Gave up about 5 years ago. Was disappointed if I didn’t beat a previous time, and was diminishing the enjoyment of the ride, so I stopped looking.

Exactly this for me. My rides are now defined good or bad based on how much I enjoyed them rather than what my wildly inaccurate Strava (phone or garmin) tells me. I’ve been off it for a couple of years now and don’t miss it in the slightest. I do the odd local dh race at Gawton which scratches the competitive itch once in a while, it’s a bit more social than virtual racing!

I was in the same boat as you, it was either a brand new Vitus E-sommet or a second hand something else. Everyone I know who’s had an e-sommet (mates and mates of mates…..about 8) has had issues with the shimano motor, the non serviceable/repairable bit is a deal breaker for me once that 2 year warranty is up. I managed to get a second hand 21 turbo kenevo with a brand new harness, controller and motor (straight back from warranty so zero miles) for 3k. Not sure it’s a wise move but hopefully I can get the motor repaired when it sh@ts the bed later down the line. First rides this weekend, loved it.

Bird have 12 speed GX chains for £17.50 posted also. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/385545215860?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=mdghf1i6twi&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=xKYatqipS6a&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Yeah same – I have used R2 plenty of times, before and after brexit. Also just ordered another cassette, cheers OP. That’s one for each bike sorted through PSA’s on here recently. The other was £99.99 from an eBay seller, OE for that one but that doesn’t bother me!
Crazy to think that during the height of the covid parts shortage the best I could do was £180 after a lot of shopping around for a GX cassette!

Yeah definitely an upgrade in power, the RE’s run the older style code calipers. Absolute bargain for £40.

What’s wrong with the current damper? I have Zeb ultimates on the full suss and domains on the hardtail. Both get a hard life. The biggest difference is weight. I don’t mind the domains at all in stock form, the damping isn’t amazing but I haven’t felt the need to upgrade. I’d run the domains until the damper needs a service and then upgrade the damper if you fancy it. Weight isn’t an issue on an eeb so I wouldn’t bother swapping for zebs personally.

Yeah I’ve got the purple ebike pads in my tech 3 V4’s on my hello dave…..so basically an ebike in weight, just missing the motor! I had been through the stock pads and sintered, the purples were supplied along with the sintered so I’ve used all 3, no complaints in the wet or dry, plenty of power.
I’ve got the tech 4 V4’s on the Privateer and whatever pads come fitted as standard to those brakes (race I think) have also been great, silent in the dry and wet.

I was considering a Giant Reign ebike as my next purchase, first time buying an ebike I was looking at Giant due to having a Giant store within 5 mins walk of my house for when I inevitably need to use the warranty……this thread has seriously made me reconsider.

Part 2 looked more pleasant once they had taken a day off and driven down south 😂

My hardtail has a gx shifter and cassette, kmc chain, unite chainring and deore mech. No reasoning behind bringing a shimano mech in other than availability and price at the time (post covid bike boom/parts drought), same for the chain. I even had an aliexpress cassette on there for about a week but that turned out to be a terrrible idea (no real surprise).
I have no real preference on 12 speed mechs, I think they are all pretty crap from both big players, we’re probably asking too much of them with the range. If I started from scratch again I would probably go back to 10 or 11 speed. My best ever setup was on 10 speed, XTR shifter, Saint med cage mech with one up rad cage and expander cog – that was bombproof and smooth. Gutted I sold it on when I stripped the old bike down.

Mobi V17 here too, battery died pretty early but it still runs off the cigarette lighter socket no dramas. I have a van these days but it’s still useful to get the bike clean so it just needs a quick dry off and lube when I get home. I take an extra couple of 5L water bottles, the 17L does a great job of getting the bike clean and the extra couple of bottles top it up so I can rinse all my muddy bike gear (kit and shoes) off before I put it in a bin bag ready to go straight into the washing machine without the mrs going batshit mental at me!!!

The offset bushes haven’t moved at all in the 3 months I’ve had them fitted. The head angle change was around 1 deg, no clue on bb though.

I also have a brand x on one bike and a v2 one up on the other. Both absolutely fine. The stock remote on the brand x is pretty crap but it’s useable, I swapped mine out for a pnw loam lever after a few months though. I only went for a one up on my other bike for the lower stack as it has a kink in the seat tube and I wanted the 210mm of adjustment.

