Hosted Christmas at our house for the first time in 2016, both families over, my wife’s sisters have 5 kids between them so the house was busy. My wife is getting dressed, can’t find her watch- she’d seen the then 3-year old looking at it before. Could we find it?! Looked everywhere. She swore she’d not touched it… Took the whole Christmas to get her to admit where she’d hidden it!!

Based on that experience; look down the side of the chair cushion in the bedroom.

For me the Fox launch pro knee pads satisfy all your requirements. Ymmv of course!

Don’t get me started on oe bottom brackets! How does it work? They have the same p/n as the one you buy from crc and look the same but often last only a couple of rides!!

I sorta looked at this a while (2yrs) ago when Canyon’s pricing was even keener and the £/€ rate more favourable.

At the time if you added up the retail cost of components on the Strive, you were effectively getting the frame for free! As above however this doesn’t mean those components would actually sell for this price plus the influence of selling fees etc.

Direct sales bikes remain an excellent and cheap way to get a full bike if you’re not fussy about components, but once you start building your own or swapping our lots of stuff it gets expensive.

Quite fancy the new Torque.. especially the top spec with Fox factory and mavic wheels. Would have to change the tyres though (mavic), and the brakes (sram->shimano) and probably the handlebar (canyon)…… Oh

Long term 800 user here also considering what to upgrade to (Relative term with Garmin products as there is always one step forwards, two back)

I think the 1030 is probably the unit to go for, however it is currently very expensive and as the new-fangled Garmin product it will be the one blessed with the most bugs for at least another year!

Really what I want is an updated 800 with a better (higher res and slightly larger) screen, OS maps are a must for off-road nav Imho, I’m considering getting the 1:25k over the 1:50k I have in the 800, faster processor to speed up scrolling around the maps so in winter you can find what you need before getting frost bite..

I’ve never understood how those Hite-Rite posts work- do you need to leave your seat clamp loose so the whole post slides up and down or doesn’t it work that way?

Good commitment there! Had the trails been cleared at all or was it packed snow the whole way?

Used to ride a Cotic Roadrat with 29er wheels, 40C tyres.

Now have a Surly Ogre set up with 650b+ wheels and 3″ tyres. Ride it off-road, on road etc. Don’t find the big tyres much of a compromise on the road (I’m not exactly a roadie) and the comfort is great off road.

Apart from getting splattered with mud (must sort some guards!) I’ve not found any drawbacks so far

Be prepared for lots of hills, I’d say a hartail would be fine, it’s many years since I’ve ridden off road on the iow but I remember varied trails and surfaces plus lots of ups and downs.

OP is looking for carbon forks

OP actually stated they wanted to “take the sting out the ride a bit” and while carbon forks may achieve this- another way is a better quality steel fork, the roadrat fork is fairly basic in construction. There are many higher quality steel forks that would achieve the stated aim without requiring exotic materials.

This is also why I mentioned tyres.

As above- guarantee you’ll have 10thorns in the tyre. Think of them as “ghosts of punctures-future”!

Your other option is one of the Surly forks. I think it’s either the disc trucker or straggler fork that has the correct axle to crown measurement.
They’re available after market for ~£120. eg Triton cycles.

The other factor in the ride quality I found was tyres (obviously). My last setup was 40C WTB nanos setup tubeless which fitted with the standard fork and frame and made the ride both more comfy but also crucially made the bike handle much more surely.

My Roadrat (circa 2012) came with an Allen key 100×9 front axel. Looks just like a normal qr, just without the qr bit. Not super secure as you only need an Allen key- but better than nothing.

Unfortunately I don’t know who makes them.. possibly Alex as that was the only brand name on the wheels so I assume the hubs were also theirs

As usual Garmin excels in having 1000 models of gps that could be great, but all fall down for one reason or another!

Those specific ones need a hitch receiver to mount to- not normally something fitted to Uk cars. While it might work fitted to a ball I suspect the weight/ moment of the rack would cause it to move.

If all the LBS close, where will I get wheels built? I am a keen spannererer of bikes, but have never built a wheel.
My local shop does an excellent job for £30/wheel, can’t beat that on the internet!

Lockons but still slip? I’ve never had that with lockons. I wouldn’t expect the hairspray trick to work in this case as internally those sort of grips are usually hard plastic- don’t know it that applies to ergons.

Spray glue might help, but I’d be taking lockons that don’t lockon back to the shop!

