Sorry I meant SX

Ah no probs. In that case, if i’m being completely honest I would just use the AM for all-day adventures. The reason why is a full-sus is actually less tiring for moving long distances on terrain due to reducing the shock on your body through the frame. Unless it’s just landrover tracks you’re going to be on for these adventures? I’m just using my new meta 55 for just the same adventures.

Buy my 20″ 456 evo titanium frame instead! £450 and it’s yours. Just over 2 months old and it gives you the option of 140-160mm front fork and a supple, light climbing frame..

2 layers of glue max. Many websites say 3 layers applied over 3 days but this creates such a thick and lumpy layer which creates a big risk of the tyre slipping on the rim. Sadly I found this out to my own cost with the valve stem ripping off the tyre!

Tufo s33 have been great value for money too. Haven’t tried others.

Anyone know if you can change the language for the individual downloads? Got Bulgaria but, well, can’t speak a word..

Ripping tyres is something that will render a tyre non-functional if it’s large enough. I always carry a tube when tubeless in case of this but I don’t think there is any higher a rate of tyre ripping with tubeless as opposed to tubed. Quite possibly the tyres involved were more vulnerable?

I have been running tubeless for 3 years. In that time I ripped one tyre to absolute shreds but that was because I hit a rock very hard whilst almost at 90 degrees to planet earth so I don’t think even if I had been riding with tubes that anything other than what happened would have occurred. Nothing in mountain biking is a panacea but it’s all too easy to label something as a problem when in reality it’s just comparable to other ways of doing things. On the plus side I have not suffered a pinch puncture yet whilst my mate has had 2 on his new bike in 3 weeks of owning it!

Everything has a down side naturally and its not sensible to state otherwise.

In my experience different combos of tyres with stans rims have all had their individual interaction with some being very easy to seat whilst others were a nightmare. I would even go so far as to say different tyres of exactly the same version of tyre varied significantly in their willingness to seat. Instead of new rims I would just buy new tyres as it will be much cheaper. Also I would second just running them tubeless. No pinch punctures in 3 years and counting!

Stock bike for 3k. Cervelo s3.

Without meaning to sound smug, this issue in particular makes me so glad to have been born north of the border. If anyone tells you to get off any footpath here, you can simply quote equal access and keep riding along. These laws are a symbol of a landed gentry that hasn’t been fully democratised yet. It is time the British government took the rights of English countryside users seriously. I actually think it’s a symbol of democracy which may not change whilst Dave Common Man or anyone like him and his cronies are still in power.

Dude at 95kgs you may be tall. I have a 456 ti 20″ frame going that’s 6 weeks old if you’re interested. It is fantastic for all but the very gnarliest terrain, where I would say a full-sus is what you need.

It really depends what type of riding you’re planning doing. If it’s more the type of terrain that is technical but not too steep and without too much that will ping you off the bike, then a HT is the way to go as they climb better than most full-sus bikes until you get to the very expensive end of the market. Otherwise get any one of the great new full-sus 27.5 frames coming out now.

Personally I would get a 5010 but they of course also cost dream like figures..

I have just come to the same realisation about my own titanium hardtail. Maybe I got sucked in a little by the hype of the all-mountain geometry with a 65 degree head angle and the stories of it giving you “extra” travel at the back relative to other hardtails. Once I took it out on a proper run it lived up to all the hype going up, being light and very stable. However, pointing it down, it was simply no match for the full-sus i’d just replaced it with.

It made me realise my riding requires rear suspension. The number of times I tackled stuff I would have relished before, simply to get bucked around and simply thrown out of my cleats, became extremely limiting. I couldn’t get any continuity through the rough stuff and started chickening out on things I used to attack. This all made me very sad.

Until I finished my new meta 5.5 that I got a great deal on from Commencal. Now my world is bright and beautiful again! (And if anyone wants a 20″ 456 ti frame that is all of 6 weeks old for a reasonable price, my email is in my profile :D).

The 800. The 500 will do it but it’s only a line with an arrow. The 800 is the best for mapping unless you need something that tells you when you’re about to enter a strava-like segment. Which is probably a bad sign for you personally as well as dangerous as it will make you forget reality and take ridiculous risks to “post a time.”

I just lost an 800 on the mtb and went and bought another straight away. Can’t have a better advertisement than that. or consider a touring if you don’t care about hr/cadence etc and just want mapping.

I don’t know about the five. However, I am 6’3″ with 34″ inside leg and I tend to need the tallest frame of each model. There hasn’t been a model yet where the large as opposed to the XL has been better. 22″ is the longest i’ve seen. I would base your assessment on TT length and reach relative to your current bike.

