Skoda?

Just that daveagiles is asking for a bike that rides like a HT but is an FS, just get a HT.

A bike that can handle me having a go, not snapping at the first sign of a badly landed jump.

well then a BFE on 120s

You have the same set-up as me, 711mm is just enough to get through trees I find. I put a 70mm stem back on mine just to try it the, just made steering feel less precise and nothing else.

I guess what I want is a FS bike that rides like my hardtail, is there such a thing?

Take the wheels and drive train of your 5, buy a cotic BFE (or a soul maybe) sell the 5 frame and fork. build up your cotic out of parts from the 5 and a new fork.

Dialled Bikes Prince Albert or Alpine as an alternative to a 456. or a Cotic BFe

They are all frame only, so you’ll have to build up them yourself.

Might throw a spanner in the works here but:

Another option would be the ragley blue big:

It has a better fork a Revelation RL as opposed to the Sektor R on the 456. Since you are 16 I doubt you will weigh over 73kg, therefore you will need to buy a softer spring for the sektor coil fork, where as with the revelation you adjust the spring hardness with a shock pump, since it is an air fork. With the Revelation the damper will be more composed on rougher terrain too, take it that the Rev has a lockout too?

The drive train and shifters are better, on the ragley, however you could/probably will replace these as they wear out.

The brakes are Avid elixir 1s on the 456 and elixir 5s on the pig. Most people dislike avid brakes because they are a pain to bleed amongst other things, therefore I would recommend you get some different brakes, Shimano SLX are good.

Simply put 456 X5 has a nice frame, with the fork being decent, brakes and drive train bearable, but they can be upgraded, but I recommend you try out the brakes if you like them keep them, otherwise replace with SLX, why not sell? they are avid elixir 1’s worth very little about £30 each second hand.

Or you could get the Blue Pig, which also has a nice frame, a Good fork, good drive train, decent brakes, but I recommend you strip them off and sell them, and replace with SLX.

If I tell anybody that I do Mountain Biking the image in their head is of me puffing along a canal tow path on an Apollo, or centre parcs.

However I have shown non bikers, Danny Harts run and Danny Macaskills videos, they have been suitably impressed.

If mountain biking was more underground, and was formed out of an elite cadre of rippers, that only rode at night, then it would be very cool.

Skill is cool, at least people admire it.

Lycra is not cool. Maybe in the south or something, but no, budgie smuggling is not cool.

Oh BTW jumping is cool, I was talking to a lass, who asked if I could do tricks, I said no, but I can do jumps (small tabletop jumps – didn’t mention that though 😳 ) she replied with: oh cool.

I am 18 myself, people here think I am 40 and have a beard just because I ride a singlespeed, I ride a SS because I am a student therefore skint, but on the upside physically capable.

I like STW because people on here have an opinion, sometimes it’s full of crap but most times genuinely good information, and people still answer even though you have asked the same question for the millionth time.

Oh BTW mattamomo there is a lot of sarcasm, piss taking and banter round here. Don’t bite, if you do anything genuinely wrong the mods will drop you an email.

Which 456 we getting this guy to buy? Only the Carbon 456 X9 is available to buy now, with the steel X5 coming out in May? Correct me if I am wrong.

mattamomo – Member
Just curious, would the 456 be ok for both downhill, and more technical trials?

No! If you ride a 456 on anything past 6.7 on the official gnarr scale, the frame explodes and white hot steel tubing becomes impaled in your face. Welcome to STW BTW 🙂

You can ride any bike anywhere. How fast you ride that bike, or rather how much confidence that bikes gives you in the relative terrain, which then in turn causes you to go fast, will be the difference between bikes.

Riding a bike fast is like talking to girls, it’s all about confidence, oh and a large… amount of travel 😛

So if I gave you a 100mm HT and said go down fort William DH track, you would probably creep down on the brakes, If I gave you an Orange 224 evo DH bike, you would probably be faster. However the amount of skill you have will create more of a difference.

As for jumps, you will require a tougher frame for jumps/large drop off’s (more for when you stack them), and that is why we told you to get a 456.

I thought gears were awesum so much so that I got some XT shifters, Now I ride a singlespeed, go figure. The more you ride the more experience you gain, which then leads you to decide what you need from a bike.

Sorry this is STW, you’re a troll, get a 5, go away (you’ll understand when you’ve been around here for a bit longer)

Watch this, Now tell me you need full sus, really? Unless you are racing DH a good AM bike will do.

However if I were you I would get a tough HT, yeah a 456 is good, with an air fork at 140mm. 160mm is overkill on a HT imo.

