Interesting link Zippy, cheers. The Traversees have removable spacers sort of similiar to the Hopes so it’d be easy enough to get something machined up to suit, I hadn’t thought of that (I have a lathe myself but I’m a disaster with it) Hmm.

TBH I’ve never felt any glaring issue with the front end, I’m partly just thinking out loud since now I have wheels that can do it so easily. I’ll see what TF say. If the fork leg spacing and the stanchion diameter is the same then it’s not impossible that it’ll work, the u-turn adjuster is all in the upper part as far as I know too. But you never know if there’s differences inside the legs of course.

“I have discovered that CIF kitchen powercream cleans your chain well”

Most serious kitchen cleaners have a fine abrasive in, if it does then you don’t want it anywhere near your chain!

My dad had a heart attack last year, he still can’t ride a bike now. Couldn’t before either mind.

I’ll have a word with The Experts I guess, they’re already overdue a service but I’m going to wait til they actually show some signs of not being awesome before I send them in :mrgreen: I think you’re right about teh Pike thing actually, I read that somewhere else. Cheers!

Revelations here…

I’m not the most hardcore but they seem to suit it brilliantly for what I do (XC riding mainly, lots of laps of Glentress red, occasional black stuff).

Travel wise I only use 100mm for big climbs, 120-130mm is where it lives most of the time.

White spirit should work well for most chain lubes, paraffin is the other old favourite, both reasonably inexpensive and very effective.

Hmm, might be actually. But then I’d probably have to tweak the right height too, can’t use 140mm with a Soul and I like the 100mm setting. I’ve a feeling it’s less expensive than you’d think but, maybe not cheap still…

“Back in the day (…and not everyone may recommended it!), if I had to get my square taper cranks off, I’d remove the crank bolts and then pedal around for a bit until they came loose. Just an option”

This works. Though it’s much more effective if you don’t actually know the crank bolts are missing, it takes ages if you’re doing it on purpose but they fall off instantly if you’ve just forgotten to fit them :mrgreen: It makes sense just to loosen the bolt though, that way the crank will come loose without actually dropping off.

Usually so does a rubber mallet, though you have to hit the crank as close to the BB as possible to have any chance.

“”roll well for the size” -larger tyres should roll better.”

Depends entirely on the tread design. Some are faster, some are slower. Try Kenda Blue Grooves for an example, 2.35 is miles slower than 2.1

Since we’re posting pics, my own SV:

Fettled to oblivion :) Old pic though, it has different GSXR forks and a single-disc conversion with a fireblade 330mm disc and single R6 radial caliper now, for 170.5kg fully fuelled and oiled :D I’m even a motorbike weight weenie. Grinding some of the paint off the left hand side using some handy tarmac has reduced that further.

Kenda Small Block 8s in 2.35. Quick, grippy, OK even in mud, and actually do measure exactly what they say they do :mrgreen: I’ve not got enough miles on them to give a real opinion on durability etc, but I replaced a set of 2.2 Mountain Kings (which were barely more than 2 inches) with these 2.35s, and the Kendas are faster, grippier, and better in mud, and barely any heavier. They’re a wee bit “floaty” on loose deep mud, because of the size and the shallow tread, but they clear fast and they do fine on typical wet surfaces.

It could be I’ll puncture them constantly or have a huge crash on them in a week then hate them but so far, so good… They’ve been pretty much fit and forget so far.

“Two tillion quid right? £2000 billion.(anticipates any corrections from maths you boffins out there).”

I’m no maths boffin, but I can read- the article says 2 billion right at the start.

“LONDON, England (CNN) — The Bank of England bought £2 billion ($2.8 billion) of government bonds Wednesday as the UK introduced quantitative easing to kickstart the ailing economy.”

And 2 billion pounds in national economy scales is not an awful lot of money.

I like the Truflo Evolution Plus- similiar to the floor/hand pumps up the page, though slightly larger bore than most- but it’s hard work up past 90psi. I’m feeble mind, I’ve never found a pump that’s not a beast to get the road tyres right up, so I tend to just fill to about 80psi and sort it when I get home with the big pump. It’s a really nice size, fits easily in a pack, but big enough to push air.

