Put your finger on the valve quick to keep the air in while you grab the core to screw it in?

There is an off-road alternative to Darren Road if you want to make Darren Road feel like a nice option!

I’m not a fan of ‘commercial’ larger and beers at the best of times. It’s doubly insulting when you’re forced into buying a pint of one in a pub through lack of choice… and it tastes worse than a can of the same stuff from the supermarket which costs a fraction of the price.

I generally find picking better watering holes and better beers the solution.

Has anyone recommended a G1 yet? That’s always the correct answer to a what bike thread.

Worth a drive over the bridge to go demo one.

My Airdrop cracked after 2 years. I’ve been on a G1 for the last 5 and it’s proving to be very robust. Last year I put some Fox 40s on it for my Alps trip. I expect most modern ‘Enduro’ bikes will satisfy your brief.

I bought a ‘cheap’ (looks the same as most them do with a analogue dial) shock pump. I had a suspicion it was letting air out so I stopped mid unscrew and sure enough all the air came out.

So National Highways gave an assurance that they would build for them a new car park and temporary building at the bottom. 417 have a planning application in for a permanent building which is pending. So are National Highways refusing to build this permanent building for them and trying to stick to the original plan of a temporary building? Is that’s what is causing the issue? or are they refusing to build the car park and temporary building as per the original assurance making running the business impossible? I’m struggling to understand from that what’s changed for National Highways to now want to close the park?

As above. If you’ve not been before and your preference is tech and jumps then I’d recommend parking at the Cycle Centre (used to be called pedalabikeaway) and riding the marked DH trails. You can lap 3 to 4 out per hour top to bottom. Sheep Skull and GBU are my favourites. They still ride well in the wet, you won’t get lost and there’s a cafe there as well.

Hover cars, now there’s a solution. Rather than wasting money trying to fix our crumbling flooded roads we could be investing in hover car technology 😉

I’m 100% with you OP. I should like their beer, but I’m always left disappointed. 

If you want something more manly than Crocs, can I recommend Rigger Boots. Cheap, warm and slip-on. A real man’s garage slipper. 

My short sleeve waterproof jacket. It looks crap as I’ve just cut sleeves off an old riding jacket, and many would say it’s pointless. But I find it has to be single digit temperatures before I can wear my normal rain jacket without overheating. So this is perfect for riding in wet summer, spring and autumn weather.

With a slack head angle and a long stem your bike will certainly look pleased to see you

On my hardtail with an alloy rims an insert in the rear has been great for prolonging the life of the rim.

On my ‘enduro’ bike I do a lot of tyre swapping throughout the year based on trail conditions, where I’m riding and just experimenting with different tyres. I believe that running an insert lets me get away with a lighter tyre casing, so most of the time I run one in the rear. I’m not sure if I can put into words why I prefer lighter tyre plus insert, but I prefer it.

Even if I’m not flirting with a disaster trying to run the lightest tyre possible on the rear I still prefer having an insert in. I’ve tried running one in the front on a number of occasions and I just can’t feel a benefit to justify it. I do put one in the front for uplifted riding holidays though to minimise the risk of punctures.

I live in Gloucester and whilst I used to go to 417 regularly before covid, I just can’t justify it now with their pricing. I ride in the forest of dean as good as weekly and often go to just lap out the ‘DH’ runs. If you don’t know your way around in the forest and want to ride a bike park I could justify visiting 417, otherwise I’d 100% be going to the forest.

G1

• The main reason was I demoed it and really really liked it. They must have got something right with the geometry as a few brands are converging on similar numbers now several years later.
• I wanted something tough, I’d broken a few frames before. I don’t think this thing will ever break!
• They’re local to me and their genuine interest in helping was good when I was looking to buy. But it’s continued to be great afterwards. Even now, over 4 years on I could pick up the phone, drop them an email or call in and they’d be more than happy to help me out with suspension set-up advice or advice for experimenting with the mutators to change the geometry. I’d say this is worth a lot.

To offer a different opinion, I quite like going there and riding up. I find it really rewarding. The last few times I’ve done this I’ve managed to clock up 8 top to bottom runs. So depending on fitness 3 runs will almost certainly take you less than 3hours, so not a particularly massive ride. For a first visit there I see no harm in riding up, if you like it then sure book on to the uplift next time.

