Like jonba says – newcastle mountain bike club (MidAirCrisis) has been a great way to find lots of routes for me and I guess for Jon. They do Thursday night rides (start at 7pm – always at the same place) and Sunday rides (places vary and trips can be local or further afield). Friendly bunch to ride with too…

Other places to check are Chopwell, Hamsterley, Thrunton if you want to drive out of Newcastle. Otherwise, the bike club cycles within and around Newcastle on Thursday nights. Get yourself out with us tonight!

I got rid of my fs after 2 years. That was 5 years ago and apart from the occasional flirtation with the idea of getting one again, I have never looked back. Just bought another hardtail in fact.

I had the same dilemma for my 29er. Went SP because they are supposedly stiffer, which I thought might be important for a bigger wheel size. I also chose them because I am a tart and liked the look of the cool machining in the hubs. I reckoned that a snapped spoke wouldnt be a big issue these days, and they are 32 hole rather than the smaller number of spokes on the old XC3s so should be robust enough.

I suspect the differences in weight are very small between normal and SP.

In practice – they are wheels and they work really well – feel ‘zingy’. But I have only had 1 ride so who knows how they will stand up.

Like P20 says, I crashed and bent my SIDS recently. They looked OK initially, but when I compressed the forks, the wheel moved to the side. When I looked closer, the forks were twisted so that one leg was very slightly further forward than the other. It didnt cause any issues with the disk rubbing though, but I could feel it throwing my weight off when I rode them.

So I stopped riding them and got some RS Rebas from Merlin – with a 15 mm axle to try and avoid any future twisting…

I reckon 29ers are now undoubtedly dead. Why? Because I just built myself one and I tend to be well behind the curve on this kind of thing. So I probably just gave 29ers the kiss of death…

Do I care? Nope. I just like riding my bikes :)

I am fairly sure that this just means your freehub wasnt seated back into the hub body properly. They just push into place and are not held by any bolts etc. So – check that you still have your pawls attached to the freebub body and then push the freehub back into the body (you may need to twist slightly to stop the pawls catching). Then seat the seal that should still be attached to the hub body.

Should be an easy fix as far as I can tell from my experience with the same hubs… although if the axle is bent thats less good… And amn’t sure about the spacer issue.

10 am til 2 pm.

I’m going to pop down I think. Got various bits that I dont need any more… forks, shifters, brakes, tyres, wheels, pedals etc. etc.

STS.

I have posted a link to this message on the Newcastle MTB forum in case anyone on there knows about it.

STS.

I got a lens from there – no problems – would use again for sure…

STS.

I had this problem – I took the rim tape off and stuffed some blu-tak into the spoke holes nearest the rim join so that it was inside the rim. I then pushed the blu-tak towards the rim join. This stopped the rattle for me and lasted for years.

I used immobilise for two of my bikes. Only reason I did that was because on my commute one day the police were handing out free electronic tags for all the cyclists passing through the station, along with info on how to register them on immobilise. So thats what I did. Can’t say its any better than any other, but I think on immobilise you can register anything – not just your bikes.

They say they do come with brakes and pedals – they just photograph them without cos it looks cooler…

seem quite good deals, especially if you go for one of the clearance models. Free postage too.

Thanks folks. Are there decent maps of the trails do you know? Ideally want to do a loop so tempted by the idea of a tour around Waldo Lake that McMoonter mentioned…

32:16 here. Managed to ride pretty close to all of it last year (similar course) with only a few walky bits. Great fun (or am I imagining that part?).

I run pace RC31 Ti on my singlespeed. I ride reasonably lightly and havent had any problems. I even took the bike on the jumps in the play area at glentress – not a problem.

theredchilli – I think I managed most of the climbs OK on the SS. I am not the fittest or strongest. I probably had to walk a little bit but not too much. My main problem will be that if its claggy mud my SS has V-brakes so the wheels start to clog up. Hmmmmm.

STS.

theredchilli – the course is quite good for SS. I rode a lap on my SS (with 2.1 Nobby Nicks on)last year to compare against my laps on the geared bike. Turns out my SS lap was my fastest. Might try the same again this year – definitely taking the SS because if it really muds up then keeping it simple works well.

STS.

Yep – I must say I loved Inners last time I rode there. I am most worried about technical stuff for my wife – she wont mind walking bits on the climbs, but hates not being able to do stuff on the downs! But we might try it anyway… what have I got to loose?

youngrob – liking your thinking! We may try it. Basically, are the red options actually red in comparison to GT? I cant remember as havent been to inners for about 4 years.

Aha – the Glentress website has been updated this afternoon with better/more precise closure info so now I can tell where we can ride. And notes that diversion will be in place. So all good. May park in Peebles and ride out though as I guess it’ll be busy.

Thanks all…

Yeah – I know all the riding in that area pretty well and had thought about inners as an option. However, it might be a bit too technical for a wife whos not too confident on an mtb. I only really remember the black at Inners though, so maybe red at inners would work. She can do the red at GT no probs which is why I wondered how we might do a loop there where some bits might be closed.

Jon – will certainly cheer you on if we see you! Will be wearing my MidAir jersey in support. Might get out on Thursday night for a change too.

The GT website is a bit useless on info for the closures – it says what trails are closed, but when you look at the map, those named trails aren’t marked. Of course, I am looking at a slightly older map because I do not want to have to ‘sign up to be a friend of Glentress’ in order to see a trail map – that irritated me.

