XT isn’t for pirates XT Arrrgghhh is

best answer yet. Bit more digging shows XTR does still have an aluminium cage, and that equates to about 20g weight difference. Just over a pound a gram then…

In the old days, you used to feel like you were getting something for you “R”. I had the old parallelogram design one and it was amazing. I don’t know why they dropped that design.

They also used to have things like nickle-plated aluminium cages, and the like, but now the XT and XTR look very, very similar to me.

aha, but I can look up the ERD for olympics, and see what is the same

commuter/ town bike, so Olympics are overkill!

Rocky Horror is the one to the left of the Ho Chi Min, where you bomb down a sort of gully, then left at the bottom onto a really rocky descent (hence the name), followed by a short uphill, and finishing with a steep dusty descent to the towpath, an arch or two towards bristol from the bottom of the picnic bench.

There aren’t really alternative lines until you get to the final steep descent, so this isn’t the work of a well meaning mtber.

On Rocky Horror, I had to remove a lot of trees, branches, etc, and then some really huge rocks, that did not add to the challenge, they just obscured the line. It was all clear yesterday afternoon, but who knows what it’s like again now.

bloody busy bodies.

I always thought covering logs near trails in really stick jam, so that when Stickman tries to move the logs, he gets stuck, and then carried away by the ants.

I’m not sure how realistic an idea it is though.

My cross bike did a nice job on the quarry trail the other week, but that was before NBW opened. I don’t think it would be much good there!

Agree with clubber though, my 26er SS was better with the forks locked out. Even the new rock descent looks like it will be fine on rigids. Looks rocky, but controlled, so think it will be fine. Time will tell.

Rode it today on my FS (Giant Anthem X, 26″), and rode really nicely. I’ve got a shorty stem on it to speed up the handling, and the suspension allows me to hammer over the stutter-y-roll-y bits nice and quickly, but overall, it’s definitely overkill for those trails.

Tyre choice is a funny one too – these trails need low pro fast rolling tyres, larsons, small block 8’s, etc, but the trouble is, the rest of Bristol doesn’t (well, not in the winter). I want tyres with retractable knobbles….

Having ridden the new stuff a couple of times now, I’m about 80% happy.

I like the new stuff. It’s fun, and I’m crap at it, but I can’t help but get better riding it once a week or so. And it won’t be rubbish in the winter (or summer, or any other season when it rains for a week solidly).

That’s the good 80%.

The other 20% mourns the passing of some good trails, which didn’t (in my opinion) require such a high level of intervention. If you look at the kind of work the BTG do, it really enhances the existing trails whilst keeping the original feel, but this is just wiping out old and replacing with something totally different.

It doesn’t really feel like mountain biking to me, or at least makes me feel as though I have wandered into an unfamiliar sub-culture.

I think I just wish we could have had both (maybe it’s time to reclaim the old pr0n trail that was wrecked by the loggers a few years back?)

Thanks – good start.

I should have mentioned, not a pannier bag, unless it is very non-pannier bag when off, as I will likely be traipsing all over the place with it once I am off the bike

thanks all,

I’ve found that a friend of mine in Bristol has the tool, so I’ll be popping over his house once I have the bearings for a bit of maintenance and ale drinking :-)

I was looking at those, but there’s nothing that says they are the Enduro ones.

Anyone used them, whatever they happen to be?

Leon

so, what I take from this:

– buy a proper make
– get them from a proper bearing supplier

and then all should be good.

thanks for all the advice.

You do get SKF on eBay for about 4 or 5 quid each – are all SKF created equal?

Amazingly, it’s the one behind the ring drive that has gone. I think I killed it actually. I’ve had the hub about 7 years on my cross bike, which gets a regular filthy off road beating, and never once serviced it (It just worked fine, so I never bothered). when the freewheel finally did go sticky, I could not remove the freehub biody, so I just flushed it with WD40 and dribbled finish line wet into it.

Worked a treat on the freehub, but I think I killed the bearing.

As for the others, I’m not 100% sure whetehr they are ok or not, but I don’t want to do the job twice, so I thought I might just do the lot in one go, and hopefully get another 7 years out of it!

oh, and you can’t just pull out the bearings (well, 3 of the 4 you can), but the drive side one in the shell is behind the ring drive, and you need the special tool to extract it – unfortunately, that’s the one bearing in my hub that is really shot :-(

bland – thanks for the tip-off, but mine is at least 7 years old and still going strong. This is the first bearing change too. It’s been hammered to death on my cross bike, and the aluminium has started oxidizing under the paint a little, but it still works well.

Ambrose – thanks v much, I’ll be in touch

LOL. Don’t disfuncational bike parts annoy you?

Maybe annoy was the wrong word, but I don’t like it, like some people don’t like front mechs that rub, and others just don’t notice.

I’m quite happy with most of the hubs of got, it’s just really noticable when switching from the King, Hope or 240s to the XT or 370, that you get that little free play before the pedals engage, and I don’t like it

What’s the engagement like on the freehub?

Never used the Funworks hubs. It’s fine on the A2Zs, not discernibly different from DT240s or Pro 2s frankly. Not really something I care about if I’m honest, I noticed my Kings were very slightly quicker, but [/quote]

I do notice it, unfortunately :-( I have an XT hub on my commuter, and a DT 370 on another bike, and both annoy me because the pickup is too slow. Guess I’m just fussy.

njee20 – funny you should say that – I was just looking at Actionsports.de.

What’s the engagement like on the freehub?

To a large extent, durability is not an issue, since I’m light, and these are for my “weekender” bike. They are not going to get hammered week in week out.

