Speeder wrote “I can’t see there being many people that would prioritise uphill performance over the fun stuff. Even if it were true.”

Ha! There speaks someone who relies on uplift. If you’re riding cross country, & pedalling up the hills yourself, uphill speed is *everything*. Because of the way averages work, shaving 10% off the (fast) downhill sugments makes no difference, but shaving 10% off the (slow) uphill segments is literally a lifesaver (by which I mean, you get to the pub before closing).

If this bike ever appears on the market here I’d definitely be interested. Though I think if he really wants it to be the “last bike you ever buy” he should build it in titanium, not aluminium.

Stopp, Seisku Aeg is very pretty but the melody seemed immediately familiar. I’ve just now remembered – it’s Clannad’s Passing Time (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGO-HT5-p8k to make your own comparison) from 40 years ago. Nice to know someone still remembers the Brennan kids! (Their sister, Enya, is rather better known.)

after trying all sorts of tyres i’ve come to the conclusion it makes diddly difference. yep, cheap tyres are rubbish, but the clue’s in the word “cheap”. otherwise, conti, maxxis, schwalbe, whatever, as long as they’re top end they all work. truth is, *any* quality tyre is better at handling the trail than i am…

The poll seems to lack a “none of the above” option…
My local trails in Swinley Forest look like the Pac NW vid for 6 or 8 weeks a year & they’re TERRIFYING – don’t have the faintest idea what’s under the leaves. Could be roots, holes, step-ups, abandoned bikes & dead MTBers for all I know, anything, just waiting to grab my front wheel & throw me headfirst into the trees. Autumn rides round here are *very* slow & careful!
OTOH, on the rare occasions the trails are bone dry like the Commencal vid the front wheel digs into the sand & grinds to halt while the back spins out on the slightest uphill. No fun at all.
No, give me classic Brit damp-but-not-slimey & I’m good to go all day. Lovely stuff!

Good on ya. Bivying is the only way for real back country folk! You did get lucky with the weather tho. On a warm wet night a bivy bag can be the most miserable experience this side of a Smiths concert… (Apologies to Smiths fans, but even you know what I mean, eh?)

David Turner makes a really valid point, when he points out that if e-bikes were really just e-assist they wouldn’t put out as much power as Nino Schurter on an average day. 250W is quite a lot of poke for an ordinary rider. I’m reasonably fit – not WC, but good for a 50-mile club run – & I don’t turn out 250W or anything like it. So IMO if e-bikes were just gonna be a little bit of help, the motors would be maybe 40W, not 250W. Sorry, the truth is they’re motorbikes, plain & simple, & should have no place in the lives of people who are capable of doing their own shopping…

Thanks to all. Knowing what it’s called turned up this http://www.heritagepaths.co.uk/pathdetails.php?path=150.

I’m sold. Probably next Spring (I don’t like midges…).

Whitestone: yes, looks like my idea of heaven. Even if the weather isn’t exactly like the photo! The southern loop of the HT550 sounds good, but I’ve backpacked a good chunk of it & I’m looking for something not technical & a long way from anywhere else. On the subject of trail centres, yeah, they’re ok for building skills but not you’re gonna be recalling it as you die, are you?

Hi, no, I tried this & it won’t change your life. I have 1×10 with 11-42 out back, & it’s a bit easier than 11-36 (which’s what I had before I upgraded to 10sp) but again the difference isn’t night & day. What **really** changed things for me was going 28t up front. Suddenly all hills were doable. Not easy, & as I ride an old-skool 26er hard tail it’s always tricky controlling the front wheel, but doable.

No problem mounting the ring. The 28t ring simply replaces the inner ring spider (check the BCD, I think different manfacturers might use different BCDs for the inner ring; Superstars/Absolute Black/One Up etc. will have the size you need anyway). That leaves the arms that would hold the middle & big rings naked, which’s ugly & probably dangerous. I solved that problem by putting on a bash, which looks neat & protects my calves from the spider arms. Sorted!

One other idea, my single front ring is an oval from Absolute Black & while again it’s not night & day, it **does** make pedalling a bit easier & smoother, which helps going uphill. I find I don’t “pedal square” quite as soon.

Don’t wait for the UCI. They’re dinosaurs who haven’t heard the latest news from Chicxulub – their time’s up, they just don’t know it yet. In fact, the UCI missed a trick here. Instead of running Short Track XC as a Men’s Elite event to try out the waters, they should have launched it as a Youth event, male & female competing together. If that doesn’t get some **seriously** enthisiastic & wildly partisan support I don’t know what will. & that’s what a new event needs. But then, I guess the one thing we can all agree on is the UCI isn’t capable of organising a Family Fun Day, let alone world cycling. Or, indeed, anything else.

sixpotbelly – thanx, i thought that might be the case. i’m learning to hate sram. their mtb stuff seems really pricey compared with road, but isn’t well made at all. i’ve had 2 (2!) x01 twist shifters fall apart on me. the gx shifter i have now is better, but the gx derailleur is very slow & clunky compared with road gears, so i was hoping the (affordable) rival might fit the bill, x01 & xx1 derailleurs being way beyond my budget. maybe i should just give up cycling & take up something cheaper, like golf or fine wines… :-(

Where near Reading? I’m in Bracknell & have various chainrings (from little to big) that’re surplus to requirements (failed experiments in a futile search for some combination of gears that makes pedalling uphill easy…) & could drop them off next time I go to the Reading climbing wall.

