Stunning. Only for the bike,the first pic looks like its from 81! Do you have a Garmin route map or similar?

It’s not like a fresh bmx track smooth. If you know what I mean. It’s not exactly rough either. Canal towpathy?

After doing it we never talked about it and to be honest.. I haven’t even analyzed it at all. With the tyres and pressures and everything else being different,there’s not much to look into. The 29er just rolled the slowest no matter which one of us rolled it.

The funny thing is, same brand/model of bike but with a lighter set-up and a pro2/flow/tubeless combo, the same thing happened coming over the crest of a hill around a well known race course up here. Everyone on 26 inch wheeled bikes rolled off into the distance while I went backwards. I said at that very moment ‘erm,whats the deal with this?.. I thought 29ers were supposed to roll faster?!’ as the others picked up speed and moved ahead down the track. I even pointed out that although we were descending,I was probably the heaviest rider in the group and still going backwards.

Again, another moment I haven’t analyzed but coupled with a constant feeling of riding with the brakes slightly binding.. compared to my other 26 inch wheeled bikes.. something had to give.

I even have a zesty that can often feel quicker on the climbs. I felt this with both 29er’s I have owned and also felt it on a demo bike that’s probably classed as the holy grail of longer travel carbon 29ers at the moment.

It’s strange. I don’t have the time or patience to look into it. All I know is that I’ll be enjoying the 26 wheel for a while yet.

Three of us did a fun test at Learnie jump park a few months ago to see how far we could roll around the whole area without pedalling.

One 100mm travel 26er, One hardtail 26er (Susp up front) and a 29er with approx 80mm rear/110mm up front.

Each of us rolled around the track and the 29er was stopping short of the 100mm 26er by approx 20ft.

Each of us marked the spots where each bike rolled to a stop and we all tried out each others bikes to find the 29er rolling to a halt,20ft short of the short travel 26er. The hardtail was also ahead of the 29er (which I thought would be the best in sillytest).

Fun little play around,not scientific but .. oh well. :O)

Like some folk are saying, 26 can be good for some things,29 better for others.

For me, I still choose 26 as the best all rounder through trial and error. I have owned fully rigid 26 and 29, short travel 26 and 29,longer travel 26 and ridden a reasonably long travel 29 (blur ltc)

For hammering around technical trails both up and down I found the Blur with longer travel a good bike up steep rough climbs and steepish rocky descents. The extra travel over my own short travel 29er seemed to help and the momentum seems to keep up the pace both up and down rocky trails… when you are putting the power down.

Now here’s the bit that sways me back to 26 as the happy medium through trial and error riding in the Cairngorms,Torridon,trail centers.. right down to old school firetracky stuff around the highlands. The pace that I tend to propel my 13.5 stone around these terrains on an average ride never benefits from a 29 inch wheel over the whole ride compared to a 26. This is what I have found having ridden them from fully rigid through to longer travel on all the above mentioned terrain.

If I ride 29 as I have always done,at the same pace.. the wheelsize is not as suitable either up or down a hill,rough or smooth,as the pace/speed I find myself trying to overcome rock gardens,rocky boulders over Torridon etc is just plain easier at the slower speeds on 26. I can be grinding around 2-3mph up a steep rocky garden and power the bike up and over from near standing starts FAR easier on 26 than any of the 29’s I’ve ridden or owned (both light wheels and mid-weight) This has been found where I have nearly ground to a halt on 29’s whereas on 26 I can get up techy stuff. So from experience mixed with my riding style/weight/power output.. the 26 is far easier to ride with.

Not just on techy rocky descents or climbs. I can grind up the likes of the Burma road at a pace I’m comfortable with and get on FAR better on any of my 26 inch wheeled bikes than the 29 inch wheeled bikes I’ve owned.

I don’t know what it’ll take (or how long) to make a 29 inch wheel as light,strong and responsive from slow speed acceleration but I have a feeling it could be many years to come.

To recap on that, for my weight,power to weight ratio,riding style,speed on average through the rides I generally do.. a 26 inch wheel is easier to ride over the majority of the terrain,it’s also more enjoyable.

Yes, 29 inch works wonders when the gas is on in certain situations but for the whole ride,its 26inch for a long time to come. I tried to adopt one of these 29ers but if it’s not quite right for what I do,there’s no point in forcing it upon myself any more than I already have done.

