bought a frame and loads of parts for it, over double the worth of the voucher. the deal was id pay the rest back to my employer at full cost rather than at the pre tax rate. they forgot so i only paid for the voucher itself; £600ish for over £2k worth of stuff. bargain!

fwiw, always do the neg air pressure with the fork upside down, stops oil getting in the pump and giving a duff reading. i just had mine pushed and they feel really good. smashed the neg air valve off down snowdon rangers path last week though so waiting for new parts in the post.

it was ketamine not morphine. mmmmm, lovely lovely ketamine, just before shameless too!

wow, think your tazer beats my blur 4x for toughest short travel bike. getting my pikes back on monday from tftuned having been pushed, those look really nice though!

my epiphany was reasonably low, not half as low as my blur 4x though; silly low with a long wheelbase = lots of fun. the superlight is low too.

having owned a few (shimano x2, avid x2, hayes x3, formula x2, hope x2) i would say overall id go for hopes. they are not the lightest, not the cheapest and (IMO) not the prettiest but they ARE reliable, powerful and also importantly they are not modular units so you can replace the tiniest little parts, no matter how obscure. their customer service is second to none and ive never heard of them quibbling with warranty etc.

after learning several times over how hard it can be to get replacement parts for brakes and never successfully getting anything replaced on warranty despite a good case for it, ill be sticking with hope from now on…

there are cheeky trails in the peak that are in a different league anything mentioned above, im sure plenty of locals will agree. hopefully no one will spill the beans tho!

its a still taken from a vid, hence the blurryness.

oh, and twang is only smiling cos he knows i didnt catch him falling off in the same spot!

yeah, my sides ached really bad

mine did exactly the same as that about a month or so ago! they also came from merlin, the ones they were selling off at £200 a set, bought em last september. i just assumed id bashed it or something so bought a single juicy 7 and swapped the carbon lever and ultimate caliper on to it. i then broke that too the other day, though not in the same way. ive now sold the front (after checking it!) and ordered some hopes. still got the broken bit in the shed though. this doesnt help you but suggests it might be an issue. maybe we are the pioneers of the 2009 verson of ‘black spokes break’ or maybe even ‘superstar pads are cr*p’! fame at last.

gizzardman, annesley is pretty small so all the trails are fairly short and sweet but you can link up a multiple figure of eight type doohicky to entertain yourself for 45 mins, more if you session some bits. i normally start from kimberley and within 1k its some cheeky singletrack out to moorgreen which links easily to annesley. bit of a loop round there depending on time then a bit of cycle trail/ suburban stuff to link up to bestwood, 5 sweet little descents round there then back through bulwell hall park (via the cheeky chute of the old railway track). its usually 3-4 hours riding depending on how long you play in annesley and how many sandwich/ lets do it again! stops you have.

i like em too! i found the cover wore through relatively quick (8-9 months) but thats probably all the gritty mud on the arse of my waterproof shorts i guess. for that reason i stick with the cromo ones now.

bestwood park has some good bits, its fairly small but can be linked with annesley for a 2-3 hour ride or you can do a bit further by going out to burntstump and linking the forests up for 60k plus easy. you like that one dont you twang?!

cheers i gave them a ring and they said come on down. thanks for that!

cheers for that, on closer inspection they are leaking a little both at the caliper and the lever. good excuse to get em serviced and pass em down the food chain. just ordered some hopes!

PP, did you ring them or just show up?

i dont use ust, just a stans conversion. might try a 40a on the front ot satisy the tyre swapper in me and just stick with HR’s. cheers for the input!

the function zipper is prob the best short they make, tough but really light. they are my joint fave shorts with sombrio rev moto’s. (which are cheap on wiggle).

ive got a 205 and memory map software for central and northern england and wales for sale over on the classifieds. email me at kingtomtom@hotmail.co.uk for details.