I think a decent benchmark for the big hit capability of the Lyrik is to watch the 50to01 boys, a few of those boys go pretty big on the Lyriks on the Bronson. I think you’d more likely notice the change in stiffness in the fast rough stuff over the Zeb as opposed to on the big sends. I have a Zeb on the fs and had a Pike on the hardtail and swapping between the two on dh stuff was noticeable, I blew a couple of dampers on the Pikes in quick succession and ended up on a Domain, which is actually a cracking no frills fork…but it weighs a tonne!
I reckon you’ll be sound on the Lyrik. Also worth a look – Merlin Cycles have the 38’s (and 36’s) on sale, not a mega bargain but around the £700 mark in factory or perf elite (grip 2 minus the kashima)

I have my Privateer 161 set up as a mullet. Stuck an offset bush in the wrong way to bring the bb back a bit and increased the fork 10mm to raise the bb. It’s slack at 62 deg now which is fine by me but because the seat angle was 80 deg stock it’s brought that to a less extreme angle now. The bike honestly doesn’t feel bodged in any way. I’ve swapped over from a v1 sentinel and it feels so much better in the turns and is much more fun on the jumps and techy stuff I tend to ride.
Faster, who knows, I don’t race, it feels quick and I’m loving it, so zero regrets.

Just to give you some real world perspective on weights……my large Dave is 38lbs with hope fortus wheels, Dh22/Argotal, insert in the rear, guide re brakes 200mm rotors, 160mm Domain fork (blew the damper twice in the Pikes), horizon spd pedals, brand x 200mm dropper, burgtec alloy bars and stem, to shave a few grams I went with the ti railed option on the fabric saddle 😂!!! Mine is ridiculously heavy, but it’s my dh bike that I pedal up. It’s not ideal as a trail bike, yes you can make it lighter but it’s never gonna be a lightweight trail bike – it’s heavier than my Privateer 161 with coil shock! Hell of a bike, but it’s no trail bike. It is a bargain, mine is a couple of years old and I paid £1700 ish I think back then.

As above you can’t go wrong with a Mary/Betty or Assegai/DHR2 combo. My hardtail (hello Dave) is currently on a Michelin DH22/Conti 2.6 Argotal combo but this is my DH bike so no trail centre or long pedals on mine. Only slow climbs back to the top of the trails. I had the Schwalbe combo to begin with and about 12
Months on the Maxxis combo. Rate both highly. Just gone a bit more aggressive for the winter slop (when it arrives).

The 2.6 Argotal is pretty big, I’ve got one in enduro casing on the back of my hardtail for a bit of cushion paired with a DH22 up front. On my 161 I’ve gone for dh casing 2.4’s front and rear and they are plenty big enough for me. Haven’t tried them in the full on slop yet but on my local woodsy dh trails in the wet I was pretty happy on them, lots of predictable grip and they cleared well. I’d say it’s a slightly more aggressive Mary, a bit less mud specific than the shorty so will hopefully handle wet rock and root better.

I had a set of Pike selects on my hello Dave, nice enough for a basic fork, ended up putting a vorsprung coil in them, then I blew the damper, couldn’t get a replacement seal, the £70 kit from which I needed 1 seal for the damper head was unavailable until Jan 23, this was early this year. I then bought a second hand damper and also blew that one, much more terminally this time. Replacement charger 2.1 upgrade was £415!!!! Cut my losses and bought a domain for £390. I think if it’s just for trail use you will be fine. I was racing dh on mine and it wasn’t quite up to the job.

I’ve got a Deore mech with 52t cassette, no issues so far, about 6 months in.

Thanks for the PSA – I scoured the euro sites for a deal last year at the height of the post covid boom and the best “deal” I could find was £180!!! So happy that prices are starting to settle and deals can be once again had.

No complaints with the Horizons for me. Got them on both of my bikes. I got sick of trying to keep my mallets running, they need regular strip downs and even more regular cleat replacements – shame as they are the best out there for riding tech dh as your foot can bounce back in if you’re not quite perfect on foot placement after a dab. The horizons are very similar to shimano in action and seem far more solid than the mallets. I got used to them quickly and once happy I bought a second set for the other bike.I’d recommend, especially as they are on offer currently so even better vfm.

I ended up buying a Domain earlier on this year after killing a couple of dampers on my pikes in fairly quick succession. The domain worked out cheaper at the time than a new RC2 2.1 damper for the pikes which had increased from an expensive £300 to a ridiculous £415!
Honestly have nothing bad to say about it beyond the obvious weight penalty. It’s stiff, supportive and the damping seems pretty good to me – and that’s on my hardtail (On One Hello Dave)that I ride and race dh on. Not quite as comfy off the top as my Zeb ultimate on the full suss but I think it’s a proper decent fork for the cash.