For the people that find them better than their 26’s through back to back trial and error,Enjoy!

I’ve had a Panda in my 29er. Tore its arse on the bottle cage bolts but it still managed through.

Exactly the way I plan to sort my van out,Druid! Not one biking sticker on it whatsoever. Possibly a few graphics that look similar to the camera logo of mobile speed traps and a small blacked out window in the rear door.. not much else. :O)

the reality is that it is 99% the rider and 1% kit

:::moves along to the next thread:::

I like the tweaked pics. I’d rather a few of them were like that than not at all. Looks amazing,though. See the frosty pic with the tarp.. can you describe or show me what that set-up is? Quite fancy taking something like that to bivi under next time I head somewhere over that direction.

Jealous of the boat side of it (getting you to the Island)

Step 3 from Orange website = Notsoweird.

Step 3: With both bolts slackened,
and standing on the driveside of the
bike, tap the swingarm away from you.
Note: Hit only the weld!

First things first. You can’t show off how good a wagon wheeled bike is to anyone if it’s a vid showing someone that’s learnt to ride a bike on 20″ wheels all his life ;O)

Some people follow the fashion, some don’t. What I don’t get is, if It’s been around for years, why has it taken so long to catch on? (bit like the Jimmy Saville thing, I mean that’s taken a few years to raise it’s ugly head).

By 2015 29er’s will hit the headlines of mtb magazines using the word ‘monster’ and ‘odd ball’ too.. after thousands of bikers will be left feeling like they’ve been ‘inappropriately touched’ by all this codswallop.

Heckler bearing change took me a lot less than 15 minutes.

Northwind – Member
Yep, it’s easier to change the bearings in a Heckler than a Five.

+1 x2!

Bit of a fail that one mentioning a Santacruz that’s a far easier job lol.

I beg your pardon, I read £300 inc VAT. (which would obviously be £360)

I read £300 trade inc VAT with a RRP of £700 something like a bike from last year,a staff price,end of line kind of deal.

Sorry! If I could remove the cloud cuckoo land website I would.. but it’s too late :O)

Yeah,the bottles go cheap as chips as do inner tubes. Bit like prawn crackers at the chinese. They cost around 6p and sell for £2.80 ?! :oD

A staff deal on a trade price is all very well but please step down from cloud cuckoo land where you seem to be thinking that every item on every order placed by all known LBS’s in the land get.. staff discount :O)

Nwilko’s deals can be found here:

http://www.cloudcuckooland.org/

I’d have taken it on if the tyres and rims were tubeless or tubeless compatible. Soapy water and instaflate canisters to see how well they inflate after cleaning off the old sealant then breaking one bit of the bead off the rim to put the fluid in usually does the trick without removing the valve core.

If it went up first time then its going to go up next time around with the fluid.

Just charge for the canisters,sealant and labour.

Edit: I’d guess 20 mins to clean the old sealant from one tyre and rim.It takes a while to get it all off the beads on both sides.. but at the rate most bike shops charge for 20 mins work,this is hard going on the ole thumbs! Deffo worth charging more for a job like this.

I have mailed it to you,George.

If anyone needs another £10 off..

martinbothy at aol dot com (I’ll reply later on tonight)

I dream of a 40mph average..

I dream of a car with the ability to tell me more than just the speed and the mileage. It’s still easy to average 55mpg in it so I won’t complain about the lack of wizardry.

Is that number plate scottish for “nay two ways”?

If you travel a long way as it’s the only day you’ll get to do it as a group.. don’t get pulled into the idea of ‘well we’ve come this far.. we ain’t turning back home now!’ and get caught out. Plenty more great riding in the area if it goes a bit ti*s up.

http://solidsteel.net/

HUGE Dj Shadow set by Food on this weeks part 3 of Solid Steel. The start of it is doing wonders too! Sounding good so far.

Rewski: I bet you’ve now learnt to keep everything you own and become a hoarder! (like me) Sounds like a fun time. I live up north and nothing every really made its way up here to see live all those years ago. Edinburgh or Glasgow was the closest.

I liked the GLK’s ‘nissim’ track mixed in on a recent Solid Steel (maybe 3 weeks ago) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-vJSZE8OLE Nice bit of music. The guy seems to get slated quite a bit but I’m not entirely sure why. :O/ His website has a few mixes to play for free. Worth a look.

