That does sound more likely than an instant failure scenario 😉

Sounds bizzare – are the threads worn? I’ve seen steel inserts that have been looser than alloy threads. Once tightened up they seem to hold fine but it did make me wonder if it was right? Not sure what the washer you lost is there for… perhaps it’s to stop it coming loose and spitting the pedal 20ft to get stuck in a gate 😈 (but I can’t see how).

I used to break things and upgrade to stronger “DH” type equipment… problem with this is that you end up with stupid heavy bikes (I had Diablus cranks on my hardtail FFS).

Recently I’ve just been trying to lighten things up and treating my kit a bit better – I check things over after crashes and spend a bit more time in the garage checking them over; my bikes ride better for it.

I’d go for SLX again or try the Middleburns – but ditch the pedals as the threads are probably ****.

I’ve just stripped the threads out of a set of the “all mountain” SLXs with the steel insert

How do you strip a steel insert?

On bike and hence riding damage or workshop related?

KCNC BB30 Adapter? Plenty on eBay.

I had one go in the back of the car on a hot day – had to peel the gunk off the windows once it dried, and the car still smelt a bit fishy fpr ages. The tyre bead was damaged so it’s a right-off unless I stick a tube in it – if your bead is damaged it’s pretty obvious.

I’m a sucker for them. 2.2’s on my hardtail and 2.4’s on my FS – neither is UST but I think I’ll go UST on the back of the big bike as I’ve damaged the tyre quite a bit. I can’t compare them to the non Black Chilli version which I’ve not tried, but in the past I’ve tried Conti’s cheap tyres and always hated them so I was not going to go there again.

My first Black Chilli RQ tyre I bought cheap as an experiment and it impressed the hell out of me so I bought some more.

As to how it compares to high rollers and Maxxis tyres I can’t say… it’s been many years since I’ve used them. They are better than the Scwalbe Big Betty I was running before but Schwalbe have changed the rubber compound so the new ones might be better. Previous experience with maxxis was weak sidewalls and punctures on the light ones and the DH ones were too heavy… things may have changed but I tried the RQ’s and am hooked for the moment.

My AM has the slack geo and the longer shock option hence thinking the 150mm Rev fork will work… I also have a 1.5 headtube and the Rev’s are 1-1/8″ so I have angleset options if I think it’s worth the effort.

What fork are you going to use – and at what sag?

My 150mm Rev sags to 110/120 when I’m on it which feels great… but doesn’t help since I’ve not measure the Mmmbop yet… and I’m usually so anal about thesse things 😳

Another Helius AM owner here. As Geetee and Kbrembo above have said the AM is one hell of a machine… probably too much so for many folk and I’m not sure it really fits in with a list including 5spots and Hecklers, in my opinion it’s much more bike then either (check out the Nicolai all mountain trial film to see what I mean).

Whether you need as much bike as an AM is up to you? The AM is 160mm travel in the longest setting and designed for 160/170mm forks such as Fox 36/Lyrik, which is longer than a 150mm fork such as a Revelation or your Fighter – thats not to say you can’t fit a 150mm… Some folk over on the MTBR forum have, and I have a 150 Rev on another bike which I will pop across to the Helius at some point soon. I think it will work great. My helius is pretty slacked out with the 36’s on so dropping the front will I think be fine, dropping the BB will also be fine (Ignore TLR) – I may loose some of the gonzo doonhall bombproof feeling… but I can live with that unless I am going gonzo doonhalling.
As Geetee says to get below 30lbs with AM kit will take some doing as it’s a solidly built frame – Mine is 32lbs with Hammerschmizzle and air shock/forks (but NO CARBON).
I’ve also had a quick shot on a MoJo HD and it was noticably light and felt good… would I give up my AM for one is a tough call? I love the look of the AM and the way it works, I like that I can play with the travel etc and as Geetee has said I sometimes run it in the other settings depending on the shock I am running (Probably again with the 150mm fork on but who knows?)
I see bikes as a long term thing, I’m really happy with my AM after a year but there are always little experiments and tweaks to make to improve things, it’s one of the joys of biking.

