Got an 17" (i think) Azonic Sabre with a vanilla coil on the back hanging on my garage wall, with a Hope Headset. yours for 200 quid.

I used to have 5.1s on both ends of a DH bike. Lots of rain over several weekends meant I got it down to 20 minutes an end with Maxxis 2.5 ST Highrollers to Swampies.

I now own the foot long metal Pedros tyre levers, but found that these were rather good on the trail Chunky Pedros Tyre Levers. Between them and the trick with pulling the bead into the channel in the middle it gets a little easier, but its really frustrating to nip a tube and pump the fecker up just to have it go flat straight away :(

I just dribbled some wet lube down into the piston chamber, pumped the piston a few times and it hasn't re-occurred since November (I rebuilt the brake with the fix kit from hayes when the first piston got stuck down and jammed early last year), I take the point about corrosion of the seals, but been using wet lube on Fork stantions for a few years, and haven't seen it have any effect on seals when they have been stripped.

ymmv

I raced it, really enjoyed it as it was a change from the usual inners tracks, fast and super loose, and there was no pedalling for the uplift!

wicked event, nice to see so many Euros and WC racers over here too.

[list][*]ODI Lockons[/*]
[*]Hayes 9 brakes (if you wash them after winter rides[/*]
[*]+1 on Thompson seat posts, I used to break lots of seat posts, I havent bought a new one in about 2 years[/*]
[*]Hope Pro2 hubs[/*][/list]

there was one last year in Bulgaria I think, similar deal to MoH and the Mega, got some coverage on this site.

There was also that Irish mass start race that got a youtube video posted various places, it looked like a giggle

Dan

we went out to the alps with Eurostar in the summer for some riding. Getting out was fine, the bike bags went through the xray machine and we were given some help getting them on the train.

On the way back we ended up in Paris, tried to check in and a very grumpy french lady demanded that we pay 50 euros per bag, or we would not be allowed to travel. Luckily two of our group speak very good french, and were able to argue the toss about it. We missed our train, paid 20 euros each, we told we would have help loading them on the next one, got none, wrote to Eurostar when we got home, got a full refund and the offer of half-price tickets.

The moral is this: phone them, check the _current_ rulings on bike bags (the french and english versions of the websites for Eurostar were contradictory when we travelled), get the name of the person you speak to, and ask them to email you the information, print the email, carry it with you.

Once in Paris we didnt have any trouble with putting bike bags in Taxis

your third option is a nice set of Van's skate shoes which are easier to get in large sizes, or Nike 6.0s which again due to the much larger market seem easier to find in large sizes.

I would say not, running 140mm Pikes on my 2008, that seems to be about the biggest sensible forks, even with the rotatey headset sleeve set steep

my RP23 squelches a bit in cold weather, seems to stop after a while (once it warms up I guess)

as I understand it, lower + wider means you are forced to take a stance on the bike that brings your centre of gravity forward and presumeably slightly lowers it (not by much though).

Fitted some wide bars on my DH bike, it certainly improves the cornering grip, and I am now running a few more clicks of compression on the front and a few less at the back to keep it balanced.

bring haribo!

I went to german international school, and speak fluently, what I don't get is the crowd singing along in a language they don't seem to understand.

Case in point: we saw them at Manchester on Tuesday night, it was amazing, but the song where the laser eyed exploding babies drop down was some very sarcastic take on Mr Fritzl and his cellar family. There seemed to be a whole chunk of the crowd more wowed by the stage show than by the second level of it. Hohum
(Also Keine Lust is as far as I can figure about wanting to shag animals and so on, bit wrong watching 16 y/o girls screaming along to it, having no idea what its about)

running mine with 160mm 55s at the minute, and its great (compared with the 140mm Pikes ive just moved onto my new Meta 4X frame)

Little on the slack side, but totally rideable in the lakes both up and down, just having to run them a little harder than I would on a full sus to keep the whole thing taut for jumps

Im in, planning to rip it up on my hardtail

there are alternatives for a reason, look into mp3 players that when plugged in anywhere else work as a simple memory stick, I use mine in my car and PC at work, and they can just be played without needing Itunes and all that bollocks.