I can no longer get my freehub body off, but I just dribble finish line wet into it, and it seems to work ok.

Must be 6 or 7 years of hard use on a cross bike and counting. Still on the original bearings.

found this
amazing description of putting a roadie shortcage onto a shadow rear mech

Most of the tricky looking stuff is because this post is about putting a non-shadow cage on a shadow rear mech. For my purposes, a cage from a medium cage shadow rear mech of yesteryear would do just fine (so I guess that’s SLX or XT).

Now I just need to find one, because if I spend £40 buying one, I may as well jsut buy an XTR rear mech, and have a bit of pimp appeal

Leon

campfreddie – the point is that for 10spd the cable pull is different, so I need a 10spd parallellogram bit.

le singe – I just had a look at a 9spd XT rear mech I’ve got, and once I’ve removed the inner plat and jockey wheels, the outer plate is attached where it pivots. There is a small grub screw on the p-knuckle. Is that it?

hmmm, off to the shed to examine my mech.

The older ones were always pressed in (or something)

I thought about that – you could do it on XTR and Dura-Ace in the past as the plates were attached with Allen-key bolts.

Is it the same on the new XT and SLX then?

Perhaps I can go nuts, and put my roadie super-short cage on (if it will work with the 11-36 spread!)

It’s nothing to do with what Shimano suggest. I know what you mean, and my cross bike currently has a mix of 8, 9 and 10spd kit, and I even had a bike mixing 7,8,9 and 10spd kit, but they’ve actually changed the cable pull dramatically for 10spd MTB (but not road).

It’s like trying to use a Shimano mech with SRAM shifters. It will just never work.

That’s what I did on my old bike, but it didn’t really cure it. Annoying I can’t just use the brand new road 10spd rear mech I’ve got :-(

I could probably go a lot shorter on the chain though once I go 2×10 – that will make a difference.

what do you mean by fiddling? If you just mean adjustment, then that’s fine, and what I’d expect. Or do you mean more extreme fiddling, like bending cages, changing cable anchor positions, etc?

that’s what I thought. And no idea why it posted twice…

I just couldn’t understand why there was a need for specific 2×10 front shifters.

As for the chainrings, I want 2×10 specific, as I want the something like a 28/38 or thereabouts. I never use the 22 at the mo, and rarely use the outer….hmmm, maybe I should go 1×10

I just figure that 26″ full sussers are the new niche, and I wouldn’t be seen dead with anything as common as a 29er

Leon,
I see more 26er full sussers than anything when I’m out with the lads! Oh, and they all ride 26er full sussers as well! I’m the only one riding a 29er and they have all had a go on mine and they love it! They all want a 29er now!

tk46hal
I was joking about nicheness (although wait until next year!) – I don’t really care about that.
I liked my 29er hardtail, and there’s definitely a place for something like that. The trouble is, in my price range they are too heavy. My SS 26er weighs 20lb, so every geared HT I can afford feels like a heavy lump. I test rode a Stumpjumper carbon. It was nice, but weighed 24.5lbs!

Also, there’s no way I’m changing from 26″ for local riding, since it’s all about twisty singletrack and constant accelerations. No matter what anyone says, either wheel size is a compromise somewhere, and for me, 29″ just doesn’t work as well locally (it’s fine, just not as good).

I would have probably bought the Anthem X 29 if I’d had the cash, but it’s too much money. 26″ wheels haven’t suddenly become sh!t. I don’t think I’ll be too disappointed.

just sold mine, and bought a 26″ Anthem X2…make of that what you will.

I just figure that 26″ full sussers are the new niche, and I wouldn’t be seen dead with anything as common as a 29er ;-)

Any update mcboo?

I’m thinking along similar lines, although I’d be a size large, and I’m a bit worried at how horizontal the TT looks on the Nerve XC.

Out of interest, did you consider the Lux MR? I can’t seem to find any reviews of that.

I also wonder if actually the Nerve XC would be ok for the odd race. I guess with pro-pedal, it must feel pretty tight under hard pedalling, and they are not exactly heavy.

thanks – that’s what I thought, but at €2K+, I didn’t want to take the risk.

I think he might ride a 22, but please do!

thanks.

Do you mean either XTR or a SRAM double, or just the XTR?

Probably should have checked if the shifters will be ok too? Don’t see why not. Most of the road STI’s used to be double or triple.

Good race today. I liked the course. I could have done without losing a contact lens on the 3rd lap. Turned the whole race into a 'Magic Eye' drawing, and resulted in some comedy moments, such as messed up depth perception causing me to get off and rung for twice as far as I needed to before the barriers!

Looking forward to the next even here!

Leon

I hate to add the "what tyres" question, but I don't know the course at all. Is it likely to be sticky-cloggy-uppy mud?

My race wheels have 34mm tubs on, and when I rode them at conham, I was clogging up so badly I was stopping several times per lap, and having to run sections just to keep moving, finishing about 20 places down on my usual position!

If I don't ride fat tubs, I'll ride skinny clinchers.

Leon

ho ho ho. I knew that was coming, but I didn't want to call you a tw@ in advance just in case you actually had it.

Thanks for the offer kingtut. I actually want my tour of flandards tyre levers more than anything.

Saddle bag is a total pile of crap. It's brand new. Fell off at the beggining of the ride causing me to ride back along my route to find it, I kept an eye on it pretty much all ride, and then stopped paying attention at the end. I reckon it is somewhere between the golf kiosk and the ashton court gate, but who knows…?

yes. Have you found it?

is a brake that necesary? Most don’t have them – there must be a reason…

and more info here

http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=526474