We’ve just insured our Cockerdoor (lab/cocker spaniel cross), on a compare the market type thing with Argos, £9.50/month ish, and far more comprehensive cover than most of the other cheapy cheap ones.

http://www.stif.co.uk/mtb/product/santa-cruz-bullit–frame/4887#description
A Bullit, seems like SCruz are stopping production now though as I can’t find it on their drop down menu on their website.
But for £900 on top of the £1100 price you could have your own tailor made build, i.e. some totems (£250/300 second hand), proIIs on 721s or similar and the full build, except for the forks you’d probably have enough to get it all new, would be higher spec than most bikes around £2K. If you need the totems look on southerndownhill/pinkbike ( :oops: )

Yes you’ll need to sign up for SDH to view sales boards but well worth it.

Southerndownhill is the place to buy second hand downhill bikes. Buy second hand you’ll get a lot better. i.e Iron Horse Sunday – £800 for full build!

When I had a Heckler ’06 model, I’m 99% sure the shock size was 200×57 as I swapped the shocks over from my Meta 6.6 which was the same.
According the S/C site:
“What size shock does the Heckler use?

8.5” x 2.5” (216x 63mm)
The mounting hardware is 22mm wide with an 8mm through hole.”

What size shock does the Nomad use?

8.5” x 2.5” (216x 63mm)
The mounting hardware is 22mm (21.8mm for rockshox products) wide with an 8mm through hole.

No, I just use a loop of gaffa ape with a couple of inches either side of the valve hole overlap and go over with electrical tape. It’s worked countless times for me.

I concur, amazing guy

Cheap if not a bit heavy:
http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/fs-20mm-wheel-and-rim
Nice ride by the way, frame looks very smart

I’m in Nottingham too and was doubtful of some of the LBShops so have recently built the wheelset I wanted myself. Dead easy. Have a go. If you want some advice give me a shout.

Nitromors is easy enough stuff to use, just have a bowl of waternearby for when you get it on your skin and I would advise wearing specs/goggles to protect eyes.
Use as instructions, I’ve found using a generous helping dose the job, don’t use sparingly, it’ll get most of the paint off, sand around welds/dropouts etc to get the rest off, but far quicker than sanding. I’ve done it both ways and wouldn’t ever use sanding again!

Childreach International

Seems all round far better service than many of the other online retailers now-a-days!!

I’ve ran non-ust Continental Rubber Queens tubeless happily on 823rims and 321 rims.

Financial for me, hardtail is a lot of fun, also due to moving, changing riding style to suit the pumptrack in my back garden and a bit of xc

Nukeproof protons, thin, light, cheap, I’ve just received my set today, they look very nice and replacable pins. A fairly cheap option.

jontydewolfe, I don’t think they’re meant to be disposable bodies like many of the bmx style.
Good things so far, grippyy was my concern really, and guess durability should be like any other HT components pedal.
On that note, I emailed readytoridecycles who sell HT components and apparently they won’t be producing the same pedal rebranded as nukeproof have sole right in the UK despite HT components making them.

I couldn’t do it personally, but as others say get hold of some slicks.
I can’t remember what mag it was (maybe MBR or something) but they had an article where two of their writers did a stage of the tour de france, one on a Giant XTC (or similar) with slicks and the other on a road bike. Giant XTC rider faired OK IIRC, not quite the right tool for the job but you can obviously adapt to make your current tool, more suitable

I’ve got a Magura Julie lever on Giant RPM Calliper and works fine, but as above, may depend on ratio.

I’ve ripped both of my before, an absolute nightmare, I had to take 6 months off sport (I did it doing competitive athletics).
I went to see a physio, which I would highly recommend, there advice of what I can remember was, foot insole beds for your shoes to allievate the pressure on the area. Use Ibroprofen gel on the area to allieviate pain. And also stand on a step on the stairs with the front ball of your foot resting on the step, hold onto the banister and raise yourself up and down on the ball of your foot so as to stretch the back of the heel, especially prior to sport.
Obviously most of this applies to once you’re out of plaster but this may be of some help.
Sorry to hear about your injury, good luck with the healing process.

Look pretty gone to me, in need of new stantions and bushings if the marks correspond to their placement.
A new set of uppers is going to be an expensive job (from Fisher Outdoors Limited – The UK distributor).
It may take a month but it could be worth trying to find new uppers on various online forums like SouthernDH, Pink bike, Bikeradar, STW, if it was me though I’d be tempted to sell the Pikes as spares (i.e. lowers/maxle/internals) you could scrape together £80 that way, and then buy some Pike’s secondhand for around the £150 mark.
Or you could ride them into the ground…

Nice one, sounds a great way to spend some time. Out on a ride the other day I met a bloke on a ride round the woods, showed him a nice singletrack route and he really appreciated it and seemed to show a lot of interest in getting more involved in riding round the area regularly. It’s always nice showing someone round your local trails and having more people to ride with!