You totally can. The cap actually accepts Torx T55 key and turning it tightens/frees the clutch on Type 2. On type 2.1 that pin prevents it from turning, unless removed first.

Bump

I have had a 110-140 U-Turn Revelation 2011 which I swapped after 4 months for a 120-160 Talas 36 2012.
The Talas in 120mm mode feels like as if I have dropped the pressure compared to 160mm. And it is noticeable.
The U-Turn Rev felt pretty much the same (hint: shit) between 110 and 140mm.

And yes – turning a dial 6 times is unthinkably difficult when doing it multiple times per ride – you have to wind it, then to unwind it and in the end I just didn’t bother anymore, while with the Talas or the 2 step it’s just flicking the switch.

I am more and more thinking about replacing the internals with Float, as I am ready to sacrifice TA, which is not that much of a game changer, for the added plushness of the Float.

Sweet, looks like I may do the jump back.
From my experience the squealing is because of the Avid rotors usually, not so much because of the pads.

Seems like the guide R has different leverage, compared to the RS and RSC

This is pretty lousy statement – big headline and “Discuss”…

to advocacy groups and government agencies looking for insights into road and trail use.

I don’t see anything wrong with that. Supposedly it’s anonymised. Maybe. I hope so. But I have gave up on owning any of the personal information I submit online.

On Wednesday the company announced Strava Metro, which uses some of the same data and is processed to remove personal information and restructured to be compatible with geographical information systems (GIS) used by government agencies.

Several organizations are already using the data, including the Oregon Department of Transportation and the cities of Alpine Shire, Australia; Arlington, Va.; Glasgow, Scotland; London and Orlando, Fla.
On one hand it’s cool that they are using actual data by actual cyclists. On the other Strava users are somewhat specific segment of the cyclists.

EDIT:
This from the other topic, which I didn’t see earlier:

For me Strava users are exactly the wrong people to use as a sample.

They tend to be doing longer journeys, they may pick routes which are faster rather than safer and most importantly they’re keen cyclists who are unlikely to be ‘Joe Bloggs’ riding 2 miles to work and back each day.

I frequently fly across Europe with both Easyjet and Wizzair. Have about 6 or 7 flights with them now from Luton, Gatwick, Berlin and Sofia. I always fly only with the bike bag and one carry on with macbook, camera, etc.
I normally pack my clothes and depending on the length of stay most of the instruments I usually use with the bike. They have never asked me to show what I have inside, but 100% of the times they asked me to prove that tyres are deflated.

Sometimes I cycle to the airport and pack the bike there, using only nylon sacks and some bubble wrap for padding:

One of this days I am going to buy a proper bike bag instead of new parts. Or not.

Carbon 456 again!
It’s a blast with Fox 36 160mm

Well yes, but then the old 456 used be advertised as up to 160mm and touted as designed to run 100-160mm. They switched to 150mm because of EU regulations IIRC. The old C456 was 160mm Max, the C456 Evo says 6 inches.
Or are they designed up to 150mm now? Anyway, the Ti456 is an older design.

While on the topic, how is the Ti456 riding with longer forks? It’s still 456, so it should ride with 150-160mm?
I fancy transplanting my bike from a Carbon 456 to Ti 456, just to try out the difference in ride. Right now I have Fox 36 RLC and don’t want to change them.

Not much clearance in this Pikes?
I have both a pair of 2.1 XR2 and 2.35 XR4s. In general I don’t trust the XR2, especially in the wet. I have tried with one 2 in the back and one 4 in the front and found the back too unreliable, compared to the front. Now I am running the XR4s both front and back.

LT as in Long Travel or Light? Because I have C456 that is both – 11.2kg with Fox 36 Talas 160
Regularly do Aston with it (and contribute to the 1% hardtail riders there :D) and did a few days touring in Peak District in Sept. Toootally love it!

Well, look at what I had to leave to live in London :(
Top at 2120m, gondola from the city outskirts to 1800m and chair lift to 2000m from one of the suburbs with public bus connection…

Moving from there almost made my cry

Funny consequence of such geographical and topological situation + lifts is that most of the active mountain bikers there are on 180+ travel bikes (:

You mount the Sony to the side of the helmet, not on the front as with the GoPro/Hitachi. Chest I don’t see how you can do without the camera coming out of you.
Argos has some very stupid policy of not allowing returns of cameras, due to privacy?! I wanted to test the Hitachi and return it if I am not happy with the quality, but this was a deal breaker. I remember something about EU regulations requiring any retailer to offer 7 day return period but I got a very sweet deal on used Black 3+ instead. And the awful rolling shutter.

