my bike, 48/32 & 11-36
Susies bike, SRAM CX1 38t ring & 10-42

Soma Grand Randonneur if on a budget.

Boulder Bicycles all road if you feel flush.

Hop on the Jones and head up Bardon Hill, which is our highest point, although not that high at 270 meters above sea level, 170 meters prominence.

My Jones

Norco Fluid 29er

Carbon road bike, I’m selling it.

new one.

My Vaya is very nice to ride.

I headed out for a short ride this afternoon, the idea was to do some interval training as my average is pretty poor at the mo, anyway, about 10 minutes in and I was fed up of training so popped down a dirt track, found a bench and chilled out for 10 or 12 minutes in the sun watching the water foul on the pond, lovely. 🙂

Brave move, what did you do?

The thing about these bikes to me is that they almost go back to what mountain biking/riding was all about for me when I got in to it.

Yeah this, i started riding in 91, my 1st bike had 1.75 inch tyres so not a huge amount bigger than the 41mm tyres my Salsa came with, also if you want to ride dirt around here ( Leics ) you need to ride plenty of tarmac to link it all up and moutain bikes are very tedious on the road, so the Salsa makes a lot of sense to me, you do have to be careful on wooded single track though.

I like this pic, though i don’t know what aircraft it is, Tomcat??

Great story scuttler.

I’m unemployed at the mo and have moneys so, if you’re a busty blonde count me in. 😆

(runs away from girlfriend)

Rene Herse[/url]

Good choice of ring sizes, and for use with square taper bb.

@stoney: no insults from me mate, i quite like it, although i’m not sure i would ride a bike that colour myself.
😀

@jerrys: vayas rule. 😀

Thanks, yeah, new ti one.

My Vaya looks like this now, Compass Barlow Pass tyres and PDW fenders.

Never mind how they look, they ride amazingly.

😀

Heres mine from last year in NZ.

I run my front end as 29+

They’re great bikes, looking good.

Bog standard in this pic except for the saddle.

I’m really looking forward to building Susie’s tripster up for her… 😈

LOL! ok Susie. 😆

My 120mm travel full suspension bike is one of the fastest MTB’s I’ve ridden, i have no idea why? even on fairly smooth rides that you would expect a hard tail to be faster on, i think that sometimes a bike just suits a rider, not sure how else to explain it. It’s a £1500 Norco btw.

Lots of nice bikes on here, it’s interesting to see what tyres people are choosing to use for these bikes, my bike came with 41mm knards but i quickly changed them to 38mm barlow pass tyres, my riding is roughly 60/40 in favour of tarmac, the barlow pass tyres have proven to be great so far.

This is pretty typical of the type of dirt i ride around here, slicks tyres make more sense on this type of surface imo.

Nice bkes so far guys.
I’m also disappointed that no one has commented on the state of my lawn / gate / pet buffalos. 🙂

Nice bike firestarter, 12mph is fine if thats the terrain you were riding in that pic, i would be more than happy with that. 😀

@epicyclo: Now thats a road, where is it? Also, what’s the bike?

around 14mph for me, though my road rides tend to include roads that look like this…

…as well as the usual tarmac car infested rubbish.

I would go for the B’Twin over that one you have posted the link for.

Are you near Leicestershire SaxonRider?

That’s super nice. Congrats.

My Jones steel spaceframe.
It does a good job of touring, road riding, commuting and is amazing fun to ride at bike park Wales. It just seems to work well everywhere, amazing.

The Jones and i on Dun Mountain, New Zealand in January.

late 70’s early 80’s i used to ride off road on my Raleigh chopper, my mate on his mums Raleigh twenty, we called it scrambling, i was about 10 years old i think.

Not ridden a sight but i have a Norco Fluid 120mm and it climbs really well, Just as well as my old Yeti ASR 90mm travel.

My late father was in the Royal Engineers in the early 70’s and stationed in Hong Kong, anyway, he made the papers over here after driving his grader through a grave yard and being chased off by a woman with a meat cleaver apparently. A different kind of expensive i guess.

For that money, a 1x conversion? A lighter cassette? New grips and saddle to improve comfort?

PLease see e-bike thread above. Tee Hee!

Looks like you’ve had a tough few years, glad you’re on the mend though, I lost my Dad to lung cancer last year so i know how bad it hurts, the blog looks good and i will add it to my follow list, good luck with the challenges, they will be pretty epic.

Sean

@scandal42

32 x 20 is the magic ratio for your bike if you want to ditch the tensioner, the chain will be baggier with a sram ss chain though, i used a kmc on.

Fit the biggest tyres you can.
Ergon grips help.
Wider rims if you can afford it.
Bars with sweep help too (Jones Loop)
but the biggest thing you can do to get used to it is to ride the rigid bike loads, get out on it as much as possible, your body should adjust to cope, it won’t happen quickly though.
Enjoy it.

@ akira

Not proper off road tracks, more like un surfaced roads, i use them on my road rides on my current road bike with 25mm tyres on, slightly fatter tyres would be nice though, the Domane can run 30mm apparently, 28mm would be fine though.
I have looked at the diverge and i like it, however i would like to support my LBS and they don’t sell Specialized, i think the Domane will be fine, if i works for Paris Roubaix…

LOL @ njee20
I am leaning that way to be honest, in my head at the mo it’s…
1. Di2
2. Disc brake, 105
3. Dura ace

Yeah disc braked bike is 105, cheap looking chain set though, i’d have to get the shop to change that part.
I don’t live in an hilly area.
I know i won’t go faster with bling parts but i’ve never had a bike with top of the line kit on before, my current roadie has 105 on it.