I’ll not buy another crank brothers pump, I’ve used a couple and owned one of the tiny ones and they’ve all been mince.

If he needs a break, I’d give him a break, and there to remind him what he’s missing and to help him back in when he’s ready. You can’t force people into enjoying themselves. IMO ;)

Hmm, that reads like you’re disagreeing with me but if the maximum is 900lm then the emitter IS capable of it ;) It’s just not going to be doing it in this light.

Chris Clark, Love’s Gone Bad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOdVvdpyDt0
Emmy the Great, Bad Things Are Coming, We Are Safe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kqKT7R0AOg
Get Cape Wear Cape Fly, Call Me Ishmael
Frank Turner, Back To Sleep

That’s all a bit mellow. Needs some rock:
I’ll Find You, Hundred Reasons: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_3xHj_WKFU
Muse, Citizen Erased http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi20JoUgY4A
Biffy Clyro, Justboy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuAgM9dgL-s

“Surprised all the bnp ukip mail/express readers lot are not kicking off…”

There is fairly little mileage in being racist towards highly trained killing machines :mrgreen:

Oh yeah, I meant to say, the 2.2s I had were the supersonics so black chili. Which makes me shudder to think what the vanilla ones must be like.

I really didn’t like the 2.2s, they lasted 2 rides and I sold them on. Not fast enough to excuse the lack of grip- the only thing I liked about them was that when they spun out on slippy climbs (which they did all the time) they spun out in a nice controlled gradual way. But then they spun up more than any other decent tyre I’ve used, so that’s a small comfort. But some people do love them.

“Also depends whether you really get 900 lumens from a “900 lumen light”! “

You probably don’t, the emitter is capable of it but chances are you don’t actually get it. The SSC P7 torches have been put at 600-700 by people who know how to work this stuff out, which is still a lot of light.

Or alternatively, if that’s not enough, you can buy about 8 for the price of a Lupine Betty or Light and Vision Seca 8O But you might set fire to the trees.

“No don’t think so as the torch only has a run time of 60 to 90 minutes.”

This light uses the same battery, but the torch uses one while this light has 4- hence longer burn times.

I’ve got a pair of the torches, and they’re as good as the hype- better than 9/10s of “proper” bike lights. Need to see exactly what the optics are like in this to see if it works as well as they do though but there’s no reason it shouldn’t.

Soul, if you can stretch to the cost, very very good frames indeed. Innerleithen one day, 20 miles of natural XC the next, brilliant at both. But undeniably not cheap

Some Superstar stuff is pretty decent, but I won’t touch anything of theirs with a bearing in til I start hearing some good things and stop hearing horror stories. But I’ve used their pads and quick releases no problem, and bought some bits from tibolts which is the same company with a different sticker on it, all fine, and very good service from them too- good communications and fast delivery.

“SO it turns out that all the people photographed and “quoted” on the leaflet are infact just American models from a Stock photograph.”

Least surprising thing ever :lol:

Definately use non slip, I had to do ours twice, once with regular paint, then again with non slip after falling on my arse :roll:

I think if I was doing it again, I’d probably tile it instead with those big pvc tiles, miles more expensive but a mate of mine has them in his, and they’re nice to walk on and seem to keep the heat in a bit. Plus, when you drop bolts, which I do probably 100 times an hour, they don’t bounce as much so they’re easier to find.

Yup, Cameron speaks a lot and says nothing. Natural politician really.

Slightly. But not entirely. I found it a wee bit unhelpful at times, they’re similiar enough that I kept on feeling like I knew what to do, but different enough that actually I had no clue :mrgreen: So there was a bit of unlearning to do. I think it was an advantage, in the end, but it didn’t really make a huge difference either way I reckon. Probably driving has as many transferrable skills.

Still, it’s ace, do it. DOoooooo it. This is basically the worst time in british history to get a bike licence, mind, you’ve just missed the old easier test so now you have to do a more challenging one which actually requires you to be able to ride a bit. This apparently is outrageous, according to many bikers :roll: But still, doooooo it.

