@DONK Smooth climbs maybe 😉 … on the rock infested hell climbs near me when you use ETA you bash your pedals off the rocks 😆

I used to run in the desert with a chap who’s heart rate would jump from 160-170 up to a scary bounding 230-250. When you took his pulse when it was like this it was amazing and so was the boom-boom-boom in his chest. After a few seconds it would calm back down to a normal excersing 150 odd and he would go back to his running… not sure if it was heat related or what but scared the sh!t out of me. When I suggested he got it checked he told me it had been like that for 20+ years and he wasn’t worried about it 😐

He used the HRM to try to keep himself away from that zone though… nutter 😯

I’ve never found adjustable forks lengths like Talas/U-turn to be any benefit other than for finding the sweetspot travel length for a given frame. Lengthening travel for the downs and shortening for the climbs in my experience screws up how a bike feels. Find the fork length that works best for me on a frame and leave it at that is what I do.

I used to ride this for what you are describing.

At about 45lbs it was a beast of a bike but it had super low gears and hence could be winched up almost anything – including a good few Munro’s.

I changed to this a year ago…

Which at 35lbs with a CCDB and Reverb is a hell of a lot more manageable and can be used as an everyday bike unlike the big beast, and it actually doesn’t stop me doing anything I used to do on the beast.

Something similar with 180 forks and the Hammerschmidt could be built at around 35-40lbs which would make it pretty damn useable. Hammerschmit is awesome for what you describe – never lose the chain but have a huge range of gears = brilliant… until the Pinion system comes out 🙄

Are there different versions of the Bel Air with different levels of padding? I’ve never thought mine to be like a sofa, and I’ve certainly never experienced the nappy rash phenomenon!

This – but I have experienced the nappy rash thing on very long days but didn’t put it down to the saddle. I use steel, Ti and I-beam versions with comfort.

I destroy Gobi’s by looking at them – snapped the base on one and the “wing-flex” bits on another… pish.

WTB V-thing I ran for a while was very soft and definetely caused nappy rash.

I love my Scottish route’s but the thought of riding here again has me drooling. South Mountain Trails Phoenix Arizona with Gnargnartours 😀

Much more useful for raising the seatpost than dropping it.

+1 This

I’m a recent convert to Reverb-ness and would not go back… I now have two Reverbs ❗ . My local forest is very techy with short sharp decents and climbs; for years I’ve done the drop the post an inch and use skill/luck to get by on the descents and knee-pain/effort on the climbs. Or, stop/start to raise and lower the post to make the most of the descents and climbs… but this means a lot of stops in a ride. For the big mountains I figured it wasn’t worth getting an uppy/downy as you only raise and lower the once right ❓

In the local forest with the Reverb I can really enjoy the descents with saddle dropped and then role right into the climbs with a stab of the thumb – absolute bliss as at the bottom of some of the steep river crossings there is actually nowhere to stop and raise the saddle before the techy climb starts… the Reverb is awesome for these sections (as is a HammerSchmidt – but thats another topic). Up in the mountains I also use the Reverb all the time… not on the climbs obviously… but all the way down the descents I can change the saddle height and rest on the pedally bits with the saddle up, and then slam it down for the gnar.

I love my Reverbs, there is no going back.

By a process of experimentation I’ve settled on 45/50mm stems and 19mm rise x 745mm wide Sunline bars on both my bikes (HT and FS).

It’s AM so keep one eye on the weight and the other on the strength – Easton Haven, Sunline AM, and Thompson stems are lovely if you have the budget… but others are avaialble with nearly the same weight but much cheaper (Gusset Staff, Superstar etc)… but watch out for unneccessarily heavy Doonhallers kit.

Bars – I found going to 745mm a great experience with no downsides, but others in the gang have ended up cutting them down to 710/720. I bought my first wide bars cheap figuring I’d cut them down… but never have and like them so much I see no reason to change… I did drop the height and hence bought the low rise Sunlines… although going for Easton Haven Carbons would save a bit of weight from my bikes and wallet.

I do occasionally skiff trees with them but it’s part of the fun – the extra width and short stem make the bike more fun in so many ways. There are many tight tree sections in my local forest but a twist and waggle will get me through at high speed… there is only one section where two trees are perfectly placed to wedge the wide bars… but good technique can see you through and have hillarious results for the folks behind you who don’t know it’s coming.

Cut the sidewall on the front tyre of my hardtail last Sunday in my local forest.

Cut the sidewall on the front tyre of my full-suss this Sunday in my local forest.

Same bloody rock – pop out of the forest with a little air off the roots, throw the bike down onto the track and aim the front wheel into a rut and lean like hell. The wheel bites into the rut which pulls you through the turn. That’s how it normally works… both weeks I was spot on until my front tyre went into the rut and *BANG*

I didn’t bother to look last week as figured it was a fluke… but after doing it again yesterday I walked up for a look and there was a huge piece of quartz with an almost knife like edge right on the inside of the rut where I aim my front wheel. With my angle of lean it was perfect to cut the tyre… two weeks in a row… grrrr.