RE:Kid Koala. I saw him live in QMU? Glasgow on a Ninja tour and some of the stuff you hear on his albums might not sound up to much but it’s once you see how he generates those sounds and turns them into music.. or tricked you all along by making you think he was scratching a record that had a trumpet playing (drunk trumpet), when it wasn’t quite as simple as that.. you see just how good he really is live (with cameras filming the decks and projected behind him so you could see what was going on)

I still need to listen to all the stuff you guys posted. It blows the other music threads to bits as its all revolving around the same thing. Cheers!

A lot of nice cars mentioned and pics posted but when Pepper first mentioned his cars I instantly wanted to see them.. more than anything else mentioned on the thread.

Putting the dog aside,its the only car than made me flutter when you posted a pic of it. I still want to see the mark1 twingo though, so get a pic up!

I got to 1 min 38 secs and had to turn it off. I’m not saying that what I heard was poor but there’s other things I could be spending the other two remaining minutes listening to!

..like some guy mumbling to himself as he freezes to death in a snow hole up Cairngorm.

This is roughly 22 pics taken on a 3gs. Nothing has been photoshopped but it seems the breeze made the grass come out quite nice. Lochan Fada bivi spot/bike trip. [/url]
Fada bivi spot without bike or kit.[/url] by martinxyz[/url], on Flickr

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Torridon and Alligin from the Annat track[/url] by martinxyz[/url], on Flickr

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Loch Ness rainbow from Foyers river mouth[/url] by martinxyz[/url], on Flickr

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Strathpeffer saturday eve ride[/url] by martinxyz[/url], on Flickr

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eilean donan castle flowers[/url] by martinxyz[/url], on Flickr

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Golspie under flyover 8 10 12[/url] by martinxyz[/url], on Flickr

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Mallaig harbour 16 07 12[/url] by martinxyz[/url], on Flickr

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Liathach from Coire Grannda 11 08 12[/url] by martinxyz[/url], on Flickr (As I opened up this pic to publish it I thought of a citrus smell. The scene reminded me of the time I was there spraying myself with Smidge. I’ve never had that happen before. Kind of weird. :O))

@ Rewski. I love that Gus gus track. All this stuff is pretty much what I’ve been into for ages. Before this I think I was listening to nwa,public enemy,del etc around 88-92 along with indie stuff around the same time and then a bit of dance stuff (like Sasha & Digweed’s renaissance)that I might have got into from late sat nights listening to radio 1 or something. I remember buying the re-issue of Dj Shadows In/flux around 94,taking it home and switching on the record player,and thinking ‘where have I beeeeeen all my lifeee listening to all that crap in the pasttt?!’ as this was far more me. Same when I bought the Dj Krush Meiso album. Bought it in Our Price after GLB (sometimes on here ;O))recommending it. Got it home and played it through and ‘Duality’ came on. Nearly fell asleep at the first part then the mash up of god knows what kicked in. From then on,this was it!

Ahhhh,thank the lord for an 18 year old James Lavelle with the coolest record label in the world. Have we seen anything like that since?

I don’t really care as the stuff is timeless!

duckman – Member
Bought,and am listening to P-fiction. At 44 I have been switched onto a whole new genre I had only dabbled in. Many many thanks to everybody who posted suggestions, I have bookmarked this page and will be working through them.

Both you and Yunki Jr!

For me,Shadows best moment isn’t even on any of his own albums. Skip to 3.20 for a hidden gem

Blasting*

The Mo’wax Excursions were good. Shadow and the groove robbers ‘in/flux’is often said to be the best trip/hip hop track of all time (if you can get around the folk arguing about it being hip hop or not!) When I heard it around 94 or possibly a year later I missed it first time around and was blown away by it.
I have a few of the Excursions on vinyl delving in about different genres. The one with ‘io – Claire’ was the techno excursion and it put to rest my thoughts on what techno was (going by the p*sh I was hearing on the radio) Fk me.. So good!

The others had twig bud,the groove robbers,chief excel,I think Olde scottish – wildstyle was on them. (great track)

My fav is probably :::reaches down for it!::: ‘MW018’ 12″. R.P.M – 2000. A lot of these can be picked up on Vinyl for not a lot of cash and I’d buy them again in a minute.

