It just won the WMB cheap full suss test, by “a huge margin”.

I do think distance/exertion needs to be seperate from skill level, most of glentress black would be red if it wasn’t so bloody long frinstance.

richcc, hollow bars aren’t much weaker than solids, remember this is a pull force rather than a shearing/bending force. I know a guy who used these on the mega last year, or the alloy version rather, and he’s done an awful lot of hard riding with them, no problems at all.

Just bought this frame on tuesday, built it up on wednesday and thursday, took it for its first ride on saturday and, er, crashed it. I think I’ll chill on sunday.

Love it 8)

It depends on the primer and the paint, really. With most car finishes sanding the primer is just essential, the primer will be rough enough to be noticable in the basecoat.

I’m using hammerite for my old steelie, in tasteful bright yellow. I was sorely tempted to go with the crackle finish :mrgreen: Rustproof, tough-ish, goes on very easily on bare metal, lovely.

I used to think that presta was better for wheel builders til I discovered Mavic make all their rims in schraeder size and just supply a plastic converter.

Schraeder has some practical advantages, though. It’ll work with whatever random car pumps you have- old foot pumps, little electic ones, jumpstart boxes, petrol station airlines, etc- should you get caught out, and if you want a gauge you can use the £1 one from halfords instead of spending £20 for a bike-specific one which is twice the size and works less well.

Did they work at all? If they did, bleed them again and just use the lever to push them out.

I’ve got a System. This always sounds insane when I type it out but it’s really fast and easy, honest. Ingredients are one big bottle of paraffin from B&Q (£5, lasts forever), and 3 small airtight boxes from tesco (about £2 each as I went for heavy built ones with o-ring seals).

Each box is half-full of paraffin. There are 3 boxes, one’s dirty, one’s a bit dirty, one’s fairly clean. Chain comes off, gets a quick hose then into either box 1 (if it’s really manky) or box 2 (if it’s just dirty). Shake shake shake. After half a minute, it comes out, and into the next box. Shake shake shake. Sometimes, I’ll let it soak. By box 3, after about 4 minutes work, it’s absolutely spotless- cleaner than a chain cleaning machine gets it. Then relube and refit. Every so often, the clean box gets too dirty so I ditch the dirty box and start a new clean one.

Plus, you get to burn the leftover paraffin :mrgreen: It does sound like a lot of work but it’s really not, it only takes minutes including relubing so it’s faster than trying to clean it on the bike, and the result is just perfect.

I’ve just replaced my Scandal, it’s a nice frame, stupidly light for what it can do. And now stupidly cheap too. I never quite got on with mine, I’m within the recommended sizing for a small, just, but I think it was basically too small despite that. Also, with 130mm in the front the seat tube angle was pretty slack, I was sat a loooooong way back.

Good frames though. I wouldn’t have another for 130mm use but if I wanted a light 100mm frame, I’d get one like a shot. Possible in big gay pink. Definately not in 16″ though!

So, this Top Sekrit new frame, I take it that rather than having a racy 100mm frame that everyone sticks a longer fork in, there’s going to be a purpose-built long travel ally hardtail in the range? A 4567046? :)

If I replaced rotors every time I found a bent one, I’d have to sell my bike to pay for it :mrgreen: It’s really not difficult to straighten a rotor out, it doesn’t have to be perfect.

The original post says “Not with my power output”, missing the point- chains DO stretch but not because of the power applied, but because of wear and tear. Any stretching due to power loading is irrelevant.

That’s AWESOME. My first thought was “take it drag racing” :mrgreen:

I’ve got a set of 2.2s for dry weather, somewhere… I don’t trust them as much as my nevegals, they feel a bit insubstantial and sometimes a bit squirrelly on stuff that the nevegals just grip on, but they’re good tyres. The lighter weight and lower drag gives a very noticable bit of extra zip too.

I love it… It’s not just great riding, it’s a great video, professional editing, superb choice of tune… a perfect storm.

My favourite trick is the lifting barrier- rides up it, hops on the counterweight and makes the whole thing swing up then drops off it. It’s not showy or even all that impressive, but it’s just so simple and playful, great bit of imagination. I know most of the locations and some of the tricks just freak me out a bit.

Topeak alien comes with a wee bag IIRC.

I’ve just stuck a set of the Superstar carbon ones on mine, they’ve been flawless so far, though lets not rule out the possibility that they’ll snap in half and break me like a dropped glass tomorrow…

Powdercoat’s phenomenally tough… But once it’s damaged, water tends to get under it and cause it to lift, which is pretty ugly. Still, it’d be my choice for a bike frame, Triple S are the coaters I usually use and they’re absolutely brilliant.