I really hope not sharkattack – I feel like red bull really have it pretty nailed at the minute, the coverage between them and pinkbike (pre and post race YouTube content) is decent. I hope discovery don’t try and reinvent the wheel and keep the changes to a minimum. We don’t even know if we’ll have Warner on the commentary yet.

Tough crowd! Clashed with trailer trash tv in my house sadly. Cheers for the pass though! Was it a YouTube ews replay or a Eurosport covered piece?

One up plates should work – I managed to use the opposite to get my one up running using brand x plates, had to slightly modify the base plate hole to clear the inflation valve cap on my one up post but you won’t even need to do that going the other way. That’s a V1 post but shouldn’t be any different.

Exactly the combo I have on the bike at the minute, dissector is faster rolling than the dhr2, liking it so far. Mine is the maxxgrip dh casing, should see me through to winter when I will go back to assegai/dhr2 then if need be shorty/dhr2 for the proper filth.

Assegai/dissector would be the equivalent I reckon, never rated the hans dampf, the dissector is a better tyre imo. Magic Mary/big betty would compare with assegai/dhr2

Yep for all year round, assegai/dhr2 is great. The assegai struggles to clear when it gets proper sticky though, I relented in feb for a few weeks and put a gen 2 shorty up front, dhr2 remained though.
Had SG magic mary/big betty combo on the hardtail and that did the same sort of job, slightly more biased to the wet seasons and heavy but I don’t think you can go wrong with either of those combos if you want to keep them on all year round.

I’m on a 200mm rotor on my hello dave.

I have the cascade link on my V1 sent and it’s brilliant – the V1 was more linear though and from what I understand it needed the additional progressive spring curve to run the coil unlike the V2. Or so I thought. Jtech do an advanced spring calculator for a nominal fee, which is then deductible from an order if you go ahead and order a spring from them. I did that just to make sure before I ordered my ext spring due to the extra cost of the superlight spring. I have also used the Reverse components travel checker thing, decent bit of kit just for the confirmation that you’re on the correct spring rate.
I’m on a 550 spring fwiw, sitting at about 90kg kitted up, on a V1 sent with CC link 205 x 57.5 shock giving 146mm of travel, I hit decent sized stuff on it and have never had a harsh bottom out but use the majority of my travel.

New Hightower https://m.pinkbike.com/news/the-2023-santa-cruz-hightower-gets-tweaked-not-transformed.html

I have a couple of pairs of these on rotation for the summer and rate them, especially for the price https://www.wiggle.co.uk/sixsixone-raji-glove-1 £8 in green or blue in normal sizes, a bit cheaper in black if you’re at the extremes size wise.

Yeah that was probably the most impressive result of the weekend, had a nightmare getting there, hardly any practice and then made it on to the podium. Didn’t even have enough points to race so had a gbr jersey to allow her to ride. She’s a hell of a rider, was at red bull formation sending it last month as well. Absolute no brainer for wyns privateer of the week award.

Yeah what a race, womens was carnage, winning run was the only clean one I think! Nice to see Jordan sticking it to goldstone in the juniors. In the mens Greenland was proper gutted with his random mistake trying to manual some rollers, he was flying as well. Thibaut is so exciting to watch but as sharkattack said, he needs to slow down to get some consistency. Class to see Danny and Matt up there, Danny seems to be loving the set up on cube, making it work for him, less pressure maybe.

Still absolutely love mine. It’s soooo heavy for a hardtail but it’s so good on full on dh stuff. Not much of an all rounder imo, but for bimbling up and hammering down its great. The only frame I would contemplate changing mine for would be the ti version, the Titus loco moto as mentioned above. That’s a bargain at the minute at £500.

I’d say probably the ti railed option I went for on my fabric scoop saddle, purely because it was the only one in stock in the black on black non colour way at the time. The irony is that it’s fitted to my on one hello dave, kitted out with domains and hope fortus 30’s with an insert and dh tyres!!! That bike weighs more than my fs enduro bike and certainly doesn’t warrant ti rails 😂

Yeah I’ve done a gx on both my hardtail and my fs as well as an slx so far this year. 12 speed mechs are pushing things too far I think with the size and range. I had my optimum set up with a 10 speed Saint with one up cage on my old alpine 160. I wish I hadn’t sold it all now! As nice as a 50t option is, I really don’t need it enough to be buying mechs on such a regular basis.

I have gx shifters and shimano rear mechs on both of my bikes. I can’t recommend deore though, mine have loads of play in them considering they are only a couple of months old. Slx and up may be better.

^^^that was on my sentinel so not an ebike. No way I’d bother on an ebike.