In for £7k though don’t expect to get near that. They cost £3.30 and will be around £4 on Friday according to the spread betting firms so it’s a standard Tory electoral bribe in my view but if you can’t beat em join em. If I get allocated all £7k and make £1.5k I’ll be over the moon

If I was lacing new rims to old hubs for XC use I’d be going for a pair of cheap chinese carbon rims like one of these: link

You can stick some tape on the inside of the stay. If you wear through the tape get a new tyre. I have a clear finger gap on my Intense and can still mark the stays so something must be pretty flexy back there

As they’re effectively giving them a job shouldn’t they have to pay them minimum wage? Or are they only going to have to work enough hours to cover their dole at minimum wage?

If so it doesn’t seem unreasonable to say if you’ve been unemployed for 2 years we’ll guarantee you 10 hours/week of minimum wage work instead of your dole. If you don’t do the work obviously you won’t get paid anything. If we can’t find anything for you to do that week you get paid anyway

So you’re telling me every single ISA you’ve invested in since 96 has outperformed the FTSE? It wouldn’t be polite to say that’s BS but it sounds like you’re in the wrong job as you have a record that’s miles better than virtually every fund manager out there

Dobbo passive funds use sampling and trade as infrequently as possible to keep their costs low. Active funds have much higher trading volumes as they move in and out of positions according to their strategies. Ironically although there’s no guarantee of success with funds you can virtually guarantee failure if you pick a fund that trades extremely actively and racks up huge costs

Anyway it’s been an interesting discussion but I’m only saying the stats show for every person who beats the market there are 2 equally intelligent and informed people who would have been better off in a tracker. Well done if you got lucky but it’s not good advice to give to people planning for their retirement. It’s all out there if you have a google

I think we’ll just have to give up on each other. All the research on this, of which there’s a huge volume, shows regardless of what has happened in the past Dean has a slightly worse than 50:50 chance of beating the market next year

When you apply hindsight you will have a 100% chance of picking funds that have beaten the market over a long period and can pick out examples all day becaues by defintion some must be above the average, even over 10 or 20 years. When you try and do it for real though you have a much less than 50% chance due to the high management fees and the increased trading costs active funds incur

No, I get your points. You think you can predict which funds will do well in the future by looking at their past performance, and that good performance that has happened in the past is worth paying a premium for now. You can’t provide any broad studies that show this approach works and perhaps think those who pick poorly performing funds just haven’t done their research or aren’t as astute as yourself, whereas in reality they’re just not as lucky. There’s a roughly one third chance your approach will outperform a low cost index tracker over the next 10-20 years so best of luck!

The thread has been hi-jacked somewhat OP, sorry about that.

But passive funds … really ??

How are you not using ETFs ?

Yup, sorry OP but it’s a good illustration of why you shouldn’t ask forums for financial or legal advice!

As for ETFs vs. a traditional fund a low cost tracker fund may be better than a low cost tracker ETF for a regular monthly investor as they won’t incur trading costs every month. There really isn’t much difference though

It’s exactly the same for UK markets – link[/url]

Go read ‘A Random Walk Down Wall Street’. Investing in active funds is a bad strategy for virtually all investors

They have won. That unfortunately has no bearing on whether they will continue to win. If 1000 people toss a coin 10 times one will manage to get heads 10 times in a row. You are doing the equivalent of picking that one lucky person and claiming they’re so good at coin tossing it’s worth paying them a significant amount of money to toss coins for you

It’s not like there aren’t literally 100s of studies repeatedly confirming this:

In 2012, 63% of large-cap domestic funds, 80% of mid-cap funds and 67% of small-cap funds underperformed their benchmark indexes – link

Only 27% of actively managed domestic stock funds outperformed their benchmark index in the 15 years ending December 31, 2011 – link

Yeah OK Steve77, you keep believing that…..thats why the market for active funds is so massive. The charges on closed ended funds isn’t that high, see above. Chart good funds against index passive funds. Of course you have to keep an eye for under performing funds or if the managers situations change

The market for active funds is so large because the fees pay for the marketing of them. I’ve worked in the industry and seen the impact IFA commission rates have on investments for example. There is a huge amount of research that shows active fund managers can’t consistently beat the market. I’m actually amazed anyone believes otherwise

Of course good active funds with top managers beat passive funds

Not consistently they don’t. The majority of active funds underperform passive funds because of their additional management costs. Picking an active fund that outperforms the index is entirely down to luck and last year’s performance has literally zero correlation with next years which is why fund managers are forced to put that warning on all their adverts

I thought 30-50% was a typo … but you’re actually serious!?

Don’t think this replaces the 5.7 – the 6 is a 155mm enduro bike, the 5.7 is a 140 (145?) trail bike. This is Orange Alpine to the 5.7’s 5.

I assumed their move to 650b would be the end of the 5.7 in 26″ form. Competitive Cyclist were selling 5.7 non-carbons at a big discount too which seems to suggest the model is ending

I’m waiting for the Pivot Mach 5.7 Carbon frames to go on sale which has to happen any day now. They’re $2,800 in the US full price so if I can get one 40% off that’s basically £1000. It’s got to happen right?

