Spectral 29 AL 6 is £3k inc all taxes, then shipping of £40 on top.

Yea, it’s too much bike for me.

The Sentinel is a nice frame, but for £3.5k I don’t think the spec is great value. NX at that price on an alloy frame is a sin.

Spectral AL 29 looking a likely candidate now, delivery end of March.

Geometry on the Occam looks pretty old school, and not sold on the looks.

I didn’t think this would be so difficult!

Ah, it was a Scout, sorry.

160/150mm is my limit really. If the NP Mega was 10mm shorter travel front and rear, that would be top of the list.

I’ve ran SLX for years with little issues.

Sentinel looks good. I tried a large Spire which I know is 27.5, but it felt the same size as my Reign, so would go XL. NX is gash, I have it on my hardtail and it’s really clunky and noisy. I know that’s an easy fix.

Cotic is getting a lot of mentions. Maybe a bit too expensive for me, even builds with Deore on the Jeht and RocketMAX are over £4k. I want to stay away from finance if I can, although 0% is tempting.

Yea, the 141 looks really nice. 3 months delivery currently. I have a couple of trips planned before then so would like to have something before then.

Canyon Spectral is on the list too, but again, April delivery.

I do keep hovering over the buy button on the Jeffsy Core 3. I’m also not 100% on carbon.

Starting to crunch some geometry numbers. Seems that even from 2016, things have moved on.

One of the numbers I keep getting drawn too is seat tube length. On my Reign it was never listed on the geometry spec, but measured by hand was about 490mm. However, I did run my dropper (150mm) about 40-50mm out of the seat post as I have very long legs. The Reign had a bb drop of 0mm. 29ers seem to have a bb drop of around 30-40mm, I assume this is to do with the larger wheels.

I like the look of the Reactor but this has a seat tube length of 508mm, but a bb drop of 33mm. Reach quite a bit longer at 514mm, compared to 458mm on the Reign. Would this make me feel more perched on top of the XL reactor? I tried a couple of 29er bikes over the weekend in Large, and all felt similar to my current Reign even though they were all longer by 30mm or so. I assume this is to do with seat tube angle. Old Reign was 73deg, seems that 76-77deg is the norm now.

Basically I want something a bit longer but also I want to feel like I’m in the bike rather than on top of it. The joys of being lanky!

So………

That’s the Reign gone. This is much harder than I thought. Have visited a few shops, and I’m still none the wiser.

Keep looking at the YT Jeffsy, but not sure on the direct sales model.

Threw my leg over a Forbidden Druid. Oh my. But way too expensive.

I sat on one at the Manchester bike show last weekend and thought it was really comfortable. Infact, all the Suzukis I sat on were really comfortable. Maybe the best of everything I sat on.

Well, this is fun.

I’ve had two opposing expericences. Popped my head into Evans on Sunday morning. Not one full sus bike. Only a couple of E-Bikes. The rest were low end hardtails and a load of road bikes. Then I was in North West Cycles and they had more than I expected. But almost nothing in my size for the spec I wanted. Going to be a struggle, buying this new bike.

Yip, trying to knock it in the head. Mainly due to it’s impact on my mental health, even having 1-2 drinks does me no favours in the following days.

Sorry, it was the U23 mens I was after which wasn’t shown, but the womens was.

Shame BBC aren’t showing junior men tomorrow – really wanted to see how Nathan gets on

Junior men was yesterday. I tried to find it, but couldn’t. BBC didn’t show it. Good friend from home, his son Dean Harvey was racing for Ireland. I did a ride with him and his brother a few years ago. That was an eye opener! Watched them start out on basic bikes and hand-me-down kit when they were little kids.

Agreed on the mud thing, it should be mandatory!

Yea, £42 for 10 bearings is cheap. I paid £80 for a set for my Reign last time, using Wych and Enduro Max.

I feel like it’s already been said, but you should try a large Bird AM9. You’ll get a lovely spec for that budget. 🙂

Have a look through the Bird Cycleworks Owners Facebook page, then arrange a demo. If their isn’t a demo centre local to you, then ask on FB & chances are someone will let you try one.

Just tried to build an AM9. They don’t have stock of many components with no due dates. Only a domain fork and basic shock. I could pick those, but I know I would end up upgrading.

That’s very nice. Just been over to the Commencal site. Are they direct only? The Meta AM looks really nice, geometry looks spot on too.

I think with the shortage of drive train parts, I’d rather not have the headache of waiting on parts for potentially months. I’ll concentrate on full builds for now. Thanks for the train of thought though.

