Try the brake pad replacement but first of all i would always fit new shimano inners and outers and make sure theres no kinks at all. A few drops of rock & roll cable oil if you have it and see how you get on.

*Its scotland. Cable oil even in new shimano cables is always a good thing!

Going by how much of a difference new quality cables make to all cable operated brakes,i would try this before buying any brake pads. Check the old pads to see if anything has lodged its way into the rubber but you will probably find the best upgrade being fresh quality cables.

The walls of the downtube arent thick so it probably didnt take that much to do it. It wouldnt bother me to be honest. If i was notified of it before the sale i would be fine with that. If you didnt know about it then maybe you would want to get a little back for it as it might affect what you sell it for later on. Just ride it!

O.K ive gone into Basecamp but i cant seem to find any OS Maps. Theres a girl standing with a plate of carrot cake but not a map in sight :O/

http://trafficscotland.org/lev/# check out camera 1905 @ Drumochter. If its white here.. the hills are filling in!

I would love to try one over the Cairngorm plateau. Coming down that ridge back to the ski carpark from t`sneachda would be nice.

Maybe the chalamain gap would be possible!

<just slurred “a fat recumbent!” with a mouthful of food. Jeez. My eyebrows nearly hit the ceiling. Epicyclo will be ordering one today. That thing is strathpufferable.

“I go through the motions of what I think of as being ‘normal’ but underneath I assume that I will be left by myself because people will always find someone better to be friends with or have a relationship with. This mindset seems to sabotage things and pushes people away, when what I want is the exact opposite”

Ive always been like this. Can i join the club? Where do i sign?!

When i opened this thread i never expected you to have started it. Like others have said, you appear confident. If theres stuff lurking.. you hide it well. I dont really know you at all but I get the impression you are reasonably happy with a lot of confidence.. So much of it that it makes me feel even more unconfident! If that at all is possible.

<drinking some boozey type stuff that i shouldnt be drinking.. i have 15 mins to edit this but knowing me i probably wont ;o) Forgive me. If you cant,at least warn me in time of possible finger chopping with cable cutters at the puffer.

There has been a few moments when i have thought that inside you might lack confidence. It brushed by me and with the apparent confidence that you show.. i forgot about it. It may have been questions or some kind of question that was asked for reassurance on something. I cant put my finger on it. At first you come across as a bit shy but soon open up but theres been a few indications that made me stop and think. Like you say, a lack of esteem? I am not quite sure. Maybe i`m describing what is in my head the wrong way. I am probably the last person on earth to evaluate any of this and god knows why i am trying. Tis late.

Moving on. Seriously,theres not even a handful of bikers that inspire me. It turns out that a few do, and it turns out they are the ones i know in person. Not the folk i see online or magazines. You are one of the first that springs to mind. So many folk you know now expect you to podium at the events you choose and when another podium pic appears or names high up in the results get spotted when having a gander to see how everyone placed.. its no surprise these days. We now expect the podium and the champagne,or the quarterly frameset!

So many folk dream of doing this well at the races.They never will. Some might fluke the odd win or podium but they wont be nailing it this often. No flukes,this is you at the top of your game. Its amazing that you can find the time to organise it all with work,looking after the kids,finding the time (and energy) to ride and train to be able to place so highly so often. Its this that inspires me. When you posted about the Inners Enduro I had thought about that race format since it appeared but probably would never have given entering a second thought without the inspiration and mention of it in the first place.Having not raced since 2005-ish it was good to do a race again. Even if it did turn out to be a bit more than a leisurely xc race like i had guessed. Its all your fault. Thank you!

My heads pretty minced as it is (just look at the time i posted this and it might give a wee insight) but if things dont go to plan at the race spannerwise or something falls through leading up to it,the last thing i would want to see is you stressing out and not doing your best because of it. You have done a lot of work and weaved around things to be able to not only train for this race,get the right head on to enter it(solo!)but possibly win it.

It wont be 24hours but let me know and i can see whats possible later on sat eve/sun morning. I might fall asleep and if i chop my own fingers off i wont be able to point the blame.. so no worries! :O)

Or pinned to the ground under a fallen tree! Roof is nearly coming off the house here.

It looks fine. If you were a hole out, it would have been severely wrong. Going by what you said in the first post it was obvious you finished the wheel to a point where you were happy with it. If you got the holes muddled or something.. it wouldnt have been possible to be happy with it!

I have experienced what you wrote about a lot. Winding nipples on at the thread might feel like they are all going on the same amount/number of threads going by the nipple driver but its only to wind them down to begin with. More often than not you will find at this point that every 2nd spoke will feel a world apart from its neighbour. Dont worry though.. the build has only just began!

RE: The disc side lacing choice. You have built it asymmetrically with the disc side laced the opposite to what most folk would do in their builds/factory builds. Chris King would choose your style (what you have done on the disc side in the pic) for his reasons but you will find the other way a lot more common. Dont worry.

