Sliding dropouts should be fine if they're well made. EBB should be too but can be a PITA if you're very sensitive to your seat height as you'll have to move the seat up or down a litle bit every time you adjust the chain.

Got five mminutes into it and couldn't take any more………..Sorry!

Bummer, on Tuesday I turned down the chance to take today off.

Tygris R-273 motorcycle chain wax for me.
The aerosol pressure is a bit high so you need to wipe off the overspray but it does a great job in wet sandy conditions for not too much money.

I used to use the Castrol version but they reformulated it a few years ago and it's now nowhere near as good.

If you seriously want to trail ride and commute and you're a big bloke I'd go for a DRZ400 or a good DR350 if you can still find one. A 600 single won't be anywhere near as smooth as a CG125. I've never got on with big singles myself. Compared to a smaller motor you lose revs at the top end and low down they're too lumpy to ride smoothly so you end up with a useable rev range little greater than a 250 2-stroke. I know the paint falls off Suzukis but the above two are the bikes that would probably best suit your needs. An XR400 might do but wouldn't be so good on any bigger roads.

Back in the eighties I was commuting 25 miles each way between Winchester and Newbury, usually doing it between 1 and 4 times a week by bike. I ran home once but that was just plain stupid.

This year I've been lucky enough to ride several of Merida's 96 range.
They may be touted as race bikes but I put a set of risers on the carbon framed one I had for a fortnight (back when all the trails were baked hard) and have never ridden anything that puts fast and comfortable together as well as that bike did. Even the lower specced ally versions seem to do that too.

A small wheeled shopping bike (from an abovementioned intergalactic dstributor). I can't remember the list of faults but when it arrived it had obviously been unpacked before and hastily repacked, presumably rejected by another shop.

Could have got a car for that money………..

………yes but it would get stuck between the trees

………yes but it wouldn't be a Ferrari or Porsch would it?

………yes but I didn't want one did I

No, mud is nice……….really.

About two and a half laps of the Brass Monkeys saw my Magura Julie genuine pads down to the metal at the rear from new at the start. The fronts hung on for another lap.

You could try grey outer casing, that LOOKS lighter than black. I'm not aware of any specific lightweight outer on the market.

It'd just be tight of you not to after spending that much on the shifters and mech. They don't just get dirty inside, they wear internally too.
Make sure you get sealed ferrules for them. Shimano's have O rings in them to keep the crap out.

It hardly pays, you live off bank finance, and it's risky

I have a small LBS and wifey has a bakery. The above is very true but it's the only job I've stuck for more than four years and I dread the thought of ever having to change.

I'll vote for the Nobby Nics, much more cornering grip than the Mountain Kings.

Number 9…………..Yes

A few years ago when the riding and drinking were getting seriously enthusiastic wifey laid down the law……
"If you're not home by three next time, don't bother"

17 No matter how much it hurts you've got to show willing and be efficient in getting the kids ready for school the next day, cos you'll get so much grief if you look like you're suffering for your fun.

You can't get much more hair than ZZ Top?

Yippedy yappedy I'm in as well. Cheesy mexicana's on the shopping list.

I made my own last night. 6 inch tubes of neoprene, they hardly show under leggings but completely seal the gaps round my skinny ankles.

and you'll always have mates who will want to use it.

So would you be asking them to make a contribution to justify your outlay?

Personsally I'd never dream of charging £10 per wheel for changing tyres and I'd probably have done the headset for free as long as I didn't have anything too urgent in it's way, but I'm not in London, I don't have London overheads and I don't have customers on London wages. I do sometimes wonder if I've been a bit too cheap when customers look at their bil and say "is that all?"

Ahh the impatience of youth…………….

Sounds to me like it's your freehub that's playing up.

Merida 96 3500 (abut £3500 now).
I had one on demo in the summer and took it out on a club ride for everyone to try. No one found anything bad to say about it, even the diehard hardtail owners.

Benji liked this one[/url].

