I hope that when the auction ends I have a positive outcome, there does seem to be a lot more chancers than there used to be, or perhaps it is my imagination.

Bez, Not a similar era Zaskar?

If only there was a mountain bike magazine affiliated forum where one could buy and sell bikes with other serious minded fellow cyclists……..

My experience does seem to tally with other threads on here, that lock down has given more people time to peruse places like Ebay to either by a bike to spend their lock down time on or to speculate on bikes as it is seen as a boom market.

Either way, the whole Ebay thing has become a bit of a turn off.

I think I might stay in lock down and extend that to locking myself away from Ebay muppetry.

I had another offer to drive the frame 130 miles to Liverpool for less than the current bid. Ebay is offering me a window into the bizarre world that exists beyond my lockdown.

If the oil is leaking from the damper you will get less of a damping effect from your forks. I haven’t opened mine yet but isn’t it a close bath system? If it is, a leak might mean that you need to open the forks up to see if there is a problem.

Again, as said above, Fox do have useful service pages on their RideFox website.

wonderfully dry on the Malverns but my poor cracked rib is preventing me from enjoying them (bike spill last week)

Yep, last night I posted a bike for sale on EBay, for the first time in a couple of years. I am experiencing the same thing as you – loads of pushy messages asking me to sell it now at a stupid price or for a price to sell now. As part of me doesn’t want to sell the bike I am content to let the auction run its course.
It does make me wonder whether increased demand on the 2nd hand market will lead to increased bike theft.

I think that the rough cut damper is a sealed cartridge and isn’t serviceable at home. I am not certain though, check the x fusion web site, they have lots of service videos.

Dave Yates?

This is timely, after a crash this weekend, I too would be interested. I would like something reliable that does not set off false alarms.

I have just done this very thing on breeze block walls. I used an individual plank of wood for each of the 5 x front wheel hangars. Each plank was 22mm thick x 92mm wide, cut to about 60cm in length. I used 4 x 8mm fischer breeze block rawl plugs to attach each piece of wood to the breeze blocks. I then attached the wheel hanger to the breeze blocks (4 drill more holes) and this added a further 4 screws through the wall hanger, through the wood and into the wall. Each hangar has 8 screws holding it in place.
This approach meant that I was able to vary the height of the wheel hangars and make best use of space with 2 x road bikes sandwiched in between 3 x wide handlebar mountain bikes. So far so good (but they have only been up for 2 months).
I managed to get the 5 wall hangers from Planet X for £15 in total. The wood was a similar price from B&Q and the rawl plugs/screws were about £8. It took an awful lot of drilling but I wish I had done it ages ago as it makes much better use of the space in my garage and each bike is less likely to be scratched.

Try loctite on the pedal springs, once it’s dried it stops any squeaks or creaks for ages.

Depends on the era, once upon a time I would have said Saracen.

I’ll settle for Klein from their halcyon period, early to mid 90’s. I did have a retrobike phase, my Klein Pulse was a load of fun if scary on descents.

Merlin have always been reliable, Wiggle used to be until they bought CRC, now they are focussed on volume rather than service. Bike-discount.de have also been good over the last few years.

I’m not looking for a full suspension bike right now but the Bird AM9 would be on my list if I were. Depending on your geometry preference, maybe a Canyon aswell, although they do seem to have shorter reach.

Bensongd, couldn’t agree more, even if the “traps” laid were lame.

V happy with my mk1 Following , I should have gone for the xl frame though. It is a capable and fun bike that suits most of what I need.

Whilst there are riders that do not show due consideration for walkers, I would suggest that most riders do. I would never defend reckless riding. With that in mind, there is clearly no moral equivalence between the annoyance that some walkers feel when having to share trail with bike riders and laying obstacles that could injure indiscriminately.

I can mutter how awful those old ladies are but what will happen when I finally retire? When you retire, what will you do with all that spare time? Without realising it you will gravitate towards the daily mail, your blood pressure will subsequently go through the roof and will burn with a sense of injustice at minor things that others do that actually do no harm to others.

Have a thought for the old folk for they know not what they have become.

Try selling the frame as others on here have suggested. retro bike forum will be a good place to sell. If you decide to keep the Marin retro bike would also be a good source of retro advice.
Echoing others on here though you are currently mixing old and new standards. I would strongly recommend getting a 2nd hand frame that will accept more modern standards, will almost certainly perform better and will be future proofed with regards to the availability of parts.

Hope you get your bike back soon, I’ll keep my eyes open.

In fact this weekend it has been busier than is ideal.

For adults it fairly varied, most of it easy enough but……v busy with walkers on weekends.

5 Ki Adi Mundi
4 Plo Koon
3 Mace Windu
2 Yoda
1 Obi Wan Kenobi

Courtesy of a 10 year old boy.

I live near the Worcester Golf Club in Malvern Wells. Since lock down this has been very popular with walkers and family cyclists. My son and I use it as part of a loop over to Peachly common and back. There are bridleways that cross cross the golf club.

Thanks, just orfered one for when I can do longer rides

I have a slaughter/combination on one of my bikes. They offer a decent combination of speed and grip for not much money. There are gripper tyres that perform better in damp or loose rock conditions but you get what you pay for. If I had one bike they would not be my first choice due to the number of months where the trails are wet.

If I want a cheap frame and can accept the odd minor quality issue then I will get what I pay for.

But a titanium frame doesn’t really fall into the cheap and a bit risky category. Even if I bought a cheap frame I would expect it accept standard dimension headsets.

I love riding too, except the bit where I fall off and have to sit at home recuperating (like yesterday ☹)

Philips heads were designed to prevent over tightening, hence their tendency to round off. It depends how much torque you need for a given application. Brake rotors would suggest higher torque levels, plus torque heads will let you reliably tighten or loosen as you need to.
Torque head Allen keys cost pennies.

I have a 2nd hand set of sweeps for sale….

X fusion Sweeps are good for the money if you can get cheap deals. The RL2 model can be easily upgraded to the roughcut damper to give a surpringly good ride. Not sure about the Suntour Aions but they get good reviews for the money, see Pinkbike.

I am 189cmm too and went for the XL. I absolutely do not regret this at all, it is not long by the latest standards – and all the better for it as I have other bikes for the LLS thing.

There’s a new bike thread on this site from a few days ago with quite a few photos. I would post pictures of mine if I could figure out how to.
Loads of space for wide tyres, I am running 2.4 inch tyres with plenty of space to spare.

There’s a PSA elsewhere on here for cheap Scandals on Planet X

I had Sherpa that I liked but didn’t love, I have replaced it since. To be fair I think the lacklustre Reba forks with moco damper hid the frames talents. It also depends what you want it for, it did make a great all rounder but wasn’t as playful as the hype suggested.

1 x 10 XT is OK, you may be able to get an after market cassette that gives you a wider spread of gears. If you can, I would keep that.

The wheels are OK, not the lightest or strongest but they’re OK, depends on your style of riding.

There are better forks out there than the Sektors and your frame can take more abuse than the forks. I would see about selling your Sektors on a well know electronic auction site and seeing what the money plus your £300 could get you. At least a set of Yari’s, if not Pike’s and possibly even an older set of Lyriks. Do the Cross-rides have boost hubs?

oh, I give up!