Thanks. Just popped on the Nobby Nic tubeless tyres that I bought with these and they went on ok with bare hands, which was a relief. Got a tube in there now to stretch them. Also got the Stans kit, with rim tape, valves and gunk, but can I really be bothered to peel off that green tape and clean up the glue? Seems silly to sell a wheel but a tubeless rim and go to the effort of glueing on a rim strip that isn’t up to the job.

Had a quick google on the EX rime and they do indeed appear to be stronger. Not sure how much heavier they are than the standard Flows, but stronger is probably better for me. I’m getting more into riding remote natural Scottish mountain trails so reliability is probably more important than low weight (although both are good of course).

Cheers

Andy

The 800 has ANT+ So, presumably, you can upload to Garmin Connect wirelessly using an iPad then. Can you also go the other way i.e. put a course from Garmin Connect onto the 800 via an iPad?

Cheers,

Andy

Don’t bother. Half of the things you do end up causing more harm than good by trapping moisture where you don’t want it and anyway you need to wreck your bike over the winter. How else will you justify a shiny new one come the Spring.

Cheers,

Andy

OK, if you must, a simpler winter bike and some guards should do the job.

Thanks for all the positive (and negative) comments. I guess a comparison of a sub £1K hardtail with a nearly £2K full suss isn’t fair, but that’s my main frame of reference so I can’t really help making those comparisons. Also, some of the stuff you read in the press makes you think that 29ers are some magical new development that totally transforms a bike into something much better. As far as I could tell from a single ride the Carve feels pretty much like you’d expect a sub £1K hardtail to feel like.

I’m keeping an open mind for now though. While I didn’t feel any dramatic advantage to the bigger wheels I didn’t have any great objection to it either. Maybe the advantages will outweigh the disadvantages in the end, but I think it will be closer than I was expecting.

It will be interesting to see how the times compare on my usual routes although I’m not quite sure why speed is considered so important with mountain bikes (unless you are racing of course). If I want to ride fast I’ll ride my road bikes. Off road trips, for me, are measured in time rather than distance and a four hour trip is a four hour trip. I’m not sure it would be any more fun just because I went 10% further. But, as I say, I’ll reserve judgement for now.

Cheers,

Andy

Ok, thanks. Maybe flows and some adapters might be safer all round then :-)

Cheers

Andy

Thanks Folks,

Seems to a slight difference of opinion on whether Crests are up to the job, but I’ve just spotted that Dave Hinde sells Arch EX rims on Hope Pro 2 Evo hubs and you can specify any adapter you want for front and rear, so that may be the way to go.

I see that the liquid only stays liquid for 2-7 months in a tyre. So, do you have to squirt more in every few months? If so, how do you know when to do this and what happens to all the old (presumably now solid) liquid?

Cheers,

Andy

Thanks.

The Wiggle deal says that you get 15mm adapters with the Crests and 20mm with the Flows. Obviously I could just buy the 15mm adapters separately, but some of the reviews suggested that Crests could take a lot of abuse and obviously lighter is better. Seems as though it might be a false economy though.

Cheers,

Andy

OK, panic over. Not that I was concerned of course :-) The stuff arrived today. So, I’m happy to confirm that trek88 appears to be a man of his word and I’m sorry if my message seemed to imply anything to the contrary.

Cheers,

Andy

I think the 800 uses barometric pressure to estimate amount of climbing, which is much more accurate than GPS estimates. The fact that the elevation of your start point changes with changes in atmospheric pressure doesn’t really matter as the amount of climbing depends on changes in height. However, if the pressure changes during your ride (i.e. a low or high pressure front moves through) then this could cause it to under or over estimate the amount of climbing. In which case the amount of climbing and descending would normally be different (unless you got really unlucky). So, if you start and finish at the same point, you can just check that total climb and total descent match.

Cheers,

Andy

I picked up a copy in an airport a few months ago. I enjoyed it, but it seemed to be an American rather than a British mag. Maybe it was just that edition though. I’ll probably give it another go.

If £9 is the price to pay for fewer adverts that’s fine by me. It’s not so much that I object to seeing adverts in a mag though. It’s more that any magazine that is heavily dependant on advertising revenue is hardly going to be unbiased. If £9 means that they can say what they think and not just what they think the advertisers want them to say then it’s worth the cover price to me.

Cheers,

Andy

I guess I’m thinking that, if I do it, I’d do it “properly” i.e. tubeless rims and tyres, rather than try and bodge something with my existing wheels/tyres (which seems to be when most people run into problems). Most of the stuff I’ve read seems to imply that proper tubeless tyres and rims are a pretty tight fit. But maybe I’m just not reading it right.

