I want to see:

Mixed wheel sizes being fully explored,
Dual crown for 29 +160mm travel and 27 +170mm travel forks coming to market,
Short sleeve coats for British summers,
A new seatpost dia. standard which will render all previous dropper posts obsolete but promise to solve all those problems we think we have,
A CVT drivetrain bike to send gearbox bikes to betamax town.

I had this with my Fox 36s and Pro 4 front hub. Wasn’t like it from new, not sure exactly when it started. I wish I had noticed when it started as it might have identified what I’d changed to cause it.

I was running a 20mm axle when it first came about. With the axle done up with the wheel in and the pinch bolts undone, there was still a small gap between the end caps and the fork lowers. Once the pinch bolts were done up the wheel would ‘knock’ when turning and there was play when you jiggled it. Riding the bike like this shortened the life of the front hub bearings.

I tried pushing the fork legs up to the end caps before doing he pinch bolts up, but this didn’t work. Someone suggested not pressing the hub bearings all the way in, but this just made it impossible to get the end caps on.

I had the lowers changed on mine due to damaging them. I thought this would be the end of the problem… but the play was still there.  These were the newer lowers with the insert which the axle threads into.

I eventually changed to the 15mm axle and this sorted it. I’ve since replaced these 36s with another set of same age 36s and again with the 15mm axle and conversion kit in there’s no play.

In hindsight my money would be on the 20mm axle end caps needed replacing.

Has your pal’s bike got a 20mm or 15mm axle in at the moment? If it’s the latter my theories can go straight out the window.

I’ve just picked my LB wheel up from the bike shop tonight.

Removing old LB rim and building the new one onto my hub with new spokes and nipples cost £78.88. £38 of that was labour, the rest was 32 spokes and nipples.

I’ve seen people pushing up and hanging around on that trail a few times. It situations like this, as long as there is space to pass, I just carry on as normal and not think anything more of it.

That’ll either reinforce the message they’re going against the flow or if they know what they’re doing it lets both of you get on with their/your route up or down without conflict.

Riding from Pointe des Mossettes to I think it’s the top of the Swiss National track. Big group racing along the fire road, I was taking some devious overtaking lines at the edge when I’m suddenly faced with a monster +2m wide by 1m deep ditch. Certainly traveling above 20mph at this moment with only a split second to react. Fortunately I can bunny hop reasonably well and I was able to hop over it. But I’ve no idea how I reacted fast enough to initiate that size hop. If I hadn’t been able to hop over it I would have been in an almighty mess… even worse if I’d been catapulted off the near cliff edge!

5’10” and a little bit and have a Medium Edit V2. I’m running a 35mm stem 800mm bars. This bike feels a good fit to me. Most mediums are a bit too small.

I’ve got a 170mm dropper in slammed as low it’ll go. When it’s up it’s at the perfect hight for me to pedal.

If you’re 2-3” shorter then me then you might only be able to get away with a 125mm dropper in a medium frame.

Just something to think about. You defiantly need to get your leg over one.

Always horses for courses…

But I have been won over by a 2.4 Ardent on the back. The only caveat is that it has to be paired with something more meaty on the front!

I went through this fiasco with my XO1 mech recently. The SRAM jockey wheels would just develop loads of play after a few months. This would result in the shifting not being as crisp and occasionally the chain would jump off and get wedged between the jockey wheel and cage.

I just put in some normal Shimano jockey wheels for a bit as a temporary measure which worked fine. I’ve now put some hope 12t ones in. The bearings are last longer than the SRAM ones, but the noise of metal jockey wheels is a little annoying.

I left teaching 3 years ago after teaching Maths for 3 years. The grass is definitely greener on the other side in my experience.

I did move into a career very relevant to my degree and one I had a small amount of previous experience working in from a placement year at uni. So that made things a bit easier for me.

Finding a job still wasn’t easy though and I unsurprisingly had to take a pay cut. But I’ve now overtaken what I would have been on if I’d stayed and really enjoy what I do. So leaving was definitely the right choice for me.

I think the holiday situation is better now as well. Everyday is a holiday now after 5pm and no work on the weekends more than makes up for not getting 13 weeks a year ‘holiday’. I’m certainly able to do more riding now!

I think it sounds like you’re doing the correct thing OP.

So can I run the 183 rotors on my 180 adapter and make it work

You’ll just need 1.5mm of washers between the mount and calliper… assuming your current mounts are post mount that is.

Bingo! Thanks Junkyard!

Used an old non-stealth reverb syring to put some fluid in from the calliper end. Everything back to normal now!

I wonder why the lever wasn’t pushing fluid into the hose before when there was air in there??

I wonder if not greasing them regularly enough has been their downfall. It’s only when I’ve had the wheel out and noticed they spin a bit too freely have I considered greasing them. In hindsight should have done some pre-emptive TLC.

I should have taken the hint with the jockey wheels coming with a syringe full of grease in the packet!

It’s the bearings developing lots of play. The teeth of the wheels are fine. MTB approx 15hours of riding a week. No road riding here :-)

£18.99 to replace some jockey wheels from 2013… sounds like a good investment!

I replaced my X01 ones recently and fell off my chair when I saw the price.

None, slam the stem!

When I switched to an XD freehub on my 142×12 Pro4 the end cap which came with the hub with the normal freehub body works fine with the XD freehub. I think it’s just the earlier hubs you have to switch the end cap on, not the Pro4.

I picked up 17th on the Champery World Cup track last summer (its the first thing I tell anyone new I meet).

I’ve now been knocked down a few places… but still! 17th on a World Cup DH track on my #enduro bike!

Some people say DH riders don’t use Strava, but I choose not to listen to them.

