Sobering thought: e-bikes remove your excuse to eat and drink whatever you want before/during/after a ride. Frankly, the only reason I bother pedaling up a hill is so I can eat haribo at the top.

r/BicyclingCircleJerk

(definitely NSFW)

Holyrood 9A, nice place, lots of choice of beer, and delicious burgers to go with it all.

GT came up with the old alloy / carbon fury on their own, and part of the deal was the athertons helping to develop a new DH bike. Thus along comes the aluminum fury, and from that the sanction as well.

Plenty of rumours floating around about a new canyon DH team on a new bike, possibly with Barel involved somewhere. In his pinkbike interview he flat out said he’s not managing a team, but he will be supporting riders and carrying on R&D.

Clean the inside, put a tube patch over it, carry on riding.

Inner tubes. But hey, it’s probably to cover the costs of keeping the LBS going, so that’s ok.

Probably the highest markup in bike shops. Sold for a fiver, trade price is under a quid. Buyers don’t really have a choice, so…..

~800g, Maxxis Beaver 26×2.25 EXO for winter, lighter than I would normally use since speeds in the mud + slop are generally a bit slower.

When summer rolls around it’ll be back to something 900g+, for the alps I’ll use a proper dual ply on the back. Front tyre is pretty much always 800-900, EXO or supergravity casing.

Weight between the wheels, as little braking as possible, but most importantly, get loose and steer with the rear. Here’s what it should look like.

These kind of complaints have been happening for centuries[/url].

Conversation is said to be a lost art … good talk presupposes leisure, both for preparation and enjoyment. The age of leisure is dead, and the art of conversation is dying.

Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly, Volume 29
1890

Our modern family fathering, silent around the fire, each individual with his head buried in his favorite magazine, is the somewhat natural outcome of the banishment of colloquy from the school …

The Journal of Education, Volume 29
1907

LFGSS[/url] knows what’s up.

I use a Kryptonite Fahgettaboudit Mini Lock, because it’s one of the strongest locks out there, and small enough to prevent a leverage attack. Lock your bike up like egb81 says, but know that even the thickest strongest lock available will give up after a couple of minutes with a power tool.

Colours starting to come through in the Tweed Valley

Hope if you’ve got the cash, shimano if you don’t.

Any other manufacturer if you like wasting your time with fruitless maintenance and frustration.

I’ve always done mine with a standard socket. I’m sure a flat one would be better and less likely to round off, but as long as you’re careful it’s not essential.

Gotta be the YT Tues. Carbon, super bling spec, extremely well reviewed, and even comes in at a reasonable price.

I know you said nothing mainstream, but have a look at Dirt’s 2015 best downhill bikes.

Magic Mary or Shorty on the front.

The back is pretty much up to you, I’d say the order from least to most grip is:

HR2
Hans Dampf
DHR 2

but obviously the more grip you have on the rear, the more effort it’s going to be on the road. I really like my DHR 2 as an all-rounder on the back, but it’s not a fast tyre by any means.

That definitely sounds like a poorly aligned frame, as mine has been creak free since day one. It did start to develop a clunk when pushing the rear wheel side to side, but I got all the bearings and bushings replaced, which fixed the issue. All the bearings could still be turned by hand though. It’s done two years of riding in scottish mud and two trips to the alps, and without any seized bearings? I’m impressed.

50 lbs! That makes it a bargain, at just £11 per kilogram!
Also, drum brakes and 24″ front wheel?

Some choice quotes on that website – “they’re built to last using British components and top craftsmanship”

“robust and sturdy town bike”

It wouldn’t even matter if everything is a bizarre standard on it, since no one will ride it long enough for anything on it to break.

No offence, but if you actually had 50psi in your tyres, and weren’t even close to using all of the travel in your fork, then you’ve set your bike up completely wrong.

First of all, get those tyre pressures down to ~25psi at least, maybe higher if you have tubes in and don’t want pinches, or if you’ve got tubeless you could go a little lower.

