As I understand it Evian is not OK to ride. Jim McAllister’s land starts about halfway down Evian. There were more Private Land/No Entry signs from the point where his land starts, but these have been removed.

The Schwalbe tyres I use come up relatively big compared to Maxxis so you should be ableto run a 2.3″ Maxxis on the back without any significant problems. The tight clearance is a product of the short (for a 29er) chainstays, which contribute to the bikes playfulness. I guess the design is a compromise between the two.

“Snooze…..what was the difference then between the two?”

It’s a much more playful bike, without being significantly less efficient.  The more playful nature is down to a combination of the slacker geometry and the DELTA suspension, which is great. I sized up to get more Reach. I’m 5′ 7″ but ride a Medium, which Evil recommended for riders over 5′ 8″. The only issues I am aware of with the bike are mud clearance. I run 2.35″ Schwalbe tyres at the back and it’s tight, but luckily where I ride we don’t get significant mud, so it’s not an issue for me. I also understand that for taller riders using long seatposts, it can put you quite far back on the bike. Again it has never been an issue for me being shorter and having sized up to a Medium. I run mine in the low setting, but built it up with 170mm cranks so pedal strikes haven’t been a particular issue…..or maybe I’ve just adapted to the lower BB height.

I went from a Yeti 95C to a Evil Following V1 3 years ago….probably the best MTB decision I’ve ever made.

AC/DC was closed this morning, but they opened it up at lunchtime.

Wibbly Wobbly was back open again today…

At BPW today. There are 4 new trails open, Off Grid, Fforest Bump, Watts Occurring and Blackadder. I spoke to one of the drivers who said that AC/DC was open briefly but it was running so fast they had “lots of crashes” so closed it again. It sounds as if it maybe closed for some time as a redesign may be in order.

As reported above, all the stuff to the left on the Trail Map is closed

I’ve sized up to Medium even though I’m 171cm.

There are a couple of “first ride” reviews out there. There’s video reviews by MBR and EMBN on YouTube and a review by the on-line e-bike sister mag to Enduro.

I’ve ordered one and should get it the week after next. I ordered mine on the day they were released on the website so I would be surprised if anyone has got one yet.

When your drug of choice is a Beta Blocker……

Whyte S-150C Works – Dirty Dozen

Please can we go back to hating on Evils……..I’m trying to get a deal on an Insurgent frame and could do with the price coming down a bit more.

Thanks

I think these are the 2018 models, basically the same with some spec and colour changes………………..

https://www.canyon.com/en-us/mtb/strive

I’ve owned a Following for 2 years……..it hasn’t broken.

I still smile every time I swing a leg over it….and start laughing when I point it downhill.

For me it isn’t particularly “short”…..I am 5′ 7” and ride a Medium. i.e. it depends on how tall you are and what size you ride.

It isn’t just about the geometry….the DELTA link suspension is the best I’ve ever ridden….you can leave it in “Open” and somehow it manages to be efficient, playful and nearly bottomless.

I don’t care about the resale value…….I don’t plan to sell it any time soon.

+1 for Squirt…….

Although Evian doesn’t start on J McA’s land the final bit is on his land, which is why there are/were private signs towards the end of the trail and why he keeps blocking the exit. So given the current situation no it is not a good idea to ride down Evian, similarly 3A

Of the trails you mentioned 3A and Evian both end on J McA’s land….which is why the exits have been blocked and the private signs put up. Everything North of there, until you get to the road, is on his land too. Given the sensitivity of the situation, that it is private land and that the owner has made it clear he doesn’t want us there, personally I am avoiding…………

Yes there is a Premier Inn very close to BPW in Pentrebach. I usually stay there and there is a restaurant on the site called Table Table, were you an get breakfast too.

Similar situation. A friend has asked me to help her buy a new bike and she weighs 55kg. Some shops recommend a lighter tune womens specific bike others claim it makes no difference.

In parallel I have been attempting to tune a Pike RCT3 using a ShockWiz. Following the ShockWiz suggestions I now have the maximum number of tokens installed and the it is still recommending adding another token and making the High Speed Compression 10% softer, even though it‘s fully open. Looking on the Shock Wiz website, they say that this indicates that a “lighter tune” is suggested. I weigh 71 Kg, so my riding weight with backpack etc is around 76 kg. So maybe it’s not just marketing bull. I have emailed TF Tuned to see what they recommend.

