I was thinking of some panniers for my 10 mile offroad commute (very rocky in places), but following some advice on here I went for the Carradice SQR Tour saddlebag. I can’t recommend it enough, I don’t even notice it while riding. It’s only 16 litres in capacity but I fit the following in mine:

Clothes for the day
Change of shorts and top for the ride back
Waterproof (I have to get on the train and wearing the one that I cycle in might upset my fellow passengers)
iPad
Mini-pump
Spare tube and tools (in side pocket)
Magic shine light (other side pocket)

I couldn’t fit shoes in but I just leave some at work and change when I get there. Occasionally I need to bring my laptop home so on those days I use a backpack for just the laptop – much more comfortable than carrying everything in the backpack, and stops the laptop getting rattled around as much.

I got a Specialized Allez Comp 16 a couple of years ago for £400 – very pleased with it.

If you don’t want to risk it being short then you obviously have to put spacers above the stem. Looks ugly but that’s your only choice really. I’d check out the head tube measurements of a few frames and gauge whether or not your current frame has a short/average/long head tube. If it’s long or average then I’d just go for it and cut to length, you can always search out minimal stack stems and headsets later if you find it a bit too short for a new frame.

I just got some cheap Intense (ITS) tyres from CRC – impressed with them so far.

A Charge Spoon saddle and a snazzy new pair of Vans Slip Ons (mustard yellow and royal blue check – oh yes!).

Sounds like something is faulty, I use I-beam seat posts on all my bikes and haven’t had this problem (and I’m a fat knacker). Is your seat positioned with the clamp very far forward on the rail? That would cause greater leverage and if so it might be worth looking at a lay-back I-beam post.

Horses for courses init! I think pretty much everyone would have both if the could afford it and had the space, if not a variety of each. If you are constrained to one bike then it really depends on your riding and what you enjoy. If I really, really had to get rid of some bikes then the hardtails would definitely be the ones to go.

Shimano SLX or XT, depending on how important weight is for you.

It’ll be fine.

Sticking safety pins in your legs to hold up your knee warmers is a bit too low-tech for my liking.

The freeride trails running from the bottom of the Pila DH courses down to the bottom of the valley are amazing. Endless line/route options. It’s definitely more DH bike territory though, with the cable car back up to the top, but they’re not motorway-like at all. The DH tracks at the top of the mountain are also awesome but a bit more motorway-like.

A more trail-bike friendly option would be La Thuile, which has many ski-lift accessed trails.

Good point. I won’t have to take the laptop every day as it will generally get left at work, so perhaps a backpack for the laptop and panniers for the rest.

Not sure the Carradice would be big enough for my needs. The On-One has the appropriate mounts for a pannier rack, so would be looking for a normal style rack rather than a seat tube mounted one.

@Basil – I’m not talking about crazy technical off road riding, it will mosty be pretty well-surfaced stuff, but I need something that’s not going to bounce off if it gets jiggled around a bit. Only want rear panniers, not front ones.

Just generally or with anything in particular? Are we going to need to send out someone to entice you back off the ledge?

I live in West Yorkshire and if Hebden Bridge is anything like where I live (the other side of the M62 from Hebden) then I can confirm that it is ‘snowy as a bastard’! Still snowing today with snow for the rest of the week forecast.

You won’t save considerable weight by going with 823s – what you lose through lack of inner tube you gain through more material in the rim, thicker wall tyres, and sealant. Weight’s not the main advantage of tubeless though, despite what some will have you believe. I run tubeless XM819s with Hope hubs and DT Swiss double butted spokes and they are still heavier than the Crossmax SXs (probably 100-200g more for the pair). The advantage over the SXs is ease of finding replacement parts. The XM819s are more than enough for hard trail use, the only disadvantage over the rim on the SXs is that it is slightly narrower (19mm vs. 21mm internal width). I run EX823s on my DH bike and while they are bombproof they are not light – they are more comparable to the Deemax rims than the Crossmax ones.

It seems you’re not the only one in finding Hope brakes unreliable. I guess I must have been extremely lucky as every disc brake I’ve ever bought has been a Hope and, with the exception of one of the very first 2-pot closed brakes, I’ve never had any issues. I’ve still got a set of DH4s that I’ve been running since 2000 without a hitch, and my Tech M4s and Moto V2s have been impeccable.