I’ll need to get it in bits and get the tape off it to make sure it’s in the condition I think it is before I decide on a price, but fingers crossed and I should pick up my soul tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll have it stripped tomorrow night. It’s the black anodised one, and 16″ centre to top. If you don’t hear from me, feel free to drop me an email at andrew@blackjack.f9.co.uk, I’m a bit forgetful :P

It might not be a bad idea to come along to a trail building session and see it in action, glentress trailfairies meet every second saturday morning, no session next week but we’ll be out again the week after and definately doing some surfacing… I’m new to it so no expert at all but you’d probably learn a lot. We just use hardcore- crushed stone and, well, dirt :) Dig down to the mineral soil layer, then build back up with hardcore and squash back down.

But then again these are trails built for thousands of bikes, it’d maybe be overkill for kids. If I was doing it, I’d be inclined to just clear and compact the soil and leave it completely natural, and see how it evolves. Kids skid all the time of course so anything will cut up but it’s more drainage that’s the biggest hassle.

It’s all definately doable with just parent power though, if you’ve ridden Mushroom Pie at Glentress that’s all volunteer and hand-built and it’s mint.

The Soul demo bike I rode had Julies, I was surprised they’d put £50 brakes on a demo, but they did work well. Bit unsubtle, I’m a bit of a comfort braker and they didn’t really excel at that, but they were strong and had a lot of feel. Good at the price

There’s some really nice riding in the Pentlands, it’s not amazing but it’s good enough to keep me going up there every couple of weeks. The best part is possibly Bonaly but it does take time there to find the good parts, so it might not be ideal for you. What sort of distance/difficulty are you after?

Karnali, I’m just about to replace my Scandal with a Soul… To be fair part of my problem with the Scandal is that I’ve got a small, and at 5’10 it’s just a bit too wee for me, despite On One reckoning it’s ok for my size. But mainly, I find it doesn’t climb well with my build, with the slack seatpost the front end is too light on pedalled climbing even with a zero layback post so it’s a constant pogo.

Lovely on the descents though, totally confidence inspiring with 130mm in the front. (I could have re-specced it to run better at 100mm, but I found I couldn’t build a setup that worked well at both ends of the u-turn, and so I sacrificed climbing in favour of travel and slackness)

I was happy enough with that and content to just consider the slightly wayward climbing the price I had to pay for the excellent downhill and flat handling- which really is good- but a testride on the Soul showed me you can have both. So, going to pick up my frame this week hopefully.

Oh, the medium Scandals are sold out at On One btw ;) I’ll have a small to sell hopefully by next week. But personally I’d say that if you can stretch to the Soul, it’s the better frame. It should be, it costs twice as much! The Scandal is still a good frame though, I could have been perfectly happy with it if I’d never tried the Soul I think.

There was a lovely wee bit of climb on glentress red, just near tourist trap, but it’s just been annihilated :( So, instead it’s a wee local patch near mine, a very tight collapsed stream bank then along the stream bed for a few feet and up the gravel beach on the other side then up a rooty section back to the main trail. Lovely…

Yeah, likewise my Faction is built exactly like any other helmet, foam core and hard shell. It’s probably got more absorption layer than my Hex. I’ve never seen any helmet that isn’t built on these lines. TBH I’d be amazed if you could get one through CE testing, which actually specifically targets transmission of impact.

All credit to Full Flow in glasgow, they just gave me my new frame at the old price, they could easily have sold it for the full current price or tbh I would have been pleased if they’d just split the difference. Very pleased. Dave Hinde on the other hand didn’t just instantly mark up all their old stock, they cancelled ongoing orders as “out of stock” so didn’t even honour orders already placed, then increased the prices on the stuff they’d actually already sold. Nice.

Found one for £420 incidentally, last pre-pricerise stock in a fairly local shop, going to go pick it up tomorrow. Delighted! Naturally I immediately squandered the £50 saving on a new carbon bar which I don’t need.

I wear a pisspot sometimes, but mine (Bell Faction) is too hot for summer, makes a good winter hat though.

Oh, Met Parachute- if you treat it like a full facer, it fails, if you treat it like an XC helmet with a bit of face protection, it doesn’t. The jawbone isn’t intended to survive huge blows, but whenever you see a picture “Look, my parachute broke and cut my face” take a look at the person’s jaw- a blow to the jawbone of the helmet which was enough to break it, would probably have also broken his face if the helmet hadn’t taken the hit.