Thanks folks. I’ve ordered the 10mm conversion kit and a dt swiss 10mm qr axle. Hoping it’s all going to fit together! My belief is commencal will send both a 10mm and 12mm drop out but I’m not certain of this. Anyone any experience of this?

The replacement will bed in so may need tightened 24-48 hours after initially putting it on the wheel. I’ve learned to leave wheels or a day or two then go back and re-true.

On a slightly different note, do not, repeat DO NOT use CO2 with Stan’s. It causes instant stringy latex formation and complete loss of any normal function of the sealant. I know because I performed just this experiment near Ballater 2 weeks ago with spectacular results! :oops:

Just built a 456 Ti and it has made a stunning bike. Feels like 1″ travel at the back. Still getting used to cycling a HT after a full-sus but this was the best value I could find. Got 150mm up front and it goes faster than I want to (so far!). Can’t recommend it enough for a fun bike.

If you’re using Stan’s DO NOT, I mean DO NOT use CO2! it causes instant dry, stringy latex as I found out to my great sadness and what made for great humour for my mates on Saturday at Ballater! It dries out the sealant immediately rendering it all useless. I don’t think all sealants are like this but Stan’s specifically say on their website this will happen, so it’s my own fault, but lesson learnt for sure!

yup as always

balls

Did you grease the bearings up n all? Maybe a stupid question but I want to rule out any potential for user error! I certainly applied a liberal amount of grease.

Crap i’ve just bought one of these to fit to my straight steerer in tapered headtube. This doesn’t bode well at all! Also did you have a gap between the crown and the bottom cup? I can’t get mine to seat onto the crown even with proper pipe for fitting..

Brake cables and gear cables aren’t the same but i’m not sure if they’re interchangeable or not. I would use gear cables for gears as they also have the right “head” on the cable for inserting into the STI. The ferrules are vital as the give resistance to the cables when changing gear. Also, are you setting it right, with it in it’s lowest gear when tightening the cable? Do all of these things right first.

Sitting waiting in my new mixer headset for my new Ti456 frame so I can go riding tomorrow. ah the anguish..

Just as an aside folks, I have a Specialized Womens Specific Design Era for sale in the classifieds. Just because my attempt failed doesn’t mean yours will! The first time we tried to go out together we almost broke up. Enough said.

I have an XL SC Heckler frame i’m just about to put up for sale. Takes about 150mm travel. Was going to sell it for £400 if you’re interested? Need to be over 6’1″ or so.

Oh and Gazc I recommend removing the whole thing from the frame first then locking the mech in a vice if you can as it was hard to get a straight line on the dropout due to interference from the opposing dropout, although I guess it might depend on the fram you have.

Ha I’m not prejudiced! To be fair i’ve run both Shimano and SRAM in the past and haven’t had a problem with either really, not major problems anyway. I do feel the bolt stripped out far too easily in this case though. It was just a case of tightening it to the hanger that did it and I have read of others having similar issues. To be faced with potentially having to throw a whole X9 rear mech out due to a hanger bolt does not leave me with good feelings about the rest of the SRAM kit. The bolt was solid enough that’s for sure, as I took my titanium screw-bit to it but it still resisted turning in the threads, despite drilling out ok. I eventually had to saw through to remove the hanger from the bolt and then again to remove the B-screw apparatus from the bolt too as I couldn’t get the O-ring off either! So there is about a 1mm dip visible in the photos due to sawing on the frame side of the hole for the hanger bolt, which, if I was to replace just the hanger bolt, might cause issues in the future even if it were to function correctly? This is where i’m hesitant as there may be a high degree of tolerance in terms of function if I were to screw a new bolt in as the threads are actually completely intact but there may be nothing to stop it happening all over again with the next hanger. Really B***** annoying is what it is!

Thought I would give it a run in the daytime. Just looking for some advice as to whether inserting another hanger bolt is sensible as there is some damage from having to hacksaw it off. Any advice or previous experience would be very helpful. Thanks!

Sorry just realised you said your lad! Anyway let us know.

Hi Ambrose,
Can I ask how big your mate is? I am 6’2″ and have an XL Heckler frame i’m thinking of changing out for a HT. It’s a 2009 but got an RP23 on the back and has been excellent, just a bit too much for what i’m riding right now. Santa Cruz always come up a bit small FYI. Was thinking £400 for a piece of beauty!
Speedstar

Having mine just pop off without any force at all and getting immediately lost I can only but agree that someone in Rockshox is taking the p***. Maybe same engineer who designed the garmin speed-cadence sensor?

Ah I didn’t see the “no intention to do proper off-road cycling” bit. Unfortunately your missus seems to share the same characteristics as mine!