0pt1cal: does that mean you are gunning for a front row on the qualis?

Im in.

I found this a little while ago. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M24IcXMM3I8
It invades my dreams.

this coming from a guy who started the "facebook is a invasion of my privacy and a waste of time" group?

I get the distinct impression that the blogosphere has reduced in size rather a lot since the popularisation of facebook, as realistically no one reads your blog unless you are this close to them || or can make up enough lies and slander to make it exciting. Facebook actually fixes this quite well by providing a single aggregator for all these mewings in the dark.

That was the only time I will ever defend facebook.

I always preffered X9 to XT kit, but am swinging the other way for 3 reasons:

Having to disassemble the X9 shifter to change the mech cable. seriously wtf? being the sort that dives in and doesn't read the instructions means that this killed the shifter as all the springy bits escaped. Its such a common procedure to have to do on a bike it seems ludicrous to make it intentionally harder.

X9 shifters have started sticking on me on the downshift. Changing the shifter helps sometimes, changing the mech has no effect, changing the gear outer had no effect. I got stuck in 3rd gear coming out of the gate at a DH race. I nearly threw my bike through a caravan.

The newer Shadow Shimano stuff has the top entry cable routing, and two way release, fixing my only 2 issues with Shimano kit.

500 notes gets you a "running" classic HiLux (like that one off top gear)

I ran one for 2 years while I was at uni. Nothing went wrong that couldnt be fixed with duct tape, a hammer or grease and it goes anywhere.

Extra benefit: during the summer you can use it to uplift things.

LMT: Think you might have Oneal and O'neill (the surf wear guys) mixed up

FWIW am I right in thinking that Oneal used to be Azonic?

their DH shorts are the best thing I've ever ridden in. hands down, so much so that I wear them for XC even when its raining. They make some nice tops too, but I tend to buy 3/4 jerseys from sale rails rather than at full price.

Did the qualifier on my Morewood Izimu with 888's (a DH race bike) bang on with a full rather than roady cassette for the firetrail climb in the middle

Did the race on a Commencal Meta 5.5 (with integrated cracks) with Marz55s on the front. Bang on.

Also had my Cove Stiffee out there for pissing around on and in case I needed spares

Its all about driving out in a van with lots of bikes and spare bike bits

vid: http://www.vimeo.com/6487596 (commy:green, izimu:red)

yours keeps breaking down mike, I remember the 2 times its taken more than 4 hours to cook pizza! Its faff.

I used to use one, ahwiles is right, it works much better if you unscrew the aerial. Used to get a perfect signal then, and could generally still pick up reasonable Radio 1, 4 and "Classic" (yuck all round).

Now I have a Sony USB job, and am convinced that this is the future.

I wear DH baggies over my lycra shorts for everything, the baggies provide lots of protection in the event of a crash, the lycra helps prevent chaffage (yey!). The one time I fell off and slid wearing just the lycra it made quite a mess of my leg :(

On the last run of the last race of last DH race I did last season (the one before they controversially banned skin suits (I don't mind them, for the record, in a sport against the clock, the pro's should be allowed to make a judgement call on protection vs all out speed))(woo, nested comments, sign of a ramble) I wore a borrowed skinsuit in lieu of my normal armour + baggies and a MX top get up. It felt stupid fast, but I cut a huge chunk out of my shin muffing a root, and was 2 seconds slower :(

I wish they would put some kind of fly in bib shorts though, the unzip, unclip lean over and try and avoid pissing on you chin thing is getting old fast now that the winter rides are here :(

in DX stylee, Decathlon own brand boards are cheap as hell, but turn out to be rebranded Salomon kit (which isnt amazing I know) but rides quite nice, loads of pop, and at the price I have no qualms ripping the hell out of on any and all occasions (60 quid 3 years ago and has been ridden on and off piste all over Cham, 2Alps, Alpe D'Huez, Scotland and a couple of carry ups in the lakes when its been too snowy to ride bikes).

