I’ve used the hooks you refer to. I hung quite a few bikes from a wall with them, took a step back and realised that due the the handle bars, they take up a lot of room still.

I bought some s-hooks on ebay too and have been hanging the bikes from the front axle, with the bars at 90 degrees. The front wheel then hangs off the headtube or wherever using the s-hook. You can get a bike to take up about 12″ that way and still have easy access to get them down.

I didn’t bother removing the wheels on road bikes as they only take a little bit more space, so long as you alternate them so the bars aren’t sat next to each other.

No, I don’t buy that. I can happily operate the Edge 705 without the manual, it’s not particularly good, but it tends to work. The only issue I’ve had with the device itself is that it has corrupted rides a few times and once corrupted the entire storage partition, which meant completely resetting the thing and needing to add the map back to it.

On the hardware side of things my point was that £300 buys you far far more hardware and software in other applications.

The other issues I’ve had are all related to PC connection, issues that you don’t see in the wild anymore, other than on cheap chinese shite like the SD Card readers I keep trying to add to my PC. All my issues with connection have been the same, plug it in, PC beeps to say new hardware, hardware doesn’t appear anywhere and allow sync/access. The first time it was that I was using a non-garmin cable. Fine, it’s up to them if they want to piss about with something to force you to have to buy a cable for £20 off them if I lose this one, but what sort of shower does that? The Garmin Connect plugin for IE stopped working. Worked. Then stopped again. Fixed by switching to Chrome. Then they blocked the Chrome plugin and forced Garmin Express on us, which adds nothing that wasn’t there already. That stopped working, then started again.

Back in the real world, everyone else sorted out Plug’n’Play years ago and their kit just works.

Nope, never seen that!

I bought an Edge 705 when they were fairly new, I’m still using it because Garmin are on another planet when it comes to making things work. In the 6 years I’ve had it, it’s constantly lost connection with my PC due to software updates, the mode of sync has changed several times, it won’t work with any non-garmin cables (WTF!).

Newer units went touch-screen, which is crap when you’re covered in mud and grit, the functionality didn’t improve much and the whole experience is a million miles behind comparable devices that you can buy at the same price point.

Look at the software and hardware that goes into a £300 mobile phone and tell me Garmin have done anything other than rest on their laurels and take the piss!

Using a phone is a beter solution entirely from a software point of view, Garmin is only ahead because most phones aren’t robust enough and the screens ruin the battery and there’s not enough configurable buttons.

It should be a piece of piss to take a phone innards and repackage them into a decent case, with bigger battery, lower spec screen and a few buttons. ANT+ connectivity, and either internet over bluetooth to a phone, or GSM if you want. Hack Android to boot straight into Strava or your own App and off you go, a license to print money.

Which is why this looks so far ahead of Garmin straight out of the blocks. Finally tempted by a new device…..

The idea that if you got more girls to ride you’d find one that was 20% faster than Rachel Atherton is utter nonsense.

So what? It’s strength to weight ratio that’s important, not height.

The weight of all the non-muscle stuff that is dead weight on a bike is roughly proportional to the square of height too, so taller riders have more inertia that inhibits change of direction. But more mass to help maintain speed. There’ll be a other factors too. But somewhere in the middle there’s a sweet spot. But that doesn’t mean the people on the extremes of height can’t be fast.

That’s got nothing to do with women though.

It’s not purely about strength, it’s about muscle composition that determines the the stregth to weight ratio. If you take the average man and the average woman, strip them of all fat, bulk them up to 100kg, the man will still be stronger. Every way you cut that the man wins the race, the woman either has to get heavier to match on strength or is weaker.

The 10-11% difference in athletic ability at endurance sports is going to be a factor, stronger aerobic system allows more oxygen per unit of muscle, enables more work to be done, lets the men ‘sprint’ faster for longer. I put sprint in inverted commas because most of the run will be aerobic rather than anaerobic effort. The men have better anaerobic ability in the muscle composition too though.

Evolutionary history means that the average man has better reactions, better vision and better ability to make quick decisions that mean they react to the course better and carry more speed.

I think a large amount of the difference is likely to be caused by the fact that when riding bikes down a hill, the faster you go the easier it gets to a large extend. Bikes just get exponentially faster as ability increases because they roll over obstacles better; once you’ve lost speed over a rock garden it’s hard to get it back. but the men were so fast they jumped most of the rock garden anyway, so didn’t slow at all. There’s a compounding effect.

