Yeah the new one, got a hope 4led on the bars and need a small light for the helmet. Was just going to buy a joystick but this looked interesting esp with the Uk warranty

Light link

It’s a baby magicshine, and magicshine.co.uk have the older xpe light for £40, but spokeshirts only seem to have the newer xpg. Lumens quoted seems a bit high for 1 led so presuming output will be same as the latest joystick, but it’s that 5 hour run time and lower price that makes the cable battery acceptable.

Bit optimistic asking yesterday but had my Christmas money infront of me.

Anybody got one for Xmas or views?

Best – mtb pogies (see earlier thread)

Worst – non – got my winter set up finally dialed

My proto-types pogies arrived from Ray from the e bay link above (or type in http://www.hotpog.co.uk and it will take you through to the e bay page) – just in time for the regular Wednesday night ride. They fitted well on the bars using a mix of velcro and zip and they are nice and secure, got them in stealth black they still look a bit ‘special’ having two huge gloves attached to your bars but not too bad (after all they are there for a reason not to look good). Ray has done a great job and all the stitching and material looked substantial and well made.

Firstly I suffer from very bad Reynaud’s so struggle hugely in the winter with my hands and feet, to the point that sometimes I just can’t ride. I’ve tried every glove combo and just about struggle through, but its painful and does effect my riding (feet I found the solution last year – I did have a pair of Shimano winter boots but my feet still froze – I replaced them with another pair of Shimano winter boots but 3 sizes too big – with big socks now have toasty feet due to all the room).

Last nights ride was cold probably around -3 ish, but cold enough that for the first time I’ve seen Rivelin Valley river in Sheffield was frozen over bank to bank in some areas (not just the ponds but the river itself!) .

Tried the pogies first with a near summer weight glove (windstopper but no insulation) – with another 3 pairs of gloves of varying weight in my bag – just in case. The pogies were outstanding from the off set, they create a little micro climate for your hands and obviously your hands are not exposed to the wind, so once your brake lever warms up my hands were spot on, warm and very comfortable for the entire ride

Benefits are huge I think, worst thing about full on winter gloves is that you lose the feel and connection with the bars, with the pogies I can go for a super thin palmed glove for maximum feel and still have warm hands.

Downsides – they are super easy to get in an out off, and I think they would be fine in the vast majority of crashes, but over the bar crashes could be restrictive but I’d still happily ride super technical trails in them. They have an elastic part round the wrist for a closer fit and although it’s loose could do with being a little looser for bigger gloves to aid getting in and out (but that’s a small down – and they were fine with thin gloves – i’ll be feeding back to Ray anyway). Oh…..and they do look a little ‘special’, but I’m totally sold as the benefits esp. for me or anybody else with bad Reynaud’s are huge. I think the pogies with a two part thin glove like the Fox antifreeze would cover all the bases.

Must say Ray is a top, top guy to deal with over the email and phone, he makes all the stuff himself so any tweaks or special requested will be easy to do and the result is a quality well made product at a very reasonable price.

5th – the lx’s are really good cameras and untouchable in the compact world (as the G series are not compacts or as good). 95% of shots you would not know the difference unless viewed at 100% (but who does that).

But I love my slr and need that step up for those 5% of shots in a small camera. As much as people on here bitch about mirrorless cameras, you can’t ride hard with a full size slr (esp when its straped to your chest!!) and mirrorless will give you the slr sized sensor which makes all the difference for A4/3 prints and long exposures (and high iso – which you don’t need if you have a fast lens)

Oh – about shooting indoors and under tree cover – the fast lens compared to other compacts means you can use the lower iso settings more in dark shots and still keep the shutter speed up. I use up to iso 400 but would not go higher, but generally don’t need to go above 200.

Hey up Paul,

I love my lx3 totally blown away with the results on the whole esp love the 24mm wide angle super fast lens, and it’s very responsive. It and the lx5 are the best compact you can buy. You can have a look at my shots no probs. But and it’s a small but, it struggles on long exposures esp when I was trying to take cloud inversion sunrise pics earlier in the year,wished I had my d80. Even though it only struggles on 5% of shots, I’m thinking about selling it for a nex-5 with 16mm lens, not fussed about the prime lens rather than a zoom as it will be fine for biking and landscape shots. They are amazing value at the moment with the vat back offer, they are hard to beat and IMO better than the GF1 due to the lack of wide angle lenses.

Eth3er – you have to post up a link where to buy that beanie!!

Can’t seem to find that particular one on the urban jacks site, is from a different website?

Did you get the bar mitts direct from the US or from the UK?

How much did they work out with postage if you got them from the states?

Any news from the eBay chap – who was going to make some custom ones from the canoeing ones as a starting template?

Just had super quick delivery of odd sized spokes from these guys:

http://www.sdeals.com

MrTall – Def not cheap enough on the bb7 but then the rrp is £75 each. Heard lots of bad stories about bb5s so hopefully worth the extra. Certainly look nice out of the box, bit surprised about how heavy they are, but I’m running with campag record ergo so no options.

If the Gryphon rides as well as it looks, I’ll def be a chuffed man.

Any more for any more…….

I’m just finishing my singular gryphon, picked up the frame s/h so cheaper but not cheap, transferred a lot of kit off my road bike. But it’s been more expensive than I thought, esp the brakes avid bb7 road calipers are Soooooooo expensive! £120 just for the calipers – I only paid that for a full set of m775 xt disc brakes!

