i’ve just made my own frame using Reynolds 631 and its far less punishing than the previous steel frame I owned.

Sounds interesting. Not often you hear of that tube-set being used.

Pictures please!

P-26…£760ish at Evans Cycles. That’s Ti money, and you should definitely go for a Ti 456 Evo if the two were on the table. Brilliant frame.

But…Tom Ritchey. So cool!

God don’t even go there! It’s outrageously expensive! If I were to go for one it’d be the 650b, but only in my dreams.

I seriously doubt this would be something you’d consider…it’s pricey but at least it’s not another bloody Cotic ( no disrespect!):

Ritchey P-26

There’s a 29er and, much more intriguingly, a 650b version. Ritchey don’t sell the 26 inch frame in North America because the market’s dead for that format over there! 😐

Gorgeous, isn’t it?

Not sure what that has to do with anything

Maybe I went in too high there? 😆

well it does have a vagina built into the top tube so…..

I just threw up in my mouth 😥

“He’s riding a hardtail along rough(ish) trails…”

Excellent response! I reserve the right to keep your post for future usage! 😆

Judging by the comments on Pink Bike, you are wrong about that.

Au contraire, mes amis:

Specialized 2013

Rubber mallet…Essential!

I thought the rider looked like he was struggling to maintain his line at times. I doubt the American audience this is aimed at will notice however…

Damn. What a pity. Great shop and excellent staff.

Slammed…not a term I’m familiar with regarding bike set-up!

Okay, well, a lot of us have been riding a long time on here, and a fair proportion will have experience of knee pain, either from poor cycling techniques, poor bike set-up or just from the way our joints work.

If you haven’t looked into properly setting-up your bike, then here are the main areas to look at:

Saddle height: When sat on the bike, wearing your riding shoes, place your heel on the pedal. Your leg should be straight (but not ‘locked-out’). With your foot clipped-in, you should have a slight bend at the knee. This is the basic starting posture for the leg. You can take the saddle down a little to increase the knee-bend and fine tune your riding posture.

Knee/Axle drop: Sitting on the bike with your cranks at their horizontal angle, drop a plumb-line down from the bottom of the knee (there’s a slight knobbly bone there!). Ideally, the line should drop through the centre of the pedal axle. You can adjust cleats and saddle position to achieve this, but if you have to use extreme positioning, then your frame may be too big or small for you.

Crank length: There are many theories about the correct crank length. In mountain biking, 175mm is the default setting regardless of rider size because it is deemed to offer greater leverage for off-road riding. Shorter crank lengths offer no less real-world performance off-road however, and have the advantage of letting the rider spin their cranks more easily. Companies like Middleburn cater for shorter crank set-ups.

Spinning technique: Probably the most important factor in cycling knee-pain. Tour De France riders often spin at the 90rpm level, and they try to maintain that up, down and on the flat. You’ll struggle to reach that sort of figure off-road, but you should try to spin at at least 60rpm in all circumstances to reduce strain on the knee cartilage. If you’re straining to push the wheels around, then you’re probably developing micro tears inside your knee.

Rapid leg muscle development: This is often overlooked, but rapid muscle development of the leg muscles can pull the knee out of alignment. Massaging the outside of the thigh helps to reduce this pulling action by relaxing the muscle.

Cotic’s slide down the Cool Wall begins in earnest I see.

Some questions!

What’s your bike set-up? (Picture would be good).
Do you honk or spin?
Have you checked your knee/pedal axle alignment?
Do your knees hurt after a ride, during or both?
Where in the knee is the pain(front…behind…lower…upper)?

Thawing like crazy East of West Linton.

Trail centres are fun. Mums and dads and families and teenagers…swoops corners, gnarly bits. Yeah stuff like that.

It has it’s place, but if that’s all you ride…all you want to ride? Nah. And if we all think that on this forum, then not only is the message inherant in the forums’s name not getting across, we’ve forgotten there was any message in the first pace.

I think I’m totally the opposite of a lot of ‘long termers’ on here but if I had to choose between natural and man-made, I think I’d go man-made. You just seem to get more for your money – pleasant climbs and descents made for descending. Natural riding can sometimes be a bit of a lottery (and I say that, having some awesome natural riding on my doorstep).

What?!

Excellent! Everyone should have a ride that bad!

My worst ride (genuinely traumatising) was from a mtb route book. A lot of these guides seem to represent the author’s cathartic exercise in psychological healing through extreme suffering….rather than an enjoyable bike ride as you might reasonably expect.

1993 Giant Storm Breaker. Did thousands of miles on that frame. Utter sh*te is was too. Now lives life in honourable retirement on the turbo trainer.

Double post!

Are you actually enjoying the rides or does the pain intervene every time? Chronic pain while cycling, caused by climate, ground conditions, gearing or whatever is a sure way to lose the cycling bug. You definitely don’t want that to happen.

Oh, one more thing: Magnificent roman fort at the top of Hardknott pass! And the road to get there…well it’s a legend amongst roadies…

No one should be that lucid with a hang-over! Interesting post though. That certainly explains the common ‘in the bike’ feel reported by 29 testers.

