If you’re just doing the “singletrack” coaching then i don’t think you’ll need stuff like knee pads etc It’s pretty fun and flowy rather than rad and gnarly (whatever THAT means ;-) so i would recommend going light and staying flexible. Tony’s such a maestro at it now he certainly won’t let you get yourself into any serious trouble !

Don’t forget your sense of humour too! It’s really good fun, and you smile and laugh a lot, particularly, if like me, you make a massive arse of most things you get shown ;-)

From a H&S standpoint, any system with potentials greater than 50Volts is termed “high voltage” and must be protected and marked in a comensurate fashion.

Seperately, whether 120V is enough to hurt you really depends on the circumstance. The resistance of the human body varies dramtically, depending on the contact points. If you are wearing rubber soled shoes, and grab a conductor with a hand, and are not touching anything else (so the power must flow the complete distance through your body) 120v is unlikely to kill you. (it will SHOCK you, but you’d be unlucky to actually die.

however, do the same with wet hands, or in bear feet and you’re dead!

Typically, 50mA is considered to be a lethal current, i.e. if your bodies resistance is low enough to cause more than 50mA to be driven through you by the voltage you run a very significant risk of death.

When i got my all singing all dancing carbon fibre all mountain missile back in december i knew i was potentially joining the “all the gear, no idea” group! So, i made a mental effort to ride the bike as much as possible, to try to learn something new in my riding every week, and to try to ride things differently and with more confidence. Now, it’s been a slow process, but last week i rode with a friend who i haven’t been riding with for about 6 months, and he told me he couldn’t believe the difference in my riding! As it takes a while to get better (be that fitter, better skills, or just more confidence) you tend not to notice the slow and gradual improvement, but if your work at it, it’s there alright! So, get out there, push yourself a bit (no need to go crazy, just set yourself some achieveable improvements) and suddenly you’ll find your bike is no longer way better than you, and if my experience is anything to go by, you’ll just enjoy your riding more and more ;-)

More smiles per mile, what’s not to like !

Get yourself over to see Tony at UK bike skills, learn to ride properly AND find out what is a great cup of coffee………. double win !

;-)

08 Marin Indian Fire Trail, XTR & carbon everything possible + Mavic SLR/Furious Fred combo, sub 10kg, goes alright ;-)

A lot of that would make for a fine Front Fork/shock advert! It’s slightly mesmerising in places ;-)

Ok! Friday has been and gone so now i’m in the “done a skills course camp” ;-)

And?

Damm good fun for a start! If you like riding your bike then you’re gonna have fun whatever you learn or fail to learn. Tony certainly has an intuitive eye for picking up both on peoples faults, but also on how to correct them. It ain’t as simple as saying “you’re crap at x y or z, do it this way” (especially with us blokes who like to think we know everything……….)

Throughout the day you could see how the course formulated itself, building on those first and simplest actions and skills, each challenge adding a new layer but not leaving the previous skill set behind. Based on a simple and easy to remember set of rules, you find your riding flows more and more as the day goes on. Whilst it has to be said i am never going to be a great “airtime” rider, the skills Tony teaches are very relavent to real world cycling imo.

We’ve all seen loads of videos on the Net of people jumping massive gap jumps, or manualling 300yards, or doing a complete 360 off the roof of a house, but if we are honest, this really is a bit of a false picture of riding for the vast majority. The skills you have re-enforced by a skills course, are those that you probably, subconciously, were probably using anyway, just maybe not at the right time or in the right fashion. Tony lays down the groundwork and enables you to take it forwards at your own pace.

He also makes a fine cup of coffee and makes you feel right at home, important as it’s easy to feel the pressure of scrutiny, and tense up, which is not good when trying to find some flow and smoothness.

As with everything in Life, you get out what you put in. I would have liked to have progressed a bit more in the time we had, but realistically, even the stuff I failed to learn on the day will now be there in the back of my mind everytime i get on my bike. I wouldn’t call myself a “natural rider”, it takes me some time to really pull everything together, but at least now i can begin to see how i ride from an external perspective, analyse the results of my actions, and file away the “good results” from the bad ones.

An interesting collorary of a few hrs of intense riding scrutiny, is that by making the basic actions more automatic, i actually should have more time to simply “appreciate the ride”, spend a lot less time looking at my front wheel ;-) and just enjoy it more for what it is.

