All the MTB trails are fair game for a gravel bike

I was going to say most of the mtb trails, the Lonesome Pine red and the blue, think its called the Osprey trail, would definitely be fun to a competent gravel rider, parts of them probably more so than on an mtb to be honest although I’ve never owned or ridden a gravel bike. Pretty sure Kielder forest is over 600km sq so definitely take a map if you don’t know the place, there are many many miles of fireroads to explore and as its one of the most remote villages in England the some of the actual roads in the area aren’t much smoother. The lakeside lap is a scenic ride on a sunny day but is, as already stated, as dull as it gets and turns to a sort of peanut butter grinding paste when its wet, soul destroying on an mtb with 2.5″ tyres

, in the sunshine they’re fine, but on dull days they’re can be a bit rubbish, as there’s enough UV about that they darken (often quite considerably), even though it’s not actually that bright out.

This is my experience of photochromic lenses, Adidas evil eye vario, don’t use them very much these days. In and out of trees on sunny days I find it takes too long to change shade and prefer Oakleys trail prizm lens by far

A mate of mine almost got knocked off on a night ride a few years ago, we were about 20 yrds behind him when it ran out of the undergrowth and into his front wheel, they are definately bigger than I’d thought they were

Only had 1st jab (AZ, I was told to wait 15 mins) and had to wait in car until 5 mins before appointment, small queue but once inside took about 25 mins, including the 15 min wait afterwards

At this point, I can’t see Ineos getting behind that one

Agree 100%, shame tho

different proposition to XC and seems to reward top-level DH skills

He doesn’t look to have the build for top level DH or EWS at the minute, but neither did Danny Hart in 2011 and he did ok. There’s a few videos, admittedly from a few years ago, on Pidcocks Instagram page of him riding a DH bike at Chatel bikepark, hitting some fair sized gaps, whips and landing 360s on a jump bike, the kid has skills way beyond xc/cx/road racing and if he bulks up a bit I wouldn’t rule it out in future, esp EWS

Of the lads I’ve known who’ve bought a full suss orange only 1 hasn’t cracked, and although they were all replaced on warranty at least one of them cracked again afterwards and he had to get it welded. I do own an older Crush and would consider another if I end up replacing it in future but as said above, there are better options for far less £££ than their full suss bikes

As above, way more trails around the Tweed valley but Fort Bill combined with Laggan is definitely worth the drive up, possibly with a stop at Glencoe on the way home. I’ve also seen a lot of Instagram vids of the off piste stuff around Fort Bill over the last year or so, never ridden any but it looks very good if a days exploring is an option

Sealskinz? Lost count of the times I’ve read they don’t work, but they do in my experience

I would suggest you don’t bother. Just ride on it and be polite if questioned

This ^^^^^^^

YT do a custom 600ml fidlock bottle for the Jeffsy, more of a flat rectangular shape than round and designed to fit in a tight space. No idea if it would work on an Orange (mounted to the top tube as in pic above) or even if you can buy one without the bike but worth a look. Not cheap either

AZ first dose last Saturday afternoon, felt perfectly normal on going to bed that night then

woke up feeling awful.
Arms, legs, neck and head aching, feel really weak

Pretty much exactly this ^^^^, woke up around 3am, headache was probably the worst I’ve had in years, still a bit ropey yesterday morning but pretty much back to normal now

I read a couple of years ago that arm span should be considered when between sizes as well as height, with standover not being as much of an issue as it used to be on most frames. Im 5’8 and comfortably ‘ride’ a large 29er with around 465 reach (shorter than specced stem/low rise bars) but pretty sure Sam Hill and Richie Rude, both 5’10, both ‘race’ on medium frames and the seem to manage pretty well despite probably being on a size below what their sponsors would recommend to the paying customer. Personally I’d always go larger but I don’t race much and used to own a Mondraker, their medium was longer than the large YT I’m riding now

I did the opposite around a year ago – 10mm shorter stem, 10mm riser bars instead of 30mm and a flat headset cap instead of a 15mm rise cap and its made a huge difference to the feel of the bike when descending, much more than I expected and for the better

just what happens when you wildly misgrade a trail

Very true, I will never forget passing a young lass near the end of the top boardwalk a few years back (when it was still the red giant), she was absolutely terrified and had been talked into it by her boyfriend who’d said it would be ‘just like Glentress but without the uphill bits. It was p*****g down at the time and the look on the boyfriend’s face when we caught up with and told him quite a bit further down was priceless, glad I wasn’t in his shoes that day. It should never have been a red trail

Uncrafted, Stoked, Commit. Not actually owned or worn any of them so no idea about fit/quality

As above, kinetic bearings

https://www.mtbinsuranceuk.com/

Run by Helen Gaskell, mainly aimed at racing but fairly sure they cover general riding as well

E thirteen 9-46 works fine with 11 spd xtr, I find using same brand of chain and cassette gets the best shifting

I got a kom a few years ago on an uphill segment I didn’t recognise, 15 seconds bottom to top and beating the best time by 1 second. When I worked out where it was I realised I’d actually pushed the whole way up, probably took well over 2 minutes and knew the lad whose time I’d beaten. Its not accurate enough to get worked up over, and the lad in question laughed when I told him

Don’t expect to be able to do black runs

Stick to Glentress, lots af easy to reach blue and red trails they will enjoy but I’d forget about the Golfie/Inners if black trail centre stuff is too much for them, it’s steeper than it looks on YouTube

Now tv box?

. I think I have a set of caps to convert my rear hub to boost from 142mm.