If you are unsure on what you want – you need to ride more. A bombproof HT will do a lot of different riding well. The money that you have saved spend on tools, because when you learn and rag stuff, having to wait 7 days for the LBS to fix stuff sucks.

When I started MTB I new very little, I bought a 120mm HT, there was stuff I didn’t like/stuff broke I decided to fix it all myself – I learn’t a ton, My confidence in my bike grew as I began to understand how exactly everything worked, and that if took things too far and broke anything, all it needed was a bit of allen key treatment in the evening to get it fixed (usually).

Haha, the wonders of Ebay

I think the mud guard itself is pretty ugly TBF, oh and the price is insane.

Anybody watched the installation video, I think they got CRC to design the packaging, that box is massive.

Bender Fender FTW, costs under a tenner, looks like a pair of briefs, and you get a free Maoam 8)

FunkyDunc – Member

Same goes for Esholt woods where there is old bits of wood and nail littered around…

Where? I ride there a lot, I rode there yesterday, never seen a nail or plank of wood.

Speaking of Esholt wood, IMO that is an example of doing it right. There are DH trails that see regular use, these trails were not built on footpaths/bridleways therefore only MTBers use them. This keeps us all Happy from my point of view. The DH/Freeriders ride their own dug trails, I ride the bits of singletrack usually in the mornings/evening when trail traffic is low so I can enjoy myself more and I don’t piss off/scare walkers and the walkers walk along the main path.

Where I ride in Esholt wood, I am the “Yoof” but on an XC bike, and its blokes 25 – 35 who ride the dug DH trails. TBH I have probably scared more people as I am dressed in black and ride a silent singlespeed fast 😈

You can see the multicoloured in yer face DH guys coming a mile off.

Main point: I don’t think hat there is any thing wrong with jumps and “rad” trails, in fact it’s a good thing, more riders in the woods (so you can pinch an inner of them, or a multitool. More people about to help you when you have an off too). However When trails are made without consideration for other trail user, then it is a problem since it affects other users. I think people who want to do DH/freeride should make their own trails which only they will use, since those trails are specialized and require modification of the terrain.

<nerd alert>
plastic model kits. but not Airfix, Airfix are very poor compared with Tamiya, Academy, Trumpeter, Hasegawa, even Revell
</nerd alert>

I’ve made a few tanks and planes. I also made a N gauge model railway set in the mid 1960s (unfinished) all a few years back. I used to be into PC gaming too. I was rather nerdy all change now though.

I now ride MTB xc/trail
Tamper with my MTB (some call it servicing) don’t mind tampering with cars too
and Street Dance – Started in January

Not really the morning any more but, better late then never: Click

I could never find a guide for when I first serviced mine, ended up coming undone in some woods 🙁 lessons learnt

yeah, you will need 28 and 32 mm spanners, as for dificulty similar to normal cup and cone. I have just come home after a bike ride, feeling shattered, I’ll write up a tutorial on how to service one tomorrow morning 🙂

So you rock up at his front door and **** him in the face, I doubt he will just stand there and take it, more likley it will end in a fight.

If the police then show up, your defence will be “he hit me a few days back, so I came back to hit him” 😕

The time to hit him was when he attacked you, in self defence. Not now. Court and all that is a waste of time IMO. Have a biscuit and a cup of tea – shiz happens 🙂

@ton they are my LBS, All terrain cycles comes up in my bank statements far too much

Staff there are sorted; answer all my stupid questions. Tarted the place up a bit recently, although still have to wait to be seen to, then again staff take their time to talk with you so…

I have 77 facebook friends, my excuse; I have met every single one of them. I get bored “talking” to people on facebook, if you want to have a proper conversation meet up or call them, simples 😉

I am 18 years old by the way..

I have 17 twitter followers, I tweet sometimes; nowt interesting.

Thank you everyone for your contributions 🙂

You have given me a lot to think about…

Sorry, just general student areas are pretty rough everywhere not just in Scotland, Glasgow just springs to mind, although talking to a lass once, who said it just had a bad rep, and was actually a good place to live as a student.

Scottish Southern Electric, probably working on overhead lines, they give me a list of locations, so need to pick two.

Perhaps its the cloudy foggy weather

Don’t knock it, yesterdays ride started that way, twas good, then it turned sunny – in yer face midday sun, being dressed in black didn’t help, I prefer cool cloudy days. Pine woodland in fog looks so cool.

