I think part of driving training and testing for any vehicles should include a few hours on a bike in heavy traffic, might make drivers a bit more appreciative and aware of what it's like on 2 wheels then? And, if you can't ride a bike then you have to learn! … I think there's a lot of drivers out there that probably haven't been on a bike for years before getting a car so they have no idea!

I'll take the spring out completely today to see if I can find any paint or colour on it somewhere, I've got some fork oil. And I'm sure I've seen a set of these fitting with motion control/lockout in the right leg on an mtbr forum, so might be a worthwhile upgrade if not too expensive.

'Spike badly on high speed hits' is how I would describe it, only really noticed it after spending most of the winter on another bike with air forks, so I'd like to get them as 'plush'.

Cheers for the replies.

Actually, just thought, how do they colour code the springs, is the whole spring painted or something else … there's a medium/red spring on ebay but it looks exactly the same as mine – didn't take mine out fully as it would mean undo-ing the base and loss of oil, so just popped the U-turn to see the top of the spring?

😕

Thanks for the link GiantJaunt, according to that chart I have the black spring which would be the extrafirm? Which is a bit confusing, had a peek on ebay for pike springs and those on there that are black are saying they are medium? Might have to call TFT to confirm which spring is which, had a look at TFT but they don't list the colours, but according to that link I might be better off with a blue firm spring?

I'll look into the damper thing on these and maybe a change of oil would improve things?

Cheers 😀

Just whipped it out to have a look, looks like a very dark silver.

Don't think these have a floodgate, they are the Pike 327's on the Pitch Comp and they just have the U-turn on the left leg, and rebound on the bottom of the right leg … unless they have an internal floodgate that can be adjusted that I don't know of??

High speed damping sounds like the sort of thing that could be causing this?

Mmm, ok, not sure if it's OEM or not, looking at getting chainset and bb seperately so think I better add one of the tools just incase, only a few £ anyway … cheers.

Have you tried a bike shop?

🙄

My local shops don't take paypal, and as I've sold some stuff on ebay and the £'s is now burning a hole in my cyberspace pocket thought I'd look online as most online retailers take paypal these days …

Not sure about the Flows, seem to be out of stock too til mid May?

Thanks, bruneep, I'll try them.

I've got a .gpx file for a route like that, Victoria to Hove, not sure if it's exactly the same as the other link, mine goes to guildford which joins up with the Downs Link, can email if anyone's interested – you can put it onto google earth to check the route??

There seems a lot of pivots, bearings, nuts and bolts on the APP linkage to me (all in the right place for mud etc from the rear wheel), a Superlight owner, I'm wondering how much testing these new designs get in the real world of mud, water and grit and continual washing that we seem to excel in here in the UK and a lot of other places around the world and not sunny california … have they been tested elsewhere?

You might find a change of pads helps, get the avid sintered pads like HERE, an old set of BB7's (grey) I had came with organic pads and I thought they were good, but a new set, the black ones, that I got recently came with sintered pads and if set up correctly with the avid SD levers they are superb – got my levers inboard and just need one finger braking, better than some of my hydros. And, I think the clean sweep rotors are better than the wavey ones that are supplied with some BB7's.

'The Naked Rambler' yeah, I remember there was a guy who insisted on rambling naked, he made the news at the time, so he made it into France, could well have been heading to the ferry at newhaven when I saw him then, there was a few smirks on the other walkers around at the time and it made me giggle … wonder where he is now?

Going along the south downs a couple of years ago and walking towards me is a naked man, nothing on except rucksack and walking boots! 😯

Recommendations …

Depends on your budget too?

There's a few around with OS mapping now, I choose a Satmap myself as the OS mapping makes more sense to me as that's what I used before for routes, good piece of kit but expensive. I use it for tracking new routes and it's been useful when I've done new routes elsewhere in the UK and you have one of those moments where you come to a junction and you're not sure which way to go, and used it for my regular routes to see if I'm faster, slower, maintaining my (poor) fitness. Also, it has a basic world map and I've used it in Morocco, Tibet and Nepal.

But, being used to a Garmin and if you're happy with that you might as well opt for a newer version of what you are used to?

Vittoria Randonneur Pro: CLICKY CLICKY

Light, folding, double puncture protection, good price and free delivery.

Superb tyre, these go up to 95psi and they are very 'comfortable' to ride, not harsh.

Had a B17 but couldn't get on with it, did about 500 miles on it and it still felt like a was sitting on a large cricket ball, hard as nails, and slippery – had to have it at an uncomfortable angle to stop me sliding onto the toptube, so went back to my other saddle, people swear by them but I swore at mine, probably needed more breaking in but it felt like the saddle was breaking me in. Eventually sold it for more than I paid for it!

I got some of these a while ago, psa'd them in that 'bargain'(?) thread that seems to have gone, easy enough to swap the hoses over when on the bars, just do it quickly and without pressing the levers and you're ready to go. Mine came with IS adaptors for front and rear, and spare hose end bit (in case you want to shorten the hose) even though they don't show them in the pic.

Oh yeah, another thing, why can I get BBC4 perfectly but nothing else? Doesn't make sense, if I can get one channel I should get them all, no?

👿 I'm still waiting for normal freeview!

Had it, but it's all dissappeard over the last couple of years, and useless contacting 'freeview.co.uk' is a waste of time cos no one replies … yes I've done resets and updates … freeview = useless (imho) grrrr 👿

Really liked my old 2002 Enduro … until it cracked 😯 but a secondhand frame so couldn't get warranty on it, really miss it, seeing these one's makes me want another, er, anyone got one to sell (not 2002 though as these were known for cracking :wink:)

Upper Dukes Drive maybe?

