I’ve recently built up a Blue Pig with Fox 36 TALAS.
I love it in 130mm for most riding and 160mm if I’m in the mood. Works brilliantly in either mode.

I did it recently with a wooden mallet and a block of wood underside giving a nice solid support. It’s so ridiculously easy, it wants to go in straight. Just take your time. I then cut the steerer with a hacksaw and a reversed stem as a guide and installed the star nut with a bit of metal rod that was in my tool box.
Saved myself the quoted £44 from my lbs, got it done that evening (took 1hr to do everything) and gained satisfaction from a job well done.

It was fine.
Rode Pitch/Winterfold and all really nice except for the bit which joins onto the top of Supernova. It’s full of dips and they were full of puddles. Supernova was in fact puddled on the berms but a bit of daring enabled most of the water to be avoided by staying high on the berms.
Had a smashing day. Ended up on the steep side of Pitch watching a national standard downhiller hucking ridiculous air over gap jumps – am talking clear a mini-bus hight here (and looking chilled about it). So cool to see the other end of the spectrum from my usual xc biased viewpoint.
We manned up a bit on the trails back to the carpark after seeing this.

I got so fed up with replacing mine (4 in a year = £100) that I bought a hollotec slx crankset complete with shimano BB for £100 and it’s still running smooth a year later.

Sorry to hear it Boris. I did sign up and am dissapointed it’s not going to happen but hey ho I enjoyed the training.
Do you think that the fact it was later in the year this time was a factor? If it’d been mid sept this year it would have been glorious. Any chance of trying again nearer the summer solstice next year?
I think Bedge is a fantastic venue and is suprisingly all weather now due to the massive effort that has gone into trail building recently. It’d be nice to get a sponsor interested and get the event on the map (I’m sure you’ve been trying to do this!)
Anyway, please don’t be too dispirited.

On the longer sections I have a stopwatch running to give me split times and confirm the gps time afterwards. I only really glean satisfaction from the segments that are whole trails eg Bedgebury red route which takes a little over half an hour.

After all these dusty trails I donned my wet weather gear and embraced 6 hours of gruelling riding in torrential rain.
Loved it.

I’ll second that

Ok Ive had enough!
Everyone wants to go faster, it’s inbuilt. Have you ever heard anyone say: I wish I could do that section slower? No, of course not.
Racing, Strava, trying to beat your mate (male or female) up a hill or down a trail, trying to sneak a move on that tricky corner is all part of being a human. Celebrate it.
Moan about Strava/your faster mate or get out and push yourself to be better.
Or watch x-factor.

Your choice.

But don’t moan when I kick your arse (I don’t begrudge getting my arse similarly kicked)

Finished my Blue Pig x last weekend. Put 36 Talas on it and 1×9. Had so much fun since then, it absolutely rips. Took it to Peaslake and spent 6 hours riding everything I knew but FASTER, Bike just screams – rag me!I love it dearly.
Interesting to note that I ran it at 130mm most of the day, 160mm seemed unessesary. Other great thing is that I could drop the saddle all the way to the top tube at the summit of each hill enabling more childlike behavior on the way down.
P.S. How great is Supernova? I’m loving that trail at the moment.

You can buy a spacer pack from yout lbs for about £1.50 that contains a few washers from wafer thin to about 1mm. Worked well for me.

It’s like anything:

Guy with fast dog on his tail shredding the trail – brilliant, he’ll get a whoop.

Mincer with daft hound – will recieve a muttering as I pass.

Same as bimbler with slow mates v’s rad, hardcore riders.

Law of the jungle innit?

Upgrade. Yup that was who told me to look on the internet. Only being facetious; I wanted the above fork in tapered and white. I think they have 1 black one left.
I think stock is limited at the moment as favourable reviews have increased demand.
Good for them.

Really beautiful vid. 10/10

I gave up looking when I emailed the distributor and was told to “try the internet”.

What a plonker! Last time I went into that shop about a year ago they sold me a Deore 9 speed cassette for about £60. I took it back the next day when I realised I’d been diddled (was new to mtb then). As I was working locally I thought surely they could sort me out a star nut without any bother.

igrf.
Nice to hear from you again.