As well as end caps, you will also need a shim for the rotor, it will not line up with the caliper on a boost frame if it’s a 142mm hub. There are conversion kits around for this but not sure about availability at the moment

. I snapped two KMC chains

Ive had 2 snap in the last year and a mate had a brand new one snap last weekend, I won’t be buying any more kmc chains. I find a Shimano chain works best on a Shimano cassette, sram chain with sram cassette

As above they have a large shop in Newcastle city centre, bought loads there and never had any problems

Recently had a ‘conversation’ with a woman after her 3 German Shepherds came charging towards me while riding on a cyclepath/disused railway line. It’s used by walkers/horses/cyclists and can get busy (Sunday morning so fairly busy at the time in question). She had walked out of a nearby carpark and immediately let all 3 off the lead, they went at a few smaller dogs first then when she tried to call them back charged past her and ran around 50 yards straight at me at which point I had to slam on the brakes to avoid a collision. I don’t mind dogs at all but started shaking my head at the owner who declared she had every right to be there and shouldn’t have to keep them on a lead despite obviously having no ability to recall or control them. I explained that if three lads on bikes had charged towards her at speed in the same location and manner as they had just done to me she would no doubt be complaining they were out of control/dangerous and rightly so, but she still refused to put them back on the lead and as I rode off they were surrounding and barking at an elderly couple with a small dog on a lead who looked pretty intimidated. Self entitled attitudes are definitely on the rise these days, not dog owners particularly as most can and do control their pets, but in society in general

Feels like MBUK for the YouTube generation.

^^^^this^^^^^

Had a cracked downtube repaired by Carbon Bike Repairs in Surrey last year, cost around £350ish, held up fine so far. The only downside was the time it took but that was entirely down to them closing through covid lockdown

Mainly used for trail riding in and out of dark forests 👌

I have a pair of Adidas evil eye vario (photochromic lens) and a pair of Oakley racing jackets with the trail prizm (non photochromic) lens and I prefer the Oakleys for riding. I’ve had a few pairs of photochromic glasses but I find they take too long to change tint if moving in and out of tree cover quickly, the prizm lens isn’t as good in really bright direct sunlight but with everything else its consistently better. It’s a bit like watching a 15 yr old TV compared with a latest 4k uhd TV, everything seems clearer and more defined when wearing them. They weren’t ‘cheap’ (around £85, a lot less than the rrp) but I’d highly recommend the lens over photochromic

I’ve had 2 kmc chains snap over the last year, neither were much over 6 months old Switched to Shimano ( 1 on a Shimano slx cassette, 1 on an E Thirteen cassette) and they’re both shifting noticably better

Had one removed from my jaw/neck years ago as I kept catching it with a razor when shaving, frozen with some kind of spray and it scabbed over then fell off after a couple of weeks, GP did it after I explained the problem

My back yard is privately owned and I rarely set foot in it other than to cross it to put the bins out. Reckon it’s fair game to kick my back gate down and build a skate park in there cos I’m not using it?

No, the example I used was following a ‘conversation’ with a gamekeeper who’d chased me about half a mile on a 4wd quad bike because I was riding a bike on a rarely used footpath across a grouse moor miles from civilisation (and caused far more damage and disturbance than I had in the process). Perfectly ok to walk down it but not ride a bike. I am well aware that riding on a footpath over a grouse moor and digging dirt jumps in South London are totally different circumstances and wasn’t commenting on the op’s ideas/plans/digging, more about kids being called selfish and greedy for trying to have fun

Their nationality/ethnic origin/whatever is irrelevant, plenty of home-grown ****s who ‘own’ land

Agreed

pure selfish greed.

There are vast areas of the UK that are completely out of bounds to the general public as they are privately owned, a lot of the time by extremely rich people who rarely set foot on said land. Perfect example is a lot of the moors on the eastern Pennines, lots of it is owned by Arab royals who turn up in their chauffeur driven Range Rovers to shoot grouse for a few weeks a year and because of this no one else is allowed to ride bikes or horses at any time, this is ‘pure selfish greed’ by my definition, kids building dirt jumps is definitely NOT, its kids being kids. As far as building jumps in South London goes I can’t offer any helpful advice but wish op the best of luck, you would think anything that helps steer kids away from gangs/crime would be a no brainer these days

Can’t remember where but I’m sure I’ve read they wouldn’t be running any more events. I could well be wrong about this and it may have been another race organiser but the post was about this years Macavalanche as far as I can remember

Remove the outer cable first, replace with new one using old inner cable as a guide then remove inner cable, quick spray of gt85 or similar and fit new inner cable

Muc off motorcycle cleaner, bogof deal at Tweeks, 10l for £25 last time I looked and its exactly the same stuff as a lot of shops sell at £10 a litre

currently running a 2.5 DHF Max Terra EXO front

The Maxxgrip exo is a better option in my experience, obvs won’t last as long and it’s not much fun on tarmac/fireroad climbs but it does hold a line better than the maxterra version. I use a 2.5 Shorty over the winter months, its a surprisingly good allrounder depending on the terrain. DHR2 rear all year round, dd casing

IMO, the bottom line is that for many off road segments times and KOMs are meaningless.

I got a random KOM a few years ago, didn’t recognize the segment at 1st but turned out to be a short climb in the local woods. I’ve never ridden all the way up it in my life but apparently I did it in 15 seconds on the day in question when I actually got off right at the bottom and pushed the whole way up, probably taking 3 minutes or more. It’s a load of bollox

half is woodland trust

Good luck with that, doubt Durham County Council would be any more receptive either to be honest but as Hamsterley is usually rammed every weekend (pre lockdown, possibly the same now but haven’t been since last November) I would like to see more legal trails in the north east