The forest of dean has just regraded some of its trails as double black diamond trails if anyone wants easy entry to the double black diamond club.

<p style=”text-align: left;”>I’ve got a 120i and my girlfriend has a mini with the 1.5l 3cly engine in. I drive both and it feels like there is a bigger jump in economy compared with a small drop in real world performance for the 1.5l. I ruled out the 118i when looking to buy my car, now I’ve lived with both engines for a few years I’d recommend giving the smaller engine some serious consideration. For really pushing on my 2l engine is quicker, but just driving around sensibly there isn’t anything really in it.</p>

The Chavannes and Nauchets lifts in Les Gets broke my mudguard and my friends mudguards. Mine was an official Fox 40 one mounted to bleed ports, so not exactly a big mudguard and also not easy to take off trail side. The lift man was telling everyone to remove their mud guards (no muddy guards!). I’m sure I’ve not had this problem in previous years. So a cheap zip tied on one would have been better as this would flex out the way.

I’ve been playing around with running my G1 both mullet and full 29. No surprising conclusions. The full 29 rolls faster and looses less speed through the rough stuff. Mullet turns in a bit quicker and changing direction is slightly easier. Manuals are easier on the mullet. Jumping was a bit of surprise as there is less difference between the two than I was expecting. Technical climbing is better with the large rear wheel.

I did a demo weekend earlier in the year and rode lots of different bikes, a mix of mullets and 29ers. By the end of the end of it I was convinced I was preferring the mullet bikes. With my bike though where I can switch there are definitely rides where I know the full 29 is the better choice.

I can relate, in the last 6 years I’ve run the following pedals and all but the OneUp’s have needed new internals in the first 4-9months. The axle snapped on the OneUp’s twice, but they were still one of my favourite pedals I’ve used.

DMR Vault
Burgtec Mk 4’s
OneUp Alu
DMR V12’s
Burgtec Mk5’s
DMR Vaults again
Crank Brothers Stamp 7’s

but within a week of being serviced they have play in them again.

Again I can relate to this. For me, I think this has happened because I’ve continued to use the pedals when they’ve developed play and started to wear the axle.

I’ve got some Hope pedals on a bike I don’t ride much, they’ve lasted over a year!

I’m a happy ex-teacher. Left about 8 years ago. Taught Maths, but fortunately I had an MEng degree so jumping ship for me was quite easy. Others who I knew at the time wanted to leave but only had education degrees/experiences and found it harder to jump.

I really enjoyed the classroom time, I found it really rewarding. I found the pay then quite insulting. Not only did I have to be sh!t hot at Maths, being able to teach anything from Maths and Further Maths at A-level down to teaching a class full of bottom set year 8 kids who still struggled with multiplying two single digit numbers. I also had to be an expert in looking after children, which is a skill in its own right.

I used to limit myself to working 7am to 7pm during the week, finishing at 4pm on a Friday but then working 4pm till usually later than 7pm on a Sunday to get a head start on preparing for the next week. I would just about be able to keep on top of lesson planning and marking with that routine. There would be some longer term planning done and exploring ideas for doing something a bit innovative at half terms and for a few days at each end of term holiday.

I work for an Engineering consultancy now. I get paid more and work less hours than when when I was teaching. Heck, my job isn’t even that well paid compared with others. Teachers need to be paid more for what they do.

I used exampled from AutoTrader when they tried to low ball me with an offer. I had to be firm about matching the spec, millage etc. They tried on all sorts of nonsense to try and justify their low offer. I stuck with it because there was always a very easy to justify reason why the examples they were using were not comparable and got what I was asking for in the end.

They wanted to split the payment in two, scrap value and then the rest. I asked for it all in one go as I want them trying anything else on for giving me less than they said they would. I think that was the right thing to do.

After 10 days (I think) they took the hire car back. This was about 5 days before I received the payment. I kicked up a fuss on the phone, but that didn’t go anywhere at the time. So I was left for 5 days with no car and no money to buy a replacement. A week or so after the payment they phoned me up and asked me if I could provide receipts for my own hire car or public transport in those 5 days so they could claim it off the other party. I couldn’t as I’d been using my bike or blagging lifts from people. So perhaps that is something to watch out for.