You can tell I’m an engineer can’t you 🙄

If I was buying now… I think where and how I ride justifys the AM but it’s a close run thing with moderm 150mm bikes being almost as capable (Remedy/Foxy)… if your only ever going to run 150mm forks on it look at the AC rather than the AM… but if you plan to bung 160/170/180mm forks and doing big drops while chasing stormtroopers in the Alps/mountains then the AM is a fine tool.

Oink oink oink all the way home. Loved my friends piggy-X and love my Mmmbop. Bottom bracket not high with 150 rev or 160 van 36.

The next Pace?

I broke five axles last year on Pro2’s. One with a Maxle lite after two rides. The next four were with a Hope reccomended BETD Intense solid bar axle (very good item if a bit expensive, no spanner required as the end has a hole which you stick an allen key through). With the solid bar axles I was getting about two months use before the axle would snap, but at least with the solid bar I only knew it had snapped when I took the wheel out, if it snaps with a Maxle Lite in the rear wheel binds and your ride is over unless you take the chain off!

Of the gang I ride with two other riders are snapping multiple axles running normal Maxles… and another two riders are having no problems with this set up… no one is running the Maxle Lite. Those of us snapping the axles are the guys that do the big drops – so if your not doing daft stuff it’s safe to to say a normal Maxle or bolt through will be fine for a few years, but get a spare axle for the parts box and check it every so often. Mine usually gave a little warning by being a bit bent before they snapped which you could see because the cassette would wobble. With the hub not binding up and hence not ruining my rides I was happy to live with this issue until Hope came up with the promised fix.

Hope have been great with me and rather than change hub brand I’m now running Evo hubs… so hopefully no more repeats.

£1.99.

Attach it to your camelbak shoulder/chest strap where you can see it when you want to.
No more bouncing watch on your wrist distracting you on the doonhalls.
Get a nice looking watch for everyday use.

I like where I live. Go west for forests and mountains, go east for sea and beer.

http://www.marinehotelstonehaven.co.uk/beer/index.php

Similar last year. I enjoyed the work and the company, but the money was not where it should have been. At my appraisal I made it clear I needed the rise and that I felt underappreciated despite jumping through all the required hoops and doing my job and more. This was agree’d with “but our hands are tied by HR”… which is BS.

So… I walked out of the appraisal and fired the CV out… I made the decision to go, not in a hurry but to find the right thing. Two months later I handed in my notice and was asked “why are you leaving”… big company so the exit process was rather amusing! I know not to burn bridges thought but still I enjoyed the discomfort in the room.

Contracting for twice the money now and half the BS… life is great.

I’ve since heard that the chap who took over from me is a contractor earning what I am now… and that there has a been a shuffle amongst the managers who lost a lot of staff over a short period… *chuckle*

Look around – find the right thing and dive in… do the same in 3-5 years time.

Punk DH bikes, it’s the future.

vs. Box-Fresh (more suited for Pyjama suited stormtroopers )

But you know they’ll be some idiot who goes too fast for their skills

Watching yesterdays coverage there was some guy in a blue top doing some odd riding and sprinting about… who crashed in front of AS near to where Beloki had his smash a few years ago… perhaps this is the incident he was aluding to and he feels he was nearly taken down by another rider?

Hate starting a ride in it, don’t care if it starts when i’m out.

This.
Really enjoy it when I’m out… especialy singletrack… although brushing the trees with your arms means the water runs down in torrents and soaks your gloves.

Hate the 20 min downhill road ride home which means when I do get home I’m cold.

I liked Chris Boardmans comments yesterday about a rider needing to be an allrounder and not just a climber to win… Schleck A went down a long way in my estimations with his performance on the doonhall, and then the whinning… 😳

Hats off to Tor, Cadel, Voekler etc… they sure did MTFU.