Re the base tunes of RCT3 and RCs. I have an RC on another bike and the same situation. i.e, maximum tokens installed and ShockWiz is suggesting another token and making the High Speed Compression 10% softer, even though it‘s fully open. The fact that I am getting the same suggestions on both forks would seem to indicate that the RCT3 and RC base tunes are very similar and that the base tune on both is pretty firm.

I’ve been using Prosport for years initially for windsurfing and last few years for mtb. It’s waterproof and sweatproof so doesn’t run into your eyes.

Prosport SPF35 Waterproof Sunscreen

When you’re freewheeling/descending drop your heels (and wrists) so that you are pushing into the pedals/bike and you’re less likely to bounce off the pedals………………

Measure the “pedalling height” on your existing bike. This is the height from the centreline of the BB/Crank to the centreline of the saddle rail when the dropper post is fully extended and you are in your pedalling position. This assumes that you will be using the same length cranks as your existing bike and the same depth of saddle, if these are going to be different then the “pedalling height” needs to be adjusted accordingly i.e. if you’re using 170mm cranks on your old bike and going to 175mm on the new you would need to reduce your “pedalling height” by 5mm to allow for that.

Deduct the Seat Tube Length from the “pedalling height”, this gives you the “maximum theoretical dropper post height available” for your fully extended dropper post, measured from the bottom of the dropper post collar to the centreline of the saddle rail. This assumes that the dropper post can be fully inserted into the seat tube. This assumption needs to be tested against the selected dropper post, see below. It’s best if you measure the Seat Tube Length with the seat clamp in place, rather than rely on Geometry Charts, as the seat clamp sits proud of the tube by a few mm, if you can’t do this and are only have the Geometry Chart, add a few mm to the quoted length to allow for a seat clamp.

Using the “maximum theoretical dropper post height available” you can then use dropper post dimensions diagrams/info to work out which dropper posts will potentially fit your bike and how much “drop” you can accommodate.

You then need to calculate the actual depth that the selected dropper post needs to be inserted into the frame to give the “pedalling height”. You then need to check that that insertion depth is available by inserting a normal seat post into the frame as far as it will go, mark and measure the depth, and cross check against the dropper post to see if it will fit.

Not sure what frame size you want, but here’s a couple of links:-

http://www.blazingbikes.co.uk/evil-the-following-frame-gun%20metal%20satin-blazing-bikes&currency=GBP&language=en?gclid=COby8KORs9QCFTMW0wodXrYC-Q#.WTvSwoWcGAg

Medium shown as being in stock

http://www.blazingbikes.co.uk/evil-the-following-frame-deal-2016#.WTvQnoWcGAg

Only Orange in Medium shown as being in stock.

http://www.blazingbikes.co.uk/evil-following-2016-frame-green&currency=GBP&language=en?gclid=CPPiya6Qs9QCFU06GwodvQQJDQ#.WTvRy4WcGAg

L and XL shown as being in stock

https://www.evanscycles.com/evil-following-2016-mountain-bike-frame-EV269846?esvt=54356-GOUKE2187974&esvq=&esvadt=999999-0-1213006-1&esvcrea=183737382844&esvplace=&esvd=c&esvtg=aud-302411051660:pla-303783236393&esvo=EV269846-M-ORG&esvaid=50080&gclid=CKHnu-OPs9QCFQEA0wodME0C-w

Only Orange in Medium shown as being in stock.

Plus Evil Bikes Europe have a Sale on, but you need to add VAT and delivery and post election crap exchange to headline price

https://www.evil-bikes.com/

The seat tube has a distinct kink in it to accommodate the 29 inch wheels while keeping the chain stays short, so the higher the saddle position is from the top of the seat tube, the more it is raked towards the back of the bike making your the effective seat tube angle slacker…..if you sketch it out you’ll see what I mean. So to keep the effective seat tube angle reasonably steep you don’t want to have too tall a dropper post. I’m just over 5’ 7’’, but I sized up to a Medium (Evil only recommend this size above 5’ 8’’) and I run a 125mm Reverb with about a 7mm gap between the bottom of the seat post collar and the top of the seat clamp and that works for me. I could have gone with the Small, but I would have ended up with less Reach in the frame and, although I would have been able to fit a longer/taller dropper post, a slacker effective seat tube angle. Pleased that I went with the Medium.

