Fathers day involved some bikes.

my missus decides thats he wants to ride also

Bigger worries if you ask me :wink:

Still weighing up full face versus trail lid? leaning towards the former..

Intersting point j3ffo. I will almost certainly be trail lid and minimal armour… same as I always role.

Good info on the clogging with mud… but I’m sure it will clog less than a Hammerscmidt or Silent Guide :wink:

Happy at 745 here… think of it as the middle of the roadrad width.

If you run 2.4/2.5″ 26″ tyres your almost running 650b/27.5″ anyway… i.e. 2.4″ Rubber Queens are bigger than most 2.2″ 650b/27.5″ tyres.

I’m sure my Mmmbop would take a 27.5″ wheel but I don’t want to go raising the already rather high BB.

Thinking of buying a 27.5″ hardtail so I can run big 26″ tyres and lower the BB… but can’t thnk of any frames :roll:

That Remedy looks remarkably normal with that set up.

Now here’s an idea – buy a 650b bike, put a longer travel 26′ fork on it, with 26′ wheels. Get extra clearance on big tyres and a lower bb! Winner, or instant death?

I’m having the same twisted thoughts… :twisted:

If you run 2.4/2.5″ 26″ tyres your almost running 650b/27.5″ anyway… i.e. 2.4″ Rubber Queens are bigger than most 2.2″ 650b/27.5″ tyres.

I might do try this on a hardtail… I guess my Mmmbop would probably take a 27.5″ wheel but I don’t want to go raising the already rather high BB.

Can’t think of any donor 27.5″ hardtails though :?

Enjoyed that. Its good to see your hero’s/heroine’s still riding 8)

Coming from a rather tired 1×9 XT set up I have to say that the performance of XX1 is simply fantastic.

1×9 was fine through the winter but now its mountain time again I need the lower gears again; XX1 gives me that without requiring a second chainring or the re-fitting of my Hammerschmidt… much as I liked the HS this is a far neater solution to get the gear spread.

It’s expensive, but I’m worth it :wink:

Much awsomez 8O

Without refering back to Cosmic Rays book and checking what I did I would say most of the “normal” trails listed are red; i.e. Up Schults Creek onto Sunset then brookbank and rocky ridge. But there are loads not shown on that website map :wink: . Using Rays book I hunted out some black trails which were absolutely brilliant and were indeed black. There were a few tricky bits in some of the trails that would require a look first but they were obvious. The book was well worth buying. Its not uk trail centre type trail marking so you need to understand the map and be willing to double-back if it doesn’t look right etc. Trail wise I would say more like the black at Glentress than the red… more natural feel not designed purely for bikes, but not exactly natural.

Bike and Bean were nice guys but not sure about hire from them as I took my own bike. Pretty sure they had hire bikes though.

I can reccomend this book and the maps within it.

Linky

Ideally buy it here and take a copy of the pages and maps for what you “might” do with you.

Mt Eldon trails at Flagstaff – beware the altitude as beathing up top of Mt Eldon was hard… but the trails were ace

http://arizonahandbook.com/mt_elden_trails.htm

Pic from Rocky Ridge Trail on my way down from the top.

Some Sedona stuff here – again some great trails here. Very different to Flagstaff but equally brilliant.

http://www.singletracks.com/Arizona-bike-trails_4.html?filterBy=field168:Sedona

Sunset in Sedona

Jealous… I’d love to go back and have more than half a day at each.

If your looking at these wheels at 1425g then here are how mine stack up?

My wheels are 1494g
My rims were 363g each (not 370g I said above :oops: )
My Hope hubs were 310g Rear (135×12) and 178g front (20mm)
32 DT Revolution Spokes and Alloy Nipples were 280g

Considering my spokes feel like they are made from the thinnest fuse wire imaginable then the Novatec hubs must be light… or they are listing them as built with the lighter QR hubs as the Novatec 12mm and 20mm options I can see online are quite heavy.

If you built wheels like mine up with DT 240 hubs you could get down to that weight and have awesome reliable servicable wheels… at a cost :twisted:

I have another set of Hope/Flow/hoops on another bike which makes it really easy to swap these over… even though I have to swap the end caps and cassettes etc 8)

Novatec hubs and Pillar Spokes/Nipples.

I’ll pay the extra to have DT spokes/nipples and a reliable hub-set I know I can service and get adapters and spares for… which is similar to the concerns that put me off many factory wheelsets.

Remember? I have spreadsheets for such things :roll:

258 and 260 were what I used – 32 hole and standard 3 cross.

258 were disc side front and drive side rear
260 for non disc front and disc rear

You could go a little longer on either but I would not go shorter as these were getting tricky to lace (they made up fine but had to be loose to get the last few spokes laced in).

I used a couple of spoke calculators and still have PDF’s of the wheelpro ones. Fire me a mail and I’ll send them.

Yes, I just went with standard. I had entertained putting a heavier duty one on the back but decided not to bother in the end. The rims I recieved were 370g each so right where Light-Bicycle said they would be. Delivery was pretty quick as when I ordered mine they had stock.

£10 well spent.

Here is what I posted on another similar thread…

I rebuilt my trashed Hope/Flow Hoops with the Light-Bicycle Wider Carbon rims and DT Revolution spokes & Alloy Nipples. Dropped the weight from 1900g to 1494g (12x135mm x 20mm)… I’ve been running them for a few months and they feel great so far. I’m pretty hard on kit hence trashing the Flow rims but so far these rims with Bonty rim strips and Conti Rubber Queens/Baron’s have impressed me. Quicker to accelerate and they feel just as stiff as the Hoops. One reason I decided to rebuild the wheels rather than replace them was that rather than go for some proprietry 24 spoke design with this set up I still have 32 spokes so if I lose one or two in a ride the wheel won’t ping itself to a taco… I’ll get to finish the day/ride and replace the normal spoke without having to send the wheel to XXXXXXX to get it fixed. The alloy nipples worry me a bit but in for a penny in for a pound… If they all start breaking I’ll replace them but from previous experience with Revs and alloy nipples during my XC racing days (early nineties ) they will last a couple of years before fatigue causes problems (IMHO, YEMV etc etc).