I have posted this info on the Newcastle MTB website. One of us had a Cube stolen recently, although I dont think it was white.

Cheers,
STS.

You should have the chipboard floor screwed to the joists and then ply on top of that screwed down at 10 cm intervals. Even if you didnt feel the flex, it will be there. As above, if there wasnt a layer on top of the base floor then you will have to take tiles and chipboard up and lay an entire new floor as tile adhesive is horrific to try and scrape off. Or you will have to put up with cracked tiles.

Carlos, the kind of chipboard used for floors is not bog-standard – it is higher density, tongue and grooved, and more resistant to water. In fact, you get different grades of water resistance.

Did you lay the tiles directly onto the ‘chipboard’? Normally you would have the normal floor (be it chipboard or floorboard) and you would either screed or put at least 9mm plywood on top of the normal flooe before then laying tiles. That is done to try and reduce flex in the floor.

So, if you have laid tiles directly on the chipboard then the floor is going to be too flexible and the tiles will crack. That is even the case if you use ‘flexible’ tile adhesive.

Edit: Damn, Kona got there first!

Peer review sucks sometimes, especially when it is clear fashion dictates what gets published.

Yep – I had 2 reviewers indicate ‘accept’ on my most recent submission to a well known short-format journal and the editor decided – nah – reject! All to do with fashion. But – not giving up without a fight – apparently you just have to wear the editors down and they will eventually give in ;)

Rusty – it was kind of mates rates. A guy who rides in our club works at the lbs and basically went to the manager and said that this hope BB had been sitting around for ages so asked if it could be sold at staff rates (i.e. 40% off). The manager said yes :)

Its the wrong colour for my bike, but do I care? Nope.

I reckon I got about 400 km (total garbage) out of my last shimano XT HT2 BB, vs. about 2000 out of my last superstar ceramic one. To be honest, I want more than either of those numbers from a BB – hence I went hope to see if that’ll work.

I had this predicament – so I went to my lbs and £38 (40% off) later I had a shiny new hope stainless one – can’t complain at that price and its been excellent so far. Feels extremely smooth and better put together than the shimano stuff which just feels cheap in comparison.

I had a similar issue. As a temporary repair I gaffer taped a bit of old toothpaste tube into the inside of the tyre just in case and then whilst the tyre was inflated I put araldite across the tear as some protection. Ran the tyre for another couple of thousand kms without an issue.

“What tyres for…”

I have a similar setup to you – 2011 sid teams and a stans 355 rim. Ive got a hope hub though. However, I cant get the wheel to rub on the forks and flex isnt that bad really. I had similar levels of flex when I ran fox talas forks with the same wheel so reckon it is the wheel thats the issue on my setup.

For bikes:
Mojo and American Cyclery as mentioned above.

One of the best meals I had last time I was out in SF was at Cafe Zeotrope (owned by Francis Ford Coppola) which is in the Columbus Building – great italian food at a decent price. Don’t worry, I don’t think horse’s head is on the menu. Wikipedia page here:
Cafe Zeotrope

There are lots of other good eateries in the vicinity of Comumbus Tower (North Beach area). The stinking Rose is there for example – bit too garlicky for me though.

I would just put a lot of oil on. Like coat it, leave overnight and then keep doing that until it cant absorb any more oil. Keeping it properly oiled in that area is the only way to make it water repellent.

Then make sure that you wipe up any water when you drip it there. Thats what we do with ours and we have no problems…

Could you check the wall thickness by taking out the bar plugs and looking? I dont know if wall thickness would be constant throughout, but might give you an idea of the minimum thickness and an idea of how far you went through.

Yup – sounds like poor set up to me – nothing wrong with carbon bars.

I got my wife’s engagement ring made at a local jeweller in Edinburgh (not a chain jeweller). Basically, he got in several diamonds for me to choose from and then asked what I wanted the band made from and also how I wanted it designed. It is therefore a one-off, handmade (not machine made) and has exactly the diamond I wanted. It was about £1600 and that was a something around a 0.6 carat with double platinum band so really it was pretty good value with the extra importance of it having been designed by myself so is totally unique.

Don’t think of it as ‘commuting’ just think of it as ‘cycling’ and therefore why would xtr be a bad thing. I run xtr for my commute/cycle.

I have used rapid rise since they came out (1998?). I find it very intuitive. I cannot stand the idea of going back to ‘normal’ but since shimano dont make them in their current range of mechs it looks like I will eventually have to go back. Not happy about that.

I once did a 1500 word lit review that had around 60 references in it. Probably excessive, but I did get 97% for it.

I would certainly say that 2-4 papers is not a literature review – thats a literature glance. As an academic I would want to see 15 or so to show that you have covered the topic widely. On top of that, you need to be able to write concisely – thats the point of a 1500 word limit.

Think of it like this – papers in journals like ‘nature’ or ‘science’ are 2000 words long and have a limit of 30 references – when I wrote one recently, I really wanted to have more than the 30 references in it…

Generally speaking, the citations (e.g. where you write ‘(Chipps, 2012)’) and the reference list (where you list the full reference at the end of the document) do not count in the word count. Nor do tables or figure captions.

I did that recently and attempted the black. Managed to ride all of what I attempted, but I pretty much nearly died from arm failure – steep uphills + bumbpy downhills were a killer.

However, also did the red on rigid singlespeed recently – was pretty much perfect for the job – made it more fun than normal!