Out of interest how do you get a reliable joint when removing/refitting so often?
Are you using new quick links every time?
9spd? Or 10/11?

I do the same as Andyl. I use 10sp Shimano chains with KMC links, and re-use the link each time – that’s what they’re for.

Agree with both the above – either rotate often and early, or stick to one chain & cassette and run them into the ground together, but in the past where I’ve waited until .75% wear like you, it’s been too late to put a new chain on the old cassette.

I’ve got an RP23 on one bike and CTD Evolution on the other. I prefer the RP23, so if it’s set up how you like it and it’s not broken I’d stick with that if I were you.

Sometimes I think I live on a different planet as I have absolutely no idea what any of that means. Some type of shindig I’m guessing? Maybe I’m just getting old… :oops:

Midnight Cowboy.

Hoffman at his understated best.

Stay in your hotel room and watch movies! I hated the place. Most rude, frenetic, money & status oriented place I’ve been in China.

Not anyone I know, but a campsite I frequent has a couple visit every Friday & Saturday night in season with Pizza van. They make it a family occasion with all the toppings laid out like Subway sandwiches do. The kids especially love to ‘create’ their own pizza, then it gets popped into a proper pizza oven. Has become a real selling point for the campsite!

I read that book and found it a bit of an anti-climax tbh

Yeah I agree it was a bit of a cop-out him basically returning to what he did before. But now he’s on his third book so I guess in the end he did escape the rat race and became a writer!

So I’m taking this opportunity to try and break that cycle.

I don’t offer this as advice because everyone has to make they own way, but…

When I was made ‘superfluous’ from the finance industry in my forties I had the same idea as many do to make my hobby into my job – if I do it anyway, why not get paid for it – right? I’d always been into boats so I joined a small company in the marine industry. Had a ball at first, loved every minute of it. But then the cr@p salary and being taken advantage of precisely because I did it for the love of it, and the nature of some of the people in the boat business spoilt it for me and I left. They say turning your hobby into your job will end one of two ways – you’ll be the happiest person alive, or you won’t enjoy your hobby anymore. Unfortunately for me I turned out to be the latter.

I’ve since gone back to Uni as a ‘mature’ student and retrained in a completely different field, moved country, and am now plugging away building up my new career in my new homeland. It’s not been easy starting at the bottom again at my age, but the work/life balance is far better and I’ve learned a lot about myself and had some wonderful experiences along the way.

I could go on, but all I’d say is take a break and clear your mind, work out what’s really important to you in your life, and make a realistic plan to achieve it. This may mean going back into what you did before but with your priorities clearer, or it may take you off in a totally new direction… Good luck!

Fatgit’s comments made me realise I’ve got a Volt not a Charge :oops: So what I said above was about the Volt.

take them for a nice muddy ride

easier said than done at the moment!

Backup option is take them for a dry and dusty ride and regularly douse them in water from your water bottle :D

What’s the point of internal cabling on an MTB?

They say don’t mount on carbon bars though

Oooops! :oops: I’ve got a pair of those GS1s pictured above on my Easton Haven carbon bars.

Is that just the ones with bar ends or all of them? And even if you follow the torque guidelines to the letter?

I’ve got the Charge LR and you can stuff it full of kit and 3L of water and it’s so comfortable you don’t notice you’re wearing it. The side pockets are very useful for stuff you want quick access to – I usually keep my food in there, plus maps hanky’s & that sort of thing. Wouldn’t worry about it being sweaty – I regularly use it in 30 degree plus conditions and it’s not a problem. Can’t comment on it versus your other options as I haven’t tried them.

Can I be the first to suggest a Labradoodle…

Ours is a miniature so doesn’t need so much exercise, but can get mischievous if not ‘entertained’ during the day.

There’s a long thread on MTBR about this.

Nobody seems to have solved the mystery yet, but the most likely explanation is some kind of oxidation of the pads while sitting idle. Anyway, solution seems to be burn ’em in like you do when new, or just hit some wet gritty trails and let them sort themselves out…

Thanks for that thought Woody, but yes too far away! I’ve heard of others with the same problem of slipping forwards, and some who’ve eventually got used to it. Anyway I’m particularly interested in the rocking motion of the active models and the claimed relief on the discs, as that’s where my back problems are. May just have to order one to try…

I shop mainly at CRC, Wiggle & Bike-Components.de

There are a few online stores trying to emulate them in Oz, but they have higher overheads and lower volumes so can’t match the prices or range of stock, and being in the ‘wild’ west it takes me as long to get things sent from over east as it does from Europe.

Also, being Australian the service is a little er…. laid back :D

Darn it. Now I can’t decide.