Cheers,

Andy

I’m also toying with tubeless after getting 4 pinch flats on a descent off Ben Rinnes on Sunday. I thought I’d got the pressures pretty high as well but those water bars are a bugger and I can’t jump for toffee. So, the temptation to buy my way out of the problem by going tubeless is definitely there. What puts me off is the difficulty of effecting a repair when it does go wrong in the wild (as it is bound to at some point).

Popping a new tube in (or sticking some patches on when I ran out of tubes) was a pain, but actually pretty quick. What I don’t want is to be stuck miles from nowhere in the cold/dark/rain/sleet etc trying to get a tyre off a rim with a couple of bits of plastic while I slowly catch my death.

Cheers,

Andy

I know what you mean. I’ve barely ridden my road bikes this year, since getting the MTB, but I still wouldn’t consider selling them all. Maybe downsize the fleet a little in my case, but if you enjoyed road riding once then chances are that you’ll re-discover it sometime.

Cheers,

Andy

Thanks Folks,

It was that “put the mountains into mountain biking” thread that got me thinking about riding some of the bigger hills around here.

I found a couple of routes on Carn Ban Mor on the MTBTrails site, so I’ll put them on the list to tackle one day, thanks.

Glad it’s not just me who finds those water bars on Ben Rinnes tough. I’ve been popping over water bars on Bennachie for a few months and thought I’d got the hand of them, but four punctures on one short descent would suggest otherwise.

Cheers,

Andy

OK, so that still leaves three that I could ride :-)

Seriously, thanks that’s useful to know. I’ve hiked a few munros, but find it pretty hard to judge what they’d be like on a bike. Not that I’m particularly wedded to munros. Just fancy dong a few more proper hills, but Ben Rinnes is probably a good guide as to the technical level that I’d be comfortable with. Obviously a bigger mountain would take longer, which is fine, but wouldn’t fancy anything much steeper.

Cheers

Andy,

Shimano UN72 still does the job and seems to be widely available.

Cheers

Andy

Had the soft shell for 5 Scottish Winters now and it’s still going strong. To re-proof, just wash in Nikwax Tech Wash then TX direct. Good as new.

Cheers,

Andy

Interesting topic and as a roadie recently into mountain bikes I’m also interested in whether all this stuff that magazines and internet fora obsess about actually matter.

The analogies with fine wine and food don’t really hold. Whether you enjoy a wine of not depends mainly on the wine. You might be influenced a bit by your surroundings at the time, but it’s mainly the wine that matters. With a bike the opposite is true. The bike is actually quite a small part of whether you enjoy a bike ride or not. The trail, weather, company etc can all be equally important. So it’s much less clear whether small differences in the feel of the ride matter.

I’m currently riding a 2012 Trance with modern Maestro suspension, but was interested enough in this question to pick up an old (2006) Orange 5 frame, which I’ll build up for a bit of fun. I don’t need two trail bikes and one (or maybe both) will go at the end of the test, but I’ll be interested to see whether I can actually feel a difference between the modern multi link and the older single pivot bike and more importantly, whether I care about those differences.

Cheers,

Andy

Can’t help here, but was rather surprised to get the digital version of this month’s mag for free. Bought a paper copy last month, which came with one month of free access to the MagArchive and this month’s edition appeared before that expired. So, two for one. Not bad.

Cheers,

Andy

Front Hub is a Giant own brand thing (which is why I’m not too fussed about subjecting it to the winter). So, I guess the only forks that will work with these are Fox. Gotta love all these “standards”.

Cheers,

Andy

Now that’s the sort of condition I’d expect my winter bike to be in :-)

My frame came with an RP23 shock, if that makes any difference. Sounds as though 130 or 140 would be ideal and I’d really like to use my existing wheels, so I’m afraid those 20mm Maxle forks wont work TheGingerOne. Thanks for the offer though.

Funny how some people love these bikes and some hate them, but I guess that’s probably true for most bikes. There must be somebody who hates a Trance, I’ve just never heard from them :-)

Cheers,

Andy

Thanks (and blag away). If 130mm is ideal then it’s even more tempting to see if there is any way to use my existing 125mm Fox forks from my Trance. I’ve heard about external bottom cups (Hope?) that will take the 1.5″ bottom end and even though the top of the steerer is 1.25″ rather than 1.125″ I understand that Giant use a “standard” head tube size at the top and just incorporate a thinner bearing. So I wonder if there is any way to make this work.