Grawp

Thanks again. Properly helpful.

Integral 1 1\8th top and integral 1.5 bottom?

Damn this is confusing!

Thanks guys

Thank you cakefacesmallblock. Nice of you to inject a little science.

I think you’ve missed the point davidtaylforth!

Would something like a 130mm Recon be a better choice then? It’s easy to mentally escalate how knarly your bike is going to be.
I want to use it for things ranging from North Downs to Welsh mountains and for doing some jumping.

I really want to be able to drop the travel approx 30mm for climbing

I remember an article where a team rider for Hope used a single lever with a splitter to both brakes.

If not I’d have thought something like a Nic with those wide centre blocks would be good for stopping. Whatever the tyre, running the widest at the lowest pressure would help.

Or ride a fixie or get back peddle brakes. There’s usually a solution.

Thanks fellas. I’ll give them a go.

Love the idea of that Rev. Reviews pretty damming though.

I don’t mind spending more on say a Revalation, but I do want instant height drop rather than the u-turn type on Rockshox. As far as I know I’d have to get a Fox for that and circa £750 is too much to spend on this bike.

BTW the bike is to be a play bike with big tyres etc to compliment my Scott Scale race bike.

I don’t want to buy second hand as I’ve done that twice now and always get a rather worn out product.

Indeed they do.

gee – Member

Rollindoughnut – sounds like you might need to chill out a bit. One call is enough, they know you’re there…

I think I’m alright. I’m really polite and no-one has ever had a go at me for my passing. I just enjoy coming up behind people and saying ‘on your left/right please’, makes me feel fast.

I definately think people should bear in mind that a lot of the riders who are gunning it find it difficult to string any sort of sentence together at some points. I laughed on the first lap as some hardcore fella tried to say ‘on your left’ during one of the initial climbs; it came out sort of ‘mmmmwraghffff’!

The more I race the less offence I take, it’s all part of the game.

I’m always polite when asking to pass and usually am very impressed how quickly people get out the way. The effusiveness of my thank you is usually in proportion to how off the racing line the other rider has got. If someone doesn’t move over at a suitable point then I think a firmer command is justifed. I have to admit liking the feeling of doing a dominant overtake, I’m mild mannered in normal life so enjoy getting a bit macho on the course. Sorry, but that’s how it is.

Don’t forget the kissy lady! We won the mixed team and got treated like superstars. Thanks to the sponsers (Leyzene, Chapeau) for the amazing prizes and to the organisers and marshals for putting on a great event. It was such a fantastic end to a day of riding with my mates on wicked singletrack.
My family came down too and they thought the atmosphere, coffee and cake were superb.

I generally agree with the stack it sentiment, but personally think that time spent fettling the bike before the ride can negate most mechanical problems occuring.
Don’t you agree that there is so often a frustrated comment about a snapped chain ruining a ride? Why not try to prevent that happening?

I’ll let you get back to your shopping…

When you get old like me, irritation and smugness will come to you naturally.

One of the things that prompted me to post is riding with a mate who doesn’t change gear on a hill until it’s too late than crashes and bangs the shift whilst swearing about how shit the gears are. He never cleans, checks, replaces any of the drivetrain and we often have to endure a period of fettling on a timestrapped evening ride because of it.
Perhaps more should be made of decent maintenance/shifting technique rather than the usual shopping channel discussions on here.

EDIT: It’s always me who has to do the fettling!

It was awsome. On Ralphs and they were fine albeit at a pretty low pressure.

After riding Gorrick 100 at Swinley during a similar period of miserable weather on mud-x which were a bonus for all of 20 metres of the course, I’ve just put Ralphs on for Sunday.
Bike looks all summery now. Thank you!

I did some well rocky mountain descents on my new bike with 600mm bars but with bar ends and foam grips that came loose and slid in to the brake leavers so prob less than 560mm. Survived that ok and now my 660mm bars on old bike seem silly wide.

I just bought a second hand 26″ race bike. Weighs 20lbs. For the same money I could have bought a new 28lbs 29er. I’ll take my chances.
Also I like zipping around like a broken firework; don’t care if it’s slower, it’s more fun.