Well if you couldn’t manual before you’ll be able to now

I’d be interested in knowing the actual risk of death for various ‘extreme’ activities vs. going for a road ride. I’d assume you’re more likely to die during an hour of road biking than you are during an hour of mountain biking, on-piste skiing or diving, but climbing, paragliding and motorcycling would all have more fatalities per hour

I’m sure I’m more likely to break a bone on my mountain bike but it’s dying I’m particularly worried about

Aren’t there aero drinking bottles that need a special cage? It really might just be the drinking bottle cage bolts that are the only true universal standard

Intense carbine and the carbon versions of the

Pivot Mach 5.7
Spesh Stumpjumper Evo
Devinci Dixon

are all on my list. Would be tempted by the Cube Stereo if I were to go for 650b

I’ve had my £999 Planet X for years and have commuted on it, LEJOGed it, taken it to the Alps and only ever changed the chain on it. It’s a great blend of performance and weight without being too expensive to ride every day

I did it a couple of years back when I lived in Seattle. It’s fun apart from the very early start and long approach trek on the route we took. It’s basically just a big walk to the top but a very pretty one. In summary do it!

In theory you should be able to get a bargain 26″ frame, either new or used, as people move to 650b. In practice I’m not really seeing that

Urgh, I actually hope battery development slows down so these things don’t take off

I love mine and have no bearing issues in the last 2 years. Amazing pedals

The best innovations make a really noticeable difference to the quality of your ride but don’t force you to change anything else on your bike – e.g. dropper seatposts

If something unquestionably makes the bike better but is incompatible with a lot of other components people will still be enthusiastic about it – e.g. disc brakes are great, but meant we all needed new hubs/forks/frames

What is annoying is when a new standard is pushed out that is a marginal improvement at best, but is incompatible with the largest and most expensive bits of a bike. 650b is probably the worst example of that in years. It’s annoying because suppose in a couple of years I want to buy new forks for my old non-tapered headtube chameleon frame. Yes I’ll undoubtedly be able to buy whichever forks I want at full retail price, but when hunting for bargains or used ones there’ll be a much more limited choice because of all the tapered and/or 650b stuff knocking about

Chamonix is one of the few places with lifts still open so I’d go there as it’s quite nice to get a lift up for any hiking

Ultra wide rims are coming. Don’t think buying that new bling 650bollocks wheelset is going to save you from the future. Next year you’ll be hearing in every mag and on every website your rims are too narrow and your tyres too wide. Don’t believe me? Google it and then get ready to dust off those old 2.1″ tyres ready for your new wide rims. Oh wait you can’t they’re obsolete 26 inchers

Using a shim is not a bodge and the OP has been screwed over here. The ‘entirely assembled’ clause is ridiculous for a company that are happy to have their frames sold mail order, but it will allow them to legally refuse this claim so there’s not much more you can do

OP unfortunately your best bet is to just buy the new front triangle and then sell the whole frame and buy something different from a manufacturer/distributor that doesn’t weasel out of their warranty obligations. Thanks for posting this though as it’s only through threads like this that we can learn who stands by their warranties and who doesn’t

I’d be interested to hear more about them as well. There’s quite a big thread on mtbr about them too

Sounds like for the OP 2 sets of wheels would be a good idea if you want to get the weight down occasionally but still have a robust bike.

Yup, that’s why it has to be 26″ as I already have various wheels/tyres/forks I can use

fivespot I’d be interested if it was the carbon one as that’s only 4.5lbs(!) according to devinci.com (not clear if that’s with shock or not though) and looks like a nice frame even if it is ‘only’ 145mm

Likewise JP Pivot Mach 5.7 carbon is a good shout

Out of interest Hob Nob roughly how much of that lot was crash damage vs. general wear and tear?

mtbtomo the latest Cube Stereo would definitely be on the list if they did a 26″ version. The old 2012 version which was 26″ is steeper and only 140mm travel. Hadn’t thought of Ghost though so will have a look

Nomad-c and sb66c look like great frames but are comparatively heavy unfortunately

Thought Blur LTc was on the steep side but will check out the geometry

I get where you’re coming from Hob Nob but I do much more riding for fun than racing and am only 165lbs so shouldn’t be as hard on kit as you’ve found hopefully

b r I’m 6ft so normally need a frame only 1 size larger than the mediums they typically quote weights for so shouldn’t be too far out

Given how little difference there (supposedly) is between 26″ and 650b and the pressure there must be from sponsors to get riders on their latest bike I’m surprised it’s taken this long really. Maybe it’s the tyres or maybe downhillers are just a conservative bunch. Either way they need to get some wins on the bigger wheels soon or people are going to start believing that bigger wheels are just for less aggressive riding and hardcore riders ride 26″, which is hardly going to help the 650b marketing drive.

Yup the dirt jumpers and slopetyle guys are never going to go bigger than 26″ so if bigger wheels can’t start winning regularly in DH they’ll end up looking like the old man’s choice for easy rolling on the canal towpath. Given how similar 650b is to 26″ and so many big manufacturers have gone 650b only for their top bikes I’m amazed there aren’t more pros on 650b already

You could do Chamonix but rent a car as you can do day trips from Chamonix to Verbier or Morzine in an hour or less to try out other places if you’re getting bored

Once we’re all on 650b in 3-5 years time we’ll start to hear how 26″ with carbon rims is the next big thing. It’ll be faster accelerating, easier to jump, more nimble, flickable, whipable, and ‘trailstyle’ will be the new slopestyle. We’ll all need new frames again and there’ll probably be a new bolt through rear axle standard or something to make sure only new frames will do. Big wheels will be derided as for xc racing only. Either that or we’ll be getting 25″ and the promise we’ll all be able to learn infinite manuals in 20 minutes

Getting overtaken by trail runners on long fireroad slogs is a good sign

Dodgy monitor? Did it feel like you were working harder after your first stop?

Only other explanation is you drank 10 litres of water at the first stop and so were feeling the extra 20lbs of weight, and then had a very long pee at the 2nd stop to get back to normal

I can barely get a full day out of mine after having it 18 months but I’ve got poor signal in the office which doesn’t help. I’d love it if there was an iPhone option for my next upgrade that was thicker and heavier with a much better battery