Jnr has finally taken to his balance bike during lockdown and I took him to some local woods for his first off road ride last week (poacher woods in winstanley, Wigan) the local kids have been busy building an impressive jump line but have also installed bins and signage with rules such as wear a helmet and don’t drop litter, the bins where half full with hardly any litter on the floor.
A collective of kids all working together and respecting the rules.
It warmed my heart to see this 🙂.

Unfortunately I will be going back to work soon. I litterpick and remove flytip as part of my job role for a large housing association in a neighbouring town and the attitude to littering is totally different, confrontations with the knuckledraggers responsible are common and I’m never short of work.

I HATE litter.

I would of joined in if it was a neighbourhood ‘fists in the air’ Chant of ‘pay rise, pay rise, pay rise’

I have refused to join my Tory voting NHS clapping neighbours Since this shite first started.

I found an almost complete circle of sandstone ‘curbs’ amongst some FLYTIP I had to remove a good few years ago.
Took it to a local landscapers yard and got £60 for it, I can only presume he got 3x the price when he passed it on to somebody who could use it.

I’ve been back a few times over the years to sell him stuff that other people have thrown away 😉

I had one on a almost new, not so new mismatch groupset.

Adjusting distance of mech to cassette sorted it.

I decided on the the solarismax rolling chassis with components I have used for years with no probs and rate highly, hope BB HS, rockshox Pikes and then added my preferred XT group as I’ve had bad experiences with sram.
Unfortunately I had to add the hunt trail wide to bump the price to the 24mnth finance price I could afford.

hunt trailwide are shite, after 250miles the rear hub died, the seals are terrible and they dent easier than tech enduros. Fair play to hunt as they replaced them with their recommended endurowide due to suit my ‘riding style’ but I buckled the rear within a week and found them sluggish. That is riding just Xc as I wanted to keep them in good condition and sell them ASAP to help fund a new wheelset.

Reading the reviews you would think they are bombproof, are they ****.

Glad I got rid.

Hope pro4 on XM481 have been trouble free for the last 6 months/1000+ miles of carefree riding.

Wouldn’t dream of it,

Instead my attitude as a £22000 per year has been to think I’m entitled to do what ever I want as long as the minimum wage plebs don’t do it

To those who asked,

1, Can fix a loose bell by installing a Tiny ziptie around the wire that holds/just above the ‘dinger’, this takes up the slack when switched off.

2, a drop of chain oil helps on a stiff thumb switch.

Cheap versions are available on AliExpress £7 ish.

4 year old SLX still going strong here, bled with LMH fluid and no problems.

Know a decent chap who restores old record players like that.

Owner of ‘Static records’ in Wigan. He might be interested if you want sell it.

Old clothes peg, split and remove spring = 👍

I’m part of this club

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Best way to clean pads is to soak them in a solvent and set fire to the ****

Seriously 😉

Ive had good success in the past complaining that the item was not genuine and asking the seller ‘what happens now’ ?

Have had a good few sellers blaming their ‘new’ supplier and offering a refund or a replacement when they get legit stock.

“Replacement at same cost please buddy”

Had a few results with different items and I purposely look out for cheap fakes to try it on, I might lose a bit of time but never return postage unless the blaggard wants me to report to eBay.
Best result to date was a fake lifeproof iPad case bought for £15 and ended up with a genuine £70 replacement as well as the fake copy.

Scam the scammers 😉

Ran a set of 2016 Yaris for 3 years constant as I only had 1 bike at the time. No signs of wear. A riding pal with pikes approx same run time and age had significant scoring on the back of his Stanchions.

Not sure if his cleaning regime was same as mine.

^ this BUT,

My experience of my tubeless gravel tyres is anything more than 4mm results in an innertube as the air pressure/volume on a 40mm tyre can’t cope with sealing.
Recent removal of tyre to patch a 5mm gash showed 4 large thorns in the tyre that I had no idea about.

+ Noodles work, sometimes.

I’ve had about 300 miles on my GRX, It looks and feels like a robust and quality groupset.

I had about 4000 miles on SRAM rival, it looked an felt like a cheap and over priced groupset.

I do prefer double tap though.

I recently bought a flat to post adapter for my new GRX from Spokeydokeybikes.

Bit pricey though.

I’ve had this recently with a different make. Only noticed it as the tyre squelched when riding to the shop. Bike was fine the day before.

Bubble was the size of a quid coin. Removed tyre and found bubble 3x the size on the inside. Sliced it and it was delaminated down to the canvas.

Chucked it in the bin as I didn’t want to risk a rapid deflate at 30mph.

I’ve been using hummvees for 15+ years. Used all year round for touring, trail, DH. Also great for nipping the shops, holidays, diy, hiking.

my new/10mnth old hummvee light are Fading and fraying on the arse, seam has split at the crotch and the new pocket design catches on the seat causing mine to rip.