Me, I commute on a rigid singlespeed MTB with slicks. Built with bits from here and there it cost about £500 originally with deore level gears. It's quick and robust enough to cope with lumpy cycle paths. Building it myself I could put better wheels on than you'd get on any £500 bike off the shelf. I wouldn't bother with discs for commuting, deore vees are all the brake you'll need on the road.

I saw a bloke at the Rushmoor race yesterday in shorts and summer shoes with no socks. Rather him than me.

Tights for me from now on, with the added bonus that when you get to the pub at the end of the ride the mud comes off with the tights.
Having warm legs makes it easier to keep your feet warm.

Most of us locally are using Shimano MWs but one of the gang recently bought a pair of Gaernes because his size shimanos weren't available.
So far he's been very impressed with the Gaernes. Their cuff extends further up the ankle than the Shimanos.

One of our local gang changed jobs a couple of years ago from Southampton to London, a similar distance commute. we've only seen him a couple of times since.

You've go to decide how much those extra 20 hours a week commuting are worth to you.

Also, if you're trying for a family then Mrs North must be intending to at least interrupt her career.

If (hopefully 'when') you do succeed with starting a family I can't see your dearly beloved thanking you for being out of the house 13+ hours a day.

If the chain was on the granny and 7th the mch won't have been able to put much tension in it. It could be that both chain and rear mech were bouncing around so much that the chain was jumping off the jockey wheels and caught on the guide tabs on the mech cage.

Maybe?

I could've happily have eaten another one, but 12? Has he spoken to the chaps at Guinesss World Records?

Who?

Dean Colonel Ti with custom geometry to replicate my beloved 93 Clockwork (now too cracked and rusted to ride any more). Clockwork geometry tweaked slightly to accommodate a 100mm fork.

Nothing will stop me on Thursday night with the lads but when I'm on my own I'll probably cry off from rain combined with temperatures below 10 degrees and do something else, run/swim maybe.

Mud's great and down here in the south a heavy frost has the trails riding like summer. Baked hard/frozen hard there's not a lot of difference.
Frozen puddles are great fun to wheelie over, you never know if the back wheel will go forwards, left, right or down.

Sometimes one, sometimes two fingers (on the brakes that is)
Magura Julie HPs and Older XTs off road, Deore Vees on the commuter.
My old Hope Minis always needed two fingers though to stop quickly. I think older Hopes were regarded as being a bit underpowered compared to others.

Any bike shop should be able to cut you a length of outer to fit your bike.

A Hope Vision2 on the bars and an Ayup on the helmet was enough to keep my night laps at the Mayhem just as quick as the daylight ones.

Last spring at the end of a night ride three of us were stopped on a street corner having a chat before going our seperate ways home. A cop car pulls up and the officer leans out of the window;
"Have you got lights on those bikes then lads?"
"Yes of course officer, there's this one, that one, this one……………….." As we turned them on one by one.
He visibly winced at that, mumbled "okay lads" and drove off.

170 road and 175 everything else. I can tell the differecnce.

Try Middleburn for 165mm cranks.

I'd be tempted to say SV1000 but since I had an SV650 when they first came out and the paint started falling off in the first few months I've sworn never to own another Suzuki.

No-one has mentioned the Honda 900 Hornet yet, that'd be my choice for £3k (with a few quid budgetted for a fly screen)

Some of the motorbikes I used to import secondhand from Japan used to come with pimpy blue anodised N2 valve caps.

Thanks folks, when I saw on the map how close to Glasgow it is I had a feeling that it might not be everything the brochure promises.

Personally I don't like having so many power settings. At lease with the early Vision2 you knew that once you got to flashing the next push would give you max. With the current generation if you get to flashing you've missed max and need to count four pushes of the button if you want max power. Not at all easy whilst riding along. I also don't like the lack of symmetry having the light mounted to one side of the stem. This may be a minor niggle but if I'm paying £300 for a light then I want it to look good on the bike.
Overall, it will do the job but there are better. As I've stated elsewhere, I'm an Ayup fan.