If I bought one of these I would have to change the sticker to ‘Steeper’. It would be sat in my garage alongside the bike which replaced my Airdrop Edit… and ironically this bike is not slacker :sticking out tongue emoji:

I’ve had a Pixel 7 now for a couple of months and I’m happy with it. I picked it over the Pro as the Pro felt a bit too big for my pocket and I didn’t want another phone with a curved edge screen. There seems to be a good level of witchcraft going on when I take photos, the phone does a good job of making photos look better. I’ve used the magic eraser more than I was expecting to, I’m not sure if that’s unique to Pixel phones or not. I’ve been using some of the quick phrases, again I’m not sure if that’s unique to these phones or not. I would say I don’t have a very high success rate of unlocking the phone with my thumb, I’m not sure if I just didn’t do a good job of setting this up or if its the phone.

I was there in September. I was quite underwhelmed by the riding experience. We got picked up at 09:15 from Funchal and were on the trails by 10:30 after a long drive each day. Then at 14:30 it was time to drive back. We typically only did 2 hours of riding each day looking back at my Strava.

The food on the other hand was superb. We ate out every night and the food turned out to be the real highlight of the holiday.

I’ve had some Reserve wheels for 3.5 years now and some Light Bicycle carbon wheels for a few years before that. If my bike disappeared and I had a pile of cash to replace it, I’d struggle to justify buying the Reserve rims again. I like how they ride and I like how tough they are. I’ve broken one front in exceptional circumstances and one rear in questionable circumstances and had them both replaced under the lifetime warranty. I truly believe I would have got through a lot more alloy rims in this time period. But at £650 a rim now vs say £99ish for your choice of Alloy DT Swiss rim, it’s difficult to justify the carbon. With limited money I’d spend it elsewhere. If money was truly no concern, I’d still pick the Reserves over anything alloy.

My EXT ERA forks on the other hand would get the cash splashed on them again in a heartbeat.

I’m very HB916 curious at the moment and I’m keen to swing my leg over one to try. This would be to replace a G1 I’ve had for nearly 3.5 years now.

A few things I’d certainly miss from my Geometron are:

– The after sales support from Geometron has been fantastic.
– The suspension set-up support from Geometron is worth a lot, I still regularly ask them questions and get good answers.
– The frame is just so robust, mine’s had plenty of knocks and it’s just hilariously tough.
– The raw finish is so convenient. For example, I don’t think twice about clamping it onto the roof of the car while it’s covered in mud or putting the chain-stay on my workbench to knock a bearing out without fear of losing some paint.
– It’s so easy to work on. If I want to take the shock out or flip the travel flip-chip it’s all very accessible. Taking it apart to change bearings is easy. The cable routing is sensible.
– Most other bikes (even modern ones) feel steep and strange when I ride them now.
– It’s very adaptable. If I want to raise or lower the BB I can add or remove blocks from the seat-stay mutator. If I want to lengthen the chainstay I can change the chainstay mutator. If I want to run it mullet without affecting the geometry, no problem.
– The two travel options are useful. I run 162mm most of the time and flip it to 175mm for uplift days and holidays.
– The EXT shock is fantastic.
– The bike is fantastic to ride.

… I think I’ve just talked myself out of changing :-D

I work for a Civil Engineering Consultancy. My top tips would be:

Look for companies offering Degree Apprenticeships now before committing to a degree. My company is currently more interested in taking people on this way than taking on graduates. Our Degree Apprentices get their degree paid for, they get the work experience as well as the Uni time, they get paid throughout, they get a job at the end of it and if they decide they want to leave the company after graduating they can. Win win win! Interviews for these places each year are quite competitive though.

I’d ask your boy how good he is at Maths. I remember my first year of Uni being on a par with A-Level Maths, from year 2 onwards the level of difficulty just went up. We had a lot of people struggle with this on our course. I’d want to be confident he’s got what it takes before going down this road.

Check which ever course your considering is accredited. For example, accredited by the JBM (ICE IStructE etc.) for Civil.

I’ve had some Cura 2 pots on my hardtail for 3 months now. I bought then through Geometron and I also asked then to fit them for me. Very pleased with the service from them.

