Cripes, there are some flash road bikes some of you guys have! Here’s mine… Flat tyre in the picture has been repaired, and it currently gets considerably more use than my mtbs unfortunately.

I seem to get worse knee pain if i don’t get out riding, but i know the bike must be the cause of the problems somewhere along the line… That or a childhood spent kneeling on the floor playing with lego 🙄

A cut under my eye from a lefty damper that shot across the room… Close call! Note to self – always remove the valve core before working on suspension… 😳

I’ve got both sides of a 200′ odd by 6′ fence to do and I really can’t find the motivation… Had the wood cleaner and stain sat in the garage for a couple of months now :/ Have a sprayer, but don’t have any immediate neighbors so it’s only our own windows we need to worry about

I’m convinced that Bono is infact the Bond villain Elliott Carver from “Tomorrow Never Dies”… Creating world disasters so he can get a jump on the rest of the charity celebrity types… He even wears villain type glasses!

Geared frame with a Rohloff tensioner. I had zero problems when I singlespeeded like this, but i have had two frames with horizontal dropouts and both required constant tinkering to get tension to stay good which often needed the brake adjusted also… Pain…
For a SS specific wheel either get a Hope SS with King steel cog (if you don’t like singlespeed you can always revert to 5 speed), or freewheel setup with a White Industries freewheel (the only freewheel than wont crunch itself to bits after one winter)… Money spent on better bits now will make for a far more pleasant experience long term 🙂

I have a 550D which i have used now for coming on two years and love. It came with 17-55mm and 70-300mm kit lenses which were great for getting started and playing around, but I splashed the cash and got a 24mm f1.4L prime lens as I found I always just wanted reasonably wide angles for the stuff I was doing. The image quality gain of a lens that cost more than the body and kit lenses combined was huge! I don’t think the kit lenses have left the camera bag since… I would eventually maybe like a full-frame body, but that would just be an extravagance for my needs…
The long and short is, I concur about spending your money on lenses not bodies.

PS. You really must use a filter of some type also, as I recently dropped my camera (in it’s case) on my tiled kitchen floor and though the filter exploded into a million pieces, it totally saved my lens. Phew!

That “Form” bike is beautiful! (Dream bike bookmark updated) 🙄

One of my old ones… I REALLY miss is and regret the day I sold it 🙁
My next hardtail will be another carbon Cannondale…

Do not under any circumstances get the Middleburn ones designed specifically for those! The worst shifting rings i have ever encountered (including pressed steel junk on B.S.Os). Plus, they aren’t much cheaper than the replacement shimano ones anyway…
Keep an eye on the classifieds and ebay for genuine shimano replacements, as they come up all the time

3x is the only way to go for disc brakes, and you would be surprised how much you can feel the difference between butted and pg spokes! As said already, double butted spokes have inherent elasticity which makes them more durable, more comfortable and lighter. Also, brass nipples though heavier are much nicer to work with than alloy. I do however have a curve-ball with regards to nipples… DT Swiss Hex-lock nipples are spectacular. Ever since I stumbled upon them when rebuilding a prebuilt pair of DT wheels I have used them on all of my own wheels with no regrets. They are alloy with built in thread lock, so they are light, they stay put, and the thread lock actually makes them bind less whilst building. The especially nice thing about them however, is that they have a hex socket type head on the end, so you can build them with a driver tool from the inside of the rim getting them extremely tight with no chance whatsoever of chewing or rounding any of the wrench flats, yet they can still be adjusted if necessary with a traditional tool with the tyre and everything on at the trail side 🙂 They are quite expensive though…

Cannondale all day long! Backup is much better from Cannondale and the finish imo is better. I am dreaming of either a Flash or a Yeti Big Top with a lefty… I’ve had two C’dales with leftys in the past and loved them!

Deus XC with a E13 LG1. Flawless on my DH bike for going on 5 years 8)

Cannondale do have some lovely bikes! For off-the-peg they’re hard to beat… Mind you. this is about $25k worth… 🙄

That makes my brain hurt…

The knowledge and sheer geekiness on here cracks me up! I love it! It helps offset the daily threads of “my gears slip”, “tell me about 29ers” and “show me your on-one” 😀

The Fulcrums are pap and the Mavics though nice are a nightmare to get spares if needed… I had a pair of Crossmax SXs (different i know) which constantly went out of true and even had to have a rim replaced as it split (not warranty). Less than a year with them and I went onto DT EX1750s and they are still kicking ass four years later… Flawless! I may some day transplant some Enve AM rims onto them for a little weight saving, but it’s far down my list of priorities. My other two bikes have since been fitted with DT wheels…

My mind boggles at those big jet engines! I work around Garrett TPE331s which are comparatively tiny turbines for single-seaters and the amount of parts and maintenance costs on those is obscene! Very cool though 🙂

If there ever was an example of crazy, then this is it… An actual product in a catalog i got in the mail this week… 😯

It is the internal surface of the can that is important, and the coating process does the whole can… They could paint over the coating on the outside i guess, but cyclists being cyclists wouldn’t want the extra weight or to lose the extra showey-offiness… I agree that they look cack though!

Standover on mine is about 2″ which is nearly identical to the medium Yeti 575 I had before it… In fact, every proper bike I have ever owned was a medium before now, and I have never felt anything less than comfortable on this large… Well, that’s not true, it took me a little while to get manuals going on this for some reason, but that may be the suspension design too…

Bad people will always get a hold of guns if they want them, and if they all of a sudden became illegal they sure as shit wouldn’t surrender them! I used to shoot a lot when I lived in the UK, but ironically since moving to the U.S I don’t anymore… The wife has loads though! 😉

I’m 5’10” and this is a large with a 70mm stem. I love it! It used to have Revelations and a Monarch, but wanted 160mm forks so jumped to Fox all round. 29.5lbs here…

From this –

to this –

to this –

Cheaper than replacing the frame every season! The red job was airbrushed by a friend who used to paint helmets and the green was done by the folks at Orange 😀

I find adhesive velcro works the best… Some disc brake cleaner on the frame first and wrap it up with masking tape overnight and it stays put for ages! On my 224 because the weld runs along underneath the swingarm i used some clear laquer along the edges and it worked perfect too 🙂

That video is priceless!
Good call with the light on the bars too! I found running my tyres an extra 15psi help enormously also…

Rapid Rise was made specifically for Dual Control shifters (those flappy monstrosities) which shimano gave up on a whole model generation ago… No chance of a 10sp one.

Cities of Gold, Wizbit, Airwolf, Gentle Ben, Mask, McGuyver… Charlie Chalk was the bomb also!
I especially like how you can tell how old everyone is by their suggestions 😉

PS. Just watching Johnny Briggs and Round the Twist there brought it all flooding back and reminded me of another…

SuperGran! “Supergran you old mingebag!” (for those who never saw it, that was a catchphrase of the main bad guy “Scunner Campbell” i kid you not!”

You knows it!

I agree with mildred… Common sense should intervene in cases like this long before they ever reach court. I wonder if it was a “no win no fee” ambulance chaser that represented the cyclist.

Just to kick the hornet nest…
Lovely! 😉

I’m sorry, but i actually do like the look of most of the aforementioned vehicles (with the exception of the mini and the kia). Great big “soft roaders” like the X6, Q7, Cayenne etc are superb for long journeys with lots of stuff and if you decide to give it the beans every now and then, you can. My wife has a new Jeep Grand Cherokee with a 5.7 hemi and my mother-in-law has a Volvo XC60 and they are both reasonable to drive but very comfortable and over-take like rocket-ships. We travel dirt roads, mud, snow, 1000mi road trips and i very much doubt any of us will own a regular car again…

Practice doing it at walking pace, essentially shoving the tyres down into the corners with your hips, then when it happens at speed it feels less un-natural 🙂

I went from a SC Chameleon to a 575 to a Blur LTc and will be replacing the Blur with a SB66 Carbon at some point next year (possibly along side a Big Top). Both brands make excellent bikes, and i will no doubt keep alternating between the two. My dream garage would include both Santa Cruz and Yeti and one Jones. If i had to split hairs i’d say the Santa Cruz is a little more “polished” and dare i say better made, but Yeti as a brand feel a little more special.
You can’t really lose as far as i’m concerned 🙂

Here we go… Lovely!

What can i say… I’m a Scottish Redneck! 🙄

I actually quite like the US version… They don’t take themselves too seriously, and they get to play with lots of expensive toys… What’s not to like?

Anyway, that Raptor is the bomb! I’ve seen a couple kicking around and they are very nice indeed! They tested the 600HP supercharged version, but Hennesy now have a 800HP twin turbo variant of the 6.2L… If i suddenly found myself with a spare $75,000 i’d be tempted… I should point out that I already drive a F150 that gets horrible economy, and could happily live with the downsides of the Raptor…

Yeah earlier Kashima coating seems to be more gold than bronze. I was staring at my 2011 Kashima 36s recently wondering if they had faded or if they had always been a little pale or if it was my mind playing tricks on me… I even dropped the lowers to see if the colour was darker below the seals just in case. When next to a pair of non-coated forks (forx) however, the difference is obvious.

Apollo Outrage… I would be outraged if I had spent my cash on one of those too!

Open Pro rims are pretty much the industry standard for decent handbuilts and have been for as long as i can remember. They allow a slightly stiffer build than most of similar section as they have double reinforced eyelets which allow higher spoke tension…
Handbuilts are the most reliable option in terms of maintenance and choice, though high-end factory wheels will out perform them. For your budget hand built is a no-brainer…
Open Pros, DT Competition or DT Alpine, 105 or above hubs depending on how the price works out…

I loved my rigid Genesis IO! Had a 2.5 conti diesel up front and it went like a train! I got it for a winter bike to keep the full-sus nice and soon found i could go far faster than i ever used to on hardtails… Steep sections ae amazing as you don’t need to second-guess how much the front will dive, and keeping arms a little loose meant fast sections were no problem. I miss it actually…