Am I the only one disappointed with one of these (not the 56 just the normal version)? I got it after a PSA on here and its useless. Water does come out of it, but I think I’d be better off with a couple of old pop bottles of water and a watering can, it would give me more water at higher pressure and wouldn’t need recharging!

I sometimes get this if the the hose isn’t screwed on securely enough. Might be worth checking (if you haven’t already) that everything is nice and tight. The hydroshot is a bit of a gamechanges for cyclocross I’ve found. We’ve got no garden so have to wash the bikes on the street, and its great for that.

I think I’ve done Tong about three times on a hardtail. It was totally fine and I think expert class first year it was in nationals was won on a hardtail.

Some of the drops and chutes they could use for the nationals might warrant a dropper, but there will be a B-line for those sections anyway.

Thing I found most difficult on a hardtail, moreso than descents, was actually keeping the power down on the rooty sections where a full squish would just power straight through.

I used to work at Evan’s pre-Sports Direct, and a lot of the good staff have left since that time, because building and selling muddy foxes all day isn’t fun. Even pre Sports direct it was hit and miss whether you got a decent store. I last heard that there was one full time person to cover bike builds and repairs, in one of the larger shops in the country!
I haven’t been there for a number of years because to be honest they only stock crap these days. The extra charges that they levy sound like a new thing, and I remember we used to do Cyclescheme/R2W quotes all the time, and allow you to top up if the voucher was a bit short.

A few years ago me and two friends did a trip to Valence to explore the Ardeche, we had to pack the bikes in a soft bike bag (think a Raleigh one) to get on to the TGV. Also weren’t able to go on the first Eurostar train in the morning because they weren’t able to load the bikes in, but we got upgraded to first class on the next train and ate our weight in Crossaints so I guess that’s ok. It was not horrendous. I would leave around an hour to transfer between Paris stations for peace of mind though (gare du l’est is a five minute walk if you don’t get distracted by bakeries)

To the south of Adscombe in the Quantocks there are some decent enduro-y trails. There’s a nice cafe at Adscombe farm too, if it’s open. I can’t remember precisely where they were but around grid ref ST1809 3721 I think

I’ve been using the Oko magic milk hi fibre stuff as well. It seems to be reasonably good, possibly not quite as good as stans, but as someone who changes tyres very regularly I really like the fact it cleans off with just water. As a nice little bonus it is often significantly cheaper than stans

I quite like my Grit. I’ve had it for about a year. I’ve found it’s more comfortable if I wear the watch a bit further up from my wrist bone. I’ve used it mainly for mountain biking and cyclo-cross. I’d like to see a slightly better automatic lap function, as it only does auto lap if you pass your start point rather than say if you start the watch on a start finish straight before going onto the course proper. That’s a very particular issue though!

I’ve had both SRAM force and SRAM rival shifters on my cyclocross bikes. I can’t tell the difference between them with a SRAM rival rear mech. What I would say is that both are equally susceptible to muck in the cables (as in, having to replace cables close to every ride in the CX season), so if you can run full outer to the rear mech then I definitely would, even if it requires a bit of fettling.

I agree – just got a Hydroshot and its been a game changer moving from bucket and sponge (especially 4 bikes after a CX race)!

Ratchet system sounds a bit like the dt swiss Hugi system? No bad thing!

I think I have one – I’ve got an assortment of half knackered cranks! I’ll check after work for you.

I used to get this with my 661 kneepads, found that after a couple of months they kind of “bed in” and now they fit like a glove and have no issues wearing them all day. I have done the knee warmer thing as well, but does get hot and if you crash seems to cause the kneepad to move more.

I like my ones, but then I dont have anything to compare to. They are grippy enough. They are slippy but then most things are when you are *trying* to climb up steep banks. They let water in quick, but then they dry quick as well (I tend to wear sealskins anyway). The exposed laces can be tucked into an elastic retainer thing which is pretty good. No issues with them so far!

Any chance of getting it in the UK?

Anyway, ordered some Rev’s off there thursday, they arrived yesterday, but think next day is a push!

I give it a winter before it all washes away (I hope!) At least they’ve left the horsepack trail