The next few weeks should be fun ;-)

OP, You probably ought not to try any motorsport of any flavour if you think push biking is expensive. I’m pretty good at it, ;-) ,but i still managed to write off an (uninsured) £60k car on the first corner of the first stage a few years back………… ;-)

He’s going fast enough to get “doppler shift” at a few points !!

I can’t reach the middle of my back when uninjured! That’s Mrs Torques job…….. ;-)

I guess to a degree it really depends on the sort of riding you do, but i do get a bit bored by the endless number of videos that pop up on the ‘net with people doing perfect runs across insane terrain without so much as a pedal scuff, and i always wonder “how many times have they cock’d that up before the final edit?”

So far, 5 years of MTB’ing and no training, but come next Friday that all changes with an attack of the Jedi (2nd time round it can be the Return of the Jedi ;-) so i will be able to let you know how that compares to my poor self teaching experiments!

Also, you might just want to consider doing a skills course because it is fun in itself !!

Yeah, they can be grumpy old buggers, probably best just telling her you love her………………..

oh, not that kind of washing machine ;-)

What i found was that my “old” wheels were worthg so little s/h that it just made more sense to keep them, sling em in the shed for a rainy day or in case of breakages!

Did anyone else spot this in that link about suspension design:

“The motor on a motorcycle is a very predictable machine, the motor on a suspension bike is about the most unpredictable machine imaginable (especially on a woman’s specific models)”

;-)

I have a suspicion that the quality and tollerance control in the manufacturing process is a bit pony. It seems some peoples items just work and keep working, whereas mine for example has failed twice with exactly the same fault! I think the basic design is ok, but when they have gone to volume manufacture (in Taiwan) some corners have been cut ot get costs down……….

I think the obvious flaw in having a heavy bike is that it really hurts when it hits you on the back of the head after you have just “superman’d” over the bars…………… ;-)

Maybe my legs are a funny shape or something, but i find it harder work to actually push my bike up a hill that to cycle it? I often see people who try to walh down with their bike over some obsticle or other and it looks more dangerous and likely to result in a fall than just cycling down it! But, it takes allsorts, if you’re happy to get off and push then go right ahead ;-)

On my 2012 714, there’s about 2mm between the disc and the ally “dome” of the pivot pin bolt. Doesn’t look like its touched though

only £3k ??? ;-)

First time mine failed (all the air got out;-) i sent it straight to Fishers, whist CRC organsised the warranty repair registration. I had it back in about 4 days!

(since then it’s just failed again in exactly the same way so CRC are sending me a completely new replacement, so lets hope this one manages a bit more than 2 months between failures!)

Ok, so why not just build in some “chicken” lines around the tough stuff, that way each rider can decide what they want to do, rather than just sanitise the whole thing??

More importantly, why are they going to “tone down” the XC course after the olympics? It’s not as if it is soooo hard core that only olympic level riders will be able to manage it is it really ??

(besides, they are going to be doing it as fast as possible on racy bikes, so i’m pretty sure the average 150mm FS AM bike isn’t going to struggle too much?)

After all, you can fall off your bike and hurt yourself anywhere, toning down the course smacks of H&S b*ll*cks to me !

The Reverb is by far the best dropper post to use, matched competely by being by far the most unreliable post in service! I LOVE mine when it works, i HATE it when it breaks (twice so far in 4 months ;-( )

This time i’m getting a competely new item under warranty, rather than just a “repair” via Fishers, so we will see if it can get to the end of July without failing again………….

Luckily, as you can’t get a 27.2mm one, you don’t have to come to terms with this particular Ying and Yang !

I have no idea why you’d want a 29″ version?? it’s perfect as a 26 thanks ;-)

Mines now fully XTR throughout, with Carbon bars, so it’s only a lacking some better wheels to match the 914 (which tbh i should have probably just splashed out for in the first place ;-)

BTW, in the UK, bin the Std fit tyres!!

(unless like last year we have 8 months of drought!)

2012 Zesty 714 you say? They’re not bad…………..

Not that i’m at all biased ;-)

It’s a 2012 model, and yes, i have asked for a replacement rather than repair this time. It’s bloody annoying, but i might just buy another reverb, that way whilst they fix one, i can still use the other…… ;-)

Lightning, it appears, does strike more than once where Reverbs are concerned. Almost 8 weeks to the day later, yup, FAILED AGAIN !!

