Are you sure your cables don’t just need lubricating?

In my experience, rapid rise are more reliable in shifting – and my xt and xtr rapid rise mechs never miss a beat. Also, use some GT85 on the mech spring and lubricate the mech pivot points…

We’ve got a mayoral candidate who is from the British National Front. Talks about his parties policy of deporting all ‘coloured’ people from the UK. And stopping any more mosques being built. And I thought the BNP were bad (which they are obviously…)

I’ve ridden my fox talas forks for about 3000 miles offroad and have never serviced them. Have lifted the seals twice and put some oil in the wipers to keep them smooth. Think the bushes are going now, but no other wear is evident. I reckon if you fiddle too much the seals will get stretched etc. and allow dirt in, causing wear…

It was a pretty loud noise when it happened – and I was about 10 metres away. A large POP noise followed by some swearing and rusting of bushes! We all had a good laugh – world record of 10 km travelled before finding out ghetto tubeless is sometimes a bit ropey.

Catch you next week Jon – dont think I will be out on Sunday or Monday…

Oh – and I reckon more tyre pressure would sort it. That hill was slow and steep and on a corner all the weight was going through the tyre laterally. Dont give up on tubeless yet – you may as well use up your stans fluid first!

If the tree roots were to be found to be causing structural issues with your house then maybe the council would be able to do something…

No problem. I am 11 stone and am currently running 1.9-2.0 race tyres – having no probs… they are bargainous!

I have the pro2s on 355s. Apparently they’re pretty strong for the weight (not sure of exact weight, but decent for the price). Changing from my old wheels I immediately noticed the difference in rolling weight :). They look good (I am a tart) and thus far they seem to be handling plenty of abuse. In other words – I’d recommend them if you are not too heavy a rider.

He’s stated he’s dealing with it on a first come first served basis. Whats wrong with waiting for the first responder to get back after pics? The chap is being polite – you are being impatient! IMHO of course…

I use formmail to enable people on a website to email me. You might be able to adapt the scripts to contain more fields – but you need to know perl and cgi…

Superstar stuff seems to last fine with me. I have the HTII ceramic BB and it is superb. And the pads I had lasted really well – no issues. I’ll be keeping buying from them – good value – its just that a lot of people on here hold a grudge due to some initial problems with some of their kit – particularly pads. Neil has worked hard to sort problems and I think their stuff is great quality. My BB has lasted a lot longer than my original shimano XT for example… and my pads were better than the shimano xtr ones until I spilled brake fluid all over them – D’oh!

‘Bible black’ by Heaven and Hell

Jon,
I think Terry has a compressor doesnt he? Tim was inflating his ghetto tubeless at the cave last Thursday…

Terry is the expert at getting it to work – go round to his early tomorrow and sort it!

Jon,
have you tried pinching the tyre in one place to make the bead tight against the rim/black tape? Or you could try putting an extra layer of black tape on. The bead is basically too loose to create a proper seal so take up the slack somehow. Also – you could try using neat washing up liquid rather than diluted to help make the seal…

Good luck – wont catch you this Thursday but will see you next week… any news on the forks?!

I second uplinks idea. The hope hoops on ztr 355 are proving great for me for general riding. And they are good value given the individual cost of all the parts. In fact, all the hope hoops are pretty good value imho. If they are too expensive, then Jimbo has the right idea – choose your rim and get XT hubs (just clean and grease the bearings every so often)…

I never bothered training for selkirk (or any other race/event!). Having done Selkirk a number of times I reckon it is a brilliant course – superb views and riding. 2 tips for you:

1) Get somewhere near the front over the road section and first fireroad climb because if you end up near the back after that you end up in a big queue to get up the first big climb and then in a queue to get down the descent. I basically go as fast as I can for the first bit and then ease off after the first climb.

2) Eat food BEFORE you think you need it. That way you keep your energy levels topped up.

Have fun – probably see you there – a bunch of folk from my club will be going (Newcastle MTB)…

I’ve had 3rd degree frostbite on my fingers. Wasnt bad enough to need drugs – just avoided putting my hands in hot water for a few days cos it was bloomin’ sore.