I’ve been using Joes for about 6months now after I was suspicious Stans fluid was nowhere near as good as it used to be.

It’s doing it’s job so far! I think I’ll be sticking to Joes over Stans from now on.

looks good to me! Can’t wait to go

I’ve got a similar Bronson and to help resist the urge to buy a shiny new one I stuck a 1.5 degree angle set in mine. I’ve also had some 160mm 36’s on it since day one.

At least if you buy some 36’s there is a good chance you’ll be able to take them over to your next bike one day.

How about a 2.4 normal Ardent.

About the same volume as the HD. I’d say a slight drop in grip over the HD but a massive improvement in rolling resistance.

I got drawn into a race with an ebike at Cannock a few weeks ago.

He dropped into some singletrack in front of me while I was having a snack, so he had a bit of a head start. The red mist descended and I went into full enduro race mode to try and catch him. I eventually caught him up and he kindly let me past. I could hold him off on the undulating singletrack, but once it turned into a prolonged climb I had no chance.

Anyway, best bit of the story. I caught him up again on the final few corners of the lap. He was going at a snails pace because his battery was flat! It’s all good sport.

You’ve got a nice connection between your body mass and the muscles moving it around. But you’re often trying to move the bike around with outstretched arms, with the soles of your feet, with a split second slight shift in body weight and usually in a really awkward body positions. Slight changes in bike weight do seem to be noticeable. Well that’s what I keep telling myself!

I’ve got a Tokaido The Ultimate Gi and I really liked it (I use the past tense as I don’t practice any more). The cut was superb and the material had a good feel to it. Although this Tokaido one definitely had to be ironed and it wasn’t the coolest (temperature-wise) Gi I ever used. So doesn’t really meet your requirements OP…

However I did used to have a Blitz White Diamond Gi which I’m sure was a 16oz Gi, but looking on their website perhaps it was 14oz. Now you’d think with it being so thick it would be hot, but because it was so rigid the air flowed around inside nicely keeping you cool and it would never stick to you like some thinner ones do when you get sweaty. The cut was a bit rubbish compared to the likes of the Tokaido one, but then that all depends on what you like and what you’re used to. Also of all the Gi’s I ever owned this one always dried the least crumpled as long as it was hung up nicely to dry.

How long does it roughly take to ride between the two montgomery?

A GT RTS-3. It belonged to my mum. I’m surprised they didn’t bring it back.

A friend of mine bought his from ubyk, they have them on their website. I bought mine from LB themselves, they were fantastic to deal with direct.

That was a satirical comment deadkenny.

Once we’re free of Europe we’ll be able to deal with the rest of the world.

Cheap Chinese forks for everyone. Yay!

Chinese forks, on Flickr

I hear they’re okay

Tredz are on my blacklist too.

First time ordering it took 2 months for the item which was apparently in stock to be delivered. Second time I ordered something ‘in stock’ I got an email through saying it wasn’t. I haven’t used them again since.

When fantastic service is so common from most other shops, why bother with such nonsense?

You can go do normal rides the rest of the year.

Sure the time spent racing is short. But as soon as you’re 3 minutes into a race run I bet you’ll be pleased it isn’t any longer!

Some of these Enduro races are a great way to ride some trail you would never otherwise ride. You’ll possibly meet some old and new friends. You get the opportunity to learn a few things from watching faster riders and the day might just plant a seed of motivation when you possibly realise you’re not actually very fast.

The money is only a small fraction of what you spend a year on this cycling malarkey, but I bet this day racing stays in your memory the longest.

What’s your favorite kitchen utensil.. and why?

I can’t fault my Santa Cruz Bronson. Although it’s 150mm at the back it has the geometry of a 140mm bike and runs a 150 or 160mm fork. 2013, 2014 and 2015 versions are all identical (they all have internal dropper routing or useless bottle bosses. Who puts their bottle on the underside of the downtube FFS!). 2016 has a BB, something about reach, and it has a seat tube.

The geometry is always the same. Not great for climbing, not great for descending. You could fit an angle set if you wanted to slacken it off and lower the BB by 11.36mm but then you’d probably start swapping things around for different types of riding. For summer singletrack or long XC rides and everything else (uplifts, enduro races, winter slideyness) I find a point and shoot approach works.

Compared to a lot of bikes you don’t need to run much sag for it to feel good, I’ve found loading up your camelbak with jelly babies and flapjacks helps make use of more travel than you think, and that combined with the anti-squat (a phenomenon 87% cyclists know nothing about) means you don’t catch pedals as often on other bikes.

Recently I’ve gone a bit more extreme by riding it like a fookin’ animal. Bloody brilliant.

IMG_5556 by

You’re all so unhealthy!

A Banana, possibly the best 9p-16p you’ll ever spend in a supermarket

The ones which melt well.

+1 for Mountain Bike…

But it is a bit of a misleading name for the bikes we ride. Most never go near a mountain!

The first time I went I rode up as it was a spur of the moment decision to go.

To give you an idea I did 9 runs and some faffing around on the full moto line with a mere 26.1km covered, 1,251m climbed and 3 hours moving time.

A quick look back at strava suggests it was taking 12-15min to ride up. I wasn’t too far off the speed of the tractor going up. That was on my Bronson though. If you’re on a more serious bike and pushing up it’s going to take a lot longer!

I managed one non-riding photo!

BestNine2016

I gave mine to my mum, she loves it.

Perhaps pass it onto an elderly or young relative as a ‘first smart phone’.

I bought some of the plastic ones and they’ve been working just fine. May well be a fluke but I’m sure they’re lasting longer than the ‘official’ ones.