The damn web hosting people are having server issues, no email or website for the past 6 hours. Just got off the phone from giving them an earful – extremely frustrating….

The Niners are really nice – if you can get a deal on a 2nd hand one that would be sweet. I *still* haven’t got around to doing the cyclescheme paperwork yet but can easily do it through one of the dealers.

another vote for e71 and also derision of HTC. You’ll get used to the qwerty pretty fast, it’s surprisingly usable given the size. I can type on it nearly as quickly as a full size keyboard.

Jersey pockets should be more than sufficient unless it’s a really big one with changeable weather.

second that, they were awesome.

Was slightly dismayed to see people dropping coins in the pot. A decent massage would normally cost you at least £30 – surely at least a fiver is not out of the question?

Fortunately for you SG – I do. Drop me a line and I’m sure we can work something out – just had some nice bonty duster rims arrive.

epicyclo – very true – didn’t seem to slow Steve down very much when he won Bristol 12 SS solo (3rd overall) a couple of weeks back either…

On-One wheels are probably the cheapest, though maybe you could re-build your hubs onto a new set of 29er rims?

If you’re interested in a Singular I’m probably local to you (between Berhamstead and Hemel) and happy to meet up for a test ride.

I took the hard line the first couple of times and it was good fun. the climb back out of it though meant the easy route was much faster – and as we were in it to win it that’s what I took. Agreed the mincers line should be slower really.

I found everyone on the course pretty friendly and didn’t hear a cross word all weekend, so for me that aspect was at least as good as previous years. The course was a good mix considering the spectrum of riders they get at the event, I was very glad we didn’t get mor rain though.

I can’t remember the hub dims off the top of my head but you can measure it easily enough. Spoke lengths will depend on what size and type of rims you are using.

Second Paris, Texas – Dead Man is also very good. Probably my favourite is 200 Motels though

Dugast still make mtb tubulars – I’m building a pair of wheels to give them a try. In fact the rims just arrived about half an hour ago… They are going to be pretty flash.

Big fan of the Captains for same reasons as thefallguy – versatile, decent weight and volume and work well tubeless. Reasonably priced too.

A friend of mine does it every year and loves it (assuming you mean salzkammergut ;-). I was hoping to go out there this year but unfortunately didn’t come together – next is a possibility…

Putting a 26″ wheel in the back of a 29er is very different from putting a 29″ wheel in the front of a 26er.

The latter works because the overal fork length can be shorter to compensate for the larger wheel. In fact a good 69er conversion (from 26″) will actually steepen the head angle a little.

The former doesn’t because you just drop the back end by around 30mm, the chainstays will still be 29er length, the bb will be very low, pedals will hit the ground very often, everything slackens out a lot and you get teh ‘dog’ referred to in the original post. My advice would be don’t even bother trying.

The exception to 1 is the Jtek bar end shifter. I set one up for a customer a while back – works really nicely if you want to use drops.

Complete dog, will slacken things out far too much. Smaller rear tyre?

spokesman

Jase speaks the truth

With adapters you can do anything, without them I would think the only thing which is interchangeable would be cranks.

The Maxxis Ignitors are unfortunately discontinued as they were one of my favourite all round tyres. Their replacements in the Ardents seem promising but are a bit more beefy. The Crossmarks are nice in dry to tacky conditions but don’t cope well in mud. The Bonty MudX are definitely the mud tyres of choice but still are not great in Malvern clag if it comes to that. I’ll be taking something rather narrower just in case…

Your new Swift will have slightly more tyre clearance than the older versions so that should open another couple of options. I have loads of tyres in the shed and am shortly going to have a massive clear out – if you’re interested in anything in particular just drop me a line, I’ve probably got or tried nearly every 29er tyre out there at some point.

I use some extra strong double sided tape – drop me a line and I’d be happy to send you some, I’ve got a huge roll of it. Superglue/araldite sets up very hard and has no give in it – I’ve lost a couple which had been glued on with araldite.