If you’re worried – go to the docs…

Velvia – its the only way to go… kodachrome = poop in comparison imho

It could be that they have made a flickr ‘badge’. It allows you to make a script to link to peoples photos on flickr automatically. It allows you to do it for your own photos (i.e. if you were creating your own web page) or you can use it to search for particular tags in publicly viewable images or to link to groups. You cant use it to see a particular user though.

Go to: http://www.flickr.com/badge.gne to test it – see if you can make a badge that displays one of your contacts photos for example.

Once you have a basic badge, it is possible (particularly with the html version rather than the flash version) to modify the code to strip out any flickr branding etc.

I think the key is that you can make a badge to any image that is publically VIEWABLE. I dont know if the flickr badge generator will therefore ignore any copyright options you have checked and therefore this could provide an avenue for the bike shop to link to your photos.

To see if it is a flickr badge, look at the source code of the web page if you can (right-click and view source). There should be something somewhere with a comment inserted saying its a flickr badge. Or you could remove the tags from a recent photo and see if it also disappears from their site. Or, if all your photos are also added to a particular group, then this person may be making a badge from images in that group… so remove them from that group…

Just an idea – but worth a try.

Someone on another forum pointed me to this…
Hitler expresses his feelings about Aldi waterproofs…

The subtitles are not safe for work… :)

Can thoroughly recommend the hope hoops/stans 355 wheelset. Great value but strong enough and light enough for riding fast/all day. And they look good too :)

Here’s mine. Number 92 of 200 from 2007… Its ace :) and got for a bargain off here a year and a half ago…

Anyone thinking of buying Toms clockwork – I cant recommend the frame enough…

Almost bought a soul last year, but then got this frame secondhand instead. Couldnt resist the paintjob/reliving my youth

Now has Hope hoops with Stans 355 on it as well as thompson stem, but apart from that, its not changed…

Your cotic will be ace :)

class…

Riding a steel orange clockwork re-issue. Best bike I’ve had for ride quality. Nice and springy. Waiting for orange to bring out their new R8 which will have reynolds 853 steel and yummy wishbone rear stays…

Anyway – test-ride if you can. Cotic get good write ups for sure…

Go to the hope website and watch the video about bleeding brakes that have a tech lever.

Shouldnt be leaking fluid from the body unless the caps are not done up tight or the hose is loose…

Use it to become a guitar god… see link below at about 6 minutes 40 seconds in…
Paul Gilbert guitar solo with cordless drill

Gordon,
it was me who gave you the xtr flippy shifters. If this isnt going anywhere then I’ll grab them next time I’m in the shop, or if you are going riding with Terry et al then leave them in Terrys garage and I’ll pick them up from there…

I did post on our club forum – but no-one seems to have wanted to donate much…

Pro2 is the way to go. Loud as hell :) And if they do go wrong (which not that many do) then hope are great on customer service. So you really cant go wrong. And they are good value :)

I’ve just changed from XTR brakes to tech X2s. They are nice and powerful and nicely adjustable. Just make sure that your shifters will fit with the tech levers (they wont fit with shifters which have windows)… The brakes come with stickers that will cover the holes that are left if you have to take shifter windows off…

Oh – the X2s look lovely too :)

Any noise that is not supposed to be there is unacceptable! Its one of the reasons I got rid of my full suss – too many things to keep quiet!

However, nowadays I just freewheel (hope pro2) to drown out any unwanted noise.

Want something that is great now but in five years will need to be binned – get shitmano.

TJ is right – you cant replace parts with shimano. I’ve just killed a set of xtr calipers after 3 years riding because the pistons and caliper body have worn. I’ve moved to hopes for the very reason that I can replace any part when it wears out…

I just got a set of the new hope hoops – pro2 on stans 355… nice wheelset, through pro3 will be lighter obviously! But if you ride ‘all mountain’ then maybe you should consider a heavier duty rim? You can now get hope hoops with pro2 hubs on DT 4.2, DT 5.1, Mavic 521, Mavic 721, Mavic 717 Disc, Stans 355 or Stans Flow. All the same price so good value IMHO (and I got nice discount from my friendly local bike shop :))…

Also – you put ‘petite francais’ in brackets. So you basically called him a small frenchman – which could be considered a bit off?