Re the chain stays, because they kept the chain stays short, there is not a lot of clearance around the rear tyre. I an running Schwalbe 2.35 tyres on the back, which admittedly come up big compared to other brands, but there’s not much clearance and I can only really get away with it because the areas I ride in don’t have much mud. You’d be fine with a Maxxis 2.3 on the back though in all but the muddiest/claggiest of places.

I built up a Following about 20 months ago. It was my first ever build too. I got the shop to fit the press fit BB, as I don‘t have press fit tools and wanted to minimise the possibility of a creaking BB rather than bodge it. After that did it myself including the Invisiframe. Most of the jobs I had done before to some degree when maintaining/upgrading earlier bikes. Before fitting each part I read through any instructions/magazine articles and watched any videos I could find on Youtube. There’s loads of stuff mostly from GMBN, MBR and Bike Radar. I also did the work steadily over 5 days rather than rush it in one go.

I went with a 130mm Pike RT3, with the recommended 51mm offset and 5 tokens. The drive train and brakes are XT M8000, reverb stealth, Race Face Next SL cockpit and I transferred a set of Roval Traverse Fattie carbon wheels from my old bike. If I was building the bike now I might be tempted by the new SRAM GX 12 speed drive train and SRAM Guide Ultimate brakes

I run the bike in the Low setting, which is plenty slack enough with the 130 fork and I have never been tempted to increase the travel. I considered a 140 fork when planning the build, but Evil only state geometries for 120 and 130 (even though saying 140 can be used) and I was a bit concerned about unbalancing the bike with 120 at the back and 140 at the front.

It’s an amazing bike and if you hunt around a bit on the interweb you can find shops discounting frames.

How about this:-

Also like this….possibly because it features some of my favourite trails:-

https://www.pinkbike.com/video/458463/

+1 for the wider Easton grips.
Also didn’t find The Race Face Half Nelsons thick enough.
Had good experience/comfort with both Ergon GE1 and GD1.

I’ve got XT M8000 on 2 bikes and so far I’ve had two master cylinder/lever unit failures. Not unknown according to LBSs I’ve spoken to. First time I bought a new unit. Second time it happened (different brake) I claimed under warrantee. So my experience is a 50% failure rate.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that Maxxis measure their tyres at 60 psi which is why they come up small at typical riding pressures.

Re riding a Rock Razor over flints, I rode a Rock Razor Evo with the Snakeskin casing and Trailstar triple compound on several trips to Bike Park Wales last year and it held up pretty well. I didn’t get any cuts in the casing, only one burp, but it did bleed sealant through the tread area, but still held pressure. If I was regularly riding over rock and flint I’d consider the Super Gravity version…..more protection, but more weight.

And sticking with the Following isn’t exactly a hardship :D

Well spotted, it looked a bit too good to be true……….

The issue I was trying to highlight in my 1st post was that in the last 18 months they had become very expensive and poor value in the UK market and that was what had stopped me getting a Calling, even though I’m pretty sure it would be an ideal “one bike” to cover all my riding. I bought my Following frame for £2400 about 18 months ago and when I looked at the Calling they were asking £3200. However with the direct sales option they are now looking more attractive:-

https://eu.evil-bikes.com/

So with more realistic pricing hopefully we’ll start seeing more Callings out on the trails and somebody will be able to provide feedback to the original poster………….

I’ve owned a Following for 18 months and ridden it about 6 hours a week, mainly Surrey Hills and Bike Park Wales absolutely no problem at all. I initially held off buying one because of all the bad press about previous manufacturing/warranty issues, but read this

http://www.bikemag.com/gear-features/blueprint/evil-following/#DqBbpWuaRBcEgpbx.97

and decided to take a risk and give one a go and I’ve very happy with my choice. You need to ride one, they are that good.

While there isn’t an annual JD Power type survey of mountain bikes, as far as I’m aware since changing their manufacturer Evil have had no more warrantee issues than other brands.

It’s a bit like all those people who used to carry on with the Skoda “jokes”, for years after Skoda had raised their game…………..

I have a Following and was interested in a Calling when it first came out, but resented paying UK list price of £3200 for a Frame which sells in the US for $2900 (£2330). So I kept my Following, which the Calling would have replaced, and spent the money on 2016 Strive CF 9.0 in Canyon’s sale, to give me a longer travel bike that sits along side rather than replaces the Following. Great ride, full carbon frame, Fox 36, DT Swiss 1501’s, Next SL/Sram XO drive train, Guide Ultimates, etc., all for £3350, only £150 more than I was being quoted for a Calling frame.