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Seaford,+East+Sussex,+United+Kingdom&ll=50.752029,0.262653&spn=0.002369,0.004823&t=h&z=18

There's always cars parked along this bottom part of it, free, not right outside someone's house, and a quiet back road into Eastbourne and the seafront, and easy to get into town if you need to get the train after parking your car and a good run down from Beachy Head when you finish. Any further into town and you'll be having to pay for parking. Also the residential areas north, and north east (Meads area I think) of here are safe quiet areas for parking.

Thanks Hadge, I'll try em

shame that they've crammed 9 months of riding into three episodes!

my thoughts exactly, I was looking forward to this but it covers a lot of ground in each episode and I can't help but think we're missing a lot of interesting things along the way.

Why couldn't he have a cameraman with him all the way, or more of the way, why did the 'bbc cameraman' have to leave him?

Anyway, I enjoyed it, it's all good, more cycling on telly please!

Just wondering … do the fox rear shocks, floats, suffer from wear as much as their forks?

I only have one set of fox forks on a secondhand bike, these are ok so far, but all the fox rear shocks seem to have a much harder wearing thicker coating on them, so why don't the forks have the same coating, type of seals, on their fork stanchions?

I've noticed before that older forks had what looked like a darker much thicker harder wearing coating, on new forks the coatings on the stanchions seems to be a very light coloured thin coating … just wondering if manufacturers are making then with built in obsolescence?

Time, there will be less of it as it'll start to go quicker too

More sun and dry weather would improve my riding, I'd get out more! Been spoilt by dry weather for the last week+ and didn't even have to clean my bike last weekend, been raining for a few days now and just can't be bothered today.

Interesting about the 'can't turn right properly' think I'm the same, maybe stems from cycling on the left and being able to turn left easy and quickly on roads and having to be a bit more cautious turning right? But, also just realised that nearly all my routes go in an anti-clockwise loop meaning mostly left turns, must try going the other way!

Might be daft but … have you got those orange reflector things in the pedals – they can come loose and make a clicking sound? Yep, had that happen on mine, use flats on my commute bike and had a clicking noise when grinding up the hills on my route, didn't notice it going fast cos of road/wind noise.

Kojak, it's almost worth doing a batch and selling those, excellent idea!

Yeah, but I'd probably get banned, closed thread and directed to 'Advertising' as 'they' would say I'm trading? 😉

Didn't this happen to someone recently 😆

If possible, or if you can, it's worth making up something like this to help press in the headset

holds the cups nice and straight as you press them in, I've put in about 3 headsets using these with no problems, anyone with a bit of skill, some tools and a bit of ply might be able to knock some up … luckily for me I have access to a cnc machine to make mine.

South Downs dry today, first time for ages I haven't had to clean the bike, I couldn't believe it 😯 amazing how quick it can dry up … 'they'll' be declaring a drought soon and charging us extra for water! 🙄

Rotec cycles are good, I've ordered stuff from then on ebay, usually odd bits that are difficult to find, and it gets sent out very quick, although apparently there are postal strikes at the mo that may hold things up?

I did have, but it's here already! 😀

Couldn't resist a deal on a Superlight with about £400 off and 0% finance – it's almost like I'm not paying for it really!

Yeah, these things are brilliant … although I haven't had a puncture since fitting slime tubes, had one go down a bit on a ride where a big thorn was being agitated as I went along, pulled it out (the thorn that is) the tube sealed and I popped this thing on and whoosh! back up to pressure and off … brilliant!

Ah, brilliant, thanks ziggy! 😀

Square taper chainset and a slightly longer BB … worked for me

You can still get the anti-chainsuck plate things, I'm sure I've seen them somewhere online but can't remember offhand, never used one so don't know how effective they are.

A good solution, as it's a known problem, would be if On One were to manufacture anti-chainsuck plates onto their frames like the old Bontragers, and I think Kleins(?), used to have?

Yeah, the On One stem is getting there, doesn't have to be 70mm x 15 degrees, just something that moves it closer and up a bit, I've been looking on the net since posting this over an hour ago and not much coming up, found the Ritchey Adjustable Stem but not too sure about that one, and found Ritchey also does a 30 degree rise stem but I can only find oversize … but now you mention shims I could always get an OS stem and shim it for the bars, didn't think of that so it could open up a whole new lot of stems, don't really want to have to change bars and stem on a new bike but might have to.

Er, where to get shims??

Why not just get these

clickhere

swap the hoses over, carefully … without squeezing the levers or knocking or dropping the hoses, job done, don't know if the XTR calipers are that much better than the XT but you'll save yourself some ££'s and the faff of connecting hoses and bleeding etc

Yep, I've always measured the chain with a ruler too and change at 12 and 1/16th, cassettes and rings last ages (almost forever) that way, learnt that one back in 1993 the first time I also had to fork out for a new cassette and they seemed a lot more ££'s then than they do now 🙂

A ride I did today that I usually do in 1.5 hours took 2 hours today, headwinds, sidewinds … never seems to be behind me for somereason? … mud and sloshy soft ground, kept thinking I had flat tyres but nope, it's just the saturated ground, bit of a slog but glad I got out, Sunday's going to be worse isn't it!? 🙄

Go down the gym instead?

Disc Brakes – XT M775 levers, hose and calipers x 2 £139.99 (no discs/adaptors)

But … OE and set up for USA levers – right – rear, left – front, but it's a doddle to change the hoses over if you're careful, might be good for anyone wanting to upgrade an existing set up to better levers and calipers??

Evans clickety click!

Muddy the Eastbourne end too … muddy everywhere I'd say as it seems to have been raining for 3 days now, and forecast until Friday 🙄

Went out on Saturday but we try to do a route with less mud so wasn't quite as bad as that Tiger