Avoid the Decathlon bindings like the plauge and get some nice second hand ones. I managed to get some Burton Cartels of a mate for very little (though they are in Chav White :( )

I still think that snowboard kit makes bike kit look reasonable, I would reason that a snowboard is essentially a hardtail frame, and bindings are a crankset. Stickers are the same in any language.

The surfer in me is still confused as hell about putting wax on the bottom to make it go faster, though I do stick surfwax on the top, rather than using a stomp plate, and it seems to work fine, and makes my board smell nice :D

unless you feel the specific need to _own_ a board though, a sage man once said the best brand of ski for rocks is "Hire Skis". good advice unless you have a specific urging or are going to use it a lot. don't use your own board on a dry slope!

meh

just gotten back from a fantastic night ride with my missus. south loop and blue of whinlatter in clear icy conditions. fantastic, has cheered me right up about it being winter :D

Mr Gnar: Wet Screams are very specificly for sloppy mud, the long spikes on an uncut WetScream is terrifying on rocks and roots. Only really used on DH tracks covered in gravy like mud, and long grassy finishes through fields.

Swamp Things are the way forward on Rocks and Roots. 2.5 ST Swampies will rip up a summer time road though, pelting you with tarmac as you sweat up it

I would leave a small gap, so that when you hit something really jaggedly and rocklike, like a massive rock with your nice round bashguard, and it stops being so round, your drivetrain won't lock up!

I think that what will really scare the big light manufacturers is when one of the distributors gets on to DX and gets in a container of these DX lights, and starts punting them in normal bike shops side by side with the other offerings, ready to go with a UK pluggable charger and that-day collection, for say 80 quid.

I would pay that.

I was caught out by this recently, trying to fix an SLX 36/2? crankset to my missus's 2006 Five. It just just clips the bolt with the chain when shifting between the rings, ended up changing the ring for a 34 which fits fine.

I always thought that they should turn the tunnel at monaco into a sort of laid on its side half pipe, giving a nice curved transition onto the wall and then the roof, allowing upsidedown overtaking and such.

I assume the downsides would be mechanical failures while inverted, and drivers not getting back down fast enough, and firing themselves into the harbour upside down.

be good to watch/would make a cooler demo for one of the teams than arsing about around the streets of london as they seem to occasionally.

Dan

I click on this looking for a hacked off looking Harvey Keitel or a snowboarding helmet.

Music is good too though.

What happens to google when all nouns are in use?

I was riding with a mate recently, and was pointing out to him on his Meta 5.5 where my (3rd) Meta 5.5 has cracked, when I spotted that his was cracked as well. Hilarity ensued.

I hope the 2010s are better, they are lovely to ride.

look into Cannondale Geminis on fleabay, few years old now so low low residuals, 1.5" headsets for bigass singlecrown forks (or not) and bombproof

I run Pro IIs on a Cove Stiffee, Meta 5.5 and a Morewood Izimu DH bike

The Cove is always much louder than the Meta 5.5 and the Morewood is somewhere in-between, I figured it was the frame amplifying it, maybe the swingarms on the full-sussers damping the vibration from the hub?

The volume seems about the same on the cove even when I fit the wheel from the Meta 5.5, which seems to rule out one hub being randomly loud as hell.

my Pro II are better than a bell on bridleways IMO

I love the interbike coverage.
Cumbria is great for riding, but exposure to new shiny stuff is hard, and having all the neat new toys that are going to filter into the market in a nice easy to sift through collection is great, I like new shiny things, I like seeing new solutions to long standing problems (my missus was frighteningly excited by the pics of the lady bib-shorts from the Eurobike coverage)

Im a DH racer and subscribe to Singletrack and Dirt subscriber, and read the Singletrack mostly for the articles on race prep, fitness training and the route guides.

The website is the only place I have found that covers everything from DH racing through grassroots XC

Keep up the good work

Dan

I slope around the office in Vans, which if you avoid the signature models are quite stealthy, as well as being comfy as hell for my constantly sprained ankles