If you buy new forks those too are going to need servicing soon enough, so you’re just delaying the decision a bit.

When you can, drop the lowers off and lube them up, you can get a lube kit from TFTuned or buy the oil from bikegoo for a fraction of the cost of paying someone else to do it. The whole process will be demystified and you’ll be better informed on what to do next.

thx njee, no worries there are other cranks (and other frames)

it’s a 73mm BB.

thx guys, I don’t want to make an expensive mistake … will dig into the tech

Try a different clamp. I had a Hope once that slipped, switched it to a Shimano and that worked. Or it could have been the other way around.

This time next year you’ll notice your FS in the corner of your garage, looking unloved and pale for lack of daylight.

A steel hardtail to ride for variety and to use over the winter to preserve the FS.

Another good plan – it’s pretty much what I do tho then I find myself riding the HT all year locally and keeping the FS for trail centres and rocky places.

I’d start out buying cheap and near-enough-what-I-want kit from classifieds, and get your bike on the dirt. Once you’ve lived with it for a while and got some miles in, your idea of what you want will sharpen up, you can upgrade kit and recycle the un-needed back to classifieds.

Experimenting and swapping bits about is part of the fun for me, and I find it sharpens my sense of what the bike is doing too.

How about a cross bike, ie totally different to what you have now? Then once it’s built you can do 1hr jaunts from the door without driving. Buy War & Peace or Bleak House for the Mrs.

Presumably as more of us run tubeless there’s less tyre swapping going on and more demand for all-round boots, and our variable weather makes seasonal tyre choice a bit moot anyway.

But 750g in 26×2.25, heavy man.

Not so, see the last. But it was a cheap shot. Let’s move on …

Sorry Stewart, not much help. As Al says put up some pics.

]People who finish statements with question marks drive you crazy?

Nah do bike building in babysitting time not riding time. That’s what baby monitors are for.

Not got a baby? That’s what you need to make first.

As Cheez says, rediscover the hardtail rider in you. And you (probably) will end up preferring it.

Are the bank notes in your wallet arranged by value?

Google says 3lbs = 1.36kg, wow.

You may as well drop the Flows for Crests and get light Schwalbe (RoRo pre-2011) tyres, you’ll be knocking on 22lbs then.

Madness!

My new Rebas are 1650 grams, what are the SIDs?

Those carbon cranks would get me under 23lbs just, as my current X9s are 1850 grams.

(but I’m also at the point where light enough is light enough, not being a billionaire and all. I don’t even race.)

Thx yes I found them too, panic over.

Tempted to those carbon cranks …

Lighter tyres and small changes in spec and it has been 23.7 lbs

I’ve got 23.4 lbs for a small 2011 Soul, SRAM X0/X9 2×10, Rocket Rons tubeless on Stans Crest, Reba maxle 15mm, rigid Ti post. That’s about as far as I can go without spending stupid money (Mrs JG is saying I already have …).

Vortex: got a link for replacement chainrings for those cranks? The RaceFace site has them as 120mm BCD, and I’m buggered if I can find replacements for my Truvativs, which are also 120mm BCD.

http://www.raceface.com/components/cranks/next/next-sl-2×10/

Update: I dropped the lowers off these last night, there was lube in the legs but the foam rings and around were 90% dry, and the foam rings were kinked too, so am glad I did. I replaced the rings with lubed ones, and added some grease, defo made a difference.

what’s PAC?

I’ll soon be faced with the reality that my Truvativ is unrideable due to the ‘ring wear, it’s going to have to come off, put in store, and something else will have to go on. I’m liking the look of those RaceFaces with adjustable chainline actually, but they are sharp-intake-of-breath expensive.

OP: apols bit of a hijack here. I’d never go back to a triple. I like the x10 for the close ratios, shifting can be ultra smooth, but haven’t ridden x9. No regrets for what I do (Surrey Hills XC and ST on a hardtail).

Jim, thx will do.

Soob, what frames/chainsets? Chainline on the chainsets is 1/2 the issue here. Cotic warned me Shimano may not fit on my ’11 Soul. Truvativ does fine BUT I CAN’T GET NEW ****ING CHAINRINGS, EVEN FROM WIGGLE WHERE I BOUGHT THE CRANKS FROM. (sorry rant over).

with the sram cranks

120mm BCD? Found a source of new chainrings yet? I haven’t.

No regrets, it rides great (39/26 and 11-32), I like the close ratios and the ‘set and forget’ mode of the chainrings. I realised on my FS triple all I did with the big ring was put the chain on it to stop it coming off on descents, and I had to do that because the chain was set long enough to go on the big ring.

I have a problem with SRAM chains breaking frequently on my 2×10, going to try Shimano instead. I don’t totally buy that the whole cassette should be used in each ring.

as mountaineers say: “no points for being dead”

Strava are VC funded and, given this is a totally foreseeable situation, I’m sure they have a plan on how to deal with it.

It’s nonsense that Strava is for people too cowardly to race. I enjoy Strava by riding from the doorstep with, and ‘against’ my buddies. I don’t care where I would come in a race and I can’t be ***ed to spend hours driving around the country just to line up with loads of others on a startline and push and shove for a couple of hours. Not what I want to do.

(As for anyone racing Ranmore Road descent while the tip is open – I hope it’s quick for you).

Pics please! Want one!

Morzine and Les Gets are basically the same place, just a mile and a bit apart by road. If staying in either for fun, I’d pick Morzine as it’s bigger.

* is the rotor true? It only takes a slight warp in the rotor for this to become an impossible task (but still perfectly rideable). Don’t assume a new rotor is true, I’ve had to send 2 in a row back to the online shop I bought them from.
* save your sanity and know when good enough is good enough – unless all the parts are 100% new and bang on, the set up never will be, end even then it’ll start to degrade a tad with riding.

It’s a bit of a judgement call as this is the interface between theoretical in the lab engineering, and the crufty jaggy entropy-dominated real world.

The acid test is, with decent power in the brakes and the pads pumped out, you can spin the wheels with no drag and the braking is smooth.

there we go Northwind has it spot on.

Don’t panic this is fixable without big dramas.

Here’s a Dremel:

pic from here

If you can scrounge a Dremel, score a groove across the top that you can get a flat head screwdriver in. You may possibly be able to do this with a hacksaw but it’s easy to **** up the remaining bolt shaft head, a Dremel will do it cleaner and quicker.

I’ve done this a couple of times. I had rotor bolts that fitted perfectly in a hub that had bottomless holes for the bolts. Then a new hub had a closed end on the holes that weren’t deep enough for the bolts and of course I kept on tightening… doh. What an idiot.

Experience – that thing you get just after you needed it.

Archie, how do the oilers work?

More importantly Vortex, have you fed the puppy? Or is it a stray?

What do those little barrelly type things on your brake cables do?

The SixC bars I have them on mine too but with the orange flashes of course. Good they are.

Good boys, and good Dad.

@Oscillate if you need to run it at 140mm perhaps what you really need is a FS. Optimise for what you do most. Soul can run 140mm but is more at home on 100-120 I think.

My Soul is built light and fast for my local Southern forest XC and ST. I have a FS I use for steep rocky places, trail centres etc.

Nice but does look like it’s missing the classic steel frame skinny tubeness.

Puppy looks hungry.

Nice, enjoy.

XT 48.8mm, horses mouth:
http://bike.shimano.com.sg/publish/content/global_cycle/en/sg/index/products/mountain/Deore_XT_M780/product.-code-FC-M785-S.-type-..html

XTR a bit pricey for me. What RaceFace are you running?