People spending 6K on a neon Santa Cruz would probably disagree…

Can you not put something that’s totally servicable in there and bond it in?

Garmin 200 I found really good considering I only paid about £70 for it new.
I’ve since got a sat navving one but I still go back to the 200 if I don’t need any of the more advanced bits as it’s loads smaller, simpler and lasts longer.

Only issue I have with it is it’s very slow at finding satellites, takes a good few minutes normally so I have to remember to turn it on whilst getting ready for a ride.

Five dales circuit is one of my favourite rides, has a bit of everything. Best now while it’s a bit drier cos even now a couple of bits stay wet.

Follow your nose in the area and the extra 10k is easily made up. There’s some obvious detours on route (like when it spits you out onto the road after copy wood above the hairpin, go straight over into Rowsley wood and follow the path staying high)

Also some redo sections, the first rocky climb up back lane makes a fun descent which you can get back up to through halldale wood at the end of the route, gaining an easy 5k.

It’s a bit noisy. I put it down to the jockey wheels being thick thin as well as the chainring.
Possibly check the chain hasn’t jumped on the jockey wheels?
I’ve found to keep it quiet the mech needs to be kept very clean and the rear cable clean & greased well. Even so it can make a racket especially in the mud.

DT’s excellent but pricey Spline1 EX1501.. wide and strong!

This… I’ve had a pair for 12 months, and they’ve been fantastic. Light, stiff & nicely sized. I’ve abused them, chucked them down stuff, landed them terribly, piled them into things and they’re still true.

The only reason they’re not on my other bikes is the price tag….. :cry:

I’m loving my FF29 at the moment, it’s up there with the best bikes i’ve ridden.

As far as I was awarer UST were only for UST rims – the protection versions sit better on the tubeless ready rims due to the different bead.

You shouldn’t have a problem with protection, I’ve ran both RQ & XK with 0 tubeless issues. If you want a tough rear tire you might want to look at maxxis the conti sidewalls don’t last that well imo, but they are great tyres otherwise.

Old pads were squealing, on inspection they were totally shot down to backing both ends – not sure how after about 6 hours riding but hey ho. Superstar sintered pads went in, and were howling like a banshee within 90 minutes. Stripped the brakes down, cleaned everything, completely cleaned pads & discs in hot water then iso and sanded everything. Bedded them in again and were OK for a big day last weekend, then towards the end of day 2 same again, no power and squealing. Cleaned again and today same thing, after 90 mins they’re terrible. Coming from both brakes. Back starts it first normally?

Looks like i’ll be going back to the shimano pads at £lots.

Ta, but I actually have both hex bolts. The 2 actual parts of the bracket meet before the bolt bottoms out. Not that impressed but it must just be my helmet is unusually thin.

Upgraded the headset spacer bodge to a bb spacer bodge and it’s perfect now, apart from the slightly rounded hex bolt :oops:

You won’t get a BT router to work as an access point.

You need to plug a wireless access point into the power line, look on amazon.
I’ve got several whatever Netgear access point was current at the time, most 5y+ old and faultless.
I tried a cheap TP link and it was bobbins. I’d go net gear.

Edimax get good reviews too.

You’d think there had been enough moaning about spoilers on here recentley to stop people posting obvious thread titles…. There’s a whole thread for this nicely marked with no spoilers in the title.

FFS…

(It’ll be on the bbc news site under cycling, along with everything else that’s not Froome or Wiggo winning the TDF)

CRC do a spacer set for £9. http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/avid-disc-brake-spacer-set-hardware/rp-prod108156

You still have to use the stupid things on the trail brakes as some of the spacer brackets are OEM only – pile of crap!

Someone’s making friends….

My mate stayed there, he had a massive bill…

:?:

It’s great in Birmingham, the only place you could find a brutalist building replaced with something worse…..

Why they couldn’t carry on with the 00’s methods which involved modern interiors built in old shells I don’t know. Great way of modernising whilst keeping history.

Get the blue chapstick for bike stuff, about £7 from halfords and none of that faff with the fluid.

Biggish head here and I use http://www.merlincycles.com/uvex-flash-cycling-glasses-69679.html

Not sure how stylish they are but it’s not something I worry about…

Gav – I can do a few pics!

Climb up Rosset Gill starts

Obligatory new bike pic, I think top of Rosset Gill about to descend towards Esk Hause (after a small detour up the random mountain top left of pic)

Then down the other side.

