i have just had a 456SS delivered to work to replace my Trek Fuel full sus. Will be running 100mm rebas on it and looking forward to getting it built up.

The plain finish looks really cool too!

mine is done up as tight as i can do it with my Y shaped allen key. Not sure what the torque figure for that is though.

Anything you should know? You’ll use it about twice and then hate it :)

great and noisy. engagement is really fast – i miss it when i get on my geared bike. Noise is not so good for stealthy night riding, but great for alerting walkers to your presence.

woo hoo! let me know what i owe. my riding may become somewhat more rubbish than it already is.

yeah. One of the red arrows landed in the roof of a house in my village apparently. (many years ago)

Batemans Combined Harvest i think.although if Matthew_h is who i think he is then i might try fot a cheeky drink from the barrel.

Tis nice. my desk used to have a window looking up to Lincoln cathedral, and when the red arrows were out training they would often fly up from behind there.

i have some of the VPD kneepads. Really comfy and flexible. The pad material seems to be more than double the thickness of the 661 evos i’ve seen, but haven’t tried those out.

Unfortunately the only crash i have had in them , I managed to land on everything but my knees…

I have a gourdon 30 and it seems brilliant. For the money it would be hard to beat. I used it with a wee airic, decathlon mini sleeping bag and hunka bivvy bag. You can also fit in a 3litre camelbak and have space left if you want.

highly recommended – stays still even on technical descents (at least at my mincing speed)

working in the water industry and having seen complaints from customers, i have to say this is a good idea. what is little understood is the amount of work and cost of actually making clean safe water.

Bills can only go up by an amount approved by the regulators.

These policies are not aimed at the genuinely poor, but at the millions of £ of bad debt owed.

I remember seeing a letter from a customer saying that they were not paying their bill as they had to buy a playstation. Not really getting the priorities in order, but then if you know you wont get cut off ,who cares?

edit – as Samuri says. People do think like that – customers who say that they wont pay the water bill as they need to pay the broadband or they will be cut off…

I haven’t used them but these guys sponsor my cycling club in Lincoln

Stewarts Plumbing Services

Got to be worth a try…

mine do that too. it’s normal apparently. I spoke to TF Tuned and they said ‘thats why you should buy them from us’ :-)

see here…

TF Tuned FAQ

Best – golf – recent hire car, but then my company car is a vectra and it is awful

Worst – would have said vectra, but i got an Astra Twin Top convertible as a hire car. How anyone would actually spend their own money on it after a test drive i do not understand. Was poor with the roof up but when down i thought the whole thing would shake to bits!

I have used Impsport and they have been very good.

mine were a little sticky when i first got them. I had to ‘work’ the sticky one to free them up and then they were ok.

to do this take the pads out and then use a plastic tyre lever or similar to hold the good one in and pull the lever. this forces the other out. Then use a cotton bud with some mineral fluid on and clean around the piston to free it. Then push the piston back in and do it again. Do this a load of times and they should work (almost) evenly!

i had a nightmare trying to get a wire bead crossmark onto a normal rim with a stans strip. no matter what i tried it wouldnt go on (mechanics air line almost did it. When i used a tubeless tyre from my other bike it just inflated straight away. Have you tried inflating the tyre first with an inner tube in and leaving overnight?

maxxis crossmark are fast. i like them as they make the road sections of my local rides much less of a chore. It is amazing how much easier/faster they make hardpack ground

this happened at my work place. It was following the incredible number of people that kept falling down the stairs when they tripped over the ends of their flip flops and then had to have ambulances called out to them.

Should really be an individual decision, but with the H&S laws the company could not ignore it. Even down to the point that the stairs now have notices on them telling everyone to hold the handrails :roll:

as Anthony said. One wrap of yellow tape pulled tight when stuck on. I did this with Bonty TLR tyres. Inflated for half an hour with an inner tube in, then removed the tube, put the valve stem, poured some Stans juice in the tyre and they pumped straight up.

As for less faff with BMX tubes – i think not. The Stans rims have been ace, actually pumpable with a normal track pump (unlike the rimstrips i bought which are a nightmare!)

i like my polarised ones. just normal grey. i bought them to get rid of the annoying reflection of the dashboard in my car windscreen and they work well. Not sure i would be prepared to stump up the extra for iridium and polarised though.

I use a normal ‘long’ allen key on mine and it has stayed tight. The bolts do seem to be made from cheese though. A little smear of grease between the back of the bolt head and the spiky washers allows the bolts to be done up tighter without rounding out the head.

i have both a hope SS hub and a pingy bell. Strangely some people seem to hear the hub, and others hear the bell but no-one seems to hear both!

A combination of judicious freewheeling and bell pinging generally gets a smile and a step aside. Shouting works OK but never seems to raise a smile like a pingy bell does!

I think that it is because when they hear a ping, most people expect to turn round and see a small child, not a fat bloke on a bright red bike :lol:

my inbred. especially once i realised it was more fun with the forks wound out to 130mm :)

I second the green chain cleaner stuff. Drip it onto the chain, go for a cup of tea, then scrub the chain with a toothbrush or similar and rinse. Works nicely and does not contaminate the garden with nasty chemicals.

As an aside, I have also been pleasantly surprised by the performance of the green oil – works well and smells nice too.

tighten up the bolts in the rocker. they are bushings i think rather than bearings.

Hex for cold weather (bought when they were cheap) and a Giro Ionos for anything slightly warm or requiring hard effort. Hex is noticeably much hotter than Ionos, but was a lot lot cheaper…

I’m loving the blue Oakley track suit in the background of the bottom photo!

Thanks for the tips. Got the last hyper 3 from Holey Trail. There was also 1 left at Keswick Mountain bikes too – turquoise if anyone is after one!

I rode a couple of Masters races last year. By getting one year older I then had to ride more laps and everyone was faster than in the senior cats. It hurt. If I race in the future, I will be doing open.

I did it in 06. Got 5hr 59mins. Hardest race I have ever done – more so than 24 solo.

Don’t be under the impression it is like a ‘challenge’ event – it is a race and you will be pulled out at checkpoints if you are too slow.

For training – do loads of running as the hardest bits are carrying your bike up stupid slopes.

Been going since the 70’s hasn’t it – AKA ‘Wombling’

Stans Flow are good. I have been running some over winter and the tubelessness with width allows nice and soft mud tyre pressures. They also seem to be quite tough.

I disagree with the comments about narrow rims being better. Yes they give a nice round profile, but then if you run something like a 2.4 they will roll and squirm horribly at low pressures. But we all like different things…

Definitely a crown.

The peak would never stay put!

Bomberman – I hope the Health and safety fairies from that warehouse don’t see those pictures 8O

hex seems good. i had a xen for a bit and it fitted really nicely like a hat rather than a helmet, but it was faulty so sent it back and eventually bought a hex (for something like £30). Hex seems pretty good, slightly better venting too, but it doesnt look as good or have shell around the bottom edge so gets bumped more easily

I think you will be riding the road a lot :)

unless you can go a bit further inland towards the Wolds?

Is it from the negative valve on the bottom of the leg? If so then turn the forks upside down when pumping up this chamber and the oil won’t drip out.

I have a pair of Cross marks and although they are fast, they dont offer a huge amount of grip on anything other than hardpack, and they block up with mud very quickly.

They are however lighting quick if you can cope with the sketchiness.

ta for that. that review seals my choice as I could do with something that works ok in mud and damp crud.

And once those tyres go on, I don’t want to have to switch them over until the mud-x go back on in about October.