Cheers,

Andy

Thanks. The Pikes look interesting, but use a 20mm axle so I guess they wont work with my 15mm QR wheels. I guess I need to stick with Fox and look for 130mm or 140mm travel.

Cheers,

Andy

Thanks, at least there are two of us then :-)

Wow… I can just about understand why people would think 2 similiar bikes rode much the same, though I’d disagree. But a Five and a Superlight? Crazy talk frankly.

As far as most people on the planet are concerned there are things that are bikes and things that aren’t. The number of people who would accept that you need a different bike for road and offroad riding is already quite small. The number that care about the difference between a Five and a Superlight? Well, they are probably all on this forum.

I’d agree that people who love riding bikes can feel the difference between different bikes. But even then I’m not sure it matters. As long as the bike is half way capable then my enjoyment depends a lot more on the trail, the conditions and on how I’m feeling than any subtle differences in the way the bike handles.

That doesn’t mean that all bikes are equally good but it does mean that other factors (such as who made it, where and how etc) are just as important (to me at least) as tiny differences in how it feels. Especially since they are almost always compromises i.e. bike X is better than bike Y at doing A, but is not as good at doing B.

Cheers,

Andy

Thanks for the advice. It sounds as though I might as well just ride with it until it dies. I always carry a little led head torch anyway, for punctures etc, which would get me home at a push.

One of the things I used to like about Lumicycle is that they didn’t keep changing things every year, so maybe I can get an LED lamp to fit my existing battery. If not I guess I just need to buy a new HID unit. Might be worth carrying one of those anyway.

Cheers,

Andy

I booked my Trance (with its F125RL forks) in for a service next week, but being the curious soul I am I couldn’t resist a tinker over the weekend. I turned the bike upside down and let all the air out, along with a lot more than 5ml of greenish oil that came out too. Pumped it back to 65psi and took it for a ride. The forks felt fine (they always have) but if anything it was using less of the travel. Probably just because I was actually running at 50psi last week.

I’m 11st 11lb (165 lb) in my birthday suit and 60% would be around 100psi. So I’m running at not much more than half the recommended pressure and still not getting more than three quarters of the travel.

Of course it could just be that I’m a hopeless mincer, but the rear shock is running at 170psi (i.e. the recommended 100% of body weight) and the ring is pretty much always off the bottom of the shock after a ride.

I realise that all these body weight based settings are just a starting point and you should use sag, but getting an accurate sag measurement isn’t that easy. Mu best guess (from multiple readings) is that I have around 20% sag on the rear and 30% on the front, yet still bottom out the rear and never use more than 75% of travel on the front.

Cheers,

Andy

Stating the obvious, but EBC do stock the Giant Anthem 29er (and presumably some other full suss 29ers besides). I got pretty good service from them when I bought my Trance earlier in the week (sorted out a demo bike for me etc) and of course, they have their 15% off sales a few times a year, which reduces the hit on the wallet somewhat.

Cheers,

Andy

It’s worth looking at the “extra” premium quite carefully though. I’ve stuck with Direct line as the overall premium is relatively low and they’ve been very good when we have made claims in the past, which is just as important to me as the cost to be honest. No point paying a cheap premium if they don’t pay out when you need them.

Anyway, back to the point, I reckon that I’m unlikely to get a high value bike nicked any more often than once every ten years. So, if it’s going to cost me 10% of the value to insure the bike I’d rather just keep the money and accept that I may have to buy a new bike one day.

Cheers,

Andy

Thanks, sure did. I was a bit of a dropper sceptic to be honest. I felt OK descending with the seat up, until I tried the alternative.

Cheers,

Andy

I don’t get that Dirt comparison. The numbers just seem to show that both riders were faster on the second set of runs than the first. In one case that meant the 29er was faster and for the other rider the 26″ bike seemed faster. But most likely the conditions (weather, trail or whatever) were just better. Or am I reading t wrong?

Cheers,

Andy

Had my first proper ride with the Specialized command post yesterday. Thanks Tracey, it works a treat. I’m the sort of lazy sod who can rarely (if ever) be bothered to get off just to drop the saddle, so I’d mostly been riding with one height. I had tried dropping it when I knew there was a long descent, which made me realize how much easier it is to move your weight about with the seat out of the way. But most of the natural trails that I ride have lots of short downhill sections and I just couldn’t be bothered to drop the saddle and raise it again. But with the dropper that’s just not an issue and I was knocking it down for most downhill sections, which really helped with the flow.