Buttermere is very varied, with walks and scrambles for all abilities. The assent to Red Pike is very rewarding, as is Fleetwith Pike, while Rannerdale Knotts is the perfect introduction for those who aren’t used to the fells.

Can’t recommend the slow cooked lamb at the Kirkstile Inn at Loweswater enough. Worth going to Cumbria for that alone 😉

It’s down to uptake , and with the US bulk manufacturers going wholesale across to 29in wheels, that uptake will be guided by them, not us.

Same here. After yesterday I should be shredded, but no real aches or pains. Something must be wrong 😯

Yeah, looks less tight in the other angle, but still close. Elegant looking bike though, proportion wise.

Good post, and just confirms pretty much any test out there. What it points to is that possibly, possibly there’s a sweet spot in 650b.But really, what difference does it make in the real world?

Stranga that’s lovely but the rear clearance looks like its a mm or two! Is that a 26in fame?

The give-away is that there just isn’t the sort of impiricle proof that 650b or 29 is actually superior in any measurable way-just different. Despite that, Specialized has gone all-in, together with the bulk of the big-volume US Manufacturers. It called ‘fixing the market’.

Look, bike innovation is great fun: The endless search for the perfect suspention solution has been fascinating, and the constant tweaking of frame geometry has led to some stuff I still can’t believe. Ejecting an entire format because it is suddenly deemed to be out-moded though? That’s something else. A 26 inch wheeled bike does all the things a larger sized wheel does, and in the key off-road areas of slow speed controll and accuracy, it does these things better. Soon however, the 26 format will be the preserve of the ‘weirdy beardy’ types on this forum. Admittedly, a lot of us thrive on that here, but something will be lost for the sake of mass market revenue generation.

Bring back the Builder’s Tea edition. Brilliant colour!

My experience of X-Fusion velvets is that they are light and very plush. Easily the best square edge performance I’ve experienced. Hard to source though.

My experience of X-Fusion velvets is that they are light and very plush. Easily the best square edge performance I’ve experienced. Hard to source though.

I have this great road bike. I was blasting along on it last week and I thought, ‘what an absolutely superb bike. So supple ans efficient, and so poised.’

Today I was flying over very terrain type imaginable on my Ti 456 (26er)’ and I thought, ‘what a truelly brilliant, agile, tactile bike. It’s a joy to ride.’

Somehow though, I appear to be completely wrong. The industry has realised that all the intense bike evolution of the last 20 years has been misguided and that every review that celebrates brilliant mtb design is fundamentally flawed. Those great Souls and Yetis have been deemed to be somehow so deficient that the fundamentals of their design is to be thrown out and a fresh round of development and evolution is to begin. For years from now on now, we’ll have magazines breathlessly trumpeting the increasing stiffness of 29er forks or the gradual lightening and strengthening of 29er wheels.

It’s…so completely depressing. So obviously a manipulation of the consumer. I read a thread like this and I just see the sport demeaned.

Re:Pussywillow

Well said sir!

POC Trabec…

Trabec

Let’s not play ‘ugly bike’ Top Trumps.
I used to own a Whyte JW4.

I always wanted one of those. What was it like to ride? Do tell!

Caring for your mountain bike:

Rule No 01: Never use a hose on your bike.

Without a touch interface, HOTKEYS are your friend. Like a Mac, you’ll get more from it too.

Windows logo key + start typing – Search your PC
Ctrl + plus (+) or Ctrl + minus (-) – Zoom in or out of a large number of items, like apps pinned to the Start screen
Ctrl + scroll wheel – Zoom in or out of a large number of items, like apps pinned to the Start screen
Windows logo key + C – Open the charms / In an app, open the commands for the app
Windows logo key + F – Open the Search charm to search files
Windows logo key + H – Open the Share charm
Windows logo key + I – Open the Settings charm
Windows logo key + J – Switch the main app and snapped app
Windows logo key + K – Open the Devices charm
Windows logo key + O – Lock the screen orientation (portrait or landscape)
Windows logo key + Q – Open the Search charm to search apps
Windows logo key + W – Open the Search charm to search settings
Windows logo key + Z – Show the commands available in the app
Windows logo key + spacebar – Switch input language and keyboard layout
Windows logo key + Ctrl + spacebar – Change to a previously selected input
Windows logo key + Tab – Cycle through open apps (except desktop apps)
Windows logo key + Ctrl + Tab – Cycle through open apps (except desktop apps) and snap them as they are cycled
Windows logo key + Shift + Tab – Cycle through open apps (except desktop apps) in reverse order
Windows logo key + PgUp – Move the Start screen and apps to the monitor on the left (Apps in the desktop won’t change monitors)
Windows logo key + PgDown – Move the Start screen and apps to the monitor on the right (Apps in the desktop won’t change monitors)
Windows logo key + Shift + period (.) – Snaps an app to the left
Windows logo key + period (.) – Snaps an app to the right
Esc – Stop or exit the current task

Which they wont be for long if you keep mashing a big gear

You can do it, but you can also climb just as fast (if not faster) by spinning a smaller gear, which puts a lot less stress on your knees.

Correct advice.