I think this was Styhead Gill, I had to stop here and take a couple of pics as my arms were about shot! Long old descent.

Ended up around 35k I think, from Langdale up Rosset Gill, to Esk Hause around Styhead Gill, up to Stonethwaite, spot of lunch then across Stonethwaite Fell and down Stake Pass. Brilliant route :-) Been looking at some of the other stuff we could have ridden off it like Grains Gill and will need to try and get back up before winter hits.

Did a loop of Rosset Ghyll and Stake Pass on Sat, some fantastic riding when not pushing up, and was genuinely amazed not to see any other bikers all day. I like the lakes :-)

There must have been quite a party.

Something was mentioned on the Trans Savoie write up that peaty had jumped ship to get his party on with rat boy. You get a feeling that the morning after might look something like this….

Tacx stuff here, bought a £7 tube a couple of years ago and it’ll probably outlast me…
Just give it a shake before you use it if it’s been sat a while, or the liquid part of it spurts out and ruins your trousers…. :oops:

Yeah, i like that new air side allen bolt, was a pleasant surprise when I went to drop the lowers on my new SID’s the other day, as it’s the only thing i use that socket for and it’s never where I left it! The screwdriver wouldn’t have worked as you need to clear the shaft bolt – but not that it’s important now anyway.

Wouldn’t worry about anything drying out, I drop new forks just incase of any swarf or manufacturing issue internally but have never found anything to worry about.

You just pour the oil into the lowers, it’s easy enough. Rebound pulls free fine and the only tool you need extra is the long reach 10mm socket which it sound like you have.

I use a syringe with a bit of tube on the end – drop the uppers back in, swing them so they’re 45 degrees from upside down in the work stand and pour the oil through the hole, then engage the shafts. Just be careful you get the oil into the lowers, not just straight into the shafts.

You can also pour the oil in from the top – you then have to be quite careful when putting the uppers back in not to move the lowers too much and lose the oil from the bottom hole. I’ve never tried this way but i’d assume you’d want to clamp the lowers in a work stand at the right angle first.

You could try contacting him via his registered email with STW:

bummingspammerssince69@yahoo.com :?

He has signed off a couple of posts on here as Tim though.

I’m pretty sure i’ve got one of those at home somewhere from a set of rebas which I stripped the thread on.

If I can find it i’ll chuck it in the post to you – drop me a mail in my profile to remind me, i’m home tomorrow night so might forget by then!

Sorry.. hijack..
How do the s/s kevlar fair in british winter? Took them to the alps this year and was blowing through a set of pads every couple of days, obviously you brake more but I think the foul weather played it’s part.
Gone back to sintered assuming kevlar would just wear too fast & EBC resin last me about 6 weeks, but used superstar again this time and yesterdays ride got to the point where I was apologising to everybody I saw for ruining their sunday walk with braking you could hear a mile away….

Don’t forget that price will be nett of sales taxes, whereas UK pricing includes them. You’ll also have arse covering if it’s a USA firm to avoid currency fluctuations & the additional cost of overseas services like warranties – if they have to price a bike for a model year and the pound goes up by 10 cents it would make a big difference to margins.

I change at .75 on my superstar tool, normally change at 1 on other kit but XT cassettes are £40….
Probably in the region of 500 miles? Just changed to my 3rd chain, and new chain still shifts smoothly.
Not sure how much variance there is between tools – i.e. if my 0.75 is your 0.5.

I wouldn’t have gone carbon seat normally – but I wanted another SDG circuit and the carbon one was £50 on offer compared to £60 for the Ti! It does feel very nice. I kind of figured even if you have a catastrophic failure you’re only going to snap rails front or back so it wouldn’t kill you.

I split the rear stay on my c456 10k into a ride and did another 10-15k without really slowing down – wasn’t that bothered, but anything like that in the cockpit area freaks me out, having seen what happens when a steerer snaps! Bars would be not much better… Seen a few of those carbon is better videos and i’m sure it is, I just can’t get comfortable with the thought of it.

Road bike has carbon bladed forks but I can just about cope with that.

The thing’s going to get ridden whatever the weight, but everyone’s gotta have a goal ;-) Wait for the ‘what tyres for my 20lb rigid single speed knee abusing FF29’ thread in a months time!

Definitely not going to have carbon bars! Found just about the lightest pair of alu 720’s I could and got those on their way, going to get them on and rummage through the spares box for a few stem lengths before ordering a lightweight stem.