(exactly the same fault, O ring spat out, no air pressure ;-(

This, is beginning to get tedious.

Luckily for you, this is a democratic country. if you don’t like disc brakes, then no one is forcing you to fit them! Just stick with your V brakes.

The rest of us, not stuck in 1984 will continue on without you

(and no, i’m not going to wait at the bottom of the hill for you to catch up as you bump along at 5mph out of control on your chosen steed)

Too much white for me when everythings white. So i compromised:

(the hubs are white…….)

;-)

Try new stuff!

On your usual ride, look for other routes, unusual lines, obsticles that ARE challenging, mix it up a bit and above all, enjoy it ;-)

The biggest issue with riding in the rain / mud is that loads of people have apoplexies when they see my bike “ruined” by the mud guards……….. ;-)

If you do Woburn at the moment, make sure you have some nice soft tyres, as in the wet the roots are slippy as **** ;-) After a few weeks of dry riding there, a ride around the woods on wednesday in the pouring rain (had the place to myself funnily enough!) quickly got rid of my complacency………..

(and if you see the rear wheel of a Zesty sticking out of a bush/hedge/gulley/firtree (*delete as appopriate) please pull me back out, as i’m currently trying to practise my “manual” technique, but my direction control during said events is somewhat poor ;-)

I have a 2012 zesty 714, and an old collegue and riding partner has a 2011 714. There is a suprisingly big difference in the 2012 bike. Deffinately a bit more zingy, with more linear responses over its full travel. The shorter back end also makes it easier to shift your weight around to manual etc. The 2011 bike is a bit plusher particularly over small bumps etc, yet has no more ultimate stability, and seems to hit through it’s travel a bit more noticably when you are really pushing on.

I’d get a 2012 314, then upgrade it slowly in component terms, as they wear out.

Nice to see you taking “health and safety” procedures seriously and taking a bike with special “follow me even in the Fog” wheels…………… ;-)

Thing is, if you have 3×10 and you can’t “find” the right gear, well, to be frank, without wanting to sound too rude, you probably could do with a bit of tutition?

IMO, unless you go 1x, then there is practically no difference in weight between 2x and 3x (you still need the shifters and front mech, you still can’t use a chain device at the front etc), all 2x saves you is the weight of a single cog at the front, which is what? 40g?

Having said that, it depends what you ride, but i like to use the “Mountain” bit in my mountain bike, so i use all of my 30 gears! (yup sometimes even the crossover chains ones you shouldn’t use……..)

It certainly looks like it’s possible to find a better spec bike s/h, but that might take a bit longer than just going out and buying a new one. The thing that worrys me is “crappy forks” at that price point, some are so shocking it would be better to be fully rigid!

Also i just know he’s gonna want to keep up with my Zesty when we ride togther, which could lead to a few sketchy moments…… ;-)

Also, i’ve got most of an XT drive train in components after a serious bout of “upgradeitus” on my two bikes, so maybe a decent older frame of Ebay, allowing for the fact that a few bits might be a bit worn out etc?

I’ve used CRC a lot and never (yet) had an issue. Recently they handled the warranty return of my Reverb quickly and painlessly (over the phone).

RE: No negative reviews> Tricky one this. The simple fact of the matter is that generally, in the vast majority of cases, people only leave a “review” if it is negative. if you buy say some wheels, which just work and you ride around on them, very very few people will spend their time putting this in writing. But if you get said wheels, and you snap the hubs out the first time they turn, then you can bet you’re gonna get onto the site and leave a review! What’s the answer? Well i don’t know. Maybe give “credits” for leaving proper reviews of the stuff you have brought. i.e. everytime you leave a review you get £1 credit or something. That way the reviews will actually reflect the bias towards “good” or “bad” that they currently don’t if you open up the system completely.

Personally, considering how quick it is to google something, anyone who buys anything online without refference to any other 3rd party info is frankly a bit naive imo !

It’s easy to poo poo the “big company = poor customer service” ethos, but no one on here likes to pay over the odds for something. Effectively the choice you make when you opt to buy the cheapest possible is that other intangable benefits might get degraded.