over chatter, however the forks may feel divey and/or bottom out on bigger hits.

Puddletown Forest, Wareham Forest (Gore Heath) , Purbecks, Moors Valley.

Where I live there’s basically no rocks, it’s just mud and roots, so I run low pressures. Coupled with the fact that BPW trails are fast and flat out rather than tight and technical, I managed to flat on my first few trips. I still use the same tyres as I normally ride, just with 5 or so psi more now.

I think in general the bridleways and paths link up pretty well. I use Bing maps to plot routes in the area as you can use OS overlay. The issue at the moment (like everywhere I guess) is that lots of it is overgrown, so wear long socks and gloves.

the kinematics of the 2013 model are here:

http://linkagedesign.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/radon-swoop-2013.html?m=1

Don’t know if the model has changed much since then though.

As above, I wouldn’t bother putting a coil on a linear suspension. From experience it just doesn’t really work.

I think the standard 2017 trance is more like the 2016 SX

2017 comes with 150mm forks and 67ha.

The SX comes with 160mm forks which slackens the head angle to 66, but then affects seat angle too.

I’ve got a 2015 Trance 2 and it’s an excellent bike, now I’ve replaced the shite Fox suspension it came with. The Evo forks and shock were terrible and were duly replace with RS RCT3 Revs and a Fox X2, which have transformed the bike./quote]

I imagine an x2 would be excellent on a Trance.

If you’re anywhere near Dorset your welcome to borrow my cheap coil to test it out. Honestly it’s night and day on the rear suspension performance. Best £20 I ever spent.

Taking a look at the spec it comes with:

Giant P-AM2 Wheelset

Mine came with the narrower S-XC wheels they were very strong. Still going on another bike and I rode them at low pressures, rode them through rock gardens with a flat in a race and generally abused them but they stayed true.

My friend had the AM’s on his Reign and similar story. Heavy but reliable.

@ scc999 & kiksy…. How tall is your wife / yourself respectively?

Oh, and she weighs 62kg all up, not 67kg! Oops.

I am 173cm (5’7) and weigh 65kg.

My frame was a small. It was maybe a little small, however I demod the medium and thought it was too big.

No experience of that year, but OH has a Trance 2014

2016 is same geo etc as 2014. SX is just the same as normal bike but with a longer fork.

I had a 2014 alu with 150mm Pikes on it, great bike, very versatile, very light. Pedaled well, descended well.

I struggled to get the Monarch Plus (MM tune as recommended by RS)on the rear to perform as I wanted, and it was the only weak point on the bike. It just always felt overdamped for me, small bump was never very good, I’m reasonably light.

As an experiment I put a cheap £20 10 year old boggo basic Fox coil (200×157) on the rear and the difference was insane. The bike then descended incredibly well, but didn’t bottom out.

Air out, bra strap already fully sandpapered up.

I’ll give it a go in the frame with a inner tube. Cheers.

I wonder if you can bolt on a bigger rear mud guard, otherwise surely its going to eat shocks over the winter with that placement?

its tight, twisty and uphill in sections, seems fun though

Yeah really fun course. Proper tight and rooty in places, quite flat overall but really carried speed well and each section linked nicely into the next. :D

Signed up for SouthernXC at Crow Hill this weekend. I’m in open as its first time at a “big” event like this. Anyone else on here doing it?

Purbecks for scenic cruising, Wareham forest for fun singletrack, Puddletown forest for rooty trails with some jumps and drops, Okeford Hill bike park for……bike park. :)

Minion SS is just too narrow and square for wide rims.

Rock Razor on the left , Minion Ss on the right.

I tried the SS on 35mm internals and only lasted a month before the sidewall slashed. Put the 18 month old Rock Razor on and is a much better shape.

I used to keep a tally of how many kudos I gave out to each person, and how much they gave me, in an aim to make sure I wasn’t being exploited for kudos, but the spreadsheet was getting a bit unmanageable as I made more Strava friends. Thankfully Strava have made a tool to handle all that for me:

http://labs.strava.com/kodos/

So what are the benchmarks for dipping ones toe in XC racing and not coming in last.. say I wanted to finish and be no worse than 2/3rds of the way down the field?

Most of my riding is trail centreish at the moment which let me down big time when I nosed into gravity enduro.

I’m very much a beginner when it comes to XC racing, but from my experience, general trail centre riding isn’t a great benchmark unless you are going 110% round the entire loop both up and down and nearly vomiting at the end….Then without stopping, doing it again.

It’s nearly impossible to simulate race effort when on a normal ride (I’ve found).

I’ve found there’s a lot to learn about racecraft, fueling, pacing etc in XC which you can only learn through experience.

I would suggest just entering a local race, expect to come last, then anything else is a bonus. I’d also suggest sticking with it. It took me 3 or 4 races to “get” XC racing, now I really enjoy it.

I sent off a Monarch for warranty with shaft wear (but not scratches). SRAM also claimed I’d used that wrong grease initially. After I sent a photo of the 2 tubs of SRAM own brand grease that I had used they warrantied it.

I’ve always used snow goggles but bought clear lenses for them (dual).

Another idea if you’re time pressed is singlespeed. Or change that front 30 to a 34 or 36. I found that pushing a hard gear regularly is what improved my leg strength. You’ll be surprised what you can get up when you’ve got no escape gear.

Narrow wide until it wears. Then turn on clutch. Then when it wears more, add a chain guide. Then tighten clutch. Then shorten chain.

Finally, give in and buy new nw and repeat process.

I have both and think the Fox is better.

Action is more solid and the lever is night and day better over the Reverb.