No faith in carbon at all, it scares me. Had a frame which I wrote off in a small crash, a bottle cage I snapped and put a carbon saddle on this bike. I think it’s got a crack in the rail after 1 ride. I’m done with it as a material for bikes, maybe low risk areas but not a chance would I have a carbon bar/steerer.

Hmm knowing there’s similar FF29’s subbing 24lbs isn’t good! Frame, forks, reverb & wheels are the only new bits on there so everything else is game to be changed either now if I can sell it or when it wears out. Mooching on xcracer shop is a bit of an eye opener, not sure i’d be happy riding some of the lightweight stuff they have on there.

Would have preferred to use sram shifting, especially as I’d like to try grip shift but when it’s only cost £75 to put the 42t and cage on there and reuse an XT group set it’s hard to justify replacing the whole lot.

I’m pretty sure it was only 3 pairs for £18 when I bought some the other weekend – I cried a little…
You can self justify though, cos 7 pairs of socks are the same price so it evens out at 5 of each for £18!

Wheels I was going to leave as is at the moment, I originally was looking for something a bit lighter but at shy of 90kg i’m wary of light wheels. American classics were what I wanted but I was struggling a bit to find them in the UK, LB were also on the list but I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted and the resale value wouldn’t be great if I got it wrong. The maxlights were a nice width, in-between arch and flow and weigh less than either, and should be able to sell them on pretty easily and upgrade. Hopefully getting out more should see me down to about 80kg and I can look at it again in the new year. Probably end up with LB.

A couple of bits I hand’t thought about there cheers – the cockpit is too high so once I sort that out I reckon i’ll have about 20mm of steerer and spacers off the top, and the on one cheap spacers & top cap probably aren’t that light. Rotors must be an easy saving, they’re ice tech now which must weigh plenty. Will look at pedals too, always used shimano but open to a bit of change.

Lockon grips – always used them but will try a pair of foam/silicon ones as they’re a dirt cheap way of saving a bit.

Forks def. not going they’re brand new but I will be trying a pair of the maxlight carbon’s when funds allow. Don’t think I can get much better on the saddle @ 166g but a carbon post i’m not sure on – it makes sense over the reverb for racing but I think i’d get more out of the reverb, I find it hard to not use one these days! Even out on XC/trail centre rides where i’d just leave the saddle up high quite happily years ago I drop it all the time now.

Lyrik i’d have thought – there’s a couple ridiculously cheap in the classifieds atm.

Can’t see you getting any better, best I found recently was CRC for £189.
They just chucked a reverb in a box though and sent it to me – so I sent it back and bought a proper one boxed with bleed kit and collar from bike discount.de for £165 delivered.

Wouldn’t get too hung up on buying UK – the germans will put warranty stuff right.

Hmm…. maybe I should have been more accommodating to a ‘shakedown’ ride… halfway round stopped to check everything still in place and found saddle had come loose and slipped back to the furthest back it could go meaning it had worn a chunk out of both carbon rails and I’d forgotten to helitape the front of the chain stay meaning nice chunk out of the lovely green paint. :-( Bugger!

I’ve got a 40-50k mtb ride planned in the peaks tomorrow, will be taking the new HT that’s not seen so much as tarmac yet. I have no faith in my spannering skills whatsoever but it’s only riding a bike, if something falls off – i’ll reattach it.

The only allowance i’m making for the new bike is carrying 2 tubes instead of 1 as it’s a 29er so there’s obviously no chance of anybody having a tube for such an obsolete rim size and i’ve taped the tubeless rims up myself so they’re going to stay on for about 23 seconds!

Leaking gels were an issue – I had a bad batch 12 months ago. Bit of a thread here about it.

They actually got in touch afterwards to ask if I was satisfied with my order, I pointed out the problems & they confirmed they had a production issue with the gels and sent me a box of replacements. Can confirm none of them have leaked and was pretty good customer service.

Can’t get the extra 30% off the electrolyte though.

Parents have one on theirs and it’s decent enough at carting bikes around – what annoys me is that when you want to get into the back of the van with bikes on you have to lift it and balance it 1/2 way open whilst fishing stuff out and it’s heavy enough to be a 2 man job with bikes on.

This is because the handlebars of the first bike will hit the roof when the tailgate is up. Suppose it depends on the van layout as to how much of an issue this is?

Visibility not really an issue – 90% of vans don’t have rear windows anyway so you’re no worse off you just get used to using mirrors more.