If your only planning to do the DH tracks in Morzine etc then a Doonhall bike is what you need.
If you still want to be able to access the other stuff and yet rag the DH tracks hard(er than now) then something more than the Orange Five would have benefits.
A lot will depend on what your friends do… if you’ve decided to do lots of uplift days or race DH then you will want/need a dedicated DH bike.

But what of the rest of the year? Would you “really” use a DH bike at home? I thought I would so I bought one; it sat for a year and I sold it… I just couldn’t bring myself to spend hours walking up a track when I could be out riding. Next I bought myself a DH/freeride type bike that I could in theory pedal everywhere… it weighed a ton but it worked… but now I’ve bought a modern AM machine and get what I believe are the best of all possible worlds. Yes; I’m overbiked much of the time but I can live with that, and for the big days in the mountains I have what I think is the right tool for the job.
Not sure we would survive a week thrashing the Pleney DH track but thats not my style of riding 😉

I struggle to see much in any of the mags that is relevant to how and where I ride; but Singletrack and Dirt are the two that I tend to buy as the pictures and articles make me want to ride. I occssionally pick up MBUK for a train journey to see what the kids are being told to do and buy but it usually ends in disapointment. I might flick through MBR and whatMTB if they are at a friends house but I very rarely buy or even bother to brows them in a newsagent. I don’t like the style or the content… not sure why but there seems to be no substance to the reviews, ride guides or articles… as if they came straight from a brochure without hitting a reality filter?

I rode Yetiman’s (above *wave*) and loved it. Despite his Piggy X coming in at 30# with 36 Van forks I though it rode really well and I was able to do techy climbs and fun descents on it with very little time required to get used to it… I liked it so much I bought myself a Ragley 🙂

I wanted a 31.6mm seatpost for my Reverb so I went for an Mmmbop which I have built up a fair bit lighter with 150mm Revs… it pops in at 26#. So a piggy could be built to about 27#, and the geomety can certainly climb so it will all be down to the rider.

I saw it suck the life and soul out of a few friends. People I used to ride and ski with started smoking blow and stopped riding or skiing. Beautifull blue ski powder day or warm sunny summer evening and they would waste it sat on a stinky couch saying “oooh, oooh ma hied, oooh ma heeeeeid”.

Losers.

Tuned… not necessarily push… would you buy a one size fits all t-shirt?

If you want to stay air tune the RP, or buy a Bos vipr. If you want better than air go tuned coil… or ccdb Stoy. Avoid the DHX air.

I love all the stuff in the coverage about Jens Voigt being this animal on a bike… but he realy should have learned to corner in his career… he goes down like a sack-o-tatties. Geraint and Tommy-V showed him a thing or two about bike handling and how not to bin-it-hard when you lose it after touching the brakes on a descent… or perhaps hitting the tarmac hard is part of his tough guy image?

STOP THAT BLOODY LAUGHING! YOU’RE NOT HERE TO ENJOY YOURSELF!!!

fast food analogy works….all right now and again but they eventually make you lazy and obese.

I can see that because all trail centre’s are designed for bikes and hence designed to be ridden/rideable… some of my favourite trails are damn near impossible to ride and that is what pushes me and in my view what pushes the sport. The bikes get better each year and so do the rides and the riders… it’s called progression.

Does this mean I’m anti trail centre? Hell no… I loves them, I loves them for others as a stepping stone into the sport, and I loves them as a way to get a group of varying ability out on a hill having an ace time together. And lastly I loves them as they are about bikes and bikes are ace. I’m glad we don’t just have trail centres though as I love other trails more.

Folk who slag off trail centres are willy-waving-look-at-me-I’m-so-mountainbike-I-out-mountainbike-you-type-try-hards… (as the responses to this thread will now prove )

I would love for Voeckler to win because he gives good interview.

