On One have a bloke in Italy trying to source some headsets while he’s there. I’ve been told to call back on Friday to find out if he’s rocked up in the van with a ton of headsets in the back. I bet they all fit tapered steerers, though.

I think the upper is a standard campy style integral job and there are loads of those available. Then it might be worth ordering a Cane Creek IS52 or IS52 reducer bottom from the US or anywhere else you can find online that has stock.

I’ve got a load of the High 5 Zero tablets from CRC but won’t use them as they contain artificial sweeteners. It’s a shame, because most of High5’s products are natural.

I’ll stick to Torq and have the energy alongside the electrolytes.

Watch the videos in SRAM’s/Rock Shox’ channel on YouTube. They give a full breakdown of how to disassemble, service and reassemble your forks.

I’m 44 and I’m fitter now than I was last year, five or even ten years ago. I’m just starting in triathlons, running marathons annually and I’ve got no plans to stop any of this stuff for a very long time. So, I’ll not be giving up riding at 53, 63 or 73. I’ll pack it in when I’m forced to by ill health.

Mine did that. I bought another. Then I read the instructions that said “Position the arm and tighten the screw” and immediately realised why the first one died.

I’ve just put EA70 Monkey Bars on my carbon 456 with the 70mm stem that was on there already. I’ve noticed that I don’t lean on the bars as much so my core muscles are keeping me upright on the saddle. The steering feels more twitchy than before but I have no trouble muscling it about. And, for some strange reason, it made me want to wheelie a lot.

My other half found two O2 transactions on her card statement at the weekend. The card has been stopped, a new one is being issued and a fraud form is being sent for her to fill in.

But, she hasn’t ordered anything from CRC since back in December, when she bought some Christmas presents for me. So, either this problem goes back to December or earlier or cases that look like they might be related to CRC business may have nothing to do with them.

There are a couple of ways I can think of that CRC’s customers have been defrauded without any evidence of tampering on their servers.

One is that CC details (if they store them, even briefly) have been accessed by someone with the legitimate rights to do so, copied to a USB stick and either sold or used by the person who stole them.

The other could be an email phishing attack on known mountain bikers to make them click on a legitimate-looking email from CRC. When they click on the link, they would be connected to a site owned by the attackers, which logs the information entered and passes the request on to the real CRC site. The results of searches and the final order details would come from CRC, but be passed back via the fraudulent site. The shopper would never know that they’re not dealing with CRC.

I’ve seen one post from a person who was defrauded but uses Linux but it may be that his attack was coincidental. If it was, MTBers could have been targeted (from a race event emailing list?) and key loggers installed when they clicked on a link.

In all cases, nothing would show up on CRC’s systems and thus their statement that there is no evidence of a breach would be correct.

This is not a defence of them or their systems but an attempt to indicate that these things are sometimes very difficult or impossible to trace after the attack has ended. But if the breach is found to be on thir own, unsecured systems, they can expect to be fined and closely audited for a long time.

Carbon 456s are pretty heavy. Mine built up at about 12kg which was heavier than I expected with the equipment on there. Most of it stems from the fact that the dropouts aren’t included in their 1.5kg frame weight and their Smoothie Mixer headset is heavy if you’re stepping down to standard 1 1/8 forks.

Get the accurate figures on how the company is doing – talk to the financial bods and see what they posted to Companies House as profit in their last financial year. Scour jobs sites for similar jobs to your own and print out the ones where the salary range is better.

Then approach your manager with a proposal to recognise the responsibility and extra work you’ve already been putting in that’s outside your remit. State that you’re also exceeding expectation in your role as it’s defined. Show him the evidence that other roles elsewhere are better paid but don’t threaten to leave. Ask for a new job description and with a salary commensurate (I love that word) with your expanded role.

Aim for the rate of inflation (4% ish) plus 2 or 3% on top. If they only agree to the 4%, say that they’re only offering a cost of living increase. Use what you know of their financial situation to counter any argument that times are tight, if that’s not the case.

Finally, when you’re happy with the numbers, say “Backdated to when?” and see what it brings.

Good luck!