EDIT. The carbon rims are really impressive and very easy to build up as they are very stiff compared to a lightweight alloy rim… like a DH rim to build

Another month has passed and the wheels are still great. I’ve had to tweak the rear wheel a bit after a fitting a bigger tyre which required the wheel to be dished a bit more to clear the chainstay; it was no problem and I decided to make the tension a bit higher as with the spindly rev spokes at normal tension I could feel the back wheel was a bit flexy when realy working the bike. Since sorting the tension the feeling has gone away so the higher tension has worked.

Not much else to say really. Cost with import duty etc makes the rims about £150 each so double what a Flow costs. If you were to build my wheels from scratch I would guess the cost would be about £500-600 which for a 1500g wide carbon rimmed AM wheelset is probably very competitive (especially compared to ENVE/Reynolds/Easton etc).

Another bonus (for me anyway) is that my wheels look pretty normal…

and since the hubs are Hope standard issue they are reliable, quick and easy to service/change… and reasonably quiet when lubed regularly with oil :mrgreen:

If I was in that area again I’d spend most of my time in Downieville… again.

http://yubaexpeditions.com/

I treated myself to a Caffelatex syringe which is even better than a pointy ended bottle.

I remember that green Stumpy Mr Yetiman 8) It was lovely.

In 1993 I had one of these with Manitou 3 forks.

Lovely bike to ride but it broke… just like the two 1992 Blizzards I had before it :roll:

Glenlivet (when it opens :D ).

First go at blockwork. Built a retaining wall so I can plant a hedge and gain a little privacy for the front of the house.

Looks better now the topsoil is all in and the hedge is planted :oops:

Extreme Wheely Bin racing… oh yeh!

The Syncros Cattleprod stem still in use on my singlespeed (1996) Kona Explosif is off my 1991 Rocky Mountain Blizzard.

I had a great week on jury duty, showed work the letter to say I would be off all week. Turned up on Monday morning and sent home at 11am; went out on bike. Phoned that evening to find not required again until Wed so spent Tuesday on the bike. Turned up on Wednesday morning and sent home at 11am; went out on bike. Phoned that evening to find not required again so spent rest of the week on the bike. Awesomez.

For where I ride I find…

1. Sintered pads do work in all conditions and last forever but squeel horribly when wet and never seem to have that much bite.
2. Organic pads work brilliantly when dry and worked hard but after a few wet/cold/muddy rides they glaze over and performance is poor from then on (great in the summer if the weather stays like we hope it will).
3. Kevlar work well for me. Not as hard wearing as the Sintered and not as powerfull as the Organics; but they don’t seem to get ruined by the water/mud/cold.

Superstar were out of Formula Kevlar last time I needed so I went for Discobrakes and they are working very well for me… but I’m tempted to try the uberbrake Race Matrix pad next time.

My whole road bike is from 1997. Chain, tyres and tubes are all thats been changed :oops:

I’m thinking of buying a 27.5 frame to run 26 wheels in… the 2.4 and 2.2 Conti RQ tyres I like are so faffing huge they may as well be 27.5’s. By running a 27.5 frame I’ll get the bottom bracket back down to a more sensible height than when running these tyres with normal 26″ frames which were/are designed for smaller tyres.

Probably won’t be a Santa Cruz; although at last they have decided to build frames with decent lenght top tubes so thay may fit me now :roll: :mrgreen:

Currently running some of the Light Bicycle wider carbon rims. If they hold up okay for the next few months they will stay on, otherwise I’ll be running the ubiquitous Flow on Hope hubs… Reliable.

Excellent :lol:

For 6 days of riding/racing in the alps I want RELIABILITY[/u]

I want to ride my bike and enjoy the event; all six days of it. I do not want to be faffing with the bike any more than I have to

That route to Etchachan is not that steep… and the umpteen freeze/thaw cycles since will have consolidated that so it aint going to move… trust me… I’ve been trained to dig snow pits and used to throw bombs at slopes for a living :lol:

Bigger risk would be falling through a thin bit and drowning in the burn underneath… :|

Keep to the right – the burn is off to the left (as you look down the hill that is… not up the hill, we don’t do that round here).

It’s maybe too early to risk the big one yet.

Rubbish… ^ that there picture was in May. If the weather is good get the sunscreen on and go for it. At the worst you will have to walk over the snow fields up top which will not slow you down by much (and you will not be causing any erosion on the delicate Cairngorm Plateau as your tyres won’t be destroying the plantlife that will take years to recover :wink: ).

I’m still planning to use my trusty Nicolai Helius AM. Pivots have been changed, wheels rims replaced, new tyres, drivetrain replaced, shocks serviced, brakes bled and new pads (with spares)… been cheaper to buy a new bike :roll:

Original thread

Check out Bothy Bikes facebook page as they were up quite high last night.
Linky

If you have the time do it anyway, if the weather is good you might find it looks like this.

See more on this thread.

The bird-cam is a bit shaky

Shows how much manouvering the bird is doing. You only get to see a few bits of it and I’m guessing the reason for that is that most of what is going on is happening to fast for the camera and the human eye/brain. What an amazing bird the Falcon is.

Fab.

Slaphead PSA.

Remember your sunscrean folks :wink: