Just put your SPDs back on, bunny hops are for people with the wrong pedals on their bike. 🙂

I haven’t had the itch for ages, but it’s getting to that time of year when you look at the fleet and wonder where to prioritise some improvements over the coming months and start running the man-maths to make it happen.

I’ve already bought a medium Whippet frame on eBay to replace my small frame which is too small, should make a profit on the deal as the frame came with some very nice bits that I don’t need. Next day I see the new version of the one frame I regret selling, so I’ll be working on some maths, selling some spares and probably my Transition TransAM and getting some Evo geometry in my life. Awesome.

I’ve had this issue with a chain that proved unsuitable; it was one of the BMX type half-link chains, which just continued to stretch almost infinitely. I was adjusting the chain before each ride, and taking a half link out every 10 rides or so for quite a while before it stopped getting worse.

Then I ran the chain and both chain rings until they were absolutely destroyed without touching anything, so it wasn’t all bad. It made some awful noises by the end!

Anyone got a link to the black and green one for a chap to buy? Hoping to be able to get on the CX band wagon in the near future. Ta.

Nothing in my size, but a good day for the Bird.

Why is one caliper mounted on the front of the fork?

I drilled mine, the stops are alluminium aren’t they?

Thanks Bandito, I’ll bear that in mind…..

Got your email Gaz, will reply later….

That’s great Gaz, I’ve got four days next weekend to get ready for carpets then will be moving furniture the following weekend, but should be able to get out for a few hours on the weekends after that. I’m paying the price for taking a year off bikes to do his house, so don’t expect great things from me!

Drop me an email when you’re free.

Sounds exciting, I’ll get my best ninja suit out and avoid any daylight if I venture up that way!

That’s true, good point. I assumed they were covered as they showed the OS map for those areas, but not for others, but I guess it’s a function of the size of the tiles that OS throw up.

That definitive map doesn’t look right. There’s loads of footpaths marked on the OS Map that aren’t on there and half the bridleways out of Edmundbuyers and Blanchland appear to be missing too?

Thanks, that’s a great couple of links. Wonder why the OS map shows no bridleways there?

I know the roads are great, I’m surrounded by short to medium steep hills on very quiet roads, with long steep hills in the wilderness a few miles away.

When I’ve got more time I’ll start checking out various cheeky options and put together some routes hopefully. I think I probably need a cyclocross bike, it’s 16 miles to Hamsterley and similar to Edmundbyers, which might be doable with a new bike.

Bolt’s Law is surrounded by footpaths according to my OS Map?

Gazc – Where abouts are you at? I’m down in Lanchester, I think the Derwent Walk meets the C2C at the Hownsgill Viaduct by the looks of it.

Would be good to meet up one weekend for an explore, I’ve got a few more weekends of breaking the back of our place, but once the carpets are in I’ll have a bit more freedom at weekends. I work in Manchester, so it’s not ideal at the moment, but hopefully that’ll change soon.

The whole area needs a good explore as I could do with finding a decent quick blast loop from home as Edmundbyers and back is a 30 mile ride before getting into any of the trails mentioned. I’m sure there’s a cheeky loop going somewhere, just need to find it.

Where is Bolts Law?

What’s the riding like up there generally?

I’ve done one ride out of Hexham that was supposed to be good, but I remember it being a grassy slog up and a grassy slog down. Looking at my maps I went over Eshells Moor and Greenrigg Moor. West Dipton Wood was OK, but a bit spooky!

I’m right next to what becomes the Waskerly Way, so can get up to Blanchland pretty much all off road from my door, so it would be great if there was good stuff up there!

I’ve been renovating a house this year just a few miles East of Blanchland, not had much time for riding but hopefully that’ll change. Didn’t know there was a load of bridleway up that way, so that’s good.

The whole area seems a bit unusual in that there’s footpaths everywhere, but hardly any bridleways. Is there much in Slaley Forest do you know?

If your GU10s regularly pop, it’s usually because they’ve been installed in an un-vented suspended ceiling and they are simply over heating. They give off a metric shitload of heat and are more often then not installed in situations where the heat becomes a problem.

Way way back the chap that got me into carrying my bike to the top of mountains hired a transit and took me a a few friends to Inners to do the DH tracks. His plan was to go to the FC office, tell the chap we were going to work on the tracks for the Scottish Nationals the following week, get the key, then do uplifts.

Worked great, until we got caught and kicked out. A bottle of whiskey later and we had the key again though…..

That Kinesis is lovely, if I can go over the grand mark that could be a winner.

That Norco looks ace!