I think you can definitely run a half but your 1:40 might be a bit optimistic given the timescale to train. There are a few unknowns about your current ability so I’d want to run a 10k fairly soon and see how fast that goes, then base your training and race time on that. RW and plenty of other sites have convertors to tell you what speed you might run x distance based on your time over y distance.

There’s only one way to build to a distance, and that’s to train up to that distance with the long Sunday runs (except for full marathons where you rarely train beyond 22M), and there’s only one way to get faster, which is to get your hill and speed sessions done. Do these and you should get through the half and in good time.

Good luck with your training and the race. I hope you enjoy it. Maybe look at some off road duathlons when you’re done?

Ian

I did the Canal du Midi over a few days on a 456 and it was fine. The only thing I’d point out is that, because the chainstays are a lot shorter than a 700c wheeled tourer, your ankles will hit your panniers unless they can slide well back on the rack. I used a Topeak rack and Altura Dryline panniers.

http://www.bikemoviemusic.com

😀

Wash it off before it dries on or you’ll never shift that stuff!

Yet1man – I really wanted red X-9 on that bike and hovered over the Buy It now on eBay and CRC so many times, but red X-9 is 2 x 10 only and I already had the SLX 9-speed cranks. It nearly ended up with a 3 x 10 SLX setup but SRAM rear mechs are so easy to set up so X-9 it was.

You got the green one? You know they’re one of a kind – the production ones will be gloss, not matt.

Here’s a cable routing pic:

I went:
rear mech – right top tube channel
front mech – centre top tube channel
rear brake – downtube channels

I really wish the most forward clamp for the rear brake hose was a couple of inches further down so that you can run the rear brake pipe behind the headtube rather than in front in a loop, if you want.

Also, the brake pipe clips are junk – I’m cable tieing mine.

Mine just arrived in Godalming, Surrey.

The stem’s a Truvativ all mountain 70mm and I bought Easton EC70 flat bars to try them out. If they don’t work on the 456, I’ll swap them with the risers on the Stumpjumper I have.

The bike’s set up more for XC than all mountain but it wouldn’t take much to beef it up a bit if I wanted to.

I waited for a long while for a Carbon 456 in anything other than the original matt black. I’ve not seen one in the flesh but the huge downtube in black just looked massive. Then a black and red one came along in On One’s sale recently and I’m getting it as a Christmas present. I think the two tone colour breaks up the lines a bit. That down tube is mahoosive – it needed 100mm wide helicopter tape to cover just the lower faces.

I can’t help the OP as I’m not allowed to ride it until Christmas Day but I have built it up. I’ll report in when I’ve ridden it as I have a steel 456 to compare it to.

Rule of thumb: 10mm difference in flange = 1mm on spoke, so unlikely.

XT with, say, an XC717 rim, change hub to Hope Pro 2 – left spoke 2mm shorter, right same length. I’m not saying you’re wrong, and I’d put up with the 2mm error, but I’ve no idea if a pro wheelbuilder would be happy reusing the old spokes.

Those big, identical sized (left and right) spoke flanges on the XT hub mean that changing to a different hub will almost certainly need different length spokes. Most rear hubs have a larger rotor side ring than the drive side, so spokes end up roughly the same length left and right. Add about 80p per spoke to the price of changing to a new hub as well as the lacing cost. It’s probably then getting cheaper to buy a whole wheel.

It’s a good surface from Guildford to Cranleigh then deteriorates a bit to muddier stuff from then on. As you get towards the south downs, there are a few flinty bits that can puncture you. There’s one hill around the Rudgwick area where the train ran through a tunnel but you go over the top.

There are a few here.

I’ve not ridden it on a mountain bike but the top one in the list looks like it follows the motorcycle enduro course I’ve done a few times.

Not seen the calendar and hence the pic yet but why is Knog a sponsor of the Singletrack calendar? Their entire product line has little or nothing to do with mountain biking and much, much more to do with commuting and town riding.

CRC’s tapered forks they were selling off were all 100mm travel. Most frames with tapered headtubes are designed for 140mm or more.

Keis make good heated stuff for motorcyclists. They now make an electrically-heated inner glove that they can supply an Li-Ion battery for. Might be worth a look.

The Specialized Stout QR hub on the Rockhopper is a cup and cone hub and you can’t even get spare cones for it. I’d either get another maxle hub and have it laced to the rim or sell your wheel and buy another with maxle hub fitted.

How about buying an On One 456 frame (new or used) and using the Sector fork in that, transferring nearly all of the bits off your Rockhopper then selling the rockhopper frame? The only bits that won’t transfer are the seat post and clamp. You’ll need some new gear cable and a spacer for the front mech for the narrower seat tube.

Looks like there’s some decent countryside not very far from you:

Check out places along the GR13 route (in pink on this map) and look at the pics on this page.

Another route.

I’m finding this by googling for “randonnees VTT foret fontainebleu”, which is how I usually find routes near wherever we’re going.

It’s a placebo as long as you don’t tell the test group which of the two substances is the one you suspect is giving a performance advantage.

I ride in Ronhill ones that were bought for running. I wear them over lycra cycle shorts. Ronhill do a whole range of very high-vis running gear. The tights are warm, very visible and dry fast.

Linky

Ian

Quality! Thanks everyone.

You know, it hadn’t occurred to me to move the cleats around a bit. 3mm there and 3mm in washers might make all the difference.

Armstrong, IIRC, was found by his physio to be crooked on the bike, which a small spacer on one side was meant to fix. Presumably the gains outweighed the drag from messing up the Q factor, or he didn’t use it on the time trial bike where Q factor makes more difference.

Thanks for the links – I’ll go buying bigger spacers if I can’t sort it otherwise. It’s annoying because my feet hurt if I don’t uncurl my toes and my knees start to twinge if I do.

It’s excellent. Starting in Winchester the hills are more undulating, views OK and most of it is on wide farm tracks or well used bridleways. The further East you go, the hills get flatter on top but the valleys get deeper so the climbs are long and flinty and probably pretty slippery in the wet. Along the tops of the downs, you’re riding through sheep fields, so it’s very broad, grassy and covered in sheep poo, which is very sticky! There’s a gate to go through every few hundred yards, which can get a bit wearing, but the views are worth it.

Although the sign posting is excellent, there are a few places to get a bit lost so it’s worth having OS maps or a good guide book with you. And check for route changes (there is a big re-route around Exton) here and here[/url].

TJ’s right about the warranty – 5 years as the only thing that will kill them is neglect. That leaves a lot to whether they think you’ve been neglectful if they don’t last 5 years.

But I’d still buy them, prise open the seals and ram them full of good waterproof grease.

I did mine with a couple of blocks of wood, a trolley jack and 2.5 tons of Mercedes van. Jack up back axle, place block of wood, frame, headset cup and other block of wood under towbar rail, steadily lower van.

But this was a £150 456 Summer Season frame. For a frame 6 to 7 times the cost, I’d be buying the proper tool.

OS Maps – either on floor, on Bing or on Memory Map
Mates (people, not the condoms)
Garmin Connect
“I wonder where that goes” when out riding and I see a trail heading off somewhere.

Try the OS maps on bing.com/maps and zoom right in to get 1:25000 scale.

Go for BBB replacement jockey wheels. The top X9 runs on a bushing but the BBB set replaces both with sealed cartridge bearings.

The ship museum’s very good but, if you dropped me in Amsterdam and said “do what you want for a day”, I’d get on a train to Utrecht (much nicer town) or go to Arnhem to the Airborne museum and the “Bridge Too Far”.

Also, it’s probably wise not to post on mountain bike forums under your real name. It’s very easy to locate someone from their name and town. Posting on Singletrackworld means you’ve probably got something other than a Halfords bicycle shaped object in your shed.

That properly sucks. I’m really saddened by the loss of your bikes and, as I’m near you (Godalming), I’ll be keeping a lookout.

Call all the shops in the area, give them details and post pictures on here if you’ve got ’em.

Good luck with getting them back.

I took the jabs. They have improved very much since last time – I didn’t even feel the needle.

And the dentist was brilliant. She could tell I was nervous and I was offered music, DVD or TV to take my mind off things. In the event, it was about as painless as it could’ve been.

Thanks for the advice.