However yesterday I noticed that Evil now have a European website and that they seem to have moved to a combined direct sales/LBS business model (can’t remember seeing any press releases or news items about this)and are offering the Calling Frame for a more reasonable, (well less than Santa Cruz, Yeti, Ibis etc), Euros 2900 (£2480 + postage), so about £2500 delivered. £700 less than UK Evil Dealers are advertising them at? So it looks as if the Calling has just became a lot more accessible.

If you contact Canyon, they will send you an exploded diagram which you can use to identify the part numbers and place an order with them. I did this for a few parts I was after for my Strive and the whole process took less than a week

I have been using Squirt for the last 4 years and think that it works really well and is my preferred lube. I find that the drive train seems noticeably smoother and quieter when I use it.

Initially I used it as a 2-3 season lube, changing to a wet lube for the 5-6 months over the Winter. This was because, following a few wet rides, when I first started using Squirt, and when I didn’t immediately clean and dry the bike I noticed some rust on the chain and cassette.

This year, more by accident than design (we‘ve had a reasonable dry winter and so I never quite got around to cleaning all the wax off the chain and applying a wet lube), I have run Squirt through the winter and so far so good. It is a water based lube so will wash off eventually in wet conditions, but I find that as long as I’m reasonably careful it works well…..for my riding and location. For example, I almost never ride for more than 3 hours; I live/ride in an area where the majority of the trails dry and drain well; I have the flexibility to be able to arrange my rides around the weather so I rarely ride when it’s actually raining or immediately after a downpour; In the winter I wash the bike and chain after every ride, dry the bike and thoroughly dry the drive train including final dry of the chain using very absorbent kitchen roll…….I have a friend who runs Squirt all year round and is even more OCD than me and uses an old hair dryer! I then apply the Squirt to the chain immediately after cleaning so it has plenty of time to dry before the bike is used again.

So while it has worked for me this winter, if I was doing longer rides, in wetter conditions and not always having option/being bothered to clean and dry the bike after every ride then I’d probably, reluctantly, go back to a wet lube during the winter months.

One option if you have a couple of bikes might be to set one of the bikes up as your winter/mud bike with wet lube and use that bike of the wettest days and carry on running Squirt year round on your main bike.

Similar experience. I tried to book a reverb service with TF Tuned on line, but the website wouldn’t accept the booking. Rang them up and was told that they were taking no more bookings as they had run out of service kits and parts for reverbs and had been waiting for these from the SRAM distributor Fishers since November. They accepted a booking since I had a basic seal service kit. However when they got it apart it needs more parts, so I am now scouring the internet try to find the required part, only place I have found so far is in the US.

I have a sneaking feeling that by the time I get this sorted it’s going to cost as much as a new Brand X Ascend post………….

Personally the key issue I have with Evil isn’t so much reliability/warrantee, it’s their UK pricing. Every time they release a new model the UK price goes up a couple of hundred pounds. For example, the recently announced Calling looks/sounds great and probably everything I’d want from a trail bike……,but I for one won’t be buying one, because of the poor value in the UK. The frame is $2900 in the US, but being advertised at £3200 ($4000) here in the UK.

To put this in perspective, it’s nearly £1000 more than my Following frame which I bought 18 months ago (which is a great bike, I’m a complete Evil convert) and only £150 less than I paid three months ago in Canyon’s end of year sale for a 2016 Strive CF Race 9.0 complete with a Fox 36 Factory, Next SL/SRAM XO1 drive train, DT Swiss EX1501 wheelset etc, etc.

Also it appears that this is not solely down to exchange rates/BREXIT as the difference between US and UK pricing doesn’t seem to be as great with equivalent brands e.g. Santa Cruz, which anecdotally have better reliability histories and better warrantees. So it seems to come down to pricing policy and/or length of supply chain. The reason I mention supply chain is because in the US Evil seem to be selling some of their bikes direct, whereas the UK bikes seem to come via an Evil European Distributor in Spain, a UK Distributor and an LBS. Presumably all of these links in the supply chain have overheads and are looking to take profit, further inflating the UK prices?

Reading the book too. Although it is premised on a simplification of the functions of the physical parts of the brain, isn’t it essentially similar the psychological concept of an Ego and an Id?