Then start by setting the sag on your bike properly, try 30% on the rear shock, and 25% on your fork as a starting point. You want it feel controlled, and ideally to come within a few mm of bottoming out on the biggest hits.

If you get a downhill bike, and set it up in the same way as you have with your current bike, it’ll still feel horrible.

Car park test isn’t really a good indication of how they perform out on the trail though.

I’m within a couple of kilos of the same weight, and I have mine at 60psi, one token (though I might put a 2nd one in), 2 or three clicks of compression damping (almost completely open) and 12 clicks from slowest (a little faster than halfway).

At first I couldn’t get them to feel amazing, but my problem was I had too much compression and too slow a rebound – so they packed up and felt harsh over small bumps.

Try putting another token in and lowering the air pressure; the tokens will combat the dive, and the lower pressure will improve sensitivity over faster bumps.

Not a UC sufferer, but I have had (luckily very mild) Crohn’s Disease for the past decade. Pentasa worked for me for a couple of years, but gradually got less and less effective. I found that steroid treatments had some pretty strong side effects, but when I had a flare up nothing else got rid of it faster. Though take everyone’s diet and medication advice with a pinch of salt, as pretty much everyone I talk to with IBD has a different experience/success with different methods and treatments. I never found any diet changes to have any effect. Although weirdly, pepsi makes me feel like I’m about to die, while coke is absolutely fine.

You should be thinking about ways to reduce stress though – I found that at university my bowel health cycled pretty nicely to match with exam season. And if you aren’t already, do go see a specialist. I’m eternally grateful for how the NHS has helped me out though all of it. Good luck with finding a treatment that works for you – I know how unpleasant it can be.

Youtube…run by the people

?????
Tell that to anyone who got a content ID takedown claim.

You do know that downloading music from youtube and soundcloud is basically piracy?

At least on spotify it’s the artist’s choice to have music on there, and they do get paid (a miniscule amount, I will admit, but still more than on the radio).

some training on this kind of lairy tech stuff will stand him in good stead going forward.

Don’t know why he should even bother tbh. He’s sponsored up the wazoo for making videos doing slo-mo freeride flicks and roost shots, so why put in a bunch of training and hard work to still get thrashed by people living out of their van at a race?

Nu-skool geometry would say to go for the longest reach you are comfortable with. Old DH bikes used to be tiny, and you would need to get further back in order to not be ejected over the handlebars. These days the theory says that you have a long reach with short stem and short chainstays. This keeps the steering sharp, yet the bike stable over the rough bits at speed. You can also keep your body weight ‘within’ the bike more, thus weighting the front wheel for better grip.

Steve Jones is a super subscriber to this, hence his love of the Mondraker Summon, the longest bike in the world. Other people are happier with slightly shorter bikes, but it’s personal preference.

Taking a quick look at the geometry charts, a L session is 43cm while an XL is 45, so if you were sticking with a session, go for the XL. You can always put a 35mm stem on it if you want.

Front wheel and stem properly lined up? I know mine felt really horrible when it was out of line, even though it looked ok by eye.

Don’t banshee bikes still do different dropouts so you can put 26″ wheels on?

Edit: beaten by seconds

Knee damage happens from twisting excessive wear. Knee pads wont help stop that.

Nothing is going to stop you twisting your knee though, unless you stop doing sports altogether.

Everyone in this thread says “I didn’t wear pads and I gashed/scraped/bashed/gouged/bruised my knee” – ie. stuff kneepads do stop.

I wear mine 100% of the time, whether it’s cruising in the pentlands or sliding down the golfy. I’ve got some IXS flows, a medium level of protection with a mesh back. They don’t bother me when climbing, and I’ve never hurt my knee while wearing them, despite a couple of nasty crashes in the alps that saw the rest of my body fairly battered.

Comfortable, and no battered knees on even silly stationary topples – what’s not to like?

BTR belter is the only one I can think of, but that’s 157×12.

For those who have the cyclocross frame, what are the clearances like front and rear? Seriously looking at one of these for a do it all off-road + commute type bike, but would like something that would take 40c tyres and mudguards at the same time.

