Few good tips on here. I’d add a suggestion to have tiered rates for nights stayed (encourages other to stay longer – £200 really isn’t expensive if they had agreed to do a stag do at all)

haven’t worked out your specific rates but for example

3 nights: £40 per night
2 nights: £50 per night
1 night: 60 per night

My wedding cost £180 and stagg do was at a rave where everyone bought their own tickets and got themselves there…

It’s standing as well as sitting so not the post/seat.

It is indeed a race face chainring – will check that tonight along with mech hanger and pedal/crank interface (though installed and greased fairly recently)

Most riders I know including myself ride LLS enduro bikes for DH (lift or fireroad climb) and dirt jumping (which they are surprisingly good at).

Unfortunately the axle measures 68 mm long, but thank you

Nice, will check all these out. One potential problem is that i’ll be going on the train and won’t be able to drive anywhere

Looks to be a good bike but potentially a bit on the long side if jumping / learning jumping is the priority.

Look how short dirt jump bikes are. Of course shorter also means less stable on trails so there’s generally somewhat of a compromise.

Disclaimer: haven’t ridden it

No idea how a 130mm bike can be perfect for UK riding when rider A likes going full throttle down fort William and rider B prefers the blue route at the local trail centre.

I wouldn’t be content with only 130mm of travel.

Singing vowels are different to spoken vowels. Open vowels are preferred to closed ones and usually consonants aren’t as defined as in speech either (see Chris Cornell who really slurred his consonants). The accent can be difficult to bring out fully all the time. For example Alex Turner’s shines when he does the half-rap thing and isn’t 100% singing, even if it’s just on a single word or part of a word.

Depends largely on what you like and the style of riding as much as your dimensions.

I regularly switch between 26 inch jump bike with 425mm reach, and a 29 inch XL enduro bike with 485mm reach.

I’ve also been riding a size M 29er enduro bike with 430mm reach. It feels just as comfortable, but naturally it gets ridden in a different way.

shorter bike – more like a bmx
longer bike – more like a dh bike

The caveat is that my riding is more freeride/DH based. Ignore all of the above if you do lots of mileage sat down where sizing may be more important.

I also have a Rallon for sale in S/M. It’s for sale because I’m 6’1 and it’s a long story how I ended up with it but it’s running spot on other than superficial scratches. In Leeds and listed on ebay/facebook/pinkbike for less than any other rallon 29er I’ve seen for sale online

Last bike I went to buy using bank transfer my bank declined the transaction, so I paid via PayPal using the same bank account attached and it worked!

Since then I’ve had someone come to buy a bike off me via bank transfer and no problems. Much better than having a load of cash sat in the house

Buying brand new? Bird AM9. Combination of great bike with modern geo, choose your exact spec, great value, lifetime warranty and reportedly great customer service.

I recently ended up with an NS Snabb 29er which is my favourite bike ive ridden but they aren’t the best value brand new. It’s more of a descender too.

The Orbea Rallon is another more ‘exotic model’ that pedals ridiculously well for a big bike.

Based on the hypotenuse of reach and stack (i.e. how the reach while standing will actually feel – from bb to headset) the new bike will feel 2mm shorter and marginally more upright. Basically the same.

If the Rallon is anything to go by the smaller orbea bikes should pedal great as the rallon barely bobs when stood up sprinting, which is very unusual for a bike that capable.

Worthwhile read on this subject:

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/exploring-the-relationship-between-handlebar-vs-stem-length.html

Thanks for all the responses. I was going with the hardtail idea then came across one of these on the bay and picked it up last night locally for £300:

https://www.boardmanbikes.com/gb_en/products/1578-urb-8.8.html

Feels at least as quick as my previous road bike for my commute and a lot more agile with a flat bar and comfortable with 35c tyres.

I used to do this for work as a student. Great job!

XL

As good as the Snabb looks I might have to cross it off having found out it has a progressive-to-regressive leverage as I want to run a coil.

Rallon is top of the list along with a 29er Capra I think!

Really i’m wanting to buy pre-owned but i’m also holding out on tomorrows Airdrop Edit V3 release

The Cube is far too short for me. It seems Commencal only have Supreme SX’s up to a size M too which is no good. Capra would probably be ideal if I could find a 2018 onwards model when they got big enough.

I ride at bike parks like revolution, descend and push up ones like Havok and Farmer Johns. Also jumps in local woods, occasionally trail centres and have some desire to do some ‘proper’ natural mountain biking in Snowdonia, peaks, Lakes, etc. but not got round to any of that yet. I came from BMX background so enjoy jumps, drops and general messing around. Hoping to do the Alps and Fort William this year too.

The supreme sx does seem good but I’d be nervous about buying one without trying one first due to the unique pivot. I do really like jumping.

On the multiple bike front.. I do have a road bike for commuting and a DJ for skateparks mostly. In an ideal world I’d probably have a DH bike and a trail bike too but can’t justify/afford 2 right now.

I’m coming to my senses and think I will go for a ‘superenduro’ type thing.

I’ve taken my Patrol down the 50 01 line at revs and all the DH runs there and had a great time doing so. I do bottom it out front and rear on pretty much every run I do however, so something around 170mm – 180mm and longer may be better for my needs.