I’ve just bought two sets of second hand lyriks. Both in perfect condition, no marks on the lowers etc. Paid £200 and £180 delivered. They’re as good as any of the other options listed, but much cheaper.

I’m going to list it in a few places and see if I get anywhere, if I don’t I’ll consider selling it in bits. Just going to see how things go and hope for the best.

Isn’t that what the angleset was invented for?

Sounds like you want some U-turn Lyriks, just dial in the travel you want between 115mm and 160mm. Performance stays broadly the same (ace) at all travel settings. The great news is they’re available second hand for buttons due to the fall from grace that’s hit 26″.

I recently put some Totems on my Jekyll, set the rear to 95mm and the front to 135mm (2-step airs) and it made for a pretty cool setup, short travel, but ultra stiff. Too heavy for a hardtail I’d think, but the performance was exactly what you’re after.

Yeah, the normal tubes are pretty expensive aren’t they! Normal bulbs cost a fortune to run though, so I reckon they work out cheaper in the long run. I’d have a small fortune in bulbs if I hadn’t been keeping my eye out for a while.

I should have added that the 60 x 60s that I picked up are for the suspended ceiling type setups, so I had to make some MDF frames to sit the reflectors in and the lights on top. I then suspended them using some nylon coated steel rope that I got for buttons on ebay, attached with hooks to the purlins.

Have a look on Gumtree for second hand lights; I picked up 7 of the 60cm x 60cm 4-tube recesssed ceiling light panels and 16 of the twin bulb downlighters for about £50 a while ago. I’ve got a workshop about 4 times the space of yours and I’ve got the 6 panel lights in two rows in the middle, then I’ve boarded the two ends to give some storage and used 8 of the downlights in each end. It’s more than bright enough, if you have any jobs that need more light I would add a mobile light. I’ve been looking out for an old Dentist’s light to use for detailed work, but no luck so far!

Definietly board and paint the ceiling, it’ll brighten things up quite a bit!

Also gumtree, I spent a tenner on a 240v winch, when that’s installed, both ends will have a panel that drops out and can be used to hoist bits of kit up there. It’s a much neater solution than leaving the ceiling unboarded for getting stuff up and down as it means that heavy bits of kit that get occasional use can be stored away. Without that you’re firly limited to stuff that you can lift and balance across joists. One of the end panels is roughly bike-sized too, so all the bikes go out of the way too. Frees up the floor space for the pool table…..

Had one of the first C456 frames, ace bike. Sold the frame and fitted the parts to a Banshee Spitfire because I couldn’t afford both, only frame I’ve ever regretted selling.

Bought one of the new C456s, amazing bike. Miles better than the steel ones too.

Zee mech is just an SLX mech with a different badge and available short-cage.

You must be doing something wrong. I last broke a rear mech when I flipped my Diamond Back WCF6.0 over my head and it landed mech first on rocks in Grizedale Forest. The year was 1998, getting on for 20 years ago now!

I’m clinging to the hope that you can’t buy a faster FS bike for a grand, surely any 29er or whatever sized bike is going to be slower by virtue of being heavier and more crap at that price?

Anyway, if you’re right I’ll have to weigh up what price it’s not worth selling at and see whether that means I end up keeping it. Wouldn’t be the end of the world I suppose.

It’s a Medium, so at least it has that going for it!

Just checked, it’s a tapered steerer and the RRP was £3,950, it’s this bike here:

http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/bikes/mountain-bikes/product/review-giant-anthem-x-advanced-sl1-10-39485/

Appreciate that you can buy new from Pauls cheaply, but if you want to race XC competitively you wouldn’t buy that one would you, you’d buy mine as it’s around 20% lighter. It might be a wrong’un, but it is a much faster bike.

Mine also makes loud bangs when you change gear because of the massive downtube, which is cool.

Thanks, I don’t mind stripping the bike, but have plenty of other more important things to be doing with my time. Not in a huge rush to sell, so might as well list it in a few places before going down that route.

How bad is the market for 26″ stuff now? Any guesses as to what someone would pay for the bike? The RRP was £4750 or something daft, I bought it second hand with about 100 miles on it for £2k and it now has maybe 500 miles on it max, probably less. On the one hand, old tech etc, on the other it’ll make lots of racers a bit faster than they are for not much cash. £1000-1200?