Power and modulation is good. I’ve just put some Tech 4 E4’s with bigger rotors on my G1 and they are more powerful, but you probably would expect that.

They’re nice brakes to use. Predictable with a good lever feel. Mine have been quite. I have no regrets about buying them. I prefer them to the shimano brakes I have on another bike.

I couldn’t undo a pedal once on a raceface carbon crank when the insert the pedal threaded into started to detach. LBS had a go, I had a go, mates had a go, when I returned it to the shop for a warrenty replacement they had to cut it off. It would be worth checking if there is any movement between the pedal and the crank arm.

How light are you aiming for? The G1 frame is rather heavy.

My 29er G1 weighed in at about 34lbs when I first built it up with reserve carbon wheels, single ply tyres, X01 11sp drive train, other carbon bits, saddle with Ti rails, pedals with Ti axles etc. It weighs more now its rocking a more robust build.

When my slack 62.5 degree head angle bike is stationary the front wheel really doesn’t like to stay pointing forward.

Lean over the bike to lube the chain and the bars will turn and the bike will roll off in a semi-circular path making you look like a right numpty as you chase it around.

I had a 2015 Bronson which sounds like it did something similar. Went to remove top pivot axle one day to replace bearings. There was resistance removing it. Once out the thread on the axle ‘looked flattered off a bit’ as did the threads inside the frame.

I replaced the pivot axle but the same happened again. So this time I sourced a replacement rear triangle (I’d bought the bike second hand so no warrenty to claim on) and put fresh new pivot bolt in.

All went together fine. Next bearing replacement there was a small amount of resistance remove the pivot axle and again the threads ‘looked worn’. I just put it back in this time. Next time I tried to remove the pivot axle it was stuck. Wouldn’t undo more then 1/4 a turn.

A friend had something similar on his 5010 and his was warrantied by SC. If I was the original owner I would 100% be contacting SC.

I belive this wear/damage on the threads was caused by the frame twisting.

I’ve had both the OneUp Alu and Burgtec Mk5’s. Overall I much preferred the OneUp pedals.

The OneUp internals lasted longer for me.

The OneUp pedals felt much better under foot. They’re my favourite pedal I’ve ever used for under the foot feeling. Even for my modest sized 9.5 feet I felt the platform of the Burgtec’s was too small.

The large inboard bearing on the OneUp might be an issue for some, it didn’t bother me. Although the Mk5 Burgtec’s don’t sit as close to the crank arm as the Mk4’d did (which I did also once own) they were closer than many other pedals and for me this caused problems with my knees after a few months of use.

My Burgtec’s annoyed me so much I took them off after about 6 months. They need some new internals, they hurt my knees and I didn’t like how they felt under foot.

My OneUp pedals were fantastic, except I managed to break an axle… twice. I’d put that down to the pedal having a fairly hard life. But this was the reason I took them off. OneUp were fantasic about it and sent me replacement pedals both times with zero fuss. This doesn’t seem to be an issue which is widely reported, so perhaps I was just unlucky. I’m thinking of buying another pair now as I’ve not found a pedal I like as much since owning them.

I’ve been riding a G1 for a year and a bit now. It gets used for trail bike duties in the sense of riding singletrack in the local woods on a week-night then into the hills for bigger rides with bigger elevation at the weekend. It even gets taken out for ‘XC’ rides on the NY moors when I visit my parents. When I bought the bike I did wonder if I was going to need to buy something extra to keep the tamer woodland singletrack rides fun, but it just wasn’t necessary. I love riding it on the tamer stuff. I find it a lot more agile and playful than the weight, numbers or travel might suggest. It climbs well and It obviously really comes into its element when the trail gets fast and rough!

Just to provide a counter argument, ask your heaviest and most muscular friend to put his weight onto the bars and then shift his weight from one hand to the other. Stems do twist under dynamic loading. Maybe more expensive stems twist less, I wouldn’t like to say. But they’re not all created equal.

Another frame arrived damaged here, a D shaped headtube out of the box. No replacement available :thumbs down:

Hydro is not an acceptable abbreviation for hydraulic when talking about hydraulic brakes (or hydro breaks)! I don’t think that’s even controversial, but it never seems to be challenged.

The new Specialized Enduro is the worst looking bike of the decade.