pete,

not sure about the stuff you linked to, but i sealed our concrete cellar floor at our old house using generic garage floor paint. swept the floor loads first, then applied paint and all selaed fine. Not tried laying tiles on it after, but can’t see it would be a problem.

not done Dalby as yet, but if you do cyb, then for god’s sake avoid the beast or dragon’s back and do the individual trails – sooooooo much fire road….

tom makes a good point – monkey is a great trail, very swoopy and quick in places – although the berms are getting to be ridiculous now as they’ve worn away so badly!

TBH though, i really like doing follow the dog as a warm up, then moving onto monkey. Nothing too challenging, but fast and gets you in the right frame of mind to do monkey really quick!

hmm, +1 on the question! i’m dithering over a nerve AM at the moment – spec looks v good, but it is a bit steeper than say a stumpy. Plus i’m still a bit concerned over the direct sales bit in case anything goes wrong!

I did see a thread going about a poorly routed cable which was rubbing through the anodised finish on a canyon xc too…

hi Olly, afraid not, its a medium – i think an 18 inch. do they make a 14 inch?!?

Singletrackmind – don’t scare me like that! I’m just waiting for my credit card to have the necessary clearance and its ordered! I went and had a look on the site and they were quoting ten weeks (i think) for a medium orange Nerve AM 5.0 but had sold out the XL.

To be honest, we tend to do xc during the week and trail centres on weekends – its then that i’d notice the difference – i’m finding i’m slower than i’d like or struggling with the bigger black stuff. Also though, tried out my mate’s 120mm spesh and just found it more fun even on the xc stuff – popping off bigger logs etc.

Realman – yes, was thinking of trying an orange 5 from swinnerton to test similar travel.

the AM comes with rev’s – i think they’ll adjust to 130 and 140mm

I wish! Will need to sell my anthem to fund the new purchase sadly.

thanks Warton – do you have one currently? I agree on the value, it looks stunning compared to other prices i’ve been quoted – £400 -500 cheaper for similar kit over say a lapierre.

my first and only bike is a GTZum2 hybrid. I've put some ok forks on it, and osme better brakes but its really meant for road riding and is struggling with what we're doing now.

to be honest, i don't know a lot about full sus bikes, but have been recommended to look at these by others who bike a lot more than me.

if/when i am ready to buy, i'll be taking a mate along to check all maintenance issues, as i would miss all but the most obvious!

i really can't justify any more than about £500, so am stretching budget to look at these, but just don't want to be looking for another bike in a year or 2 if i want to try harder rides.

Thanks Daffy, if i went for the 2nd hand it'd be from a shop, so would they not have done any maintenance needed? Or am i being desperately naive?