On rock hard steel steerers even what is known as the best pipe cutters cause a flat lip on the outside of the steerer at the top. They might cut fine with their so called hardest cutters but they soon give up. The lip they leave once cut still has to be filed off or it will tear o-rings when fitting the final headset parts. A plumber recommended a cutter to us and he too had problems cutting a marzocchi steerer with a fresh wheel under what he would consider the right pressure/tightness to cut with. He thought we were tightening it up too much but the marz steerer soon had the last laugh! More bother than what they are worth. A good guide,fresh blade and a good file is the best.

“ummm it does not have to be straight in any way”

If you cut the steerer off-square and use a park tool star nut setting tool to fit the star nut inside the steerer.. then its going to be off-square inside the steerer as when you finally drive the tool hard down, the tool butts up to the off-square cut of the steerer.

Moving on… you fit the fork and put the top cap on. You tighten it down to find it contacting the stem or spacer off-square. This often causes problems with the pre-load either at the time of fitting or problems later on during riding. I remember a King headset not playing ball because of this problem with a poorly cut fork. It had to be removed and filed up as square as possible. Once sorted, everything went together a breeze.

More recently i noticed tight spots in a newly fitted (open ball) headset because of the off-square cut/squint star nut in the steerer. You wouldnt have thought it would have made much of a difference but it was so bad that it couldnt have gone out the shop the tight spot was that bad. Again,straight cut steerer solves the problem.

Sorry.. just thought it would be a great moment to bring this puppy back to life!

Aww phek me. I am laughing like mutley and drying tears from my eyes as i ttype this!

If you like messing around with wheels and dont want to fully back them off to start again you could maybe try (one side of the wheel to begin with) backing off the higher tensioned 9 by 1/4 turn.. and increase the lower tensioned 9 by 1/4 turn. Then switch to the other side and repeat. Then check dish,stress,true,repeat etc. Not quite sure what the outcome would be like initially but at least you will know that out of the 36 spokes.. as a bunch,they would be sharing the load a lot better than the 18 that are possibly doing most of the work meantime.

See how you get on with that. You obviously know how to get it to a ridable state so if you have the time and patience you could give this a go to see if you can improve on it.

Its not the hub or the rim. You need to back them off carefully and get back to a point where you can evenly match the tensions before finishing the wheel build.
Its nothing to do with the hub or the spoke lengths getting mixed.. its the time you have spent getting the tensions higher but also not taking note of how even they were from the beginning of the build. Early on in the build you can do this easily to a point by grabbing spokes by the thumb and forefinger to give you a rough idea of which ones definitely need tensioning.Once you reach a certain tension this will obviously become useless!
Take more time concentrating on getting the wheel true whilst matching each spoke tension as you bring the tensions higher. Once you stress the spokes in different ways you will soon find that you can overcome the problem earlier on in the build.

Grab a spoke tension meter if you can afford one.

If i stood in a queue in a shop up here in the highlands and said “may i have” instead of what i would say myself.. “can i get” (or can i have)Folk around me would probably take a look at me. Unless of course they were from around your area.

The “can i get” also sounds like “cannaget” in my language/accent ;O)

If you stopped off in Glasgow it would be something like “maya hae” if you wanted to humour it ;O)

Persimmon is a great all rounder but yellow can be night ridden ;O)

I would put a tube in overnight as it will help push the rim tape down onto the rim so that its ready for your 2nd attempt in the morning! This will help seal the tape down. It doesnt sound like its the problem but at least you will know the tape is stuck down as well as possible leaving you with less things to worry about.

My mother had to move from Liverpool during the war. She was moved to Fort Augustus and then Torridon to get away from it all.

She would get on well with your mother,Buzz ;O)

I would ride as much as i could. Even if it meant hanging around for another year to do this.. it would be worth it. The costly mistake first time around might be fine if you can afford it but still a bit of a ball ache.

If you ride stuff and find a few that you cant really fault then why not copy it to a point but alter the finer details to make it perfect for you?

This is what i would do. I like the swift and having never thought about doing stuff to it i would like to try a slightly slacker headtube on it,maybe slap a pressfit bb in there and a tapered headtube. Sam would probably have a fit lol.. but thats just something random off the top of my head. I would also lower bottle cage bolts as far down the downtube as possible.Maybe fit an ugly (but functional) set of dropouts on it with a bit of adjustment.. not sure what else but i certainly wouldnt go playing around if i couldnt afford the mistakes.. and dont think that whatever you ask for is going to be built exactly like you asked for. Some frame company boffs will easily tell you the truth if you ask them nicely. Theres been some right old F-ups that have been very costly to some over the past year.A shame,but they would have put their trust in a name they thought were building great stuff.. only to find out the truth.

As for going to the local frame builder down the road.. theres someone on here (i wont say who) that got a frame built around 1995 out of a nice selection of tubes but once built.. the top caps of his judys caught the downtube. Not his fault but a pain in the ass all the same.

Theres so many other little details that you have to dodge before it turns into a great bike. To get something better than your fav bike first time around you will need a fair bit of luck (and a good builder) on your side.

