rOcKeTdOg – Stu, 9 gears enough for you?

yep, you got a plan?

crocodilian – Stu Mcgroo, probably around £1500.

Those Singulars look lovely but that Diamond Back's surprised me, looks very good too.

several in the fifteen hundred quid bracket, my research so far has found these (in no particular order);

giant xtc2 £1400, gary fisher paragon £1400, kona big kahuna £1280, khs flagstaff £1199 and rocky mountain vertex £1499.

all are complete bikes, off-the-shelf and hardtail except the khs which is full suss, the vertex might be hard to track down and there are cheaper versions of the giant, fisher and kona but the ones i listed are the closest to £1500.

as for frame only, if you've got to source all the bits you can be into stupid money just to get an average build, if you've got bits lying around it might be different but i haven't so i deffed the idea.

and the diamond back surprised me too. wonder how much it weighs? or what happens when you start to hammer it? you can pay over the odds for a name but at the lower of the market you invariably get what you pay for and common sense tells me at £199 you ain't paying for much. :-)

crocodilian, i'm looking too, what's your budget? bit of difference between on-one off-the-shelf complete bike and singular custom build :?

rOcKeTdOg, i was going to second rootes1's opinion of the anthems before you had chance to question his eye sight but alas i was too late :lol:

anyway, i'm getting dragged along by this whole 29er thing so when you put gears back on your swift (you know it's only a matter of time :wink: ) can i have a go? :-)

rOcKeTdOg – really? want to borrow my specs?

predictable 8O

rootes1 – Giant Anthem 29er

that's the one i'm waiting for :-)

EDIT; don't think the x3 or x4 will be quite as flash though :(

UPDATE; well it lasted 12 weeks but i've been surfing more than riding so that wasn't as good as it sounds. just ordered a "long-life" one from superstar, can't wait to see what sweets they send me :oops:

for many years it was the royal watan on the pershore road in brum, but recently the masala club in redditch.

EDIT: oh currency… must stop speed reading! :lol:

only witnessed it once, at cannock, the dog pissed over all the bikes! metaphorically speaking….. and probably literally given the chance! :D

ok, i know it's a name not a word but it's my fave –

Djamolidine Abdoujaparov

rOcKeTdOg – i'm already there…it's who you know that counts

fncking hell, i thought my bro was keen but rd got there 3 days early! :lol:

EDIT: surely if you know the right people you arrive by helicopter 30 minutes before the action starts! :?

nickname – Not saturday, but got tickets for sunday

First time for me, so not sure what the best time to get there is. As early as you can manage I guess, even more so if you've just got general admission so you can bag yourself a good spot.

race day is different, haven't been to silverstone for donkeys but went to spa last year, got there on race day at 0730 and couldn't get the spot we wanted but there was still plenty of room.

got there on saturday at 8 and had our pick of the best spots so why he wants to get to silverstone for 0515 is beyond me…. i might tell him to go ahead and i'll meet him there.

don't say that, he'll want to get there at 0330!

LardLover – Does he get on anyone else's wick?

yep, watched the firt 10 minutes of bbc's first hightlight show and haven't bothered since.

fncking hell, if michael jackson had made the thriller video in 2008 rather than 1983 he wouldn't have had to use any make-up!

so who the fnck is she, apparenty she was/is in some girl band and she seems to have secured a contract for a minimum of 4 cutaway shots to her during a grand prix!

spokebloke – GOOGLE YOU FOOL.

i did, that's how i found out what lewis hamilton's birds name was!

thanks aviemoron, i was hoping someone else would bump it back to the front.

thanks to everyone who's replied so far but come on, where are the niners and salsas?

badger.

for some reason i stopped to look at a badger that was in the middle of the road presumably having been hit by a car. it's eyes were open and it was breathing, traffic had stopped so i picked it up (bloody heavy, funny shaped things) and carried it to the side of the road. while i was sat next to it wondering what to do it got up and ran off, right as rain!

when i got home mrs mcgroo told me how vicious they are! :-)

i ebayed all mine individually, 6-700, a few years ago, don't regret it. just remember to back up your itunes

TandemJeremy – Its really simply – don't speed or don't whinge if you get caught.

tj and others… yes it is really simple (simply), no one is whinging, now one has been speeding and no one has gotten caught, i didn't even voice an opinion, you must be mixing it up with someone else's speeding/whinging thread, i was simply imparting information :-)

EDIT: and anyway, like MilitantGrahamn said it's probably an ANPR camera.