You’re not supposed to wear anything in order to avoid chaffing. In any case, you’ll have a VPL is you wear y-fronts underneath, and fashion is almost as important as chaffing! If you’re worried about it, wear baggy shorts over your lycra?

You can use the information in the letter. Just re-word it and perhaps intersperse it with other information from other references. I.e. you can expand the letter by adding from other sources. Since this is a scientific sounding essay, I would reference the letter (e.g. Association of Surveyors, 2009) and then take the salient points and reword them. That way you get round plagiarism. Simply copying the letter would be plagiarism. Rewording it and referencing it will be OK.

When I have marked essays I would want to make sure that numerous sources are being used though, not just one… Like I said – 40+ references for 7000 words. That is probably still fewer references than you would find in a journal paper…

Hello – long term academic (physical sciences) here…

So long as you reference appropriately then it doesnt matter how much you use from one source. However, you should always re-word what is being said and dont do it in big chunks. Many universities use plagarism software which picks this up!

Reference in any way appropriate e.g. Writing academic essays takes a long time (bloggs et al, 1998), which is why you should start early (Rush, 2004; Quick, 2008).

If you are in doubt regarding how to reference then look at how the papers you are reading do it. Also, if you are taking text verbatim (i.e. quoting) then make sure you put it in quotes!

Regarding number of references – 100 is not excessive! However, you dont necessarily need that many – perhaps half that? Also – if you cant read the whole papers, use the abstract – they should tell you the thrust of things to help you write quickly to start with. You can then delve deeper to get the detail as you flesh out the essay.

Remember that 7000 words will be a MAXIMUM, you dont HAVE to write that many words (i.e. it is not a target, it is a limit)…

Good luck…

I would imagine you would need to get him the M4s then. They have 4 pistons (rather than the 2 of your XTs and the 3 of his minis) and will therefore have more stopping power. I dont imagine there would be too much difference between the XTs and the minis in terms of stopping power but you could tell him to go out on your bike and see how he copes with the XTs before you fork out for M4s…
If you get M4s off here, then you may well be able to sell the minis easily. Alternatively, the M4s will work with the same lever as he will already have for his minis. Therefore you could save money by buying M4 calipers (and pads) without the lever and hoses…

I stayed here last weekend:
5 mins drive from Richmond

It was a wee farm and I think they might have some family rooms. Also you could wander around the farm and see the lambs etc. and it was decent value…

I had the same problem. I attatched the lever and then left the caliper dangling. I disconnected the hose at the lever end while the front of the bike was elevated and then faffed to get the nut and olive off so I could thread the hose through the guides. I then kept the hose always pointing in a vertical direction as I threaded it through the hose guides from the back wheel towards the bars. No fluid leaked from the lever because I didnt pull it and didnt shake the bike at all, so the surface tension on the fluid in the lever never broke enough to drip. I may have lost a drip from the top of the hose though.
Once the hose was threaded through I reconnected it all and then with the bike still elevated I pumped the lever whilst rattling the hose. Depending upon what levers you have, you may need to re-orientate them to allow any air you introduced to be pumped into the lever reservoir (e.g. tech levers need to be faced towards the floor I think, which is different to mini levers which I think may need to be level).
I didnt bother bleeding my brakes after doing that as they worked perfectly. But you may find you need to add fluid in at the reservoir end if you pushed any air in there.

Maybe I did the wrong thing, but my brakes are great so I dont care!

My wife has Tora sl forks on her new bike. Its taken a good few rides to get the forks supple – they were initially hard enough that I struggled to get full movement out of them (and I am a lot heavier than her). The forks are now fine – shes had the bike about 6 months, but I’d say after the first 4 or 5 rides the forks began to bed in and work better.
Brakes will take a while to bed in. Some will be more on/off than others. You may be able to adjust the lever reach a bit to help the feel. You will get used to it though and soon you will be able to control it perfectly. It just takes time if you have been used to v-brakes…

In summary – just get out and ride :)