But on the flip side it looks amazing, should be super versatile (got 4 tours planned already next year) and hopefully fun, fun, fun – will tell that next weekend when it’s hopefully finished.

That’s one, how many more?

Andy – who are you not happy with superstar or royal mail?
Sounds like superstar did there job quick enough and now your pads are in the huge backlog of royal mail parcels. Which obviously you now have to wait for royal mail terms and conditions to apply if they are missing which they are probably not but just stuck in the snow.

Chill out man, some of us have a couple if hundred pounds worth of bits waiting to be delivered (others thousands most probably)……..

You cant fault the Bonty RXL rims from Ebay – Wide, light and look just as strong as Mavic/Stans offerings. Just built a pair onto DT240s hubs I got cheap for my Singular Gryphon. Which hopefull you will finished as soon as the snow clears so Royal Mail can bring me the last of my goodies.

For those who are interested.

I took the plunge and ordered from Eric at Epic/revelate designs.

After a bit of a mix up (Eric is a great chap to deal with) I got the final bit of my order through. The thought that has gone into his stuff is top notch and the quality is amazing and totally bombproof. I would totally recommend his stuff. Shame I have to wait till Christmas day to properly get my hands on the stuff.

It’s going to be a good year, next year for adventures and bikepacking :D

13th floor – I was planning on the Kearvaig bothy rather than the Strathcailleach even if the cat bothy does sound ace.

Bigjim – just checked your profile and cant see your email. Can you email me

Cheers

Mmmmmm…….Pie

YGM Bigjim

Sticking to the coast roads to try and ensure a breeze and May has always been for me far, far, better than June/July.

Going mid May – so midges should be okay. Only found them a prob once into June onwards

Was looking at the map last night and marking up more ‘must see’ places. Def doing the bothy at Cape Wrath

We’ve decided to add Orkney onto the trip now with a few days over that way.

Now thinking about wild camping spots:

– any recomendations of any lovely spots to pitch out the tent up that way?

Any idea why they are not as powerful? They look like they have the same actuating arm but I know they have smaller pads maybe?

Balls – it’s not hard at all.

It’s only hard if you rush or don’t understand what and why you have don’t what you’ve done.

After 10 rides before you even touch any settings so you can understand the stock settings and why they are stock.

In 20 mins all you should have done nothing!!

Ride a trail you know well, adjust ONE dial one or two notches, carry on riding, doenst feel right go back to the previous setting, feels better try another notch. Patience is a virtue, so they say……

Everything depends on You and how You ride. The stock setting are a good starting point, read the unbelievably good manual, ride the stock settings for at least 10 rides then have a play The setting make enough of a difference when you change them you know so just do one at a time.

Btw aim for at least 35%+ sag on the Five for full effect of the ccdb

The Sakura is a lovely frame though. I know I own one :o)

Cool, advice noted and idea thrown in bin.

Not really bothered about this and that lumens and bitching. Commuting light like the Tesco 2xAA it can’t be hard…….

Pushing big gears is no way to ride and very bad technique. Very bad for muscle development to esp in young people.

That’s why they restrict (or at least used to) the gearing ratios on junior and youth road races so you can’t push a big gear.

So funny to watch an evening 10 tt race and watch all the bods trying to grind out a huge gear on there posh carbon tt bikes and not getting any faster times than I used to on my none tri-bared road bike 15 years ago.

Spinning is def the way forward!

90 on the road. Off road a cadence computer is useless

Pickers – Outer Hebrides bike tour 18 months ago was the best holiday I’ve ever had. Enjoy

Whole top of Scotland for me and the gf. Black Isle, Ullapool, inverlochy, Durness, JoG and back to the Black Isle all wild camping.

Plus the Coast to Coast as a warm up.

Shopping on the web last night and still can’t decide.

Other than weight are the marathon supremes that much better than the standard marathons? I do like comment above about how fast the feel thought. A non-draggy tyre is a must.

There seems to be about 20 different versions of both the marathons and the vittoria randonnuer. Most of the vittorias seem very heavy too – although they do posh one that looks similar to the supreme.

Ideally I would like them to be over 30c as they are going on a tourer built with 29er mtb wheels and road discs But don’t want them to be to draggy either.
I find gatorskins not much of a comprise over race tyres on the road bike so they appeal (or 4 seasons) but only go to 28c so because I have the clearance don’t mind 30c + for comfort as long as they don’t hold me back.

That is amazing Over Active it’s a 27.2 seatpost so crosses 2 sizes on the chart.

If you email me (email in profile as I can’t see yours). I can see a well stocked mountain rescue box next time when I’m in the Lakes in a few weeks (always like to keep them well stocked over the years – came close to calling out the mountain rescue a few years ago after a climbing incident -got down without them but showed me personally the value of even having the option there!!)

Cheers again

Matt – to be honest a plastic coated P clip looks a lot better than that

Over active – they seem good. Are they plastic? If so are they strong? Might just well take you up on the offer if I can’t find any easily

Think I’ll see what Fishers say on Monday.

I am no stranger to stripping forks but will see what the importers say first.

Cheers Matt but even with the new spring it’s cheaper than solo airs.