Virgin trains are a complete and utter rip off

Richard Branson is a smarmy snakeoil sales man

All UK governments are there to be mugged by *wats like Branson

Branson claims to be champion of free enterprise but the truth is he is *ucking cluess at making money where there is free and open competition.

Every single Branson business that makes money need a government license to operate. And now the stupid bastards are giving him Northern Rock for a song.

Trains
Phones.
Planes
Banking

Bottom line, UK governments are all stupid and he is con artist of the highest order !

Anyone know of any deals on 2011 Composite 1s, I need the 20″ model ?

Lurchers are in production due to complete Early Feb, which Means with us for mid march and on preorder from late feb.

Cheers Brant, based on this update I will wait and start building up the required bits unless you are offering complete builds which would be cool, thnx Paul

I’m loving the DIY spike option, spiketastic !!

Hi Brant, thats an easy mistake to make and its refreshing to see such honesty from a major supplier on the forum. I’m guessing there are a lot of us hanging on for a Lurcher but quite how long we are prepared to wait is another question.

I guess you have two options, get someone else to make the Lurchers which I assume is not a 5 min job or find a way to get the guys sitting on all the Whippets/456s to compromise.

If you could update us when you know more that would be appreciated.

FFS, what a load of mither. The worst thing that can happen is you lie and you visa application gets knocked back, big deal ! The best is you get your entry visa and waltz in and you are good to come and go from here on in. If you think the UK and America shared this info all those years ago your mad and you are more mad if you think the it would still be stored and in use by the Americans in 2011.

Fill the in the form, say you have a clean record and stop poncing about !!!

I think this type of event is going to become more and more popular as people like me decide they want a change from MM or SITS.I am defo going to give it a go and the more mates I can rope in the better the craic will be.

I thought the park people did a good job. If it had been me I would have banged both sides heads together until they stopped behaving like selfish bores. I guess this also highlights why I have deep distrust of committees and little England tory’s.

The frame number is GK4B820 cycle. This is displayed on an aluminium tag riveted to the underside of the bottom bracket area

The frame number is GK4B820 cycle. This is displayed on an aluminium tag riveted to the underside of the bottom bracket area

I have some photos, just not sure where, I also forgot to mention XTR pedals and FSA carbon cranks !

Forgot to mention XTR pedals and FSA carbon cranks !

Same question but I need specific recommendations for which brand/model of disc specific rack, not so fussed by how much it costs as its functionality, the more versatile the better, lighter also helps but not so light that it fails in 6 months time.Thanks Paul B

shock horror CP in economic bike bits scandal 😉

Late at usual but hey ho. I have just read all 26 pages in one go and I’m dizzy with info and inspiration. The one question that seems to have not been mentioned is do you wear one lot of riding kit and just put up with the fact its going to be damp and maybe smelly the next day or do you dry it out (how?) or do you take a change of kit for each day ?

I have one of the Scandal prototypes from years ago lined up as my multidayer and I already have quite a bit of light weight outdoor kit from my walking trips. I reckon I could be up and running in a couple of weeks and I’m going to see if any my normal riding pals are up for WRT.

I’m struggling with a 2010 29″ NN Evo triple compound non UST tyre, I’m using a 26″ tube with the rim tape removed and the wheel is 29″ UST Bonty Race TLR, so far its not come close to sealing and I’m having problems getting the sealent to stay in side the tyre.

Any clues as to what I need to do to get this combo to inflate ????

😀 Yee bloody haa. First big thanks to Simon at LoCo, great service, great advice and great pricing. It cost me £67.50 to buy an air service kir, motion control service kit plus 5wt & 15wt oil and o ring lube from TFT. Simon does the whole service thing for £69.99 ❗ I'm not knocking TFT, I have used them before and their work was tip top but Simon's LoCo business is going to give them a run for their money.

The problem was as Simon and IA suggested, the rubber bump stop in right leg had flipped over, I would have thought that would have stopped me bolting it all back together but clearly it didn't.

Big thanks to everyone, having had these forks to bits 3 times in less than a week I feel I could do the job in my sleep. One last thing, whilst the travel is 115mm in theory, in practise its never going to be 115mm, there is a max of 118mm before you reassemble them after assemble that reduces to circa 110mm and then you set it with X amount of sag and you find the effective travel is closer to 85 or 90mm.

Well I can confirm its nothing to do with the oil level in the MoCo chamber, I bleed the + & – air pressure, then removed the MoCo damper and its oil and travel is exactely as before 😥

br they have both and you pressurise the + first.

LoCo thats a wonderful offer and much appreciated 😀 There is one more test I want to try before I take up any of your valuable time – lets see how much travel I can get by draining the 5wt oil out of the MoCo.

Bob, the total length of stanchion showing at maximum is 107mm and I can squeeze 75mm of travel out of that by inverting the forks and pressing them down, this is with no air in either side. Now this should be 115mm of travel as I have removed the spacer.