It took me a while but I got the rock out and threw it away… it looked to me like the piece of quartz had been broken/sheared to leave the sharp edge… probably by a horses metal shoe… grrrr, dog meat and glue!

Certain mavic rims notoriously crack under the steel eyelet 🙄 and mine failed when the eyelet pulled out 😈

Amusing… I rode the MacAvalanche two weeks after mine 8)

Best piece of advice I ignored, and regret ignoring, and would do next time 😐 … is to remove the stitches yourself (a mad nutter mate reckoned do it after a week). Mine was stitched up with stuff that was never going to degrade itself and hence it was a complete faff to do at week 3 by which time it was very painful.

I had V2’s and needed the same adapters to fit a 180 disc as my new brakes needed to fit a 160… so I think running a 160 is not possible (but I could be wrong).

Pinion Simon?

*drool*

Looks like it’s somewhere near that ST eco-destruction route in Scotland, possibly?

I have no_eyed_deer, I couldn’t possibly comment 😉

My wife had one of these but I never fitted a roof rack – I did however damage the inside with all the bike in-out-in-out-ness. The plastics were not very scuff resistant 🙄

It was fun to drive but the engine was a bit… well… not enough poke and rather unsmooth. Sounded like a diesel and revved like a bag of spanners. The Supercharged “S” was more fun but very thirsty which is why we didn’t go there.

We didn’t have any problems. She misses it but I don’t.

4-5 hour rides in the area… I would be peiceing epic bits of stuff together – I’m mostly about the interesting techy stuff so I’d want to get as much of that in as I can and limiting the fireroad drags.

As mentioned above by Sanny – the Burma road has some interesting singletrack off it. Smooth climb up to the cairn before the saddle and descend to Ballinluig on a not that clearly defined path… with some good sized drops and boggy bits to catch you out. A few ways to do the next bit but you want to get along to Alt Chriochaid and up to the phone masts at Creag a’ Mhuilinn (we tend to go across the heather and through the woods – no path). Techy landy climb up to the masts (what kind of 4×4 can get up here?). Once at the masts go round the back and pick up the path down to Alvie – there is a 10ft deer fence to climb. This takes you to the old Alvie DH track and is great fun – it gets rockier towards the bottom! At the bottom head to Alvie Lodge and cross the A9 to pick up the Speybank spingletrack to Kincraig (which is lovely). Cross the Spey at Kincraig and go through the Sculpture park at Inshriach forest through to Feshie bridge. Then fireroad through to pick up the bothy bikes descent to Loch an Eilein. From here add other Rothiemurchas loops if you have the legs or head for home.
Very difficult to give better descriptions as it’s a jumble of local knowledge stuff linked together but hopefully clear enough to follow. Plenty of easy bail-outs to the road if running short of time or energy.

Interesting to hear more about Bothy Bikes… love that shop.

I know some trails which have spectacularly sphincter clenching moments… but I could not describe them as “the most technical descent in Scotland?”.

Another one not on your list is the Shaman Drake. Pretty light anyway but if you remove the bash guard it’s very light… bonus is you can refit the bashguard easy if you think the days riding requires it. Some older models available on fleebay… and there is also an older model carbon chainguide from Shamen which looks interesting. I’ve not seen any reviews or seen them in the flesh.

And yes about the HS… 1×9 is fine on my 26lb hardtail but riding a 32+lb FS like that will probably be a bit different… but I’m tempted to give it a whirl 😈

Hi Pilot 😉 I’ve been looking into doing this on my Helius but the 1×9 experiemnts on my hardtail (which I ride daft hard) have shown me that the top guide is all I require.
I’m going to try a top guide only when I take the HS of the Helius to see how it works… with the shorty saint rear mech it might be all the chain retention I need.

Weeze looks fab… not seen that before 😀

Tech-spec for Nicolai Helius AM says 66.5deg… but mine measures in at a lovely feeling 65deg. What is it when I’m riding it though 🙄

Mine has a 1.5 headtube but I’ve seen no reason to fit an adjustable headset as I love it as it is.

I’ve just messed my pants 😳

Lived in Scotland for the last three quarters of my life and married a local lass; hence I wear her family tartan with pride. I also have a tweed kilt which is great and very versatile… Almost Any excuse will do.

Go bowling of course…

If you like Formula R1 and TheONE I suggest picking up some RX.

