I’m now running a SRAM brake lever on the left, and Shimano 105 on the right. Originaly had a SRAM Rival STI shifter but ditched that after it broke.

The alloy SRAM brake levers are good if you need a new brake lever anyway – light and simple. Don’t bother with the carbon as the weight saving is very minimal. But yes, to save cash you could just use the original LH lever (gut it if you want).

If you want a wider cassette (I run 11-32 normally) you can get a 105 mech with a slightly larger range to cope with that. 5701-A I think.

Personally I would avoid MTB mechs as you would need an in line cable adjuster to adjust for cable slack (whereas road mechs have those built in obviously).

After chewing up some end caps in the past, I now have a properly big screwdriver for the job (almost the full width of the end cap). Much easier, and saves damaging the caps on any of my various Eggbeaters and Candys. Definitely worth investing a small amount of money in the right tool.

Bear in mind that you do need the end cap to be fairly tight to prevent lateral play in the pedal. I think they are built with loctite, which is why they are so tight. I grease them when re-installing and just do them up nice and tight and have never had issues now.

I started off on a singlespeed MTB with 26″ CX tyres on it – that’ll get you going for the first year.

I agree with all of the above – good fun as it is close racing so even in the midfield you have people to chase down / chasing you.

Going forward, £1,000 will get you a decent CX bike. 2014 Giants and Raleigh are good specs for the money. I love my Kinesis Pro6 if you decide to stretch the budget a bit. I probably spent £1,500 on the original build with mostly new bits, and a couple of second hand finishing parts.

If you have some 29er wheels in the garage, those could tide you over for a while to allow you to build a disc CX bike more cheaply.

Free pawls here for one of my rear hubs after I noticed that one had snapped. I think I’d only emailed to check the sizing of them or something.

I picked up a good deal on my preferred frame on ebay last month. Thought I might leave it in the garage and buy bits as and when they came up cheaply. Failed. Got half way through and thought sod it, I might as well get the remaining bits now. I’ve now spent around £1,000 and I’ve just ordered a set of £350 wheels which will let me move the Crest 29ers from my CX bike to complete the build. Oops. Still, a nice Kinesis FF29 build for effectively £1300 isn’t too shabby.

You can build for sensible money if you are careful about ordering. I picked up a part here and there (often following a PSA on here), and a few second hand parts where appropriate. Only kicker was the £287 for Reba RL 29ers from Merlin which I thought was stonking value until they got the white model in the following week and were doing them on offer for £225!

Still, it was quite satisfying when each time I bought a part I updated the spreadsheet and quite often reduced the price from the anticpated price as I picked up a good deal. As usual, very few bits have been carried over – just the brakes (for now), the crank arms and pedas really, oh and the chainstay protector!

Predictably, I’m contemplating swapping the crank arms and pedals for something lighter in future, and will replace the brakes if the performance doesn’t improve with the new rotors. And that chainstay protector is looking a little tatty :)

Not sure about that paint job. Were they a bit indecisive? Forks look smart.

* Opens thread expecting gruesome youtube video. Leaves disappointed *

Stans Iron Cross?
Edit – beaten to it!

Selle Italia SLRs are a good weight for the money if you get one second hand. On-One also have one for £50 at the moment.

I’ve got one of these in the garage. It’s got Mrs PixelMix’s bike on it and hasn’t fallen down (yet!)

3 speed shifter will be fine – if you adjust the mech screws appropriately, you’ll find that the shifter won’t be able to get into the “big ring” position even if you try.

Edit – beaten to it.

I’m running 33mm Clement PDX clinchers tubeless without issue on my Crests. I’ve run 33mm Ralphs and Maxxis Raze of a similar size in the past.

Not quite 32mm, but you should be fine.

+1 FuzzyWuzzy. If ending early, it needs to be worthwhile.

I offered an end it early price for a frame recently as I was keen to secure it without the faff of some silly last minute bid while I wasn’t on the PC.

I offered £250 inc postage which was refused (fair enough), but in the end won the auction for £238 inc postage, as nobody put it a last minute bid. :D

The x fusion do seem to be loved by everybody, but still seem slightly lardy for my liking.

What do the Sids offer over the Rebas nowadays? The SID RLS seem to be about the same weight as the Reba RL, which the same features on the merlin spec page. Do internal differences justify the £60 extra?

I should have clarified in my previous post that I meant Crests. I’ve run 33 – 35s (Maxxis Raze, Racing Ralphs, and now Clement Crusade PDX Clincher) without issue.

I run Stans for CX at the moment with no major issues for almost 2 years. Only issue was my shocking bunny hopping skills dinging the rim. Ideally they would be slightly narrower, but the new Iron Cross CX rim is only 1mm narrower!

Genesis Day One, whilst arguably a CX bike, takes guards and biggish tyres simultaneously, and is pretty versatile.

Hijacking a bit here, but anyone else got a Hope Pro3 hub? Looking for a front specifically. For the same reason as the OP, I’m looking for a decent 24h disc hub and they are a bit like hens teeth as Hope won’t sell them separately.