Cheers,

Andy

Oh dear. You see, that’s why you shouldn’t go on ebay after a few drinks. I don’t need a new bike, my Trance is ideal for the sort of riding I do, but it would appear that I’ve bought an Orange 5 frame !!

The seller mentioned tat it was bought in 2008, but it has a straight top tube, so ‘m guessing that it’s a 2006 model. So, what to do with it.

I could just stick it back on ebay. I’m bound to make a loss as I paid too much, but I can just chalk that up to experience. However, since I’ve got it I guess I could source a few parts and build it up as a winter bike. Save all those little bearings on the Trance from getting trashed.

So, anybody know what fork I should stick on this (for general, natural, trail riding around Scottish hills in the winter)?

I guess I’m gong to have to get my head around all the “standards” for headsets, bottom brackets and brake mounts that seem to have multiplied alarmingly since last I built a bike.

Cheers,

Andy

Thanks. The oil that came out when I let the air out was certainly green and not blue, so I guess that’s pretty conclusive.

Since the bike is only a few months old I guess I should take it back to the shop and get them to take a look. But that means being without it for a while and I’ve got a shed full of tools (plus more years than I care to mention spent messing with road bikes), so it’s tempting to take a look myself.

Cheers,

Andy

OK, I guess I’ll have to concede that there is more to suspension design than just pumping it up a bit more :-) The problem is that, much as I admire people who try to push the envelope of what’s possible with bike design, I’m naturally a cynical fellow and tend to believe that virtually everything is just marketing BS unless proved otherwise. Guess I’ll just have to test some of these bikes out sometime and make my own mind up. Still, interesting to read the comments in the meantime.

Cheers,

Andy

I’m running the Fox F125RL forks on my (2012) Trance at around 60psi which is well below the 60% weight guideline that was mentioned. Even then I never get the last inch of travel.

Last ride I was bimbling along the trail minding my own business when I went trough a puddle. It looked no different to the dozen other puddles I’d just gone through, but the front wheel sunk into the mud, hit a rock and I was thrown over the bars. Ironically I had a set of knee pads in my pack, which I was carrying for use on a section later in the ride when I thought I might crash! but I digress. Once I’d picked myself up and dusted myself down my first thought was “that should have used the travel at least”. But no, there the O ring sat, mocking me, a good inch from the top.

I did notice, when letting the air out to make sure that the fork could go all the way (it does with no air in) that some green oil came spurting out of the hole. I’ve also seen a few posts about oil getting past the seals and restricting travel. One mentioned just turning the bike upside down and letting the air (and some oil) out a few times, which sounds a bit crude, but is at least simple. So I might give that a try.

Cheers,

Andy

OK, so you want the bike to “pop” of things more than most long travel bikes. You could just ride a bike with less travel of course (which would also be lighter), but I guess you still want the travel for the big hits (e.g. when you cock something up). But can’t you just increase the pressure in the suspension of any long(ish) travel bike to get the same effect?

Cheers,

Andy

Welcome aboard Cy. I bet it comes as a bit of a shock to realise that you’ve spent your life designing bikes for knob’eds, but there are worse ways of making a living I guess and at least there are plenty of us knob’eds about :-)

Anyway, since you are here, would you care to expand on the concept of “pop”. I keep reading that the Rocket has lots, but I’m not sure what it is. Does it just bounce off stuff more than other bikes? Would it be fair to say that it has been designed more for having fun for a few hours than for riding all day?

Cheers,

Andy

Some interesting responses here. I note that nobody has actually ridden them both, but I guess we shouldn’t let that stop us pontificating :-)

Actually I have some sympathy with the notion that, once you find a bike that suits you, you should stop looking. We (or at least I) do seem to spend a lot of time worrying about things that make very little (and often imperceptible) difference to how a bike rides. There is a lot to be said for just getting a bike that won’t let you down and riding the crap out of it, which, ironically, is what first got me thinking about the Five.

Not that I’m really in the market for a new bike. I suspect that both of these options are too bike a bike (i.e. too slack and too much travel) and therefore too much work on the climbs for the sort of all day natural trail riding that I aspire to. My Trance is probably close to ideal for what I need. But it’s fun to dream.

Cheers,

Andy

I’ve tried a few and mtbtrails has by far the best interfact. Plus I live in Scotland :-) But at the end of the day it is the routes that matter and at the moment those routes are spread out over a huge number of sites. For example I found a nice local route on EveryTrail a little while back.

It’s a pity that there isn’t one site that can harvest, categorize and archive all the gpx files that are out there. Mind you, I bet Google are working on it.

Cheers,

Andy