I use 3/32″ chains…

The TN 719’s are the only ones currently available – a 317 and a719 are discontinued. In traditional Mavic fashion though the TN719 is basically the same as the old a719. Quite what they think they’ll achieve by changing the name and giving them ostentatious new logos I don’t know… They’re fine rims but kinda narrow, kinda heavy, and don’t work well tubeless…

inner ear transplant, I think that’s what I’d need…

Agree on the approach of a separate amp and bookshelf speakers. I was in the same boat recently and have got a 70’s Marantz receiver and some Castle Isis speakers second hand which collectively cost me about £150 all in and the sounds is miles better than any sort of ‘micro system’ or speakers designed for computers.

As to OHH’s contention, I think you’d be hard pressed to distinguish between a 320kbps mp3 and wav with any speakers you’re able to purchase in this sort of price range – whether in your 6 year golden period or not…

I don’t think there’s any hard stop on the whytes, just the clamping force of two M5 (maybe M6?) bolts. Seems possibly inadequate…

The pivoting drops are a nice idea, I did some drawings for some a few years back but ended up not taking it any further. As brant said, you always need to adjust each side separately and getting them perfectly square can be problematic. There is a lot of braking force through that top pivot as well which is a possible area of failure. The Whytes seem nicely designed and made to reduce this likelihood. Even then, you still have four bolts to loosen/tighten to adjust the chain tension where an ebb does it with two.

The Niner ebb’s are nice conceptually, but the execution seems a little flawed. Firstly they rely on the bb shell having perfectly parallel faces, which as anyone who has faced a bb shell will tell you is often not the case. Fine in principle except most bike shops won’t have tools to face a 60mm bb shell. My other main worry is that the only thing keeping the two halves together is the bolt which tightens them against the shell. If one turns a bit independently of the other over time there is not a lot to stop it. Then you have unevenly loaded bearings and rapid bb failure. Also if you compare the weight to a Phil they are not so light as they make out.

The Phil’s (and similar designs like the Thorn) just work, simple and effective. Similar arrangements have been used in tandems for over 60 years without issue, I’m not sure why some people have concerns over them.

The Phils have been very reliable for me – no problems with them for a couple of hundred frames now that can’t be solved by a bit of grease and cleaning.

but it’s going to be baked hard and dusty!

Adam’s pretty much got it covered, my experience very much accords with his. I’d only add that their bearings are pretty shonky, though this isn’t helped by the possibility to misalign cups. In short, they are a really nice idea but slightly poorly executed with regard to materials. A ‘mark II’ version could be fantastic.

Should also have added – you really do need to give them a good 200 miles or so before deciding whether or not it’s comfortable!

Love em, most comfy saddles ever. The only bad things about them are the wider models (B17 etc) can be hard to get off the back of for off road riding, and they don’t cope with really wet conditions very well , though OK with mudguards.

Hoping to have a very limited run of Pegasus available before the end of the year, last round of prototypes coming shortly then will be making an order – by all means drop me a line.

Sam

Just had Miles’ Milestones arrive this morning – very nice. Right now listening to Tom Waits, Blue Valentine – both highly recommended and not rock.

How big is your ipod? ;-)

Schwalbe Stelvio 28’s for the faster bike, Marathon Supremes 35 for truly nasty stuff – more of a touring tyre though.

I’ve seen two – nice

It’s pretty easy to blast a hole straight through a thin tube brazing as well as TIG welding. I think it’s primarily a fashion/difference thing. THat said, there are a number of production frames which still use lugs, as well as a number of custom builders which TIG weld (Strong, Seven, IF, Goodrich, Crisp + basically anyone who does Ti, and a whole host of others).

Don’t lugs pre-determine the geometry? Or are the lugs custom made too?

There is a variation of +/- 1 degree within any given lug, and lugsets often have a couple of variants of the main tube junctions so as to allow quite a wide range. That said, yes it can be constraining in terms of geometry to design/build a frame with lugs, but not to the extent it won’t be custom. Yes, it possible to fabricate lugs, but to actually cast your own lugs which will be sufficiently strong is a very involved process for a one-off frame. Often the route taken is to adapt existing lugs, or to make something which looks like a lug by brazing together tubing then cutting. This is done purely for aesthetic reasons though.

Raise your straddle wire/yoke. Reduces the mechanical advantage of the brake and thus propensity to flex the fork to the point where it judders.

If it’s an old bike conversion for commuting purposes a goldtec may be overkill. A cheap flip-flop track hub would do the job nicely.

Around 70 inches for general road use is good. You may want to go bigger if you live in a flat area.