ahh – just realised the link further up was to the same crash…
sorry belgianbob

yep – or from another angle… this one:
ae step down… ouch!

I've seen my pals do it, never had the balls… reckon I'd want to be on my big bike though

linky ?

haha – I was at fort bill the day they filled that, we were riding the DH track all day.

Remember seeing them mincing about the carpark. The scooter things looked useless and I remember Ortis saying to the guys that bought them that it was "Sh1t" … he didn't look overly impressed.

Never worth taking any of their reviews and anything other than a bit of entertainment. I quite like watching the show to keep up with new stuff coming out, as someone else has said…. plus, you get to see Suzi and I'd gladly watch her riding, errrr, anything…. (cough) 😉

yes – you should avoid lifting the saddle when the post is down.

The suction can pull air past the seal meaning that when you drop the saddle, it will not sit at the stop, but extend up again a little… but without resistance if you push it back down…

If this happens, pull the lever to open the valve and push it all the way down and undo the seal lock ring a little to "burp" the system. Re-tighten the seal lock ring (just finger tight, don't over do it) and you should be good.

Pipalarge and jonb…

Fair effort getting round the 85km in 4:38! Well done.

We got to the 50km feed zone just after cut off and sent round the 70km route to finish… gutted.

Fantastic route though, some super techy stuff on there! Weather was great too. Great day all around. Could have done with folk who got off to walk the steep bits not choosing the best riding line to walk on, but ho hum, that's the way with these things.

More preparation needed for the kielder I think. 🙂

radoggair – could be up for that. Should be there before 9am. My pal, Sue, is coming too. Look out for my bike

Formerly Merida, now CRC thingy….

I'm going. Will be down firs thing the morn for the long road ride then back Sunday morning for the long MTB ride.

I'll be on my Black n white Giant TCR Carbon road bike in the morning and my Black n white Trek Fuel EX on Sunday. Limey green tyres on the Road bike and Limey green wheels on the trek 🙂 if anyone fancied looking out for me.

Hoping this rain and wind clears.
Stu

Before this turns into a pros and cons of uppy downy seatposts thread….

The Joplin3 is on sale at CRC just now for £110. I hear that the distributors will warranty it if there's any issues (as I've heard a couple of people have problems with the J3) and even in some cases replace it with a J4.

I've bought one on that principle to give it a shot.

now… as for the discussion… I used to have a GD on an old bike and loved it.

I like to ride fast, both up and down. Yes, everything can be ridden with the saddle up, but some steep techy stuff or sections of trail with jumps in, can get you into real trouble with the saddle at full height – I came off last saturday on a really steep rocky bit coz I couldn't be bothered stopping to drop my saddle for a tiny section… more to the point, I couldn't be bothered with the faff of setting the height again afterwards.

Basically, to ride everything fast and smoothly, I need the saddle at full height for the climbs and dropped a couple of inches for techy descending.

I'm more than happy to be sociable and stop and chat, but sometimes I just wanna keep riding.

The big thing though is I hate my saddle at the wrong height or not straight and can't be doing with the faff of getting it right after a dropped saddle section.

Height adjustable seatposts mean my saddle is always at the correct height, up or down, and always straight. No faff… more time to ride, more time to chat, less time getting annoyed with saddles at the wrong height.

Other folk's mileage may vary. No-one says everyone should have one, but for some, me included, they improve my riding enjoyment.

Nuff said.

yeah – all three were great… I even enjoyed the TweedLove trailer bit at the start… though it brought back a couple of less than pleasant memories of lying in the heather with cramp at the top of the climb before the gypsy glen descent on Saturday.

Been a grand week though – looking forward to finishing it off with the Selkirk Sportive and MTB Marathon this weekend.

Just to chuck in a balance to the discussion….

I've ridden both and prefer my fuel ex.

I love tight, flowey singletrack descending and can hold my own on the steep stuff too… however, I love going up hill too and the trek is a better climber and all day pedaller (at speed) and I like it's lively behavious on the downs.

The Orange is definitely a more entertaining play bike if you're after that. I have a SC Bullit with 160mm lyriks on the front as my play bike, so the Trek is my pedal for hours bike. I want it to be quick. I've built it up pretty light as suggested, but it's also stiff and strong where it needs to be. I've gone with 120mm forks with bolt through axle, but with light 717 rims on good stiff hubs.