Your old 32s had an a/c of 521mm, while at 160mm 36s have an a/c of 545mm. To get the same total stack height you’ll need to drop the travel by 20mm and lose a 5mm spacer from under your stem or run a few % more sag.

If you’ve put the spacer there then you will have definitely dropped the a/c height, but it’ll still be 15mm taller than your old forks.

Spacer goes there, it’s a seriously easy job and definitely does reduce a/c height. I lowered my 2012 (ish) 36 floats by 20mm and it drops the amount of stanchion showing by, surprise surprise, 20mm.

The other thing is, what forks did you have before? Old 36s have massive a/c heights, so a 160mm 36 is much taller than a 150mm 32 or revelation. Worth checking to get the stack height where you want it.

Like Nobeer said, I’ve ridden with mine all over the tweed valley last winter and never noticed it being any better or worse over roots than a super tacky minion. I’m running mine tubeless at about 23 psi. You could try a vigilante or magic mary though. Neither quite as good in pure mud, but work better in more mixed conditions.

Depends a little on whether you want a compact or standard.
I haven’t done this myself, but I’ve read on the internet that you can just dial in the limit screws on the front mech and still use the triple shifter. Just make sure to put the new smallest ring on the same click as the old smallest ring of your triple, that way you get the most adjustments on your shifter.

Road triples have a 130 bcd on the middle ring, so you’re stuck with 39 tooth smallest gear. Better to just buy a new crankset, especially since shimano ones can do both compact or standard on the same cranks.

Have to agree that triples are useless (unless you’re touring with a heavy loaded bike). Smallest gear is far too spinny, and 39 – 50 has way too much overlap.

It’s the trail marked in black, the green line is the national park boundary. Still probably on the cheekier side of things, but most walkers seem to stick to the national park, since the end of the trail drops you out in the middle of nowhere with a long walk back. It’s all downhill for bikes though, so that works just fine. It’s the 2nd half that’s the best bit anyway, so maybe if you took the other fireroad to get to it?

There was a sign at the start of it that said no bikes last week, but we still rode it anyway. We figured that it meant no bikes inside the national park, and since we were skirting it we could get away with it. There were quite a few people on the opening flat section, but once it dropped into ultra tech there was absolutely no one around.

Still a massive shame, it’s an incredible trail, a total experience in a very accessible way. Chapel trail was never that good anyway though, so no great loss there.

I remember the 322 disappeared off the site for a short while and they’re still selling that, so it might not be the end for the alpine 5.

I think the Taro was the old Honzo, but in Al and with a cheaper component spec. Now they’ve simplified the lineup by getting rid of the Taro and just having the Honzo in your choice of material. The geometry of the two was pretty similar, the Honzo has shorter chainstays and more standover though.

It’s nice to see a simpler hardtail range where you just pick a material and price tag that you would like, and they all have the same geometry

Would think that the Ti Honzo would find a few fans around here.

I persevered with superstar kevlar for ages just because of how cheap they were, but finally went back to shimano sintered pads and they’ve been so much better. Last much longer and don’t have a hideous constant squeal no matter what the conditions are. More expensive, but I think its probably worth it because their lifespan is a lot longer.

I tried uberbike ones as well and found that in the alps the heat got rid of the noise, but they glazed immediately and then never had any bite to them.

Expensive bike with no lock, maybe. Expensive bike with inadequate lock, can’t see that as entrapment whatsoever.

“As understood in UK criminal law, for a person to fall foul of entrapment, a law enforcement agent would have induced a person to commit an offence that otherwise they would have had no intention to commit. “

The police simply providing a means for you to commit a crime – not entrapment. You’d have a tough time convincing a jury that any reasonable, law-abiding person would have taken an unlocked bike.

For example, If an undercover officer comes to you and says that they are in deep debt with a loan shark and their life is danger, and that they have to have your help to steal a bike. During that process you could argue they overcame your initial reluctance, then that would count as entrapment.