I own a prestaflator, as I was in the same position so ended up ordering direct from the states, it arrived quicker than some royal mail post I’ve had!

BigJim – I’m hoping to have a go at everything, so would rather be ‘over tired’ for xc than under for any DH.

Plus others have mentioned that the terrain is quite arduous on tires, more so than UK trail centres.

Scruff were they Flow rims? 8O

I’m planning on running Maxxis minion DHF on the front and high roller on the back, both dual ply, on Stans Flow rims?

Sounds like a plan shorty :lol:

I guess I was asking in principal are tubeless tires OK for the Alps or are they a big No No.

I’m in a similar situation got some good responses here First Alps Trip

can you post a picture or them?

Some fantastic suggestions there people, including may I’d definitely not thought of.

Keep them coming please.

Thanks for responses everyone, tjr666 if only I was nearer but I’m down south :(

I’ll have a look at everyone’s suggestions.

DoctorRad – 70-80% back, you’ve got to be kidding, I was looking for a 2nd hand Beinn 20 recently and they were going for about £10 less than new!!!

Having had two of them I would say Islabike all the way yes they are initially a big outlay but marketed correctly you can get most of that back, works out much cheaper than some supermarket special that’s only fit for the skip when it starts to fall apart.

EVOC looks interesting but the lack of bladder will up the price a bit.

Also the Osprey looks good too.

These decisions are never easy :(

would a wingnut take pads and a full face helmet?

I now have 3 sockets that I have machined flat to remove fork top caps, I used a bench mounted grinding wheel which is a PITA but it does make for easy removal of top caps without risk of rounding them off.

Thanks for comments,

I am running air pre-load in them.

TBH I’ve had them from new and hadn’t known how rebound damping should work until I recently got a pair of Fox TALAS and with the Fox I can slow the rebound to a snail pace (almost) but on the Marzocchi they are still very ‘boingy’ at maximum.

I was wondering about experimenting with different oils

I asked the same question recently as I had the same problem, in the end I used Plus-Gas, a heat gun and a crowbar to jar the arm off.

wrecker, how did you manage to order from the site it’s all in German!?

This is more expensive but I have one of these, after reading many reviews, and it’s a beast

C9000

It will charge, discharge, cycle, and break-in batteries

Thanks for the tips everyone, the winning combination was Plus Gas, hot air gun and a crowbar. :D

So should my tool of choice be skills compensator full sus or hard tail with skinny mud tires?

I’ve removed the Shimano pin and put in a SRAM power link I also shortened the chain as I remembered last night that I’ve just gone from a triple front to double front, so my outer ring is smaller that it used to be.

Cheers for the replies, I have a spare power-link so will probably change it before I ride next.

Cheers for letting me know, I couldn’t see where there could be one but just wanted to check.

Excellent, thanks for the feedback everyone

Anyone care to enlighten me?

I want a stringbike!, if you watch the other video apparently it makes you irresistible to the opposite sex and you’ll have friend coming out of the woodwork.

swap a BB spacer from right to left?

I have considered that but measuring the space between the crank arms and the chain-stays they are identical at the moment so swapping the space would move the cranks off centre

I’m also quite perplexed by the way trading is done on here. On another forum all the communications have to be in the sale thread until the final offer is accepted.

This seems a much more sensible way, to keep everything public, this stops ads of opening post, then the next post is that it is sold. If 3 people all email the seller offering the same price how do you know who was first?

By keeping it public it’s easy to see when someone has offered the asking price.

cheers for that Cruz, I’ll give it a go

Sorry but yes, when I read lace lock I thought it would be a but of elastic that I tuck the tied lace under. Also all my other shoes have been SPD with velcro straps so no laces to worry about.

Shoes look like this in any pictures I find

which I guess is just a publicity shot.

Zero feedback, only been registered since 4th Jan this year.

Very suspect, I bet eBay wouldn’t do a thing even if they were notified :(

great price on the Dakota but unless you are near Stockport you are SOOL

Hardtail, which I’m using as winter bike at the moment has crud catcher on down tube and on rear and steve peat fast fender up front.

Bike looks hideous but kept me almost spotless last winter

there you go pease

Interesting thread (in amongst the ‘banter’) I’m off to Morzine for the first time next year and was wondering if my g-Spot would be up to the job

(It’s now got a layback and a slightly longer stem)

Just thought I’d add my experiences, I have a Squeezebox set-up which consists of a Touch, a Classic, a Radio and 3 Booms.

I run the Squeezebox server on a QNAP 4 Bay NAS which is based on a dual core Intel Atom chip.

I have all my music ripped to FLAC and stream it wireless to most of the players.

I can’t really fault the setup, the NAS makes a massive difference as I have run the server on lower spec NAS devices and it did struggle at times.

The QNAP has easy to install software “packages” and the Squeezebox server is available as one, so installation is as simple as a couple of mouse clicks.

I’ve played different songs on each player or even sync’d them all together (a simple menu option) and had them all playing the same songs around the house, and in the garden!

As has been mentioned some people are put off by the Squeezebox set-up because it can seem a bit complicated as it is so customisable.

I love my set-up and wouldn’t change it for anything else.

probably not all mountain tyres but these seem a bargain at the moment, Maxis Crossmark

I’m all for a celebration but that was 10’s thousands of pounds worth of fireworks, how about paying the nurses a bit more this year and forgoing the fireworks instead!!

njee – yep I know I’ll need a new rear mech and shifters, hence the extra expense.

chris – I need a new crankset no matter what so I was looking to get something that will last into upgrading to 2×10

I looked at the new 2 ring XT crankset but it states that it can only be used with a 10 speed chain, and I can’t use a 10 speed chain on my existing 9 speed cassette

Thanks for the feedback, it’s put my mind at rest. BTW what’s a 20m bleep test?

Oh and as for recovery time, I’ll have to record it next time I’m out but I would say within a minute or 2 of hitting my peak if I lighten up, e.g reached top of the hill and coasting on the flat, I’m back down below 140 bpm

Some great ideas there thanks for your inputs :-)