I’m also in the market for something new 😡

£20 for a new one?

Endura mt500, the riding glasses Storage slot is such a good feature.

Endura singletrack is not good due to weird visor but makes a good gravel helmet when visor removed.

Do the right think.

Khama can be a bitch.

Thought I would revive thread and give a heads up.

It doesn’t seem that assolutions are posting to UK atm due to Pandemic.

After a bit of reseach/luck I found the good folks at spokeydokeybikes in Yorkshire have a batch of FM to PM adapters in.

PSA, Merlin have a good deal on GRX groupset 35% off as of today.

Bought a crivit gilet from Aldi about 5 years ago for £15, can’t fault it.

Not sure if you can buy direct from crivit.

Good fit for gents of a certain age who may sport a ‘bay window’ type physic.

Reply to joe ^ innit

Exact opposite in BOLTON , thankfully I live across the border.

I’ve been SI for 14 days, first day back.

Never seen the place so free of litter/Flytip

I’m allowed to say this, shit shifting is my job 😕

+1 for diesel
I used to build narrow boats and getting a perfect leak free weld on a diesel tank was a badge of honour.

I have also had this problem on an old rotter shop bike that was stored in the garden.

I made a ‘dish’ around the bottom bracket with bluetack filled it with diesel and Left it for a couple of days to penetrate.

BB in the vice and used the frame as it’s own leverage,,, mission complete 👍

Parents flew back from Spain the day it locked down.

Dad spent the last 2 weeks in bed due to being very tired, no temperature/cough/aching. He did however briefly lose his sense of taste. He hadn’t eaten and was extremely dehydrated, mum phoning me asking me to help, explaining to her that he may have C19, ring the NHS and I need to stay away for sake of my own family was not a nice experience.

Mum finally got through to NHS help line and was advised to take him to hospital.

dad has spent 4 days in hospital on a drip to rehydrate and antibiotics and was allowed home Yesterday. Mum picked him up. He got his test results today confirming he had mild symptoms of the virus.

Mum(70) is now self isolating in the same house as dad.

Fingers crossed all goes well.

Remember watching an Ed oxley vid years ago where his inner tube was barely visible due to all the puncture patches.

Still makes me chuckle.

Defo age👍

Fat bstrd/weight also.

I have many koms due to my weight 🤔

Ps, I’m running 130 pikes and don’t think running 140 on it would be good as an all rounder bike

Pole travail = 74
Solaris max = 75.5

nudge the seat forward ?

I’ve got the latest Solaris Large frame. I worried about the SA panic on forums before buying.

Couldn’t give a monkeys now I’ve got it set up right.

If anything, when the seats half dropped it’s to far forward to pedal comfortably.

Miles, vary etc

Loadsa stuff,

Finally sending all them foreign nurses and doctors home will…..

Oops, thought I was on daily mail forum.

I’m a limbo rider, My gravel bike is my road/Xc bike.

Flats are cheaper/less faff compared to fancy shoes, cleats and unclipping when things get rough.

My ‘enduro’ helmet visor moves out the way when im in the drops and helps block rain and a low sun when I flip it down again, roadie helmets don’t offer as much protection, I’m not wearing a silly little peaked cap and I don’t have over priced glasses to worry about.

Hummvee jerseys and shorts over Lycra, At 16.5st Im past the need for aero benefits.

I always say a big cheery hello to roadies and sometimes get one back.

just tighten the bolts to the max.

Try Elbow grease 👍

Seriously,

moved into new house in winter 2017 and discovered mares tail in summer.
Never experienced this tenacious weed before.

Lots of gardeners world type research advising people to ‘move house’ as you will never get rid of it.

Bollox to that, I hand dug the top 12 inch of soil out, removed 25 ton.

that was 2 years ago, no mare tail since (touch wood)

fill some old bars with expanding foam 🤔

I keep meaning try this.

Had SLX on a 2016 MTB, upgraded to XT for my 2019 build. The only difference I can tell is that the shifter feels that bit ‘nicer’ to use.

Dead easy to set up and no problems so far.

Maybe not relevant but my first experience of owning a SRAM group on a 2017 gravel bike has been one of constant problems EG, BBs made of cheese, can’t get the crank fit just right, can’t get the crank off without a length of scaffold pole, regularly have to reset the callipers, callipers have zero tolerance that doesn’t allow for a bit of grit or micro warped disc, eats sram branded pads and rotors need replacing soon as a result, pistons stick occasional, hoods are now slack and rotate, constantly have to reset the shifter lever position, plastic shifter internals replaced due to failing, Spring in the mech seems to be getting slack. Jockey wheel bearings changed after approx 1500 miles.

Can’t wait to get rid of it when funds permit, utter shyte……..

chains seem ok though.