I am still interested in the camera as a gift, so can you please upload the original movies to Dropbox? You have a Public folder there and can share links to files in it.

Youtube re-encodes and “optimizes” videos so is a really bad place to show sample footage.

What about Boxing day? Were there any GoPro deals in previous years? I would wait to find out, but I am flying on the 27th, so won’t have time to order one online and get it delivered if there are no price drops…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQTF4rRq74A
This actually looks pretty good. Comparable to GoPro Silver for third of the price. Looks like there are even GoPro mount adapters!
Tomorrow is payday and I am very tempted to give it a go!

Well the LBS responsible is 2800km away, so not exactly local.
I managed to remove the outer bearing by carefully hammering a thin flat screwdriver between the two bearings, which gave me enough leverage to pull it. The inner one isn’t so easy. I am also concerned not to damage the bearings bed.

The oven method sounds like it could work, I may give it a go.
The other two options that I can think of is to get two or there anchor bolts, get them in and spread them, so that they bite into the bearing:

Or the other thing is to cut a tube with similar diameter like a headset extractor, spread it to bite into the grove for the balls and hammer it out.

I put one spare bearing in the place of the one I managed to remove so that I have bearings in both ends of the freehub. Once the other bearings arrive I will try one of the two options + the oven.

Richter says his lawyer thinks they have a good case to make, but the fight could cost upwards of $150,000 in legal fees, a price too steep for his small company.

No point in being right. It is too expensive. Eh.

They do sell them – http://www.tredz.co.uk/.Topeak-Air-Fender-Inflatable-Mudguard_8889.htm
That looks like a good idea. I think I want one. And the price is just as with some normal guards…

Valhalla. It has some depth, some story, some reason to watch for one hours.
Most of the snow movies are just a bunch of riding clips stitched together.

vimeo.com/77177549
https://vimeo.com/80938496

I much prefer Absinthe’s stuff to Art of Flight aka “Adventures of the Red Bull Helicopter”

This!

Jeremy Jones’ Deeper and Further! This is as anti-Red Bull as it can get. All the approaches are climbing or skinning with split boards – earn your turn. Or if we are to apply mtb term (I hope it never gets to the snow community) – ENDURO.
I believe there were no helis involved even for the shooting, may be only for logistics and crew transportation.

Fox 36 Talas 2012 on 456c. I love it. I used to have 110-140mm Revs U-turn. The U-turn is such a royal pain in the ass to wind and unwind turn between low and high travel, that I rarely used it. No wonder they ditched it for the 2 Step. Also I prefure the travel of the 36s much more. Not that it’s longer, but better.

I do a lot of riding in my native Bulgaria, where 1000m+ of ascent (and then the same descent ofc) is not unusual and there the travel adjust is a must for me. The 456 goes to about 65 degree on 160mm, which is awesome downwards, but is waay too slack for climbing.

I fancy it after the snow season. I especially like the idea that this thing can run single ring spider-less.

I also want to wait for some reviews after several months of riding, because the previous generation Next SL cranks seemed to break at the chainring bolts a lot.

I really do like my Next SL Handlebars, although they could be 710, rather than 685mm…

Another vote for the Maltese Falcons. Very good for hiking as well. I would remove the cleats before riding flats, because they protrude a few millimetres from the sole, which affects the flat grip IMHO.

On which model years can you fit them? 2013, I guess but what about 2011 and 2012?

Dogs on trails is incredibly stupid. Yeah, you love your dog, you love your bike, why not do both? Well, don’t complain next time when your dog suddenly jumps from behind the three and I spill it’s guts all over the landscape, before hitting a tree myself, trying to avoid the dog in the first place.

Last time I was there, I had several near hits (Why do people insist on calling them near misses? A collision is a near miss!) with dogs on the DH runs at Aston Hill?!

Any ideas?

Well, it can be a few miles out of city, but still doable in a day with train. Kind of like Surry Hills or Aston Hill around London… There isn’t much English info and my German is zero (yet).