Penbol gatehouse on Angelsey

Lovely accommodation, dog friendly, lockable shed, short drive from Snowdonia.

In my experience, shifters are one of the few components where you can really tell the difference between XT and XTR. For rear mechs I have found very little difference (if any) in terms of function, the main benefit of XTR being the weight saving.

I’ve not got any experience of the shadow plus mechs but I hear that they require a bit more force at the shifter to shift – this could be a good or bad thing depending on your preferences.

Just need to wind in the limit screws (small screws on top of mech ) to restrict the mech movement to the appropriate range and readjust the cable tension so that there’s no slack.

I will never be dealing with Luminous in the future, not because of anything MTQG has said, but because of the attitude that Luminous himself has displayed here. He has persisted in avoiding the real issues in this thread, avoiding any direct questions, and instead gone for the mud-slinging approach. In addition, I wouldn’t want to deal with anyone that doesn’t have internet banking (even my nan has that), or a phone number on their website.

Yeah, a quick google has shown this to be a bad idea. Probably should have been the first port of call rather than here! Just happened to be on here when the question arose.

Cheers.

One cannot have gradations of uniqueness, it either is or is not unique.

Pedant!

Cheers – I’ll be keeping an eye on the usual suspects of ebay and Gumtree.

Don’t know the details of where it was left or why, I’m sure it will be a mistake that won’t be repeated.

Anyone with the opinion that the Peaks are like a trail centre obviously hasn’t experienced everything that the Peaks have to offer.

I love trail centres and I love natural riding, but I love them for different things. I tend to ride mostly natural stuff because it’s a lot closer, but if I had a trail centre close by then I’d probably split my riding between the two types of trail fairly equally. If people only want to ride trail centres then that’s fine by me – I think they’re missing out on some of the best riding in this country but that’s their choice. I don’t see why there has to be any sort of devision or slating of trail centre riders. They certainly provide a great place for introducing people to mountain biking in a relatively safe environment, and are great for honing certain skills that can then be taken out onto natural trails.

I saw that post, but that seems to be for the older style hub. The 2011 uses the ITS4 hub and I’m not sure if the same principle applies – can anyone confirm or deny?

I got bored of Andy Barlow from Dirt School’s efforts to teach me to manual, so I wheelied him square in the nuts!

I still can’t manual as I haven’t spent the required time practicing, but having had some training from Andy I know where I’m going wrong and I realise the balance point is way further back than I had thought.

Singletrack digital subscription is an amazing deal. For £2 a month you get access to all back issues. Privateer also looks good but I’ve never bought it due to the astronomical price – sure the production quality is better than most magazines, but even the digital subscription option is more expensive than most paper mags. Only other magazine I buy regularly is Dirt. MBR has gone the way of MBUK and I can’t be bothered with it any more.

Ah, that’s much clearer!!! :p

I thought I’d ask Gravity Dropper directly, and this was the response I got:

“Because the post is installed backwards there is no weight limit on our seat posts.”

Anyone got any idea what they mean by installed backwards?

Sounds encouraging at least.

Another request for the GPX if you don’t mind – any in the area would be great. Cheers.

markyqt80AThotmailDOTcom

Hmm, that kind of confirms my fears kiwifiz, although I would hope that the Gravity Droppers are a bit better constructed, given their price. I like the excuse for a breather too but my current riding is a bit more up and down and stopping to move the post is getting to be a pain (I hate descending with the post up).

Cheers for the feedback. It’s the fact that I’m restricted to a 27.2 mm post that is giving me second thoughts due to the reduced diameter of the upper part of the post.

I snapped two axles in quick succession when using the Maxle Lite with un unsupported middle section (both replaced free of charge by Hope to their credit). I switched to the original Maxle and haven’t had a problem since. More a design fault of the axle than the hub in my opinion.

I have both and slightly prefer the MX.

Short cage will work with a single ring, no problem. Main advantage is that the shorter cage is less likely to get bashed by rocks, plus it will weigh a bit less.

So I’m going 9x10x2 speed my old SRAM 9-speed setup with a 10-speed Shimano mech on the end. I’d not be putting a 11-36 on the dual ring bikes anyway so the only advantage of 10 speed is the clutch, this way I get that at a fraction of the price, with a little faffing.

Surely that won’t work!