With air in them at 100psi in + & – the travel with the same amount of effort is circa 65mm. I'm stumped by all of this ❓

Andy the air pressure is fine, by that I what ever pressure I put in, stays in.

I have another set of Reba's for a normal 26" wheel that work ok, I going to strip rhose and see if I can see any difference.

If after stripping the 26" forks I lose the travel on them then its clearly something I'm doing wrong but in my defence, I have an engineering background and I folled the Rock Shox instructions & youtube video clips to the letter.

All the oil seals have been changed for new ones and fitted with tender luvving care. I can't help feeling its something even more basic than that ❓ The travel is there until I invert the forks to add 15cc of 15wt oil to each leg and then push the legs up until I can thread the nut on the air side and insert the bolt into the right leg.

Once that is completed the range of travel is limited to circa 2" 😥

Looks like I'm the only one voting for the Crank pump, I have binned my Blackburn and Topeak ones ! The Crank unit feels and works so much better and hi low volume bit clinches it for me.

On my bike maybe 😀 every where a definate no no, leave that to the over paid tasteless footy players

I have no idea if the police wanted him dead (and I don't think anyone else on here has any idea either) but if they did I would not blame them.

The whole thing was in my opinion an accident waiting to happen and nothing good will come from it, the morons have a new hero, the popular press have a new hate figure and a small number of peoples lives have changed for ever but for the rest of us life goes on unchanged.

I much prefer Kyffins works and one day, just maybe Isherwood might get some credit for his works some of which I just love see

http://www.motionfineart.com/lawrence_isherwood.htm

Chiles is up his own arse which I think is the best place for him.

James Cordons after match thing is dross based on the little I have seen.

Alan Green is a whinging bore.

Colin Murray has yet to piss me off or bore me.

And totally agree this world cup lacks the wit and sparkle that the MON brought to the last one. Bring back Motty or someone with a bit of class and a sense of humour.

Shackleton, its a going on Reba forks and an old protype Scandel frame with 29" up front and 26" on the rear, its one big experiment and no matter how hard I try I cannot get my lard arse weight under 200lbs and you can add another 15lbs for kit and camelback.

Zasker did you choose that colour scheme? if you did you need to go to SpesSavers asap, thats a tarts bike and you should be ashamed of yourself 😆

Shak47 big thanks for Nl link

Thanks for all your replies. If I could get a 29" Nobby Nic I would, we are always behind the Americans on tyres, the American forums also reckon there is a 29" Mountain King ready to go. I'm hoping to get a tyre thats under 650grms as my legs need all the help they can get.

Only in Liverpool could this happen, ditto Ken Dodd and in Duncan Ferguson's case on the two occasions he had his house broken into he battered one of the robbers and each time around the charges of assault were dropped.

Liverpool likes to think its a law unto its self and the Steve Gerrard case gives credence to this.

I used to like Howies but their pricing is just bollox, I guess when they opened their chic London shop they started to think we are all loaded and stupid to boot, if you bought the short liner the combo would normally cost £130, what planet are they on ??? No credit crunch for trendy taffs then !

many thanks – weather report looks ok, fingers crossed everything works out

I just luv all the “expert” comments from people who know bugger all about the place or have just passed through or their mate once worked there. Warrington is ok, of course there are better places, there always are but as someone who has lived around Warrington from the 60’s and has done a fair bit of traveling Warrington is ok.

Forget Chester, yes its nice but the drive to where you work will drive you crazy in next to no time. As said before avoid parts of Orford, Bewsey and Dallam. Lymm, Stockton Heath, Grappenhall and Walton are all good places south of the Mersey, the Bridgewater Canal runs along side each of them. North of the Mersey, Croft and Culcheth are also nice and an easy bike ride to your work.

Warrington town centre has a surplus of newish flat developments and if your cute you will be able to get a discount from the advertised rent.

Fwiw I’m not a fan of Warrington town centre from an eating and drinking point of view, I’d rather go to Manchester. As for riding Warrington is a good central location, the lakes are approx 60 to 90 mins depending on location, the peaks are about 60 mins, Dellymere is 30-40 mins, Llandegla about 60 mins, Rivington 30 mins and so on.

I would look up the http://www.bogtrotters.org/ and http://www.chestermtb.co.uk/ for informal organised rides, any more questions just shout up. All the best Paul

I’m with J68, some of you (AP)need to lighten up and before you think of lecturing me AP, don’t I have been there and done it, in the final analysis if your business has so little cash flow that a kids bike might cause you pain then you might want to spend less time on STW forums.

AW its a brave and some may say foolish move to come on here and bare your soul but now you have the only advice I can give you is take your time, make your decisions sober and in light of the facts rather than opinions. Ignore all the aggressive, childish replies on this thread. A lot of the replies on here suggest the posters are dumber than George Bush and about as tactful.

What ever decision you make I hope you and your kids come out of it ok, best of luck and keep riding, its still one of the best stress busters going.

Desf did you get any answers and if so can you find me the link, thnx Paul

the stinger is baby, CRC do them although they were out of stock so I got mine from some mob in Yorkshire whose name escapes me