Main difference over the stock build is 690 bars and an 80mm stem. This improves the down hill handling no end and means I can still hoon down techy descents after belting up the climbs. If I only had the one bike… it would probably be the five. However, if I didn't like flying down techy descents so much, the Trek would be an awesome only bike.

Hope that helps.
Here's mine BTW:

Tubs to roll quicker too. These day's though there's less difference between tubs and a good pair of clincher tyres and rims.

I still prefer the way tubs ride, but they're a bit of a pain if you puncture.

They save about 50g per wheel over DB.

Admittedly, this may not be that much if you're using Big Jumpy rims.

They build a really strong wheel -only downsides are the initial cost and the subsequent cost of rebuild if you do tacco your wheel while jumping.

I've got a road wheelset built with them and I'd have had my latest mountain wheelset done with them if my local wheel builder (Steve at iCycles in Innerleithen) could get hold of any. Ended up with std DB DT spokes, but may go back to have them rebuilt with the CX-Rays when he gets em in.

Steve reckons he'd build all wheels with them if he could convince folk to spend on them.

The big bike: Santa Cruz Bullit… built to ride up the hill before tearing down it like a lunatic.

The Trail Bike: Trek Fuel EX… Built light and stiff for all day riding, great climbing and superb singletrack handling.

The road bike: Giant TCR Carbon… built light, fast and comfy for big days in the big ring.

RestlessNative…

That could be a decent plan. I guess we'll all just see each other at registration… I'll aim to be there early (9.15 ish) for a coffee and egg roll in the hub.

Great. Looking forward to meeting folk.

Nice to see the clown wheels out to bigdugsbaws.

😉

Laralchean….

Looking forward to it. Nice line up for the week. How many folk for saturday ?

That said – Focus are good and tick all your boxes.

Skoda octavia… the estate if you wanna stick bikes in it. Fantastic value for money and basically a VW in a cheap dress so super reliable.

I'd look at the 1.9 TDI.

I've got the 426 u-turns which have ext rebound, compression, lockout and travel adjust… none u-turn models don't have the travel adjust.

Incidentally, mine are for sale – post in the classifieds, which can be seen in my profile.

haha – quite probably.

Anyone else coming ??

Cool – yeah, that's pretty local. I spend most of my riding time at inners, as my house is right at the bottom of the hill 🙂

We'll keep an eye out for each other on saturday then, like you say, I should be easy to spot…

In fact, here's my bike:

Hey Restless…

I'm in the same boat. I've been riding down there for years, but mainly marked trail centre routes at GT and Inners….

Moved down to Inners 3 months ago and discovering all the great natural stuff and keen to see if this will reveal some more. Will be riding a white Fuel EX with limey green retro mavic wheels…. and probably a matching limey green camelback. Won't be able to miss me.

Up for some local riding any time you fancy too. Try and get out at least one eve a week as well as weekends.

Buddy of mine did glasgow to fort bill along WHW, solo, unsupported in 17.5 hours. Said it was pretty tough and the bit along lomond side was rubbish (annoying).

errr – pretty sure it's the whole of the WHW up to fort bill, then turn around and go back to Glasgow.

Sounds like a good result. Nice one Kal,

As another trek EX9 owner (2008 frame, bought second hand)… I' was keen to see what happened. It's been a bit of a pain having to skim passed lots of winging muppets on here, but over all, if I was in your shoes, I'd be pretty pleased with the £80 cost for the fix.

Well done to TrekCol – think you handled the situation well and kept away from the nonesense. This has in no way put me off buying another trek – hopefully a new EX9.9 carbon when I get the £s together.

Be interested to see how this unfolds as I have the same frame, which I bought second hand… same version of the frame with the 'possibly' dodgy weld.

I've not had any trouble with it yet (touch wood) but would be keen to know what happens with trek in case I do.

Hope you get it sorted mate – lovely riding frame when they work.

I'm looking at the camelback octane 18. Really light weight. But not many compartments, so not as easy to organise as the osprey. Worth a look though for those after a light pack.