If you do come across them,buy them. If you enjoy the suspense of what these tracks are like then it would be cool to hear them blasing out from a record deck and through speakers rather than real poor youtube recordings. They’ll no doubt blow some of you away.

You could check out the weather forecast (for the mountain and NOT Fort William!) Personally I wouldn’t go near it with a bike in Nov. It’s nice to reach the top with a bike when it’s in double figures. You will want to hang about for 15-20 mins for the views/getting sorted for the descent. I would guess that starting a ride from the top,in a group,in temps under erm,7c? wouldn’t be fun (or safe) so choose the day well.

It’s always been June to Aug that I went up it if I remember right.

I’d also be leaving before 8am to be safe. Anything after midday is asking for a yellow air bus down to Bedford Hospital!

Maybe try a few rounds of stans tape. Put tubes in overnight to help push the tape down. Then do what you’ve already done with the fairy liquid the next day.. before adding sealant.

Well I hope you sobered up and decided not to drive south! Nah,I work elsewhere now. Left Aviemore over 2 years ago.

Good luck with getting the bike built. I have ridden a hummer for a short distance around a trail up here and with a really basic wheelset,it felt amazing. Also tried one singlespeed and again,it was something else. It’s still a frame I’d like to own one day.

Drop me a note and I’ll let you know where I am these days.
martinbothy at aol dot com

You under took the corsa so showing the vid to the cops will have them throw it out the window ;O)

<<awaits someone coming forward and owning up to doing Esther Rantzen doggy and keeping her falsers under the pillow as a keepsake.

Funny thread though!

Ahh so I was right 2nd time around. Hope yer well and healed up all good. Haven’t seen you around here for years. Or maybe you’ve been around,but more of a lurker. Its weird as only last week I looked at the Pace propped up on its back wheel in the corner of the shed and thought of the time you borrowed it. Spooky.

I can see your point after buying what is known as one of the best Ti hardtails out there. First time around Merlin sorted you out good and proper with a no quibble refund but I can’t comment on anything else as phone convo’s are something that are,well.. just not in writing.

You spent a lot of cash and unlike a cheap frame,you would expect to not have to do anything to it as far as prep goes other than grease etc. It would be nice if things were that simple but quite often the best of stuff needs another tweak before it gets to the customer.. this is usually the bike shop/bike builder.

A lot of the Titus ti frames had no chamfer on the inside of the headtube. At this level it was quite often a King headset that was going in there and if you know what the King headset is manufactured like at the point where the un-chamfered edge of the headtube would meet.. you can see that the cups are rounded. Its a tiny amount but it basically means that if the headtube was never chamfered,there’s going to be daylight showing when fully pressed in.

Yes,the boss could have sent the frames back to Arizona but it would have been a big,costly job. It’s something you would expect to be able to send out to other retailers or customers as a product you would have no problems with but I do remember spending time chamfering Ti headtubes as some customers wanted a King headset fitted in there so my way of going about it was to get it right there and then before posting,to save on the hassle of posting things back and forth,not to mention the aggro it causes. The last thing I wanted were customers who just spent £2000 on a frame along with what was known as ‘the best headset in the world’ to have enough room to house a colony of mites between the cup and headtube thrown in.

I’m not sure which of the well known frame manufacturers are known to miss out on these small details but to save the customers,retailers and distributors that buy them into the country a hell of a lot of hassle.. maybe they need to have a few extra folk (or just the one beady eyed ‘ker!) on quality control to nip these things in the bud at the factory to save these problems between distributors/retailers/customers.

I’m not pointing the finger here, it’s any company that fails to finish a product off to the point where it’s possible to build without further facing and reaming. It ends up causing grief between the customer and the retailer when at this level and cost,it should be the exact opposite. It’s to be expected with frames around £200 quid but not with frames at these prices.

…or Kenny.

I’m not in Aviemore these days. I got a job at (2nd edit,hah): Lynskey in the headtube Dept. Kidding ;O)

Hey,give me a clue on who you are?! I am thinking …friend of Richard P?

Have a look at this for a laugh. His rule is a thing of beauty :O)

‘take a rubber mallet like that.. and pound it in a little bit’