See, mincer with no pads on and look what you get 😉

Very nice. Sherwood’s ‘half-bikes’ are almost as beautiful as the ECdM tandem 🙂
Part bike, part work of art. Enjoy.

Was wearing my Rox hoodie only today. “My nuts are titanium” it declares on the back.
What about Redley skate shoes, as per JMC in Dirt. Still got my blue & red pair but they’re pretty faded now. I believe they went out of business, if I google Redley now I just get lots of handbags with a wee dog on them!

Oakley Frogskins- yep, the third set of prescription lenses died last year and the frame is now 30% superglue.

OF3 gloves, fantastic. Loved the long/short finger thing.
MBUK T-shirts- check.
AXO Ponys – check.
And the saddest loss of all, my Poobahs that died in October 🙁

My French geography isn’t great, so I’ll apologise in advance if I’m miles off, but A Quick Release use Toulouse as their local airport and are based in Luchon.

seosamh77 – Member
tandemwarriors, so where do you recommend out dunoon way?

There’s lots to explore here. The forest road network is huge, and will quickly take you into very remote glens that feel a milion miles from anywhere. The techy trails take a bit of finding, but there’s some very enjoyable trails at the southern end near Toward, and some around the Bishops Glen in Dunoon. Ride 30 mins over to Kilmun and there some great singletrack sections.

Rob

Northwind – Member
I made a replacement out of a CD case. A year and a bit on and it’s starting to cloud up a little but still doing the job. I wouldn’t usually say this, but simples!

Like it!

Deal Extreme sell replacement lenses in packs of 5 or so. Cheap, but just takes a while for delivery.

Ooooh, think I might have a chance to win this one!

Cotopaxi volcano in Ecuador!
One of the guys from NATS (ButtyJim) married a girl from Ecuador, so we had his stag night in Quito. We took a 4×4 from Quito (which is already at 9375ft, 2857m and makes you feel very light headed when you step off the plane), up to the Cotopaxi climbers refuge at 16000ft (4876m). The summit is 19,400ft. From 16000ft we decended on trails, forest roads & singletrack to about 10000ft.

All on hired bikes with the brakes the wrong way round, though we did take SPD shoes & pedals. Fabulous experience, absolutely incredible country.

Rob

Train to Gourock, ferry over here to Dunoon, then come riding with us!!

Compress the fork while you tighten the nuts. That’ll engage the tapers on the bottom of the piston rods into the taper in the base of the legs and should stop them rotating.

Well it works on RC40’s anyway!

Mmmm, just had the vernier on it. Thread pitch is 1mm, but the outside diameter on the thread is 17,8mm.

My set of Evolve cranks of a simlar vintage are lying in the spares bin after the splines died. Think I’ve still got the bolt & puller cap too. If I can find the bolt and it matches those dimensions then I’ll post it to you, its of no use to me, I just hate throwning things out, even when they’re buggered!

Rob

can only think something has got jammed inside the parallelogram which is stopping it closing to the granny ring position. Have seen it happen a few times on the trail when small stones have got stuck in there.
Other than that, do you have the worlds only rapid rise front mech?

Have got a barely used USE shockpost with 27.2mm shim in the garage.
Email in profile if you want pics.
Cheers Rob

lovewookie that’s awful! Don’t slam the door on the way out 😉

Thanks for the kind offer Dogsby, but sadly I’m a big footed 10 (might actually be 10 & half) 🙁

I actually saw a pair on ebay back in the summer, am now cursing forgetting to bid.

tang, must improve your telepathy skills 😉
Admiralable, ta, will look into them.

I confess that I ripped the cleat out of my first pair halfway down a decent on the Long Mynd. They were the original greeny ones and <2 years old. This second pair were the mk2 grey ones and they’ve done many hard winters, visits to the washing machine, hiked up Helvellyn twice, and generally been abused. Was quite upset when they died, like losing an old friend!

At risk of being ridiculed for providing a sensible and hopefully useful answer:

On the P7 I run a 2.35 HR on the back and a 2.25 advantage on the front. Personally I love it and find the front end grip superb on the corners. They also roll much quicker than I expected. The 2.25 advantage is slightly narrower than the 2.35 HR, but hardly noticable.

Rob

EDIT: I obviously type much slower than other sensible people 🙂

Hi Neil, nice to see you here!
See you over on Club323F shortly 🙂
Rob

The end of the worlds greatest chocolate flapjack?
Noooooooooooooooooooo…………….

Back home from our week in the Lakes (timed perfectly before the snow covered the trails today!).
The remote is a resounding success. 3 rides (Whinlatter, Pooley bridge>cockpit(pic below)>Howtown, and Lonscale) and it worked faultlessly.

Now, what’s the phone number for the Patent Office???

Rob

Thanks for all the positive feedback.
First test run at Whinlatter today, and I’m pleased (and a bit relieved) to report that it worked brilliantly 🙂
Coming off a downhill section with the shock active, we’d hit an uphill, sandy’s gripshift would flick the shock into propedal, and we could feel it tighten up beneath us, so no bouncing as we stomped on the pedals, fan-bloody-tastic 😀
Then when it went downhill she flicked the shock open and we felt Nancy soften again and we were soaking all the bumps again.
So well chuffed. More test riding tomorrow. If you’re in the lakes this week and you see us, give us a shout.