PikeBN14 – Stu McGroo –

Is it groundhog day?

oh bugger…. what have i said now? :-)

not as annoying as people whinging about people whinging when the first people weren't whinging in the first place!

as for breaking the law… there should be two levels of punishment, normal punishment for normal people who are guilty of the occasional faux pas and punishment by death for self righteous, never-do-no-wrong, zero tolerance, know it alls :-)

1)yes
2)44

thomthumb –
look, accents occur naturally, i've got a brummy twang, i don't put it on it just comes out

where did it come from. parents/ peers/ schooling a mixture. its not genetic that's for sure

ain't got a clue, good question that we should put to the stw experts. why do we have accents, not trendy put on ones but the everyday ones that everyone, young or old talk with?

look, accents occur naturally, i've got a brummy twang, i don't put it on it just comes out, the same goes for scouse, geordie, scots, mancs, cockney, caribbean etc etc.

my point is that these goons are not speaking in there natural tongue, they're putting it on. i'm not saying it's right or wrong, i just find it laughable.

sputnik – I am not religious, but when people say ' O my God ' it makes me feel very uncomfortable.

me too, and "for gods sake" and "thank god for that" what utterly stupid things to say 8O

EDIT; we might as well get a religious angle in the thread too, along with the racism… but don't mention the war :wink:

rOcKeTdOg – yea my rigid forks feels like 80mm travel

yer barred :?

hmmm, interesting, before starting this thread i phoned up to order a giant trance but the response was out of stock with no indication of re-stocking. a bit perturbed i went off and did something else instead. my mate then (re) sowed the 29er seed but looking at what 5" travel bikes were available (niner w.f.o) and the prices i wasn't that interested. however if 4" 29ers are like 5" 26ers then that's a whole different kettle of ball games :?

unapologetically bumped back to the front in case any sunday surfers want to add something.

just looked through some back issues of wmb, they tested a salsa big mama a few months back, in the write up they claim that 100mm of travel on a 29er feels like 120mm on a 26er, anyone agree or disagree with that?

oh and cheers juiced, i bought an os map, if swinley isn't worth the ride i'll be doing a leisurely ride along the river.

hmmm… done some research, the look out centre at swinley, where i need to buy a £2 day permit, is 11.6 miles from where the bus is being serviced. as it's got a dedicated "expert" mtb area and i've got a day to kill, it'll probably be worth the rideout, might even be cheeky and ask if the garage will drop me off.

anyone ridden the "expert" mtb area? what's it like?

please excuse my ignorance!

are fink are knoor wat yo torkin abart, nar lark! :wink:

flippinheckler – whys yous talkin shiiiiiit! radio 1's Westwoods been taking like a rapper for years now innit.

lol at flippinheckler, you're right, i remember seeing him for the first time after hearing him on the radio for ages, i thought they'd fncked up the caption on the tv!

just re-read my post and it's staring me in the face… i went to school 8O

allthepies – been going on for a few years. chav culture gone mad.

when mrs mcgroo worked at our local ymca all the kids were doing it, the best one was welshy, why's he called welshy i asked, because he's from cardiff was the answer…. what cardiff, jamaica!!

druidh – Liar, liar
pants on fire.

druidh, i'll happily admit to plenty of boring shit but bgt ain't one of 'em.

weldone penrod, 6 replies before the rescist comment!

futon river crossing – not a pretty bunch!

i think i agree, heath robinson is alive and well and working in the 29er mtb industry 8O

rOcKeTdOg – yea but them Giants are awful

wierdo :lol:

that's it then, if they're bringing out an anthem 29er i'll just wait a bit longer for a trance x 29er. sorted :-)

rOcKeTdOg, ygm.

rOcKeTdOg – JohnClimber, you recon the dustmen will take that?

come on rOcKeTdOg even a dustman can see that it's just been left there by granville while he's on deliveries for arkwright :lol:

mboy – 26" wheels not man enough for you any more then?

just wondering what the wierdo's are up too 8O

robdeanhove – look at the size of me

i know what you mean, i'm just shy of 6'4" and make my 26" wheeler look like a bmx bike :?

anyway, liking those turners but come on there's got to be more or is this a proper "niche" market. and rOcKeTdOg, [stops short of making derogatory comment] what on earth is that :wink:

nickc – Really? Go on then. First off, who said anything about high profile? I've heard of whole French or Italian teams in really nondescript regional races suddenly withdraw all their racers because the UCI have decided to turn up to do random tests… Doping in cycling is endemic. End of. Look at how many have been caught through testing vs how many have been caught because they were stupid or through more regular police tactics. Testing catches almost no one if you consider how many professional cyclists there are.

come on nickc, i love a good argument but i'm struggling to find anything factual in what you are saying. if you're going to use words and phrases like "endemic" and "end of" then you need to back it up with facts :?