Stick with the hydraulics, and rinse them out occasionally? :D

Spend some time playing with a gear calculator[/url] and it can answer your questions much better than asking others who have a completely different style of riding. I just spent two minutes plugging in the info you gave above and the result is that by going from triple to double you will lose your lowest gear, and half your highest gear. Could you live with that? Whether you will have more front shifting by going double all depends whether you currently do most of your riding in your middle ring. It’s likely you will, but that’s the cost of going double.

Has anybody dismantled and successfully re-assembled a shimano hydro caliper as far as popping the pistons out and inspecting the square seals?

I have and posted my experiences on MTBR

I’ll get in early on this one before the haterz turn up…

My impression from endless debates on this and other forums is that most of the people having problems are either BB30 users or carbon frames. If you’ve got a BB30 in a carbon frame then you’re clearly doomed, but if you go for a Shimano BB92 in an ally frame you’ll have a better chance of living beyond the end of the year.

Personally I only use XTR PF BBs and routinely replace them each annual service, and I haven’t had a problem. I’ve also invested in the proper tools for fitting them, which only seems sensible, and same as I would with everything else on my bike.

But a chain with a bit of surface rust doesn’t perform any worse. So that’s about aesthetics, and if you lube properly even that’s not an issue.

Apparently it does – Shimano claim a slippery chain surface reduces pedalling friction, improves mud shedding, and decreases wear. Who am I to argue with the big S.

However, I’m totally OCD about any rust anywhere on my bike – it’s a cancerous scourge and I won’t have it :evil: And I’m willing to accept this is probably out of all proportion to the actual effect it has on performance :lol:

I only run three bits of XTR kit on my bikes, rest is all SLX on one bike and all XT on the other. They are:-

1. Shifters. XTR have four sets of ball races versus the XT two (and SLX/Deore nylon bushings!) and it does make them smoother. Plus good deals around on 10sp XTR shifters at the mo (Merlin XTR same price as CRC XT) cos they’re sooo last year now the 11sp is out!

2. Chain. But that’s because I live near the coast and any exposed bit of steel that’s not coated in something to protect it will rust. XTR has nickel plated inner plates, outer plates, and pins. XT only the outer plates are coated, SLX neither. The fact that XTR has hollow pins is actually a negative for me as they get full of gunk and are impossible to clean out, but the fact they don’t rust wins the day.

3. Bottom Bracket. XTR are supposedly better sealed. Haven’t done an exhaustive scientific test to prove it one way or ‘tother, but as they’re cheap as chips bought online from Germany – just makes sense.

You’ll notice none of it has anything to do with weight, and two out of the three you can’t even see an XTR logo – so its about function not weight/bling for me.

Is Al Fornos still there in the lanes?

Great Pizza and authentic setting – mind that was 35 years ago so it might have changed a bit :oops:

Yes. I put xt pins in mine. Took a bit of force. Im still not sure if that was due to threads on the caliper that were covered in paint or if i just screwed them into the alloy with brute force. Either way, seems fine

You’ll find out which it was when you try to unscrew them again :lol:

….it used to take me years to wear down jockey wheels on 9 speed stuff. On 10 speed it’s a season.

Me too! I’m convinced the extra tension the clutch mechs put on the chain wears the jockey wheels quicker.

And before someone says they don’t put any extra tension on the chain, they do when you’re changing up to a bigger sprocket or chainwheel, and every time the rear suspension is ‘growing’ – which by simple logic has to be 50% of the whole time you’re riding!

After hearing lots of conflicting opinions on this I spent an hour or so with a set of Shimano 9sp cranks and 10sp cranks and a vernier calliper accurate to 0.02mm.

I could find absolutely no difference in width, tooth height, profile, spacing on the cranks, between 9sp and 10sp chainrings. So 10sp chainrings will play happily in an otherwise 9sp system, and vice versa.

They do, however come in different ratios. Whereas the standard 9sp rings gave you a nice wide 44/32/22 spacing, the ten speed ones are 42/32/24 as they expect you to have a wider ratio 11/36 cassette on the back to make up the difference.

And by the way, the answer to the next question is that 10sp chains are the same internal width as 9sp, but slightly narrower external width – so yes, the plates are thinner/flatter.

When my Dad died the kids were pretty unmoved, they were frightened over how upset I was though.

This.

I actually remember when my first grandparent died. It didn’t upset me at all. I was freaked out by the effect it had on my parents though.

I think it’s this you need to focus on – what emotions do you want to show in front of your children, and how will you explain those to them. At the age of 4 parents are still the centre of their world, and they take all their emotional clues as to whether the world is a happy place or a terrible place from you. They need reassuring that you’re not going to become an emotional basket case and that life will continue on as before, albeit without one member of the extended family circle.

top shimano jockey has float ( bit of play)

Not since 10sp came out they haven’t.

For jockey wheels bushes are better than bearings. The bearings are so tiny that any contamination results in seizure. Shimano as usual got it right.