Rob & Sandy, the tandemwarriors with remote control!!

Rob and I have spent many a wonderful time in the Quantox and really love the speed and skill to get down the likes of smiths comb and then some… I agree with earlier post it is totally amazing how very fast we can get going downhill and the peaks was a real challenge coz people tended to stand around at the bottom of a descent and we would come down so fast that it was like a game of skittles… so if you see a tandem about to descend unless you are very very quick and skilled it might be more fun to try and keep up with them rather than being hounded to the bottom….. many a biker has had to bail infront of us coz they truely had underestimated us… we are a tad slow up hill to be sure though (posted by mrs rob)

Not tomorrow, but we’re off to the lakes tomorrow for a week. Will certainly be taking Nancy the tandem to Whinlatter during the week, the blue route is tandemtastic 🙂

We live 20 mins from the Glenbranter trails. A 35 minute winch up a fireroad then 4 singletrack setions back down. They’re short but really good, very tight & twisty. Makes a favourite night ride.

Our club has actually approached the forestry commission about doing an uplift day there, will see what happens.

Always have used a short (or medium as the shadow call them) cage mech with triple chainrings. Set the chain length so it will fit big/big and you have no risk.
In the granny ring the chain will be getting a bit sloppy by 6th sprocket, but then do you ever go further down the cassette than that in the granny ring? The ratio has usually started to overlap with middle ring /1st sprocket.
Suppose its a personal thing.

The bit at the end of ‘original DIRT’ is soooo funny. It was years before I found it, wondered what the hell the noise was when I left the tape running 😆

PMSL

more at wwaswas & iain than the joke to be honest 😀

thekingofsweden – Member

Also TW did you sell the dale frame ? I heard someone asking about one ?

the old girl is still hanging in the garage, feeling very forlon & unloved! Email in profile and I’ll happily send more info & pics.
Thanks,
Rob

Bloody brilliant! Thanks for that 🙂

ddmonkey – Member
Love the bodge but can’t get my head around why anyone would want to ride a tamden off road. What do you get out of it compared to riding solo? Doesn’t it just hold you back in terms of what is rideable? Is it just a another different challenge?

Can completely understand what you’re saying, and tandems certainly won’t suit everyone and not everyone will ‘get’ it.
We went for a tandem over 10 years ago mainly because Sandy didn’t want to become ( and I didn’t want her to become) a biking widow. There’s a 15 year age gap between us, and at 40 she’d hardly ridden a bike since childhood, nevermind off-road. The main reason was that she suffers with ME, so that would always limit how much and how long she could ride. The tandem allows us to ‘share’ energy so she gets to join in in a way that she never would on a solo. It’s also a great leveller – forget most things about riding solo, they don’t work on a tandem!

Does it hold us back? Well not really. I ride solo to do more techy stuff, and we choose tandem routes that suit a tandem. For example Nan Bield is great but on a tandem would be insane, but we’ve ridden most of the Peak District trails, red routes at GT & Kirroughtree.

So the answer to ‘is it a different challange’ is yes, a completely different challenge.
For example the red route at GT on a solo is enjoyable, but (IMHO) not that challenging. Try getting a tandem to climb the switchbacks and each corner is a victory! Stuck in a rut? Forget trying to bunny hop out of it, tandems don’t hop, or wheelie, they just do brute force!

Bit of a long winded answer, but hopefully makes sense 🙂

Cheers,
Rob

Ax3M4n – Member
Wow – a full sus tandem bike. Do you do jumps and drops on it too?

Not a great pic, but you get the idea. The freeride park at Glentress.

So, err, yes we do, as much as the laws of physics will allow a 50lb bike and 2 people to do 🙂

twas indeed very soggy today!
7 of us squelched round the red then cold wet feet confined us to The Hub! We took the tandem but Sandy forgot the MOST important bit of kit………..sports bra!

Yep, call them, they’ll ask you to fill in a service form (on their website) and send ’em the wheel. Usually couple of days turn-round, and a very reasonable cost too.
Our big ‘un from the tandem was so knackered that their tool couldn’t engage in the (almost non-existant) teeth and unscrew it. They sent it back, I attacked it with a dremel, chisel and other sharp tools and removed it. They were so impressed they sent me a new ratchet ring and pawls free of charge 🙂

Very nice people.

Our RP23 on the back of the tandem runs at almost the max 300psi, with 2 of us (significantly more than 16 stone) jumping up and down on it. No issues at all 🙂

[picks jaw up from floor]

that’s superb!

Recently changed from old skool XT to shadow, and have to agree with bigyinn, the stronger spring is very noticable, much less flappy chain.

Oooh, not done that one yet, which is shameful as it’s only just over an hour away from me in little ol’ Dunoon. Pics please. The weather here today was stunning, hope you get the same.

We were up Ben Arthur (the Cobbler). Glorious sunshine but a howling gale at the top. A stonking run back down 🙂