Canyon looks like a fairy that’ll struggle with mud n’gnar. I’d go for the ragley, I have a genesis core 40 another 1K ht that has had a few upgrades and converted to SS, wouldn’t fancy 100mm.

Those trails are probably out of his front door, probably rides them every day… probably…

love to see him in the uk where everything is wet, roots, rocks, trees everywhere and a dog walker round every corner 😛

I’d say that is the speed that is “too fast” for bridleways. 😆

Mech hanger, qr skewer

paradox

It stops the cable S-bending against the headtube

That bend was causing cable rub on my headtube. So swapped the cables with the stops round. The wires crossed; didn’t affect shifting in any way, just get your cable tension right.I used a pair of pliers to give a good tug before tightening down.

I had the same idea as you with my elixir 5, but shimano discs are thicker and so I couldn’t stop the discs rubbing because of loss of clearance. Shimano discs are useable but like I said you will lose pad clearance. I have seen somebody run hope discs with a set of codes.

So long as the pad contact track is the same width and disc same thickness it will work, so maybe check out discs from other manufacturers, I will come replacement time.

Who had the bright idea to make MTB shoes white?

😉

You’ll need some 5wt and 15wt suspension oil.

I believe stuff from a motor bike place will do, and be cheaper. * somebody more knowledgeable confirm this.

You will need grease for the coil, Stendec is what I plan to use.

Full information on srams service site. Recon Gold Manual

I am servicing my recon TK golds this week, I have some spare time and should be easy so may aswell. Mine seem a bit sticky also never bottom out, I’ll also see what spring I am running.

Service them, won’t do them any harm and you will also see if you have broken anything inside, doubt you have though. Probs just needs some fresh oil in the damper to work effectively?

Go into some bike shops and have a feel of some of the brakes on the bikes.

I personally hate the lever feel of Shimano brakes, the levers them selves are tiny too. I like Avids (the only person in the known universe who does). Hopes are nice and Formulas. Some people rate Hayes, so worth a look maybe

*ignores all posts – sorry but I’ll read them after I post this*

I used to place banana skins on the spikes of a fence every day at break time, when I was in school, at first cleaners would remove them, but my persistence made them stop.

Anyway, every school day I would see the banana skins. They go brown fast yes, but then they go black and dry out this takes about 2 weeks roughly, from that stage to completely gone takes a while, about 8 weeks. Although in very wet conditions fungus would speed that up. Then I wonder why the only A at GCSE I got was in Biology 😛

120mm SS steel HT, maybe on the tough side – BFE, for when I would abuse it.

Why? What Trimix said 😉

On about oakley glasses sorry

I do. I had some endura spectrums, all they did was fog up and make their way down my face on the descents, also one blotch of mud and you can’t see anything. Goggles are much nicer, mud blotches are smaller, they don’t fog up as much, they also stay on your face better and offer a bit of protection.

I put them round my neck for big climbs. Only thing is, not sure when it comes to summer, will be rather toasty in them…

Nothing worse than lycra bib shorts and orange xc glasses. Nobody has ever said anything to me. I like the look of XC lid and goggles, (I don’t look any better in glasses)

Also why the cost Fox Main pro goggles £50, most oakleys over £100.

Scooter?

I rode around I circles, with the brakes half on, till I got the callipers warm/hotish, then went for a ride…

Avid said hat I should get up to speed then brake hard (no skidding though) – repeat about 10 times, then again at a higher speed. Above method seemed more effective and less time consuming 🙂

EDIT: Do you spend time bedding them in or do you just ride the bike?

Brakes feel underpowered when the pads aren’t bedded in IMO

36:19 here (Leeds). Works for just about everything I do, and it’s a magic ratio for my frame, so no tensioner needed.

I chose a bigger size for more chain wrap and (slightly) less wear. I also had a 36t Bash. As luck would have it was the perfect ratio for my frame 😛

When I was out testing on my double (36t 22t) and bash gearie bike, the 18t was pretty much perfect, but wanted slightly more acceleration on the flat, and figured I needed something a bit lower for the hills (tis Yorkshire after all) so went for the 19.

The press up thing makes sense for me. Do a few and then measure the distance between the outer edges of your hands, that’s roughly what width you need. I went for Easton Haven 711s. Only gripe is the finish – which looks great out of the box, but begins to look tatty after a few months (the white and gold lettering gets rubbed off by brakes and shifters).

I would go for the ones with the prefferred rise, up sweep and back sweep, oh and colour/blingness, and then cut them to length (if too wide)

High Five 😛

Put a big dent in my Giro Hex today. I have a headache now 🙁

oh and some very bloody shins