Just swapped from Hope Mini Mono brakes to 2013 SLX. There’s no comparison. Slx will detach your retinas while being lighter and better in every way. Hard to think of a reason to buy more expensive options with performance this good at this price point.

I went tubless a few weeks ago and it’s transformed my rides. I switched to Cank Brothers Cobalt 2’s and simply took my standard tube Conti Mountain Kings, poured a small bottle of Stan’s sealant in and whacked the psi up to 60. That was pretty much it. Incredibly easy and no mess whatsoever.

The Cobalts have a bad rep but so far they have been amazing. Very light as they stand, and lighter yet when tubeless. Pick up a pair for £250 at chainreaction.

I like an Explosif. Those 650b’s look big though. Surprised at that.

Everyone should go full-reta…I mean sus at one point in their MTBing life, if only to realise, three years down the line, that hard tails, for all their perceived compromises and foibles, are bloody wonderful.

If you don’t go FS, then X-Fusion will be bringing out their new forks in May. You’ll find an excellent (and light) pair of travel adjust 100mm/140mm in their range. Perfect up front on a Brant-designed 456 Evo, and at sensible prices.

God, my optic nerves started hurting just reading that 😯

Great review, Matrix. Love your build too. This is one of the few 29er frames that looks genuinely elegant! I’m totally loving my Ti 456 Evo (astonishing bike), but I can see a Fireline frame getting mounted on the studio wall pending future development…

Tri- pouch on the top tube. Good for snacks too 😉

Ah yeas, the water bottle as a tool kit box. That’s a good one too.

Run off the road into a snow drift by a Land Rover. Driver had sense to drive off quickly as my fist approached his face at speed through his rolled-down window.

Half and have-not… 😉

Depends what kind of riding you do and whether you like a playful bike or a stable barge.

Ah, delightfully unbiased advice there… 😆

I went through this process a month or so ago coming from an Edge 305.

That was a great unit but I wanted mapping. I I looked long and hard at the Bryton before going with the painfully expensive 810. What tipped it for me was that it’s a Garmin, with a bit of work pretty much any map can go on it, the virtual partner feature, and the phone connectivity and ‘watch my ride’ feature. Now I’ve been using it through some terrible weather, it hasn’t skipped a beat. The touchscreen is the real surprise. I thought it’d be a compromise, but even with thermal waterproof gloves on it works like a dream. The phone-based upload is also a great feature. As soon as you hit save during or at the end of a ride, it’s uploaded (in around 5 seconds) to Garmin Connects website, and Facebook and Twitter if you so wish too. Really excellent stuff.

Hack saw.

Rad to the power of Max.

If you haven’t tried a Catlike helmet before, make sure you get hands-on with one. The fit seemed a bit odd to me: The medium was too small and the large way too big. The build quality was also pretty awful on the Whispers I tried. Not a patch on the fit and finish of the POC.

*who wants to ever read that 29ers are in fact, a ‘bit’ better? which lets be honest, is what we’re talking about here…

😆 very amusing!

Go 36er!!!

Aaaaaarrrgggg I can’t help myself, I always end up reading these 26er v 29er debates. I really must resist.

😆 It’s a brilliant thread! It’s the debate in MTBing, like it or not. In amongst some excellent flaming here, there are some very interesting points being raised.

For me the debate isn’t about the abilities of 26 vs 29 ( that Ritchey youtube clip shows 29ing at its best), its about the binning of an entirely fit-for-purpose format. For a lot of us who went through the last decade and a half where frame geometry was king, and riding a hardtail was a badge of hardcore-ness, seeing it all routed by a change of wheel size is just bizarre.

Just put in an hour long ride at the same altitude a few miles away. Bitterly cold wind with drifting fins of snow beside fencing, but the wind is scouring the snow from the fields and exposed tracks so lots of riding was possible. I rode about 3/4s of the loop with a lot of it in exposed conditions. Lovely when moving, but the cold gnawed it’s way straight through my sealskin gloves and socks.

Watch out for puddles and streams. There’s that whole ‘creme brûlée’ thing going on.

Trotted this out on another thread, but it’s more relevant here. Great music and, well, isn’t this sort of thing exactly what Singleteack Magazine is all about?

Oooh…this is just dirty…

Does that Ritchey come with a flux capacitor?

Yes it does! Probably.

Drill, or cut the cleat in two across the offending bolt.

456 Evo sounds like a good fit, especially with those forks. Great geometry.

Gentlemen, I present….Excalibur!

The Ritchey P 26. No one you meet on the trail will have one…not at those prices 😥

‘Ouch’ at gee’s face-plant. Headshot! Good argument for wearing a helmet.

NO it doesn’t, YOU have YOUR riding style, YOU spend YOUR money. Plenty of reasons why in certain applications 29″ wheels work better than 26″.

Yep…round-eyed and froth-flecked. Probably quite shouty too I expect 😆

And I’m questioning the behaviour of the market, not the actual bikes.

Depends on the geometry. Long top tube would suit a 50mm stem. I swap between my long road stem and 60mm mtb stem without blinking (different bikes). As for climbing, I’m finding the short stem to be excellent. Go figure.

Went into Leisure Lakes in Daventry couple of days ago. There was maybe one or two 26″ inch bikes for sale, out of maybe 40-50 on display.

Yeah, it just looks weird. It’s all a bit ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’.

I think that to me, and more than a few others, the whole 29er thing absolutely smacks of ‘manipulation’. None of the arguments put forward explain the drastic and wholesale market changes we’ve seen, and the 26er ‘happy accident’ story doesn’t bear scrutiny either. Objectively, it all just looks weird.

Meanwhile the detractors all seem geriatric, confused and defensive, while the advocates are all round-eyed and froth-flecked. The whole thing has developed an Apple v Google vibe. It isn’t good.

Yeah, that’s right about Fisher, but that’s a full 20 years after Ritchey was advertising his frames and rigid forks in the early 80s. What stopped them putting out 29ers in the mid 80s? Nothing, as far as I can see, other than that they didn’t see an overriding benefit to the type of riding being done.

not sure they were ‘investment’ type guys.

Tom Ritchey and Gary Fisher certainly did have the manufacturing capacity by the mid 90s.

I thought on-one and 650B was a bit of a ‘only if the bottom falls out of the 26″ market’ type of thing? Has it?

That’s already happened, hasn’t it? I seriously doubt 650b would happen at On One though. Not unless Brant fancied a really good laugh.

Garmin edge 800 or 810. Or Satmap Active 10. You won’t get lost with those.

Sounds like a job for SRAM’s WiFli

Yeah, and there was that whole ‘Walmart 32er’ thing…don’t hold your breath.

Have to disagree with the bike in the first pic being cool, it looks utter cock.

😆 x1 on that! What the Hell is going on there?

And he’s still working on new bikes

Nice frame. I normally hate 29er aesthetics but that’s almost Art Deco retro.

What did JW go on to do? Anyone know?