Difficult to explain without tweaking the settings in person, but a few points:

1) Makes sure iCal is set out to sync to the cloud, and then ignore the “On my Mac” calendars (I’ve cleared these out and minimized the list otherwise you will see duplicates of everything).

2) In iTunes data syncing, for both phones, untick the local calendar check boxes, and make sure the details for the cloud calendars are ticked.

3) On your phones, make sure that you set items created on the phone go into a calendar which is syncing to both phones.

Mrs Pixelmix and I run a similar setup. We have calendars for each of us and a joint calendar. Our phones are set by default to create items in our personal calendars, but you can easily change that. This way, I don’t have to get bogged down in seeing everything she is doing, but I know when she has booked in something which we are both doing, and I can see her calendar if I need to.

Wet shaving when you’re that age is a pain in the arse.

Depends where you are shaving I suppose

I fine that “well it’s better spent on bike parts than booze and hookers” works well.

26-38 chainrings and 11-34 9 speed setup on my XC hardtail. Find the gearing fine for XC racing and big days out too – only feel under geared on the road.

I use TA Specialites rings which are sensible money and available in lots of sizes.

Thanks Tang – is it 2 brakes in one kit then? That isn’t clear form the details on the Upgrade website, but they are reasonable value if that is the case.

Edinburgh Cycle Co in Granton – Brad from TBC is down there now with a smart new workshop

You need to set the turns and off course warnings for each course individually, and also when the course has not yet started – I think they do not change effect if you are already part way through the course.

So, stop the course, changing the settings, then start the course.

I tend to ride just with “off course warnings” on when I’m on an off road route, but the turn alert is quite handy sometimes on road routes I don’t know.

Hmm, veering towards the HyRd then if both work well – self adjusting pads are appealing as I’ve had the BB7s wear down once or twice in really muddy races and leave me with limited brakes. Spyre should be better than BB7 from that point of view, but presumably still not as good as the HyRd.

Where did you get the Spyres from? I think they still aren’t available from Upgrade (as with the HyRd).

Sorry for the thread derail (and for the stray apostrophe in my previous post! :oops:)

Looks good. Interested to hear how you get on with the HyRds – looking to add one to my 2 year old Pro6 – one of the BB7s is on it’s last legs, and I’m undecided between the HyRd and Spyre.

Hope Hoops Crest 29er?

I’m running those on my Kinesis Pro6 and the width is fine for CX tyres, and very easy to set up tubeless. Similar money to the Kinesis wheels if you shop around. Bit wide for road tyres obviously.

No experience of the Kinesis wheels, but I can’t see why the Hope Hoops wouldn’t be at least as good.

Make sure your funds have cleared before posting and you only post to the paypal registered address (not to any other address he emails to you). Stick to that and you should be fine if it turns out to be fraudulent.

Bah, doesn’t work on out of stock items. No new front wheel for me.

Most disc CX bikes will have 135mm spacing. Running Stans Crest Hope Hoops 29ers here with no issue on my Kinesis Pro6. Gives quite a wide tyre profile which may or may not be your thing. I’m not bothered either way.

I’ll probably swap for Iron Cross rims soon, but only because I’ll use the Crests on a new 29er, and not because I’m desperate to change.

I’d say that proper CX rims would be okay for MTB to a point, as long as you aren’t looking at anything too narrow and hoping to run wide tyres.

Yes, I’ve got the course as about 6k longer than last year due to Caddon Bank (and start loop). Agreed it was a great course, great event and well organised. Top marks to Durty. I see that BC are looking for applications for next year. I hope Durty apply again for the champs.

Top 5 was (I think):

Neal Crampton
Rob Friel
Oli Beckinsale
Gareth Montgomerie
Dave Henderson

Not sure of the time. Around 3h30 I’d guess.

Likewise, I always pull out pretty wide. I think that also influences the drivers behind you. In a queue of traffic today, the cars in front didn’t give the cyclist a huge amount of room, but I noticed that the car behind me pulled out almost as widely as I had.

I’ve been guilty of this. No harm meant by it, just trying to overtake as quickly as possible to minimise risk, but I realise it can be misinterpreted.

I was just about to say the same thing. I always knock the car down a few gears to maximise acceleration to get the pass over ASAP, but that probably does sound a bit aggressive. It isn’t supposed to be – it is done with the best of intentions.

In hindsight, my black top probably wasn’t the ideal top for today. :oops:

Great day out though – really enjoyed it, and I’d happily take that over dreich. Last year wasn’t bad, but the trails were running so sweetly today. I’ll just wear a better top next time.

Sort of

Would need a different rear hub from memory. Freewheel fitting only so unable to put a lock ring on and obviously it has the 6 bolt disc mount on other side.

Yup, this. Surly do a silly amount of hubs in various configurations, so might do something suitable for disc/fixed.

Does a flip flop hub have the same threads on both sides?

No. Fixed hubs have two threads (one for cog, one for lockring). The free side doesn’t, so there is a risk of a fixed cog loosening if used on the “freewheel” side

Don’t see why couldn’t take the rear brake off and run it fixed.

You could keep the original hub if you got one of those 6 bolt cogs and flipped the wheel. You’d need to check what the chainline is like flipping the wheel, but a couple of washers on the chainring would probably sort that.