29ers and coils both have my curiosity, even if the big wheels might not be as good for jumping and messing around. Progressive linkage, big travel enduro 29ers are a bit thin on the ground though. There’s the Capra which is never in stock (and cant see any pre-owned in XL), or Whyte G-170 (poor spec on cheaper models compared to YT).

If i stick to 27.5, there’s more options including the Supreme SX mentioned, or the Clash that seems to have replaced it, or Canyon Torque, etc.

Reach is more relevant to how long it will feel standing. Effective toptube is more relevant to how it will feel seated.

Have a look at the Bird AM9 as well

I hadn’t considered stems getting shorter. Still, this would mean riser bars need to be rolled forwards to simulate a longer stem. If the bar is rolled back (i.e. the rise in line with the fork) then this could be reducing the reach considerably. Not saying this is good or bad, just preference.

Lots of people here saying they prefer higher bars on a long reach frame.

Is that because the reach is too long and the higher bars are effectively reducing the reach?

I thought I liked higher bars too but having demo’d a 500mm reach Bird AM9 yesterday, setup with a lowish bar height, it made sense for making it easier to get weight on the front wheel.

As an aside the 500mm reach felt like it fit like a glove and getting back on my 457mm Transition Patrol it felt like a BMX

If by 25cm wide you mean an all in one unit rather than the width of each speaker then you aren’t getting enough of a stereo spread to really warrant a ‘good’ speaker setup in my personal opinion.

The best deals and sound quality/£ are to be had on an amplifier and bookshelf speakers now that they aren’t as fashionable. I actually have such a system for sale (monitor audio speakers, arcam amp) around your budget which I won’t spam here but feel free to PM if interested at all.

A rigid bike should be comparatively better at jumps than techy downhill, so it might be more to do with your personal strengths and weaknesses.

It’s much easier to pump and predict a take off and feel comfortable in the air on my hardtail jump bike (100mm front fork almost pumped rigid), than on my 160mm enduro bike. Personally I have no problems with doubles of any size (that ive encountered so far) on either bike but wouldn’t fancy a proper dh run on anything smaller than my full suss enduro.

The 2 downhill runs will be fine. There are some outrageous features on the biggest freeride line, particularly near the top.

Had around 70 hours of tattooing in total and never really noticed much difference between healing using different methods. I’ve just let them dry out before and done nothing and they scab more, but pretty much heal the same eventually. Would recommend the usual bepanthem route anyway as it speeds it up.

6 hours is my usual session time too. I’d take 6 hours tattooing over 10 minutes of lasering any day, that’s another league of pain!

During my first year at university I had bloods taken and found my liver alt or ast value I forget which one was 10 times what it should be and that was just binge drinking on Fridays and Saturdays (less than most of my peers). I never felt bad and I don’t feel better now (hangovers aside) that my drinking has been massively reduced, but it’s worth it rather than risking liver disease

Some of the expensive and most secure locks claim the only way of breaking them are with an angle grinder. If this is true I’d be happy leaving an expensive bike locked up in a busy place with that.

Ah well it looks like I was dreaming then getting it for any less. I might look for some storage for it while I’m over there.

Me and the mrs are getting 30kg each and 7kg hand luggage and before I’d considered taking my bike we were just taking backpacks, so 60kg is going spare across 2 cases. Qatar airways

Maybe with quantum computers

Could go on about letting agents all day. Current place I’m in cost me and my girlfriend £400 (not including the deposit of 1.5x months rent) just to sign for it. The last place with a different letting agent took 9 months to return my deposit – 10% of it with no good reason to take any of it away. Students seem to get it particularly bad with deposits, Not all of us are tearing the place down, but all of us get robbed with the deposits. As soon as you hand it over they have you by the balls. I don’t know one person at uni who has had a good experience

I’ve previously had similar thoughts and got past them. To me the point of it all is curiosity. Why end it when you don’t know what might happen tomorrow? The world is your oyster and you can make anything happen, or live practically any life you desire.

You want excitement? Save 10k and go travel Asia for a year. you want to achieve something? Work towards it, start a business, or a university course. Feelings of it all being pointless typically arise when life is stagnant. Don’t live to anyone else’s expectations other than your own

is there a link to that coral offer? I’m I my finding 8/15 for mayweather or 15/8 for Pac

Been using trains fairly often for over 10 years and had no idea you needed a ticket before you got on the train. I pay on the train every week and always get the off-peak discount too. I’ve found out the hard way on the Newcastle metro that you needed tickets prior to boarding but never on an ordinary overground train

YT make great bikes, I have a tues pro. I’m not an owner from new, so I can’t comment on warranty issues, but I have contacted YT for information on sizes and received replies within a couple of days.

I’m in Leeds. Farmer johns at marple and dirt Trax at todmorden are both an hours drive if you don’t mind a push up sort of place and having to pay!

those are my go to’s after stainburn

If he actually wants to do proper DH then get the right bike.

In my experience, my half way there 180mm bike pedalled worse than my new full DH rig by a very noticeable amount. Granted my new bike is better spec’d.

Unfortunately a decision has to be made whether a 160mm bike that won’t do proper DH tracks very well will suffice, or a DH rig that won’t ride trails too well.

26 is fine too for DH. People don’t seem to be getting faster with new wheel sizes