Well sometimes it can work quiet well. Had a gf, that lived a few blocks down from me. The sex was great, but the gf/bf thing not so much, so after a short while we separated. Met her after a while, went ot for a beer, one thing led to another… Then again no see for a few months, then going out for a beer and into the bed again. Happens once in a 4-6-8 months, depends if any of us is in a reltionship. This has been going on for about 9 years now (and we are eyeing the 30s now). Both of us had plenty of short or long term relationships inbetween. I always make fun of her awful bf choice.
We haven’t even discussed trying getting together since the first time. I can’t stand her as a gf, but short term is OK.
Haven’t heard from her in a while, but last she started acting weird “Can’t we be just friends?” Maybe cos she is closer to the said 30s. I hate it when they take away my benefits!

Five Ten Maltese Falcon. Much unlike the rest of the 5.10 offerings, it’s not a sneaker, but a tough boot, with stiff sole, which is good for long walking climbing. Plenty of grip to the ground when walking, apart from the area around the cleats, of course.
The only downside is that it’s not vented much. May be it’s so that you won’t get water inside, which rarely happens, but once in it’s hard to get it out…

C456 – Carbon 456.
It happily goes 100 to 160mm. I got the impression from the internetz that it runs best around 140mm and got 140mm Revelations. Hated the bike for 3 months for anything more than light trail riding. Changed to 160mm Talas 36 and can’t be more happy with it charging up & down.

I record all the time while in Airplane mode, to conserve battery. Gives me 20-40% more recording time.
Data can help for faster initial fix – the phone can check the location of the cell towers around it and help the GPS calculations. With data off the GPS is on it’s own and the initial fix can take quiet some time on some devices. There is a really cool Android app – GPS Toolbox, which shows you the number of satellites visible/fixed, compass, speed, altitude, etc. Very useful to find out the accuracy the GPS has right now.

Grow stronger legs. I am running 38/32-11 on a 11kg 160mm hardtail. I usually do 45-50kms with about 900-1000m ascents in the Surrey Hills. Just came back from 3 days and 85km/1870m in the Peak District (first time exploration). It doesn’t feel like a huge effort. Granted I don’t own a car and usually get around on foot/bike.
I would rather get 34 or 36 on the cassette, than 34 or 36 on the front.

IMHO the multi release will teach you only bad habits (on top of the opinion of the masses that SPDs themselves teach you bad habits). The point of the clip ins is that it takes deliberate sideways motion to clip out. Multi release can detach when you least suspect it…

I would suggest the M530 – http://www.wiggle.co.uk/shimano-pd-m530-mtb-spd-trail-pedals/
It has kind of a platform, but much unlike the one on the M647 it’s not to support your feet (which is unnecessary, as the very hard SPD shoe sole does this), but to make it easier for you to hit the pedal, which in the first couple of months will be essential. Actually, when you are clipped in, you don’t touch the platform at all. Once you are confident you can switch to the M520 and save a few grams.
I am not really sure about the difference in the mechanics between the 520 and 530, but the 530 is virtually the same as the XT SPD stuff, with slightly crappier bearings and can be put on and removed only with an allen key.

As suggested, loosen the tension screw all the way, which will give you very easy detachment, and start to gradually tighten it as you progress and feel confident.

For me flats have no place off road. Points of view (:

I built a 23 lb carbon bike, hoping to blast on my commute to work. Then I put 2.4 tires on it and now I am steam rolling instead… But once I get my second set of wheels with slicks on them I will teach those roadie basterds a lesson!

I OTB a lot so I got Bell Sanction and as it’s light (950g claimed) and breathing enaugh I use it for all my rides. Even at places like Surrey. Maybe it looks odd or lame, but I don’t care as long as I don’t faceplant.
I have thought about the Archi-Enduro, saw the report too, but more importantly, when you take it in your hands you can twist the chin gards with very little pressure. Not much confidence inspiring… The Down-O-Matic is only a hundred grams heavier, but much more sturdy, even if a bit less open.

Merino 150 here, really nice. Have been wearing it for about 7 or 8 days with only one wash, due to excess sweating and has been fine. I would consider 120 for 25+ degree days (not that there are many of them here)/

You will need some kind of chain guide, otherwise you will be bothered with the chain way too often on the offroad. Superstar have decent one – http://superstar.tibolts.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=56&products_id=362

Well, I have always found the bike lights price waaaay too high for an LED, a driver, a battery and water resistent casing.

brant, the 29er thing I may swallow, but are there any plans down the pipeline about carbon full susser ?

Drool. Altough 29er :(