If Shimano supplied the small parts I’m sure they would go on forever… but as I disagree with the wastefulness, I think the moral thing to do is not buy their products. Trouble is I want to buy their stuff! Hmm. I wonder if Hope will ever forge instead of CNCing…

Trial rat – that’s exactly why I am thinking of going Hope!

lso with a lot of spares, labour is so expensive that its often only worth repairing if your doing it yourself.

True but replacement of a caliper OR a lever is at least as much labour but more on parts. The least labour intensive way is a whole new brake… for the sake of a rubber seal!

Are you implying that Hope brakes are not reliable? 😉 Or that it’s because they are in the UK? I’ll ask madison for seal kits tomorrow but I have already been told by LBS it’s a new caliper…

I drive an A2 and after last winter have bought some cheap steel wheels and fitted ‘winter’ tyres. Really, you won’t spend any more on tyres in the long run, but you will be safer and less likely to get stuck if we have a bad one. Winter tyres are actually ‘cold weather’ tyres – the compound is different so it remains supply below 7 degrees C. Apparently the stopping distances are way better below that temperature even without snow, and grip is supposed to be way better on snow – enough for me to give it a go.

I do 30 miles each way, only twice per week, and to be honest I’ve started to car share on those days because 1) training is better going 1-way fast as possible rather than more gently both ways, and 2) it was too time consuming! two days a week should be perfectly fine in my experience, but then if I didn’t work so many hours more days would be do-able. If you finish work then go home with no more work to do until tomorrow, do more riding!

Thank you ladies 🙂

I’ve got her a Specialized Glode for the occasional commute, so I may put that on for the longer off road rides and see how she goes. I’ll take a look at all of your recommendations now – thanks again

I run them at 45PSI as they seem to pinch flat very easily… I can see thread and really just wanted to know if this has caused anybody a problem. Since my girlfriend is to use the bike I think I’ll have to change them – a blow-out when I’m introducing her to MTBing will not do me any favours!

It seems silly that the sidewalls wear when they are not being ran at silly low pressure… I only weigh 11 stone. Perhaps I’m an aggressive rider!?!

Ohhh Lancia Stratos – Kit car???

I know Edinburgh Bicycle sell them for about £1.50 a pack, with a little tube of lithium grease.

lol @ amplebrew

Another idea if you want something a little more rare and refined – a late BMW 850 perhaps?

Personally I’d only consider RWD or 4WD… but I’ve not owned anything other than FWD. The racing Pumas are nice, but when you can have an S2000 for similar money…

10,000 is what I plan to save then spend on a similar car. I am going to spend the next 2 years considering the following:

BMW Z3 (3.0)
BMW M3 (E46)
Honda S2000
Vauxhall VX220 (turbo)

Like The Flying Ox – I also spend a lot of time dreaming on Pistonheads!

Shimano – by far the most reliable and easy to service that I know. Older 2-pot XT’s went through 3 winters commuting and lots of off-road action without anything but pads!

I’ve had great reliability from my polar cs200 (wireless & HR) for 3000 miles/18months on my road bike (not my only bike btw!)

I have sympathy, you must be gutted… but I hate this blame culture. You could also have reversed into a small sports car like a caterham…

Thank you Trout – I’ve replied as I’m not yet put off completely!

Haha – did you do it as a DIY? I’ve done a fair bit of ‘technical’ jobs, but never electronics… I may have a go myself but I’ll need to do a lot of reading!

Thanks – I’ve just emailed him but I didn’t think he would do other brand lights. We shall see! Is there somebody else or is Mr Trout the one and only?

If you run one ’til death you’ll have to replace the cassette and possible chainrings. You can either swap between two/three chains every so often, or buy a checker and change the chain when it reaches 1% stretch – any further beyond usually means a new chain would slip on the worn rings. I kept my road bike very clean and replaced a chain after 1% and got away with it though…

whichever way you choose, you’ll get more life out of the chainrings and cassette by replacing the chain more frequently, and more life out of the lot if you keep it clean!

Antony

I asked this question last night at a LBS I work in. Apparently there is a guy advertising on the forums (backyard company type) who is upgrading our 2LED hopes amongst others with the new generating brighter, cooler, more efficient LEDs and doing lenses too. Has anybody got a link please?

I'd be tempted to try for warranty and maybe ask the seller for help?

Weight it in for scrap. Get out with your mates and learn to suffer and hang on, simple as that.

Or use your time wisely with a heart rate monitor and get the most out of any time you have to train by doing structured turbo sessions and getting out when you have more time. The research is leaning more towards high intensity over long steady rides anyway, but any riding is going to help.

If I must… 😀

Hi

It depends on your level of fitness at present – if you haven't really done anything you may want to think about lower level base training to start with and then increase the intensity as your cardio fitness is up to it. If you are fairly decent in the cardio department, go for high intensity interval training… and suffer 😀

Chopwell? Some trails, about 7 miles ride to Newcastle, and cheaper than the city.

MTFU – Once you have got into the routine and you're going to bed a bit earlier it will become easier, but beginning is difficult. I struggled for the first few weeks of commuting 30 miles from 6:30am, now it's not so bad 🙂

+1 cardboard box – I've used one and it's fine.

OP – sorry if it has been said, but the back end on a 140mm bike should not try to kick you off. Have you tried more rebound damping? Or are you a big bloke with an air shock running lots of pressure?

EDIT – just re-read and noticed that you said hardtail… yeah, get a full suss.

Hi mate

My first thought for this is to use paypal – properly mind, as a transaction. You both get insurance and piece of mind.

Specialized innertubes, failry cheap and decent weight. Never bothered weighing them though…

+1 for biketart!

Tis a shame there are no more custom bikes here 🙁

I've only got good experience with high rollers and fire-xc 2.1s, both of which I'm happy with. If you have decent width rims, perhaps try to find some single ply 2.4" high rollers – I've not heard a bad work said about them!

Hi

What bike are you going to fit them to? I expect you will be recommended High Rollers 😉

Yeah, they do look very cool, and I must admit I am vain when upgrading my bike is concerned! I ride a synapse so the stiffness shouldn't be too bad…

Ed – sorry, I meant everything but training! I intend to get into more races/TT/sportives, and pre-broken leg I could average 21mph over 30 miles when gunning it (I wasn't doing any specific training then so this should improve).

significant if you're racing, negligible otherwise

Significant to me – every ride is a race 😀

difference is easily noticeable.

I've also found a noticable difference between lighter and heavier wheels… 'nuff said?!

Again context…. Your average rider, rather than Bradley the bastard son of Paul Weller, would be hard pushed to do a 30 minute climb consistently, and I would guess that the differences in each climb would mop up a significant proportion of that supposed gain…

Consistency doesn't matter – the question is, would the lighter wheels give a faster time (e.g. if you did 1000 climbs on each set of wheels with the same rider and bike – theoretical…)

so a 1 in 60 improvement for a 1 in 28 (assuming 12st rider and 28lb bike) weight loss ? That suggests there was a loss of power too…

As I'm busy and still at work I was going off the top of my head, hence the 'something huge like'… the figures dont matter, the point I was trying to make was that it was a significant gain in performance for the weght saving.