Yeah, 456 doesn’t make an awful lot of sense for that, inbred would work better. Merlin Malt 4… Nah, there’s one in the garage just now, mate of mine’s, it’s a very nice looking frame but a bit weighty it seems. Lovely construction though.

This is mine…

Well, those are the tesco torches on my commuter but I use one the same for the P7. Obviously they’re both as rough as ****, I could make them nicer but I can’t really see any point. If you want a completely solid mounting, then 2 jubilee clips is as strong as you’ll get, but hard to adjust. The quick releases are from CRC,

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=29580

I reckon the Joystick mounts could be adapted easily for torches, for anyone who wants a professional looking mount, but this will give you a mount that’s as good as any you’ll find with a proper bike light, easy to fit and completely solid.

Nothing homebrew about a torch solution, that’s just nonsense. Though it’s nice to see a new excuse for not buying a torch, instead of the usual tired nonsense ;) Why on earth would anyone still recommend a Joystick? It’s basically just a far more expensive, far less bright torch that happens to be marketed as a bike light.

Buy a pair of P7s and a couple of spare batteries, at this price Nothing else short of the super-lights make any sense at all any more. A pair out-beams most proper lights, and costs about 1/3 as much as anything which can match them. (A mate of mine runs a set of Ayups and a Seca, and he has me beat, with his

Sure, you have to swap batteries every hour and ten or so on full power, if you don’t get a battery pack, which to hear some people speak is the end of the world… It takes 20 seconds to change battery, it is no hardship at all, especially since you’ll generally be stopping from time to time anyway. But in return, you get unlimited ride span- if you decide to keep riding all night at full power, all you need is some more batteries. And of course, if you want you can get the packs and mod your lights for over 4 hours run time on full power, which is pretty much class leading

People talk about how great Ayup and Hope’s customer service is. TBH great customer service would be updating their ranges with better emitters throughout, not selling you outmoded stock for a premium price. Other than the poor output they have great products, and as soon as they do catch up they’ll be well worth buying again, but right now they’re just awful value for money.

I rode a KHS Flagstaff the other day, lovely ride but very heavy. Never really been a fan of short-travel full suss, especially can’t see the point on a 29er. But they do other frames.

I suppose I’m technically anti-nuclear, as a long-term solution, but right now renewables still aren’t a mature product, so nuclear makes an effective delaying tactic, and give us time to actually develop alternatives that work instead of trying to rush to market with, well, crap. Most renewables right now aren’t worth the effort, but we’re learning.

Depends on the bars… They tend to run narrower as well, though I think Salsa do a nice wide flat. Do you find the front end of the bike too tall?

I just took my brother out for his first off-road ride since we were about 10… If you trust her, give her your bike, and you take the sh***er- I gave him my Scandal and took my old carrera, knowing that the lighter weight and better handling would help him, while the cheaper bike would hold me back a bit and make things more interesting. Plus, it’s nice to ride a less good bike from time to time to remind yourself what good feels like :)

Belts aren’t less efficient than chains on motorbikes, they’re almost identical in performance when new but chains lose efficiency over time while belts don’t. Don’t know if that’s a valid comparison for pushbikes of course, the stresses are different. Oh, Buell use belts on their sort-of-off-roader, the Ulysses, and still offer the lifetime warranty.

But for pushbikes, chains are simple, light, and flexible. I can’t see that belts offer any advantage over that.

Fury’s gone back up in price :( It’s an in-house brand but the frame is Merida and most of the parts are named, ie you get either 317 or Sun Singletrack rims, vs the decathlon’s cheapy no-names. And such a good fork for the money, the Decathlon only has the more basic Tora, the 318 on the Fury has full motion control.

P7’s pretty heavy. The full builds seem like great value but I don’t see ’em as a standalone frame personally. Expensive for what it is. Can’t see any convincing reason to take one over the Inbred (MBR reviewed them last month, but they stupidly tested the inbred with a too-long fork then complained about its length, height and slackness :P)

If buying used, Carrera Fury as was mentioned, blinding value- Tora 318 turns up on bikes costing twice as much. It’s a bit heavy because of the strength of the build but it’s a great bike.

Aurigas are good, they’re a wee bit of a pain to bleed because of the rear-mounted reservoir cap and diaphragm but they work well. Not drastically worse than my XTs tbh.

I’ve got a 2.35 on mine just now, it seems a wee bit faster than the 2.35 nevegal but corners a bit better. Definately grippier than the equivalent high roller, but also definately slower. Can’t quite decide if I like it or not tbh, I might go back to the nevegal stick-e.

Not true about the I-Drive, it’s just not on the GT catalogue as it’s one of the Halfords-only models.