Best thread in ages… a good few laugh out loud moments… well done all

Next sticker suggestions…

slogans make me cringe

The stickers themselves are… childish and silly… just that they’re a bit naff… Puerile and immature, to the extent that I would be embarrassed to display them anywhere.

does this mean I shouldn’t bother doing my ironing this evening?

I’m just fattening mine up ready to cook them.

I think an adjustable travel fork would work well on the cotic for many people, the problems I had with the 160mm on the Bfe was the 69 seat angle made techy climbing impossible, I could have wound down the travel but I don’t like doing that because my local forest has loads of wee techy ups and downs so it would be constant fiddling… best stick with something that is set at one length for me. The gears and the uppy downy post is enough to fiddle with!!!

Here is what I wrote a few months ago… sorry… lots of reading.

I can now comment on this since I’ve tried both. I own a Whyte 19 Steel and have test ridden a Cotic Soda; both in Medium frame sizes with 120mm forks.

The big difference is that with the Cotic you sit “in” the bike and with the Whyte you sit “on” it – what seem on the surface to be very similar bikes do have quite different personalities.

There is a big difference between the bottom bracket height of the two with the Cotic having the lower by almost 20mm, which explains I think why I feel perched on the Whyte but ride in the Cotic. This gives the Cotic more stability and speed with a more racey feel to it, the Whyte however does not feel nervous which is usually what I find a high BB gives you. The reason for this is I believe the slacker head angle on the Whyte (67deg vs 69deg) which gives it great stability and stops it “stalling” when slammed into trail features, a trait I found occasionally with the Cotic.

Seat angle (71deg) and chainstay lenght between the two was nearly identical (Whyte dropouts in the middle) so for climbing they are very similar, although for techy work the Cotic did ding a pedal more frequently due to the lower bottom bracket (natch), but it also felt a little more planted than the Whyte.

For the rutted super sketchy gnar terrain I like they both performed well with the saddle dropped, but with different traits. The Cotic was harder to hold the line with and the front wanted to tuck under sending the back over, or that’s how it felt, like I had to get further back behind the saddle to keep control. I also had to take care with the pedals to prevent banging them, but it was all certainly fun and much better than old skool XC geometry.
The Whyte feels more sketchy dropping in but once in the flow the bike feels planted and to me more manoeuvrable as I didn’t feel the need to be so far over the back. Neither of them is a plower like my big bike and they both needed plenty of input to keep them upright and going in the correct direction. When coming out of the gnar the Whyte was quicker to recover it’s composure and sprint to the next obstacle like a mini BMX. For berms and chucking into fast corners the Cotic felt quicker as long as the trails were smooth; I found the Cotic tended to get knocked off line easier and suffered the “stalling” I mentioned earlier when the trails were not smooth or there was deep mud.

Note – I’m used to the Whyte and the Cotic was new to me so preferences will vary but I can say with certainty that both of these bikes are a hoot and either is great. Both are way better in the gnar and trails where I ride than traditional XC bikes.

I’d love to try something that steals what I see as the best of both bikes: Drop the bottom bracket height on the Whyte a little or kick out the head angle a couple of degrees on the Cotic.

Material issues – The Cotic which was Ti felt a little punchier than the steel Whyte under sprinting, but both were lovely and had the springy feel I like. The Cotic was the lighter bike but it was not really noticeable on the trails due to the hefty coating of mud acquired by both bikes.

I’ll be sticking with my Whyte for the moment but if I had a Cotic I would be sticking with it too – different but equally brilliant fun. Now… what else can I try

I’ve since tried a Soul and a Bfe… and a Blue Pig X (and my Mmmbop)… and my Whyte is for sale.

The Soul was as with the Soda = great. The Bfe was too small but had 160mm Wotan forks on it… it was fun but felt overly solid and wouldn’t climb for toffee (seat angle too slack). The Blue Pig X had me hooked and I loved it, we just got on… despite it being a bit lardy and set up for a taller rider (Fox 36 Van forks ffs).