Dunno why, but the website cut my title, I wanted to say best CX bike available on the C2W scheme for a grand!

http://www.meetup.com/manchestermountainbikers

Highly recommended.

I’m sure any self-respecting STWer could knock one of those up in a couple of hours after work.

Right, ordered some hanging brackets from eBay, £5 a pop and they look pretty decent. Just need to clear some space so I can get them hung up…

Cheers, so sounds like I won’t have any problems with hanging the bikes that way. I need to hang them side by side rather than side ways on as I’ve got 11 bikes to find space for and can’t have them covering all the walls!

I’d quite like to knock up a platform that can be winched into the ceiling space out of the way, but I don’t have time for that right now.

I left it over night, as suggested, and I’ve come back to it and the brake seems to work OK now. So I’ll ride it and see what happens. Odd.

I have an over mountain bike, it’s pretty great to be honest, better than the all mountain bike I had before that.

Sorry, what I meant was it’s not 5000 lumens as measured in comparison to the 1600 lumen one I bought last year, but maybe there’s an exponential drop in how much you can tell the difference?

I wasn’t really complaining, it’s great for the price and it matches the build of my whippet perfectly, which was the main reason I bought one. Although it wasn’t as described due to the wobbly mount, that issue was quickly sorted out and a spot of araldite will probably let me use the broken one as well I suppose.

Just realised that the cables do work with my other batteries, think I’ve got 5 I can use with it, so I’m not really bothered what the run time is on the battery supplied.

Does anyone do a mount that screws into the bottle cage bosses that’s not a cage and a bottle? That would complete my setup I think.

I have one from the same seller. I don’t think it’s 5000 lumen at all, though I haven’t done back to back tests yet. I don’t think it’s any different to my MJ872 which is a few years old now.

Mine had a crossed thread on the mount, so it was loose and couldn’t be sorted, the chap’s sent me a new one out no problems.

Does anyone do an adaptor cable so I can use it with my older batteries?

Windy Hill you need to watch out for, the rubble is full of broken glass. Glad to hear the Council are on the case as that properly pissed me off the mess that’s been made there.

On the other side of the motorway they’ve dropped slabs along the mostly flat bit that was a boggy mess, but not gone as far as where it would be an OK descent. What they’ve done I don’t think affects the quality of the descent and it’s a better climb now. It won’t be washed out I don’t think.

Interestingly I was up there three weeks in a row over the summer, the whole thing was done in the two week period and one evening I caught them at it at about 9:30pm, hard workers!

Oddly, after I gave up and put it all back together ready to go to the bike shop it appears to be fairly well bled. I obviously can’t test it until it’s on a steep bit of ground, but seems quite solid.

Not really sure how I got fluid into the hose as I couldn’t pump the fluid through, but I guess I’ll see how it goes.

I have a Jekyll with Deemax wheels in the shed; the silver and green Deemaxs work a load better, but I’d do a swap and live with the yellow rims for the carbon frame.

Not had any problems with the rear shock and the concept works brilliantly. It’s surprising how quick the bike climbs considering how well it descends. The Fox 32 150mm forks look a bit daft, but I have some Totem 2-Steps that sort that out.

The general opinion seems to be quite negative, but the two other riders I know that own and ride them both rave about them too.

I’d hypothesise that the reason sales are low and you don’t see many about is that lots of people think the shock will blow up, so write them off without riding them, see above posts for details.

That said, all the owners I know bought them cheap when Paul’s Cycles were banging them out. I wouldn’t have paid the £3.3k that mine retailed at.

Ha ha, FFS, every year they draw me in with their promise of more lumens than I’ll ever know what to do with. Ordered.

(I’m justifying it as it means I can now leave lights permanently on my road and mountain bike helmets and the bars of three bikes too.)

Why not just run a single cog at the back and a triple at the front? That’ll do you about right.

Mine’s great SS, fully rigid, weighs nowt and flies. Love it.

Descend Halls Fell, it’s the best run off by miles.

I’ve done the good stuff in Grizedale and I’ve done the NFT. No question the other stuff is better, but the NFT isn’t crap. It’s one of those trails that you need to put a bit of effort in to to make it flow though I think. I can see that if you stroll around it it’ll bore you but if you do it as a blast it comes into it’s own. That was my experience anyway. When I do it I usually park up and ride over Iron Keld, round the trail, then back to the car.

I love Whinlatter, again it’s a great place especially if you have a blast at it, but the descents are better than at Grizedale. People would rave about them both a lot more if they weren’t surrounded by The Worlds Best Riding, I think people lose a bit of perspective that way.

That climb is Crawleyside Bank isn’t it? One of my favourites, it’s great fun!

That’s Warnscale Bottom Mike.