I had a go on one, it was a good laugh but… It’s not a supermoto, it’s just a fun naked bike really, there’s no real comparison with a real supermoto. And then, once you realise it’s just a fun naked bike, you look at the Hornet and realise it’s just as fun and also miles more practical, and cheaper. Or maybe that’s just me.

Has anyone else seen Richard Barnbrook’s imaginary murders? (he’s the most senior elected BNP member) Funny as ****, he decided he wanted to run an anti-knife campaign but inconsiderately nobody was actually getting stabbed at the time, so he just invented some murders.

“”We don’t know who’s done it. Her girlfriend was attacked inside an educational institute,” Barnbrook said in the prerecorded interview in which he sought to highlight failings in tackling knife crime.

He also said that two weeks previously “there was another attack by knives on the streets of Barking and Dagenham where two people were murdered”.”

Still, if the BNP do ever get into power I’m sure these imaginary murders will stop overnight, therefore producing a huge reduction in imaginary crimes :mrgreen: No more attacks by knives!

Didn’t watch most of it but some of the start was good… I saw the show Fuerzabruta, which the “running on conveyor belt” bit was taken from, a couple of years ago and it was mint, so nice to see that again even if the boy couldn’t do it right. That show completely blew my mind :mrgreen:

The size of the receiver isn’t very important tbh, max pressure counts for more. Butyou can seat motorbike tyres with a decent 6l 1hp compressor so it’ll make short work of a mtb tyre.

Or you could buy some tubes ;)

I’ve got a Soul, and it’s superb… But not because it’s steel, just because it’s superb. Excellent geometry, reasonable weight, well designed frame making good use of the material. I’d recommend it to anyone if it wasn’t for the price, but it’s still great.

Before that, I had a Scandal, which is alloy but also had a surprising amount of flex and give in it, very nice. Just because many ally bikes are built like bridges doesn’t mean they all are.

“5 psi out of your tyres will make way more difference than frame
material IME.”

That’s right, it’ll make you slower and you’ll pinch flat more, frame material can’t do that :mrgreen:

Merida? RRP = too expensive.

I was really disappointed to find that Phantom’s Cleugh on my local loop doesn’t actually have any history at all- there’s a story about a phantom path-builder but it turns out it was made up by the local rangers in lieu of anything more interesting. Fail!

Lionheart, do you not carry a speedlink?

The Carrera Fury’s s***-hot, better than some bikes I’ve ridden costing twice as much. Bit lardy is all, but you get a Tora 318 fork, decent SRAM and Truvativ drivetrain, Mavic 317s, and the rest of the finishing kit is all decent enough. Put it this way, I’ve ridden my mate’s a lot and if I’d got one of those in the first place, I’d not have bought my Soul- it’s not as good, but it’s good enough that I wouldn’t have looked for anything else.

If you don’t like it being Halfords, you can always buy a cheap Inbred frame and swap all the parts, it’ll still be better value than pretty much anything else at the price. Worth waiting and seeing if there’s another discount on the way, they were down to £370 at one point.

I demoed an Mtrax 4.0 a while back, horrible piece of s***. It gets great reviews, I have no idea why, it rode worse than the £300 Carrera I had at the time despite being dripping with bike jewelry. Just felt like some goon had attached a load of nice bits to a supermarket frame.

It took me all of 5 minutes to fall in love with the Soul when i demoed it, up the fire road and down pennel’s vennel at glentress. That was it, sold.

I like it myself… Not just for the super-low gear, though I’ve used it sometimes on long steep climbs or techy short ones, but also because of the wider range on the middle ring. But I wouldn’t miss it too much if I went back to 32T I’m sure.

Yeah, that’s actually why I switched from an Alien 2 to a Hexus- the Alien’s brilliant but it’s got so many tools that are irrelevant to my bike, so why bother? Most modern bikes use very few tools. We did use it to reattach the boot lock on my mate’s car though.