Your looking for a hardtail to complement your Spicy… exactly like I was looking for a hardtail to complement my Helius. I really love my Helius… but my local forest is brilliant when served up on a hardtail… I love taking the big bike up there but taking the hardtail is such a hoot too and means I can keep the big bike fresh for the mountains where I NEED it. I bought the Whyte to get back to my older XC roots (and route’s) but I found I was still wanting to rag it all the time like it was my Helius… I guess I only really have the one speed at the end of the day… FLAT OOT! I found going from Helius to Whyte a bit of a struggle as they were very different… AM plough to Trail mince… I found myself taking the Whyte into things and then going “oh *&&%”… do the same on the Mmmbop and it’s “oh goody”… so much more confident.

People describe Mmmbop’s etc as rather blunt tools for bludgeoning trails into submission but if you build them up right/light they are amazingly flexible. Mine is about 26lbs so what I would call XC weight, light enough for long rides yet it ploughs through the techy stuff where the Soul/Whyte would require much more finesse… I think it suits my riding style better and is definetely easier to switch across from big bike too. For the record… the Mmmbop has the slack head angle of the Whyte, the bottom bracket height of the Soul and even with 150mm rev forks the same seat angle. This thing climbs and descends with the best traits of the other bikes mentioned without requiring an adjusting travel fork… but it does ride solid and do things with a jarring thud and not the “ping” of the steel bikes. I knew it would be like that as it’s a very big tubed alu monstrosity, but I wanted to try Brants Ragley geometry… really try it… not just demo it for a ride, so the Mmmbop is a bit of a test mule to figure out size and try a few things on the cheap (it takes my Reverb, 1.5″ forks, HUGE tyres, and it’s really light for whats it’s capable of). I wasn’t sure that a 150mm forked hardtail would be a sensible proposition which is why I ended up with the 120mm forked Whyte… I should have gone down the 150mm forked route that I have now, it really is ace for where and how I ride (YMMV of course). I’d love to buy the Ti Ragley or a Brodie Holeshot (Hi Si) but this is my second bike so I need to keep it sensible (at the moment anyway).

I used the SS dropouts on the Whyte once… at last years european singlespeed championships when my Explosif rear wheel exploded. I’m very glad I had the Whyte with me and that it could be SS’d so quickly and easily. But I’ll be keeping the Explosif as my SS… rigid works best for me and so does keeping the weight down to about 20#, I’m glad I tried the Whyte for SS but I prefered the total daftness of my old Kona so I now know that there is no need to give my hardtail the ability to SS (I can always fit a tensioner if I really have to).

Sorry for the long rambling reply… bikes are ace… enjoy whatever you choose 😛

http://www.cotic.co.uk/geek/

General rule is 30mm/1-inch = 1 degree of change

So a 150mm fork sagged 30mm to 120mm length will change head and seat angles by one degree slacker.

Sounds like the Soul has given you an itch to scratch… hopefully it will work out for you. If I want a mincy XC machine I’ll take my rigid 1995 explosif singlespeed… and still ride the six foot drops 😉

I thought that hence the Whyte last year… but it was not enough bike… and now I can thrash the Mmmbop in the way I do my Helius AM.

70mm on Soda and Whyte. But I’m now on a 50mm on an 18inch Mmmbop and loving it. Have you thought about a Blue Pig X? You might think 150mm is too much for a trail hardtail… but it is awesome (if you have the trails).

I think that’s my problem with the medium Whyte I have for sale. At six foot I found the large too big when I tried it, but having bought the medium it was too small… such a shame. The soul is longer so the medium Soul worked for me… but I preferred the angles of the Whyte.

Whyte 19. The bottom bracket is a little higher but the headangle is a little slacker which works well. I like both, the Whyte edges it for me with better behavior for gnar, and the swivel dropouts are brilliant, as is the cable routing. Six months back I wrote something comparing my Whyte with a bling Soda… worth a search.
what size you after?

My Whyte 19 trail frame… medium.