I'll be running Racing ralph front and back for the Keilder, but if I was to run one tyre all year round, it'd be Nobby Nic… 2.25 for both for me. Ran NN all through last year, including the selkirk Merida 100km last August and the Strathpuffer in Jan. Never let me down. They've just worn out, hence the RR purchase, and I may switch to a NN for the front after the keilder.

+1 for the boardman… pretty impossible to beat on value and performance for 1k.

Not the comfiest bike around, but a fantastic ride.

Have to agree with Spud:

Bloody cable rub around the rocker linkage/ toptube. Drives me nuts, despite rerouting of cables and lots of heli tape later.

Currently on a Trek Fuel EX and SC Bullit, previously rode MSC Zion, Intense 6.6, Intense 5.5, Rocky Mountain Slayer….. other than my Bullit, I've never had a full suss with sensible cable routing that didn't rub like crazy, wear marks in the frame and crack the cable outer around the rocker linkage area.

Seriously frame designers…. what's the deal? sort it out please.

can't really see the point in running 160mm in a hardtail frame TBH…. if it's rated to 150, I imagine it'll be ok with 160, but there will obviously be a warranty issue and you'll slacken the front up quite a bit.

If you put Lyrik u-turns in it, you can always dial them down to 145 or something, but then you may as well stick with the pikes for that.

Assuming your Pikes are 20mm axle, can't remember if they all are or not, I don't think there's much point in changing unless you're pushing the limits of your pikes and botteming them a lot (a number of times during each ride) as said above.

Looks like it's just the FIVE page that's up….

No news on the ST5 yet 🙁

So – it's July 1st…. where's the news on 2011 Orange bikes then ?

I'm up…. why aren't they ?

wl…

believe it or not, some of us like riding up hill… and some of us even like riding up hill quickly… for a long time 🙂

My rides tend to be 30-60km with plenty of climbing and some epic descents. I like that I feel quite fit and I like blasting up climbs quickly … and then being able to really enjoy the descent. At the moment, most bikes either get you up the hill in a perfectly pleasant way (like the five) and are fantastic descenders… or bikes that let you enjoy blasting up the climbs and can feel a bit sketchy on the downs, especially steep techy stuff.

I'm happy to compromise on descending a bit on descending… as I've got my bullit for when I really want to hammer down hills. However, I still want to be able to enjoy long techy scottish highland descents after a 90minute climb. Part of enjoying those descents is a bike that handles well, but also a bike that doesn't wear you out too much on the climb first. I know I could just climb at a more leisurely pace, but where's the fun in that? …. ok, where's the fun in that for me 🙂

not really – blood is a bit meaty for my liking… different story if I didn't allready have the tough 6inch bike. Blood is pretty heavy built and I want something lighter than the five.

My take on the Five has always been that if you're riding is mostly about the downs, but you are happy to pedal to the top to get to them, then the Five is a perfectly pleasant way of doing it.

Good as a comfy all day bike too, letting you get up the big hills in comfort at a leisurely pace and then get the most out of big mountain descents.

However, if you want a fast up the hills, all day, marathon bike (which is what I'd be after) then it may not be the bike for you.

That said… the bikes that tend to be really good climbers/marathon bikes, tend to be a little sketchy on the downs… which is my issue. I want a bike that climbs really well, can be ridden all day and has geometry slightly more biased toward having fun on the descents. Curently a Fuel EX for me.

With the ISCG mounts and tapered head tube, the new Five looks to be a great short travel play/trail bike… where as an ST5 might be a more taught and sprightly long travel XC bike… What I'd like is an ST4 that will take a longer fork… or an ST5. Lighter and better climbing than a five, and a little less plush sofa ride on the downs.

Obviously, the Five is a superb bike, and as said the new version looks awesome… but I've got a 6" travel single pivot play bike all ready and I want a 4/5" bike that's a bit faster pedalling but keeping a bit of that killer geometry for fun descending. Does that make sense ?

Guess we'll see on Thursday.

Santacruz Bullit – in a large… with a set of Totems up front. Luuuuurvely.

I'm still loving my older bullit with Lyriks. Great bike. Really simple, bomb proof, pedal up to the top OK with a platform shock. Mine is all coil (DHX on the back) with mid weight wheels and tyres. Bike weighs 36Lb. Can ride it all day, any where.