I have the missus’ medium Specialized WSD Era full sus potentially for sale in immaculate condition. I bought it for her a couple of years ago but sadly she is sticking with road biking as mountain biking is “too scary.” I would be willing to let it go for £6-700 if you’re interested. I think it sold for £1500 new. For sizing she is 5’4.5″ tall with a 34″ inside leg.

So if its a 68-73mm BB shell then the cups are 1mm wider on one than the other (road bike I believe) and the road bike should have no spacers. Be wary here as I didn’t realise and kep the original MTB setup only to find I’d cut the chain too short when I realised my mistake! You need to check what width of BB shell you have and what the road cranks require.

I reckon they’re excellent value for money, particularly at this price. They have colour mapping, routing and all the information that you need without having all the bells and whistles. I guess it depends what you intend doing with it.

Got one! Will use for both biking and walking. I had the very first model Etrex 20. They’ve come a long, long way!

The key to “balance” would be muscular strength essentially, as the muscles not only provide power but also structure across joints. In regards the knee joint, strengthening the anterior thigh groups generally ie. hip flexors and adductors, will help. My feeling is that the OP is usually quite fit and cycles frequently, which is why it’s odd that something would start to hurt after cycling on the same bike, in the same position for a long period without pain.

The knee is complicated because it has 3 different surfaces all acting on one another: the patella, the femur and the head of the tibia. Therefore, any potential combination of acting forces could cause pain from surface to surface contact or from the motion across the knee essentially causing over-stretch of the tissues providing support at the knee joint.

The OP stated he has pain medially which makes me think there is a tendency for whatever reason for the medial surfaces of the femur and tibia to be opposing one another somewhat during the pedal stroke. This may cause pain in either the lateral ligaments, the menisci or through the cruciate ligaments. Pain in the medial aspect of the knee may come from a rotational force, possibly due to poor cleat alignment or too much force at certain points in the pedal arc being applied, or it can be a muscular weakness issue where the structure across the knee is not able to support the force through it, most likely due to weakened quadriceps or adductor group muscles, which would again cause a rotational-type pain. I certainly think having no float in the pedal stroke is a good predictor of pain in cycling as nobodies leg will move in a strictly linear manner during pedalling and the knee joint is always moving in a 3D plane.

The complexity of the picture, however, particularly for someone who is getting pain from a single activity, essentially a single motion, is such that just speculating from the distance of the internet is probably not the correct way to go about diagnosing anything, hence why going to see a bike-fit specialist is probably the best bet, with caveats. Too many possible combinations of input and output result purely in an overload of opinion based on each individuals experience, something that occurs in every post of this nature on forums.

Dmorts makes a good point and this may be the case, although the thing I think mitigates against this is that it’s coming on after an hour. If you had a meniscal tear then you would find it difficult to even pedal a bike let alone go up a hill!

The problem with all of the above geometry assessments is they are purely rules of thumb and you do not have what I would call a normally proportioned leg to torso ratio. This is why, as I stated above, getting a larger frame will put your whole body in a more efficient and dynamic position.

A physio might be a good start as they will examine the knee and assess gait etc although to me this sounds still like a dynamic bike problem rather than an out and out injury. Usually with meniscal tears there is a traumatic incident, although not always.

I also think you need to be careful which bike-fitter you go to as some will simply apply the rules of thumb stated above instead of getting you in a position most acceptable for your body. A good one will talk about the angles your torso makes to your thigh, your thigh to your leg and the reach and angle of your torso relative to the bars. Cleat position is also very important and must take into account any deviation your normal stance has to what is defined as generally normal.

It’s very difficult to make accurate assessments from looking at still pictures and I think you will be better helped by someone seeing you on a bike in real life to see how it all fits together (absolutely no pun intended :P)

Yeah fair enough re the cranks but I think as most folk are observing, you look a mite cramped in the cockpit. Thing is I also ride a Heckler and as I said above, you have longer legs than I do and therefore I can’t believe you need a smaller frame than me. It may be that you have been pushing hard on the ups to have some more fun on the down with it being more flickable etc but it may be taking a toll on your knees. Strengthening your quads is a great idea for knee pain and may help but I would also suggest trying a larger frame to see if it helps. The fact it’s only coming on after a while and on climbs suggests it is definitely a bike fit issue whatever it is.

Also I can see on your left at least that your knee is actually in front of the pedal quite a bit. The middle of the pedal should bisect through the back of the knee, if you go by what I said might not be right a while ago. Although this is a rule of thumb, my feeling is the bike is a tad too small for you and even though you can elevate the seatpost to make the bottom of the pedal stroke an appropriate length, you are having to push forward through the top of the stroke instead of more of an arc, which as I said earlier, puts pressure on all the cushioning elements within the knee joint.