Brand X. Bish bash bosh.

I live in Birmingham so already have to travel quite some distance for really good riding 😕

freeridenick – I’ve done several ski season in les deux alpes, working on the mountain and skiing for 4-5 hours 7 days a week. One week ski holidays will never be enough again!

This is what I’m afraid of. I don’t have the cash to afford another ridiculously expensive hobby like skiing. I don’t want to turn biking, which is cheap by comparison (though not that cheap) into something even more hardship inducing!

All the alloy bolts I’ve tried should really have been clearly labelled “Single use”. That said I’m such a tart I still stick with them. Threadlock is your friend.

26″ is fantastically grippy, but feels very slow rolling coming from rubber queens or mountain kings. Personally I won’t be going back though.

Crests or Arch Ex it is then. The former is slightly lighter, the later probably slightly stronger. Both are the same width.

What size tyres do you want to run?

If anyone can tell me how a Cotic Soul is £200 £300 better I would love to know.

Improvements on a 456 are priced on a logarithmic scale, but I still love my Soul!

The soul in it’s final incarnation, now with a double and bash setup and tubeless tyres. The Hans Dampf’s in combination with Flow Ex’s have transformed the ride! Sh*t to a blanket doesn’t even cover it 😀

Rode it in the snow at LLandegla yesterday. Couldn’t believe how confidence inspiring it felt on these tyres/rims. No squirming just oodles and oodles of grip! They are slow until you pointing downhill enough, but to my mind it is totally worth it!

Hope bash, because I keep hitting the chainring/chain on walls after failed bunny hops.

Can’t wait to get out and ride it again, just hope it holds together!

I found this, only available in 16″. Might fit him though I think.

http://www.realcycles.com/m1b158s2p2943/2012_GENESIS_Core_26_1_10_2012/RS_GB/6834

He’s not that experienced and wants to buy new for sure. Thanks for the Bantu suggestion, I’ll take a look.

+1 what chakaping said.

They are nanos but even more bargainous.

I once came across 50 druids in Robes, dancing round a fire and chanting in 3 part harmony 😯

Wheelset Superstar Tesla/Stans Arch EX
Tyres Mountain King II 2.4″ Protection

I ran this rim/tyre combo for a while on my Soul but ended up swapping the rims for Flow Ex. Sure it’d be nice to save the weight with the Arch’s, but I found I couldn’t drop the tyre pressure enough to get good comfort and grip without it getting very squirmy. Those continentals have some very thin sidewalls and the extra width of the Flow Ex supports them better. I also ended up swapping to Hans Dampfs as well, since the sidewalls are a lot tougher and go tubeless dead easy. Yeah they weigh a bit more again, but it is totally worth it in my eyes.

I know other people get on fine with a combo like that, just not me.
So in summary, its not about rim strength, but rim width.

Found this today

One to include on the next ride perhaps, not too far from the mailbox.

Doesn’t look very “chuckable”

Send me an email composite, maybe we can sort out a cheeky ride next week. I’m only a couple of mins from Cannon hill park.

2 weeks time is the week before the 13th. I might try again next week but it’d be good to get a big group along on the 13th December.

Anyone who still wants to ride to night is certifiable! Good luck to you if you do. I’m out!

Tuesday’s are no good for me I_Ache 🙁

It is now pissing down in Balsall Heath! I’m not coming unless it has stopped by 7pm!

saps – sympathies. Hope you’re ready to ride by december 13th.

They glow in the dark, but only if you charge them up with as many lumens at possible first!

I’ve a mate coming on a glow in the dark 456…provided he doesn’t shandy out, what with the weather looking as good as it does.

There are indeed a few decent bits of riding around the Uni. Nice little jaunt through the tunnels to get there too, might add another dimension to the ride. Might see if I can find an old narrow set of bars and have another pop at that staircase!

Yunki – more like offishness probably! I’m sure you’ve nothing to worry about with your frame!

See those of you that are keen on Thursday, 7:30 at the bullring bull.

I’ll be there 🙂

If the seller has been riding a pre-cen Soul at 140mm it could mean the frame has lead quite a high stress life so far.

I should have known better as I have done a fair bit of welding. Thought the guy I took it too would have taken the initiative to cover up the rest of the bike. Well, actually I thought he probably wouldn’t but that it would be unlucky if something like this were actually to happen and hoped I’d get away without stripping most the bike.

Oh well. Not worth worrying about.

Sparks will also fly outside of STW

I have solved the Mystery.

Last week I had my chainstays welded. (doh!)

I’ll see if my girlfriend has any clear nail polish.

^most plausible explanation so far^

No solvents or the like. Do have dot 5.1 in my avids, not been bled for a long time though.

Ahh, that’s what it’ll be, hot rock burns from smoking the pipe whilst riding. I must lay off the crack.

Good thinking but alas no. It’s been kept inside while I’ve been away for a couple of days.

Now would be a good time to stick a darker brew on to be ready for xmas. I make a light ale which can be ready to drink 10-14 days after brewing.

Soul in messing about mode.

^Might make avoiding the security interesting!^ Probably worth a shot though. My mates got a go pro, couldn’t make the first one but hopefully he’ll come along next time.

Thought I’d update the build thread to include the latest incarnation of the Soul. Now with Flow Ex rims because I was finding the Arch Ex’s a little too narrow to support big volume tyres.

Only other change is a swap to Hans Dampf’s front and rear (tubeless) which I am yet to try out in anger because….

The chainstay has developed a crack. 🙁 I’ve had it welded so I can ride it a bit longer but will be getting a new frame to build all the parts on to around xmas time. The Soul will then get built up with cheap bits as my commuter/pub bike!

So on the plus side, I will have two bikes for the first time!

I wore my pads down to the metal last week. Removed them, retracted pads with the red plastic thing, took a bit of fiddling to get them right back but didn’t take more than 60 seconds. New ones went straight in.

Guess I got lucky.

Try working the pistons in and out a couple of times by pressing the lever then pushing back (ideally with the red plastic block thing) on the old pads.

Don’t use anything hard like a screw driver on the pistons themselves, you’ll trash the pistons.

If they aren’t retracting fully after that, you may have to take a drip of fluid out. I’d do that by getting the lever into a position such that the lever bleed screw is facing vertically up, then loosening it off before pushing gently on the pads as before. Then nip the screw up again obviously.

Once you’ve done that you may find you need to advance your pads to get a good lever feel.

If we get a few cameras on the go and have a lot of different angles we could do some really good stuff with a video. We could build up a winter of urban night rides and do a video with all the good stuff

I took a look at your website composite. You’ve got some great stuff on there!

Found probably my favourite rangers path video 🙂