When I was in Manchester, riding out of Marple was about 100ft per mile average, the Peaks was closer to 200ft per mile. You’re closer to 100 with those numbers, so it’s not a mega hilly route. But it’ll obviously be a killer!

I recently swapped a Clio that kept breaking down and needed something bigger for kid stuff and ended up getting a Honda FRV. Cheap, but oldish, though should be reliable. Got the top-spec Sport 2.l one, so it’s pretty nippy. I reckon it’s a pretty decent compromise, maybe something like an S-Max would be better, but they’re much longer and more expensive.

6 proper seats, the middle two slide back about a foot and the rear 3 fold completely. It’s a mini-van when the seats are dropped and swallows bikes and kit easily. You do need to remove wheels, but I’ve always done that, so no big deal.

It’s only really let down by not being able to slide the front middle seat when the one behind is folded flat; you need to slide for adult leg-room. For biking with 3 + 3 bikes, you’ve enough room to leave the middle seat at the back up, pile it with kit and fit the three bikes to one side though. 4 + 4 will go, but not with camping gear I’d think.

I’ve had 6 in comfortably, but an infant in the middle seat, plenty of room for a buggy, scooter and day gear in the boot.

Had them OEM on my Jekyll too. They were so bad I was constantly tinkering with the shock setup to try to get some grip at the back; touch the brakes and they’d lock at the back, couldn’t slow down right, it just seemed to skip over stuff rather than bogging in and gripping.

Found a spare pair of the cheapo (£15) Rubber Queen 2.4s in the shed, so stuck them on instead and transformed the bike. After all the raving on here I couldn’t believe how much better the RQs were, I really thought it was the bike at fault!

Going to wear them out on the rear of my SS as that goes through tyres like nothing else and has been running bald for a year or so.

I don’t own an e-bike because they don’t handle well enough (I presume) due to the weight. And I can’t afford one.

I’m not sure I wouldn’t buy one if the two issues above were properly sorted. Think of it this way a 2 hour 20 mile ride becomes a 2 hour 30 mile ride. You work just as hard, but travel faster and travel further. What’s not to like

I think the above is far more in-keeping with how most people ride – for fun rather than to beast themselves – and you can still beast yourself anyway. You just get more of the fun stuff while you’re at it.

Lots of people live in places where there’s not that much fun stuff anyway, but using the motor to get through the dull stuff makes better rides accessible.

Ha ha, that blow air video is awesome. Not sure why Warner didn’t take it off-road, but it looks awesome. You know that feeling when you get a massive tail-wind on a run? On every run! Awesome.

Can’t see battery tech being good enough any time soon, though we keep hearing about graphene batteries, so maybe that’ll be a game changer. We are due a game changer with batteries.

Mind you, if it’s all about energy density, petrol has pretty good stats. Can an engine be built light enough for 10-20 bhp?

Anyway, blow-air. Just awesome.

I didn’t get one for ages because I knew if I did I’d want one on all my bikes = the price of a new bike! They’re massively expensive (for the decent ones) for what they are.

When I was riding around Manchester they weren’t all that useful as we were stopping at the top and bottom of climbs anyway to regroup and the climbs were long and continuously up or down.

Where I ride now they’re far more useful, lots of short sharp climbs, short gentle climbs and similar descents. If you adjusted height all the time you’d never get anywhere. Yeah you can ride it all with the seat up your arse, or down a bit, or dead low, but why compromise when you don’t have to?

They’re really useful when riding new trails where you don’t know what you’re going to get too.

Only thing I don’t get is using one on a rigid SS, I’m always stood up going up hill and stood up going down hill. I pretty much have it 1.5″ below optimum and leave it there as something to lean on when cornering. On a long flat pedal I might put it up a bit, but it’s so infrequent that it’s not worth having a dropper for.

Nothing against 1 x, but I can’t see enough benefit to spend money on any of my bikes to change them over.

What I don’t get is the narrow-wide chainrings as the bash guard is then lost. Even just hopping the bike over a typical horse step gate thing risks trashing the ring and chain, let alone proper riding?

Also, the above post comparing ratios ignores that you can go as low as 22 on the front of a 2x or 3x setup. 1x can’t touch that without sacrificing the other end.

Oh and there are loads of climbs, particularly in the Lakes, where you’ll get a lot further up if you can sit and spin rather than tiring yourself out pushing a gear that forces you to ride quicker. The motorway up Skiddaw for example.