I ran Hope for years and loved them… but tried some Formula RX as I wasn’t loving the V2 lever feel, and I am now a Formula convert 😳

I loved the RX lever feel but outright stopping power was not as good as the V2… so I upgraded to TheONE on my big bike and moved the RX to my hardtail. Brilliant solution as TheONE are amazing brakes… and the RX are damn good too… until I next have money burning a hole and the hardtail gets R1 or TheONE upgrade 8)

I made all my first decks, and then bought this just before I stopped skating.

Still got it in the garage with the ultimate fashion crime of fluro yellow grip tape.

I had it out playing with the kids recently and it leans a bit as the rubbers are perished.

My current favourite is Tryst Raj IPA

Looking forward to trying many of Scotlands best shortly 8)

http://www.stonehavenrealalefestival.co.uk/

You will need lights, and try not to get depressed when you rarely see the sun for four months. Next summer you can ride until 11pm without lights… what goes around etc 😀

I need new pants thanks to KingofBiscuits 😳

Hi gavdog – my Steel Whyte 19 Trail issues are possibly of my own making but I’ll give you a rundown. I used to run another hardtail frame with similar “on paper” geometry so I bought the Whyte unridden (doh!). It took a while for us to bond and I found I had the saddle all the way forward on the rails and the 120mm Reba forks set up soft. Set up like this it was a bit short but I got to like it and ended up taking it a few places with really gnar terrain which I love. In the gnar I found the handling became very sketchy, not what I expected since elsewhere it handled so well. I was able to overcome this by dropping the saddle/seatpost much more than I like to, but doing this all the time is a bit of a pain. The steel frame has a 27.2mm seatpost… I did consider a dropper post or trying 100mm forks but I sold the frame to try something else.
Anyway – On measuring the frame the angles were not as per the geometry spec on the Whyte site. The head angle was about right but the seat angle was slacker and the bottom bracket was much higher… almost as if the frame was a normal old school 71/73 angle frame with a 120mm fork shoved on it making it a 68/70 with a high bottom bracket (nifty design or we tried this and it works????). The slack head angle gives it nice handling most of the time and especially at speed, but in the gnar the high bottom bracket takes over making it sketchy and like riding on tip-toes. I rode it back-to-back with a Cotic Soda with a similar set up and they were similar but different… the Cotic has a lower bottom bracket which makes it feel better most of the time, but I missed the slacker head angle of the Whyte as the Cotic would stall wheras the Whyte would steam-roller up and over obstacles. My 2p is that the Whyte is not as clever as the marketing and hype suggests. My frame broke and I sold the warranty replacement – Whyte and Alpine Bikes were great to deal with but I needed something a bit more heavy duty.

PS – I now ride an Mmmbop with 150mm Rev’s – I miss the pingyness of the steel/ti of the above two frames but the Ragley is lighter and the angles are the best compromise I have tried yet… but I still want a lower bottom bracket when my forks are at 150mm.

*drool* Holeshot *drool*

I had a steel Whyte 19 trail for a year… I liked it for most riding but for the gnarly terrain I love it had “issues” due to the rather large distance between the bottom bracket and the ground.

The dropouts were ace and it went SS with no problems.

BlackSpire Northshore is THE longest post I have seen.

Another vote for an Mmmbop. I really like mine. With Revs at 150 the BB is a little high but other that its hard to fault… but I still drool over a Holeshot 😛

And I wish the top tube was dropped a little on the large size I have.

I snapped off the chainguide which damaged the threads in the body. No problem as the chain still won’t fall off… but its better for cleaning without it as you can pop the chain off easy to scrape out the compacted mud… which sometimes builds up in certain dubby conditions.

I run a very short Saint rear mech which is ace.

Cable needs to be clean as the spring force is light. If the hammer don’t work its usually the cable which being down low and exposed can get a little gritty.

Enjoy dropping the hammer.

One last thing… watch the sram YouTube stuff and learn to say it like Herbold… 😛

Beware the thick grease if you ride in the cold. For the winter I run it with Pedro Synlube oil instead to help it shift smooth… but I’m way up north.

Front mechs are shite for good fun riding… hammerschmizzle or 1*blah.

I love the HS on my big bike, but I like spinning low gears. Some drag in the overdrive but you only feel it when pushing hard… so just click down out of it and click down the block at the back.

Top of a gnar descent… drop the hammer… when you stall or come to a wee techy bit or climb click the hammer again and twiddle out… awesome.

Some riders break them every few rides, some get years of use. You might be fine, or upgrade the hub to Evo with a stronger axle… that’s what I did.

I have some routes and many more ideas, just no time to play. My maps are at home but I’m not so I can’t remember names from here… but a teaser… Glas Maol.

I know its wrong to like an aluminium frame but I really like my Mmmbop.
I would not buy anything that would not fit a Reverb, so 27.2 frames are out.

I’m a coloured chap who plays American football rather well…

Replied. As I posted above, it worked great for me… I kick myself sometimes for selling that set up… probably one of the lightest good working coil set ups possible.