All very interesting, but hey! sanity check boys & girls: someone died on the “easy” red @ Swinley a month ago. I’ve ridden Swinley red since & the bit where it happened is a decent, but not enormous & very rollable, jump. Only a confident & skillful rider would get hurt there, because only a reasonably good rider would be going fast enough to get really airborn, a beginner would just roll safely through @ a bit over walking pace & wonder what all the flowers were for.
Mountain biking is fundamentally dangerous. Fast tracks are more dangerous than slow ones. As far as I’m concerned grades should warn people of that. Technical difficulty with no danger, like off camber roots & stepped climbs, we can find out about as we go along. IMHO.

Yep SRAM website says it’s OEM only. However, try http://www.gambacicli.com/en/sram-gx-xg-1175-11-speed-cassette.html. They’re offering the 1175 for 123 euros + shipping, which is just slightly more than CRC is charging for the (70g heavier) 1150.
You might be better off with the 1150 anyway as the steel big cog should be a lot tougher. The alloy 42t One-Up big cog on my MTB is showing distinct signs of wear after about 18 months moderate use. MTBs are tough on low gears I guess.
I have a crosser that’s currently 1×10 & I’m planning to put GX on it. A CX bike doesn’t spend nearly as much time in low gears as an MTB so I figure an alloy 42t cog should be OK, but if I upgrade the MTB I’d probably go for the 1150, as robustness is more important than weight on an MTB.

> The irony of complaining about racism while simultaneously deriding an entire populace.

Yep, I was struck by that too. The thing is, it’s mportant, IMHO, to distinguish between a culture & the people. You can make general statements about Oz culture (I lived there 6 months so I think I know what I’m talking about, & yes, it’s a racist, parochial, insular place run with some of the most narrow minded & pig ignorant politicians & journalists in the world) but not about individual aussies (as friendly & tolerant as anyone on Earth, just like pretty well everywhere else I’ve ever been, really). To put that in context, Britain is sort of non-racist (no, really, stick with me) even tho we’re led by white upper class twits & you don’t have to wait long to hear any number of blatantly racist statements. The US on the other hand is deeply racist even tho their president is an intelligent, thoughtful black man & the only people who’d dream of using the ‘n’ word are hard-ass black dudes. Not my opinion, incidentally, but that of a Jamaican friend who came here in the early 60s (so he lived here all thru rivers of blood & all that) & has a sister in America, so sees both sides. & before anyone says he’s blind to what’s going on, no, he’s a pretty sophisticated guy who’s been a Labour councillor for many years.

cynic-al wrote:
I have an oval ring, feels nicer but I don’t believe it’s saving any watts (and if it was it’d be proven and we’d all be riding them)

Oval rings have been around for years. Some roadies use them, Chris Froome for example, & you’ll see them regularly on TT bikes. Those guys count every watt. It’s true, though that oval rings have never really caught on. My understanding is they don’t work too well with front derailleurs. So I’d guess it’s only the sudden groundswell of 1x drive trains that’s got the techy types thinking about them again & the small aftermarket manufacturers, like Absolute Black, have seen a niche the megacorps missed or weren’t interested in.

I’m running 1×10 (inc 42t OneUp cog) + 32t wide-narrow chain ring. A month ago, replaced round CR with 32t oval (Absolute Black, fyi) mainly to protect an increasingly fragile knee. First time I rode it, thought there was no obvious difference. Then saw times on Garmin. Amazing – more than a minute off best time for Swinley blue trail! Been getting consistently good times since then too. OK, it’s been perfect MTB weather & the trails are as good as I’ve ever seen them, but even so… On reflection I’d say because the oval ring makes pedalling a bit easier, & you’re still putting in the same effort, you just go that little bit quicker anywhere where pedalling makes a difference. You won’t gain anything on downhills of course & maybe not all that much uphill (hard hills are always going to be hard; if that’s a problem that’s what ebikes are for) but on pedally uppy-downy stuff, wow! So I’d say go for the 30t oval as you’ll gain nearly as much as a round 28t would give you, & you’ll keep your top gear (& maybe find you’re using it a bit more too). One word of warning – contrary to official advice I had to add a couple of links to my chain to get a really smooth pedalling action, tho the chain was a bit on the tight side before & I do have that oversized big cog. Enjoy the Alps – I’m jealous. Good luck & good hunting.

i live about 10 mins ride from swinley forest & ride there several times a week. yes, the new trails are great but they’re also kind of, well, dull — predictable. as in, because you know it’s all made trail & it’s rowan sorrell’s job to make the trails consistent, there’re never going to be any big surprises round the next bend. the blue trail won’t suddenly deliver you to the top of a cliff.
one of the things i loved most about riding in swinley was going there & just choosing trails @ random until my legs got sore, then i’d get out the compass & take fire roads heading north to get back to the lookout. every time i’d discover someplace new, & every trail had to be respected coz some of them would have big surprises, like you’re bumbling along some vanilla singletrack thru trees & then suddenly you’re dropped into a corkscrew gully. fun!
alas, that excitement’s gone.
note also that the new trails don’t appear to be entirely finished, especially the red loop. & according to the map there’s a section of black trail on the red loop but the entrance to it has been blocked off every time i’ve been there, most recently a couple of days ago. so i’d guess (& hope) the mtb trails in swinley forest are a work in progress rather than done & dusted to be preserved unchanging forever.
the good news is the new rules only apply to swinley forest. adjacent bits of crowthorne woods are unaffected so the area of drops & the corkscrew near the small parking area on the crowthorne road are still open. for now — apparently the powers-that-be @ crowthorne woods are following developments in swinley forest “with interest”.