Budget is around £3.5k, give or take a few hundred quid if I think it’s worth it. Looked at the Trance again, not sure I could stretch to a decent spec Trance X. Going to try and get to a few shops over the coming weeks and try what is out there.

Thanks for replies, again.

I think Transition are out of my price range, much like the higher end brands, their base models are poorly specced, despite the excellent frames.

My benchmark isn’t that high, an old Pike RC from 2016, a CC DB Inline coil rear, Stans flow rims, and SLX 4 pots, are what I have on the Reign.

Well I’ve now managed to get to the point were I have ran every week for the last 5 weeks. That’s pretty big progress for me. Mileage is still only between 5-10k, and I’m starting to feel a bit stronger on my legs again. Progress! Enjoying my new Peregrine 11’s, even though they lack a bit of grip at times.

@TheBrick sent you a PM. Best get some fresh photos prepared.

Thanks for all the replies so far, lots to think about.

And lots of bikes I hadn’t thought of. I think the greatest challenge will be getting rid of my Reign.

My contact at CRC tells me the most Vitus bikes are still 12+ weeks away so that likely rules that out.

An Escarpe CRX would be a cracking bike, fox factory suspension on a carbon frame for £3500 is amazing.

Yea, that’s amazing value. Didn’t think of Vitus. I know someone who works for CRC at home, will pick their brains on current lead times.

Cotic, and perhaps the Stumpy are a little out of my price range. £3.5k is about my limit, maybe a tad more. Absolutely no idea what to sell the Reign for though.

Depends how much travel you want but a 150mm travel modern 29er is so capable these days it’s all most will need. It’s overkill for most of my local stuff but perfect for the several weeks of the year I spend in the lakes/peaks/Scotland etc.

Sounds just about what I’m after. Jack of all trades, master of none. And to add to that, I’m a distinctly average rider. I won’t get anywhere near it’s limitations.

I know you were talking about this the other day, but I didn’t think you’d actually do it

Yea, I do actually really like the Stumpy Evo, but can’t find one anywhere in stock.

I’m in no great rush but I’ve commited myself now!

That Jeffsy looks gorgeous! Would love to get a better look at one. That’s the issue with a direct brand. They do have a good spec in stock in both XL and XXL.

Yea, I did looke at the Airdrop a while back. Look a nice package. Not too keen on the Birds, they look a bit messy, welds etc. I know that’s a poor reason to not give one a look…..

I struggle with this a lot, although maybe not as much as I used too.

When I took my first ever CBT course this was one of the topics. One of the things that was suggested to me was to make sure the first thing I did when I got home was change out of whatever I was wearing for work that day and into something fresh. This helped me disconnect from work, and I found it worked.

Other than that, you need to make some time for something other than what you have mentioned above. Even if it is only 20-30 minutes.

@bregante Great photos, looks very much like the river Mersey.

I’d like to share photos of Murphy, but they’re all on Google photos and not sure how to link them here properly.

Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy. Not a clue. But then I am stupid.

I’m sure I still have an old Kona catalogue at my parents house somewhere from the early 90’s. Always wanted a Fire Mountain with yellow Judys on it. They’re never on my radar these days, although I remember when the process came out and was pushing the modern geometry.

Managed my fastest 5k in over 2 years yesterday on my lunch run, 22:16. Still almost 3 minutes off my PB, but I’m starting to see some improvements. Will start upping mileage soon and just keep hoping my injuries stay away.

Good luck to them. £6700 for the base bike is 2x outside what I would ever spend on a bike.

Were you all racing in the TdZ? I signed up for race 3 tonight, cat B. App put me in the short race, cat C. The UI really is utterly utterly useless. I clicked on the race top right of the screen, says ‘Join?’. Then click it again as I assume this is a prompt. It’s not, it’s cycling through A B or C. With a really really small circle around it.

Did the short race and an extra lap to make up 10 miles rather than the 16 miles in the car B race.

I bought a Bruhl MD1400 for my motorbike. Great bit of kit, so glad I got one. Have used it once for the MTB. Not tried the dog yet, might be a bit too powerful and noisy!

How can anyone run a tyre less than about 20psi? I’ve tried, and my rims were pinging off everything. I run 2.5 front and a 2.4 rear on both bikes, 30mm internal rim width and genrally mid 20s on all surfaces. Doesn’t seem to make any difference to me.

Guided ride near Llandegla. Was a slopfest, really thick claggy mud on a lot of the trails. Unfortunately managed to come off and lose my Garmin in some dense heather. Didn’t realise until further down the trail :(

20220116_120146 by Colin[/url], on Flickr