Yeah, Drac will be getting the buckaroo out. I wouldnt be suprised if he strategically places the toy so that when it bucks its saddle bags off its erse they will go down his sister in laws blouse!

The Montane velocity jackets have been known to be fairly crap for biking though.They look good value but theres other stuff out there that will breathe better for less. Ive still got an old Montane event jacket that will just have to make do.

Anyone used an 800 on a motorbike?

Aw no no no! I wasnt having a go at anyone here.. Just a few thoughts running through my head on the way a lot of parents would feel about their kids after the xmas/new year. We will all head this way later in life.. some more so than others. Not all though, theres some seriously clued up folk ive come across in the past heading for 85-90 years of age and they talk like they were 45-50. Quite amazing. Oh,and with hearing of a teenager to boot!

I could relate to the driving along in the car moment where they read road signs and shops signs.. haha. Although i remember that as a kid.When my folks werent much older than what i am today. Ugh!

Possibly a good move,boxelder. Its a shame as they look great wheels but i would be very wary of the body. I may be wrong. Like you said, i too would be happy to pay another 100 quid or more for something that will last. Especially in the hub department. Its the hardest and most costly thing to replace on a bike when things keep going titz up.

Poor footage but once the facts and figures are shown, it just blows you away. Imagine the feeling before jumping out? Not knowing if its even possible with the suit he had on amongst all the other stuff.Now one of my fav youtube clips.

Coffee.

Meanwhile over at Retired-Britain.co.uk..

“Good evening all. Just thought i would drop by and let you all know how Edward and i are getting on at Ruperts (our son) over the xmas period. I dont know where to start. It is near impossible. He attempted to cook dinner earlier and insisted on no help at all. This clearly upset him when i finally managed to squeeze by after half a dozen attempts to sort the gravy out (Less Bisto-More Saxa! Heavens,the poor soul never listened to a word i said)

An hour after eating,he went to the kitchen,filled the basin and stormed over as i was reading the Daily Mail. He rolled his eyes (45 years of age – fast approaching 12) grabbed my unwashed plate and dropped it into the sink. If he carried on like this with my Royal Albert he wouldnt know what had hit him.. let me tell you. He returned for Edwards plate and muttered something about “Daily Mail and Guardians” I asked him what he had just said to which he replied “get a hearing aid” The cheek of it. I knew exactly WHO he was talking about. Only for this Guardian he wouldnt be where he is today.

He then stomped off upstairs to get ready for a bike ride. A bike ride in the darkness? Yes,he chooses to ride a mountain cycle after dark. He tells us he needs to ride it after eating or he wont sleep well. I offered him some Diphenhydramine Hydrochloride to help him sleep but Oh No,drugs of any description could hinder his “racing career”. Bloody fool.
After offering him what is best at least five times.. he loses patience ever so quickly. He never used to be this way. It frightens and saddens us both.
After the bicycle ride he then stuffs the washing machine full of unrinsed muddy clothes. One would ask if i had dropped him at birth and that IS quite possible. My mind fails me. At this point i try to pull the clothes back out before he stops me in my tracks. The look in his eyes said it all. We always thought he had a drug problem and these concoctions he drinks on the bike worry us. I honestly thought he was going to crack at this point. He gets so wound up over the smallest of things that its beginning to worry us.

Thank the lord we are only here until the 2nd of Jan!

Anyone else care to share experiences of their children after retirement? Please do get in touch. We would appreciate to hear from you.

Yours Gratefully

Hilda & Edward”

Welllll,you never know.

At first i thought the RRP was £449 on this but i take it that its the £349RRP bundle?

£255 doesnt seem quite as good as i first thought.

You should sell your soul.

Uhoh.

::moves swiftly on when he spots a sun ringle freehub body:::

They should be giving YOU £143 quid to ride these if the freehub body is anything like theyve been over the past few years.

Or feel.. if you think you might have ran out of chemicals.

Anyone fancy finding the moment on Youtube and put a bit of vengaboys over it? Or maybe Aqua – barbie girl.

Her at 53 seconds with the handgun. Ive got it on repeat!

If the nose cone half fairing thingy was removed and a pair of old style speed triple headlamps fitted along with a nice leovince gp pro side exit exhaust.Ahhh.

“Well done. You made a Ducati Streetfighter for the poor.”

heh.

Well i think it looks awful. I wouldnt get out of bed on my day off to go out on that thing. It needs to at least look nice or have something going for it.No thats a lie because the handling or the handling along with the engine could be amazing.. but if it has looks about it that make me frown and question it,then theres really no point in me looking any further!

<now picturing first aiders stuffing punctured folk into the back of their ambulance for the hourly trip to Raigmore Hospital.

The 16 hour mark hallucinations will have the wounded blaming crazy chavs lurking around the course..

that werent there at all.

The powder over ice was like that in many places around the highlands on sunday. Total nightmare! Looks fine,feels fine then the bike washes from under you on what looks like grippy fresh snow.

If anyone thinks they are too late to enter you might want to call and see if you can get in.

Go on.. you know you want to!

They have always said to bed this brake in slowly. So maybe not following the instructions is the problem.