More useful on the road, but the Strava App also has the live features if you’re Premium and happy to have your phone on your bars.

I don’t think that’s right Podge; Marzocchi have always struggled to get their forks onto manufacturer’s new bikes, so most of their sales are likely to be people wanting new forks for a bike they already have. Which is more likely to be 26″ and 20mm than any of the other industry bullshit options.

Don’t get flats at all, apart from the odd DH track where I’m not good enough to not need to be able to get my foot down on steep ground very quickly.

I keep seeing threads about various flat pedals and shoes, usually people are looking for the grippiest pedals and the grippiest shoes, SPDs have more grip than all of them.

Flats are just wrong.

I use cable cutters.

*looks at scar on inner thigh….*

456 Carbon frame has all of that.

No 26″ Lyriks? But you can put one on a 29er?

What is wrong with these people?

I’d be happy if they let us have coil forks again, with U-turn.

I can’t say I notice any difference between 15mm and 20mm axles. But, all of my forks are 20mm, except one. I have loads of 20mm wheels that are basically redundant as I upgrade my forks. What do you do when your wheels are too nice to chuck out, but the forks are past their best?

Bastards.

If everyone took a bootfull off and dumped it on Mr White’s drive that would probably get the message across.

PS – Does anyone know if it’s possible to upgrade my Talas so the adjustment is done from the bars rather than the fork top?

I’m a massive advocate for travel adjust and have experience of most of the options; they give you great flexibility in one bike, particularly if you run 160mm on a hardtail and want to reign it in a bit for climbing, or for singletrack. Saves you buying another bike for the rocky rides, or just gives you more capability when you need it.

Rockshox U-Turn coil is the best by a long way, infinite adjustment, no air seals holding the travel level to fail, no additional friction as a result. The Lyriks were perfect, very stiff 115mm trail forks, or 160mm monsters, with everything in between. Main downside is that Rockshox don’t care about people like me and have stopped making them because everyone else complained that Fox were lighter.

I have some fox 32 Talas which came on a bike. The 32s are a bit crap because they flex too much and I would have sold them, but there’s no market for Fox 32 150-120mm with a straight 1.5″ steerer. FFS. Anyway, the Talas has been fine, rides pretty well in both settings and I’ve had no issues with it. So I use it for general trail riding.

I also have some Totem 2-step airs, which again have been great, no issues at all. Ironically, these actually benefit from not being coil U-turn because the weight saving is necessary to balance the bike. The coil ones are too tall to pedal uphill a lot of the time and the lack of U-turn compounds that. They’re a perfect antidote to the flexy F32s, I swap the two forks between the same bike. I have a Cannondale Jekyll which has 150 or 95mm travel at the rear, so for not steep, but rocky trails I can run 135mm front and 95mm rear and have super stiffness, or you can open both ends up when it gets steeper and have extra ability.

So yeah, definitely get travel adjust, get coil U-turn lyriks if you can, if not look at the travel options on the different forks and match that to the riding style as best you can. Don’t worry too much about whether you end up with Talas or something else, they all seem as reliable as each other.

It’s a great idea.

If they could an insert for the seat post to act as a spring-stop then you could spring load it too.

Then you might as well stick a little motor on the QR bolt with a button on the bar that you hold to keep the clamp open.

Then you could move all the clamping mechanism inside the seatpost out of the way of the mud.

Would solve all the issues with dropper posts if you could get back to proper mechanical clamping without relying on seals and damping cartridges.

FYI – I noticed today that bottles of Jennings have a free 3 month access to the online maps offer at the moment. If you don’t live in the Lakes, Aldi stock Jennings.

Bigger tyres are awesome, it’s why we were rocking 2.4″ Rubber Queens 4 years ago. On our 26″ bikes.

To add some balance to the 80s tech love-in…..

I can’t stand steel frames, they’re pretty much pointless, given the On One 456C frames are £400. All this stuff about flex and absorbing trail buzz is rubbish, the ultra stiff 456C is far more comfortable and suffers far less from buzz than the best steel frames. And all these frames have far better damping in the tyres.

The 456C is stronger and lighter too.

I can’t see a single good reason to buy a steel frame, other than the proper cheap ones if that’s all the cash you’ve got.

Cheers for the MMTracker idea, will get onto that.