Then why do XT, Saint and XTR jockey wheels use bearings?

I’m not fat, and strictly speaking redundancy isn’t the same as being fired.

Meh – semantics!

Definition of redundant: unnecessary; dispensable, disposable, unwanted; useless; superfluous; idle; needed like a hole in the head 8O

Think I’d rather be fired – at least it sounds a bit more dramatic!

Seriously tho, it’s quite an inspirational book, worth a read even if you’re in your thirties, slim, and er… superfluous :wink:

Start by reading this book…

Am I the only one that thinks internal cabling is more trouble than it’s worth? What was wrong with having cables run on the outside of the downtube anyway? Am I missing something here – surely they still have to come out to get round the BB and suspension pivots, so there’s all that faff and two holes in your frame for what – 50cm of cable actually running inside the tube!!

China! Tis the future innit?

Teach English, learn Mandarin, and do a bit of travelling – do it while you’re still young and I don’t think you’ll ever regret the experience.

The dog may be better left at home though :wink:

Losing weight off your body is more beneficial than losing the same amount of weight off the bike. It’s not just about the physics of carrying say – 1 kilo of weight around. It’s also about the extra load on all your body systems servicing that extra kilo of body tissue. All body tissue has an overhead in terms of drain on your general metabolism to keep it at the right temperature, supply it with blood, oxygen & nutrients, take away the waste products etc. etc. This is a cost in effort over and above just the cost of carrying the weight of it around. So the equation looks like this:-

Energy consumption from 1 kilo of body weight = effort required to carry 1 kilo of mass around + extra load on metabolism to service an extra kilo of body tissue

Energy consumption from 1 kilo on bike = effort required to carry 1 kilo of mass around

These guys[/url] hire out all sorts of bikes (and kayaks) and are nicely placed for heading straight out onto the bike paths round the river.

I guess 2×11 takes you back to 3x gear range

Well that’s my point – it doesn’t!

With the new XT 2×11 yes the range has increased on the back, but at the same time they’ve reduced the range on the front. So, whereas at the moment you can have a 24/38 double, ie. a spread of 14T on the front, with the new XT they only offer 24/34, 26/36, or 28/38 ie a spread of 10T. So what you gain on the rear, you lose on the front, and if you calculate the gear inches (which I have) you’re right back where you started with the same overall range (in fact 1 gear inch less) than the current 2×10 XT.

I’m not saying that’s necessarily a problem (I’m quite happy with that range) but I’m just pointing out to those who assume that an extra cog on the back automatically means a greater range of gears, that it’s not actually the case with the new XT. If you want a greater range of gears than on the current 2X10 XT then you’ll need to buy the 3X11 in the new XT, which also answers your question…

and 3×11 well…..? dunno what thats for.

You’d have thought they’d have taken the opportunity to drop the “Deore” from the name. Nobody except Shimano refer to it as anything but just “XT” these days!

While I can see the new 11-42 cassette is useful for the 1X crowd, can’t say I’m wildly excited about the new gear ranges as a 2X user. Although they’ve given us greater range on the back by moving from 11-36 to 11-40, at the same time they’ve reduced it on the front by going from a 14T difference to a 10T one, so we’re back where we started but with just a little bit more granularity in the gears?

Still, I guess if I buy a 2016 bike it’ll come with it, but I don’t think I’ll rush out and replace my 2X10 XT.

And has anyone else noticed that the new wheels only come in 29 and 27.5 – another nail in the coffin for 26″ – shame on you Shimano!

When I was kid, the occasional appearance of a rat in the garden was the cause of much excitement for my brother & I as it meant we could shoot something living with our air rifles with the full blessing of our parents.

Vicious critters – I mean the rats, although I guess a teenager with an air rifle is as well!

Still remember the time our Doberman got a rat cornered – and I had to pull it off. No – I mean I had to pull the rat off the dog – literally, as it bit through its lip and wouldn’t let go!!

See I thought m988 was b spec…..from what I’d researched

There were both I-Spec A and B M988 levers, depending on when you bought them. Easiest way to check is just look at the model number stamped on the lever body – if it just says “BL-M988” like the one below then its I-Spec A. An I-Spec B lever will say “BL-M988-B”.

I’ll go back to merlin to see why it wasn’t included, but the other bolts were, it stated bolts included….

It pays to read the small print…

Your options are:-

1. Buy the bolts separately – Shimano part# Y-6UV98090
2. See if anyone’s got any spare and will donate them – if they’ve bought a proper boxed set which comes with both sets of bolts, and have fitted them to I-Spec B levers, they’ll have the bits you want left over
3. Return the Merlin ones and buy a proper retail boxed set somewhere else that has both sets of bolts (and cable outers) included

I did #3, and got Wiggle to price match Merlin :wink: