Really annoys me when people do this, mainly because it’s dangerous – you don’t know their skill level and they don’t know yours. If they are prepared to swap off on the front then that can be fun, but just to jump on someone’s wheel without saying anyting and expect a free ride is just rude and potentially dangerous.

Whyte PRST-1

explain?

Means ‘finger’ in Czech? Doesn’t strike me as particularly witty…

TBH I’m not big on such names.

[nerd out]

When Humphry Davy first isolated the element he called it aluminum. However as many other elements had the suffix -ium, this was also applied to aluminium on both sides of the atlantic. In the early 20th century the Americans reverted to calling it aluminum, and both descriptions are now accepted by the official body which oversees such things. So neither is right or wrong, and in fact it could be argued aluminum is more correct as that’s what Davy called it.

[/nerd out]

Very dependent on river conditions and how fast it’s flowing. If it’s a big fast moving river with few rapids and you’ve got some idea of what you’re doing it’d be very doable. If you’re talking straight flatwater paddling then that is a long way, especially if you’re carrying gear. I do a regular trip with some friends on a fairly steadily flowing river (upper reaches of the Vltava in Czech Rep.) which is 40km over two days and is very manageable. Two guys going steadily in a canadian canoe could certainly manage it in one.

Does anybody use a smartphone with GPS for rides?

I’ve just recently purchased the Viewranger software for use with smartphone (nokia e71) and it’s good so far. Battery life seems ok, I think it would at least last a day – though I’ve not tested it to exhaustion yet. I guess that depends as much on your phone as anything. Will give it a full report once I’ve had more of a chance to use it.

I am getting along really well with the Specialized Captains. As a good all-rounder at a decent weight and price and play well with tubeless they are hard to beat.

as axroads, contact the ACT or ask this on bikebiz.

parcel2go.com. You don’t need to declare size for domestic shipping – I’ve never had any problems – they actually go with DHL.

Getting something small enough is going to be your main concern. What length ett is your current bike? 23″ is about as short as they get with an off the shelf 29er.

Yes, you can fit road tyres to a 29er, the rims are the same diameter. Depending which rims you use you may be limited to relatively wide road tyres ~32mm or so.

There is a reason springs are made from steel or titanium, and not aluminium.

Fatigue limit is not the same as modulus of elasticity.

Pretty much everyone on this thread would do well to read these articles[/url] by Scot Nicol. Written nearly 15 years ago but more than relevant to the above discussion.

Rubbish. Best way to put someone off mountain biking – stick them on some archaic, obsolete piece of junk and watch them get thoroughly p*ssed off after 1 ride.

I guess that explains why there are so few people riding mountain bikes who’ve been at it for more than 10 years…

Forget the gym, do some intervals, either on a wind trainer or your nearest hill of 2-5 minutes duration. Do them until you puke a couple of times a week and you can make a pretty big difference in a month.

Agree with SFB and others who’ve suggested you may be better off looking at hardtails. If you’ve only been riding for a couple of months a hardtail or (gasp) even a fully rigid bike will teach you to be a much better rider so that you can use that FS to its potential once you get it. Save a few hundred quid, buy a nice hardtail, ride the hell out of it for the next year or so, then you’ll have a much better idea of what type of FS bike will work best for you, and you’ll be better equipped to ride it.

My favourite of (I think) 6 which I have now.

lots more here[/url]

Sam

The blue strips are not tubeless strips, they are just regular rim strips. Don’t know about 26″ wheels (which is what I’m assuming you have) but the ‘official’ strips for 29″ Rhythm/Duster rims are still not available, though I’ve been using the Mustang/Racelite strips with success.

I really enjoyed this issue. Most of the articles well written and interesting, and I think the theme concept worked well. Plus there was a review of that fantastic Singular :D

I will have some extra Hummingbird forks for sale separately when they arrive, likely in a more neutral colour. My forks are 445mm with 55mm of offset. They are really intended for the conversion of a 26″ bike with a 100-120mm fork, might make something designed with longer in mind a bit too quick even with the big wheel.

It says it can run a 29 front with rigid fork but the frame is also designed to run a normal 26 wheel with a sus fork.

What’s different then to running a rigid 29’er fork and wheel on the front of any standard 26’er hardtail to get the same effect?

Only thing I can think of is the toptube length and does it make issues with overlap, etc. But as most bikes now tend more towards the long TT / short stem is that really going to be an issue.?

A rigid 29er fork will be far too long. The supplied rigid fork will be 445mm axle to crown, the same length as many rigid forks designed for 26″ wheel 100mm suspension corrected frames. Yes, you can just put any ~445mm fork on a ‘regular’ 26″ wheeled frame, throw a 29″ front wheel in there and ride it. IME this results in fairly sluggish steering for most common head angles. The Hummingbird fork has a lot (55mm) of offset/rake to keep the steering sharp (and also keep the front wheel out of the way of your toes).

Plus it’s painted the same colour as the frame so it looks nice.

Sam

“Check out CRC – Truvativ Stylo single speed bars if you want 31.8mm oversized ones 700mm wide”

Are those SSWC stripes?

I just got a pair of the Niner bars in – 710mm and 10deg sweep. £36 from Stif. They seem really nice.

Try it and see – converting a geared bike is cheap and easy. Some never go back, some go back immediately. You shouldn’t form your opinion on the basis of what people here might say.

“They have bloody vowels in them, otherwise no-one would be able to pronounce them”

Try this one – str? prst skrz krk

Bedding in? Wassatden?

Ride down a long hill on the road and get them good an hot. Repeat until brakes feel nice and sharp.

Coming very soon – content is done, think they’re off to print shortly.

Works well on a short (~445mm) rigid fork for some frames with relatively steep head angles, if you want a suspension fork forgetaboutit.

Salsa La Cruz – thread closed maybe… Good colour, standard drop outs, no ugly canti studs, hose routing, mudguard eyes, sensible (but not too much) tyre clearance and True Temper Ox. Is Ross Schafer still behind Salsa, if not, who owns it?

La cruz definitely a nice choice. Salsa now owned by QBP, I don’t know that Ross Schafer has any input to the operation these days. Peregrine would be close, can be built up with with 25c tyres and not look bizzare. See here. Can’t really do a new one for £300 though. What sort of size would you be loooking at? I may have some ex-demo frames about…

Sam
Singular Cycles

From me of course ;)

Email me if you’re interested

Bonty Dusters are great. Nice and wide (28mm), eyeletted, decently light and tubeless friendly and only £35 each. They are fast becoming my favourite general purpose rims. I’ve actually just ordered a couple of pairs myself.

I would get it done, probably a cobblers is not the best place to do it…

I would have thought this was a bit more your style Stu…

Sam you may be right re airmiles, but HMRC would still consider them to be taxable benefits.

It’s a bit of a grey area really. The latest indication from HMRC is that as long as the individual pays the programme enrolment fee (there usually is one) then there is no fringe benefits tax liability. In practice this fee is billed to the card and settled by the company as a business expense. To date, the HMRC have not investigated/assessed anyone for benefits received through air miles. The complication is that your one air miles account can earn points through miles flown and pounds spent both as an individual and as an employee. So far it seems the HMRC haven’t got the appetite to go digging through it all as the sums involved are generally very small. Also, how would they value a point/air mile? Their nominal value as declared by the creator of the loyalty currency is very small (usually 0.01p per point). So do you value it at what they ‘could’ be exchanged for? if so, then what? Most schemes offer a wide range of redemption possibilities which also have a wide range of value per point – which would they choose? Do they take the cost price to the provider or the market value of what’s redeemed? Anyhow, it’s a pretty complex area, which is I guess why they don’t go into it…

Sorry for the ramble, it’s one of few things I actually know a little about…

They now come with inline adjusters,so on the fly adjustment!!

That only moves one of the pads though – which while not perfect is better than nothing. I tend not to use the inline adjusters myself.

imho, in both cases, the TV and the airmiles, they belong to the company who paid for the product/flights and is theirs (the companies) to do with as they see fit.

Any goods or incentive procured as a result of paying for those expenses also belongs to the business.

Not true in the case of air miles. Legally, the miles/points/whatever are awarded to an individual, not to the company. This is in the terms and conditions of the programme. You could be receiving air miles in one of two ways – or both if you are lucky/savvy.

Firstly, the company card you use to pay for business expenses may provide you as the cardholder enrolment in BA miles or any other such scheme. In this case the company is aware when they took on the card programme this is how it works. The miles are funded by the card provider as an inducement to get you to use their product. In turn, the company also benefits as having you use the corporate card means their expense reconciliation process works more efficiently rather than having to process cash receipts. The company may also be accruing some rebate or other benefit on all card spend, so it’s not like they lose out.

Secondly, you may have to make payments for business expenses through your own means (or a company card which does not provide reward points) and could enrol directly with the frequent flyer programme off your own back. In this case it is again a contract between the airline and yourself that they will give you a benefit when you fly on their planes, it has nothing to do with who is paying for the ticket.

There are also company level reward programmes such as BA On Business or Star Alliance Company/Corporate Plus. These work in concert with cardholder level programmes rather than in place of. They generally only provide a benefit on miles flown rather than on all spend. Either way, the airline and/or card company makes it quite clear who gets the reward and in what situation.

Sorry for the lengthy reply.

In the case of the guy and the TV however, it’s likely that the conditions of the offer would have stipulated the TV belongs to whoever paid for the goods. At the very least he’s an idiot for not thinking of the likely consequences of this.

They’re great. With a 185mm rotor up front I even use them for more serious off road riding. The only drawback (as with any mechanical) is that there is no self adjsting mechanism for pad wear. So if you’re in particularly abrasive mud you find yourself having to stop quite regularly so that you continue to have functioning brakes.

I’ve got a 98 Transit which I semi-camperised (with the talented help of my man jase) to the extent of lining the back, insulation, leisure battery which charges off the alternator, light and 12V socket. Had it for getting on two years and 30,000 miles now (approaching 120k on the clock), cost me £1600 for the van and spent probably another £250 on the camperification. Done lots of weekends away, plus a couple of longer trips on the continent, it’s great. I’d like to have a nice slick T5 long wheelbase transporter with a similar conversion, but really can’t justify the expense at the moment, would rather spend it on bikes…

From last weekend’s little jaunt to the Netherlands then Roubaix for the cross world cup.

Nothing to add to the above, but adjusting gears is nowhere near the worst job. I vote for replacing the bearings and races in a Cannondale headshok/lefty, that’s quite a fiddle.

Paul,

Yes, nothing to stop you using flat bars – I did a build like that for someone who wanted to use an Alfine hub. The only real reason not to would be that the overall reach might be too short and the hand position too high as the geometry of the frame is designed with drop bar use in mind.

Any standard rack will fit, though many will sit higher than usual due to the position of the rack mounts to clear the disc caliper. I’ve just had some very nice racks come in from Velo Orange which sit a bit lower and are really nicely finished. I’m intending to revise the rack mount location slightly for the next production run to help alleviate this problem.

Unfortunately replacement stock of large Peregrines may be a little longer than April….

Paul,

Yes, nothing to stop you using flat bars – I did a build like that for someone who wanted to use an Alfine hub. The only real reason not to would be that the overall reach might be too short and the hand position too high as the geometry of the frame is designed with drop bar use in mind.

Any standard rack will fit, though many will sit higher than usual due to the position of the rack mounts to clear the disc caliper. I’ve just had some very nice racks come in from Velo Orange which sit a bit lower and are really nicely finished. I’m intending to revise the rack mount location slightly for the next production run to help alleviate this problem.

Unfortunately replacement stock of large Peregrines may be a little longer than April….

I’ve got a couple ;) Whereabouts are you based? I could potentially try to put you in touch with someone nearby who has one if you like.

It’s only the largest size (59cm ett) which is out of stock at the moment. We can do cyclescheme through one of the dealers, I still need to do all the paperwork…

Cheers,

Sam