Compass tyres out of the US do a lot of large diameter ‘slick’ tyres.

Surly bikes have a lot of options for people doing this sort of thing, I’m currently building up an Ogre with 27.5+ tyres (3”). They have a similar overall diameter to a 29/700c wheel. Why? N+1, why not? It’ll be comfy and shouldn’t be too slow on the road with a small tread tubeless tyre. Using a WTB ranger currently.

Do it!

All you guys saying “tape, tape, TAPE!” are clearly missing the logical, obvious answer to the op’s question.

N+1 vehicles. This is a perfect excuse for fleet-expansion with a bike transporting vehicle.

HTH.

OP- accept that you’re a MTB’er at heart and build a new bike with 27.5/29+ tyres (2.8″ and above) and call that your ‘road’ bike. If you feel you will do lots of road miles, by all means go for one of the less aggressive knobbly tread patterns.

Who says you have to conform.

N.B this is probably stupid advice- follow at own peril etc. I’ll let you know how my build goes tho!

Another vote for 40C Nanos- I really rate tham. Unless you run them tubed, then they’re puncture magnets ime.

I have the previous XTR (M980?) on a bike and have just purchased M7000 SLX for a new build.

Visually(colour and branding aside) I can tell zero difference between the levers. The SLX calliper appears to be Approx 100% heavier than the XTR. I’m anticipating similarly decent performance out of the SLX!

The exposure Strada is quoted as having a ‘road biased beam’. Ime this is either untrue, or a bit of a moot point because it still dazzles oncoming drivers in anything above the lowest mode and in the lowest mode you can’t see where you’re going! Great light for general off-road riding however, which was how I used mine.

I know you want self contained OP, but I went over to dynamo lighting a year ago and it’s ace. The Son lamp (and B+M units with the same reflector) have a proper cut-off like a car, you can see a long way ahead and you don’t dazzle anyone.

Thanks all- I’m actually getting the parts from Ubyk in Oxford as they’re cheapest… I’ll ask them if they can supply the tool as well!!

Surly Ice Cream Truck.

Let’s see how lazy you REALLY are!!

Yikes- no doubt there, that’s proper broken. Poor drilling/cleanup around the hole during build I guess.

What 45mm internal rims are you using Nixie?

Agreed on the limitation of 36 holes- however I already have the hubs and buying a new Alfine and dynamo hub will significantly add to the cost of this experiment.

Cane creek headset are normally 40-series or 110-series. The 40’s are steel and the 110 stainless. Bearings are interchangeable. So providing you have the correct inner and outer diameter, taper on the face and height you’re good to go.

Edit: I think I’ve used sjs in the past for cane creek bearings, but they’re fairly standard other places carry them https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/headsets/38-mm-1-inch-pair-cane-creek-bearing-for-40-series-headsets/

Cheers all, going on the hunt for a trail double now!

Thanks- I think I’ll be ok in that case as the aftermarket ring from oneup does away with the tabs, so if the arms are the same (which you’ve confirmed) it should all work.

Yes I was surprised. I mean fair play to the guy, but it does make you realise there is actually money in DH. I wonder how many Tues’s YT will sell next year off the back of his win?

Great pictures, thanks for sharing!

P.s i want to maintain about a 49mm chainline

A bit off the mark cyclelife.. the pits are open, there is video of him working on it to build up the spare frame.

Also it didn’t fail in the final- his tyre came off. He also was able to ride down most of the course on just a carbon rim

I know! Stupid and annoying right?

What you need is a TL-FC24

I presume the sponsors don’t want too many photos of a cracked bike.

Cracked! CRACKED! Understatement of day award goes to thisisnotaspoon;)

That’s a proper catastrophic failure..

I do a similar route, but often start at a station and ride to work.

– Use work as your ‘cache’, keep clothes, towels, gear etc there
– do the train journey in your bike kit as others have said
– get a good lock
– make sure bike tools/spares etc are well organised otherwise when you have to leave for the train(it won’t wait obviously) you’ll be rushing/forget something; this applies both at home and when you’re leaving your bike to actually get on the train
– get a good lock

Hth

I love Schwalbe tyres.. but I also like eating at meal times. So I’m still running the old compounds. Like the sound of the new ones, but will wait till they cost less than a car tyre to try one!!

The pump seems to be out of stock everywhere, where are people getting them?

Great article. I remember something about these a few years ago and it was clearly nonsense then- I had no idea they were still around.

However I think there’s a much bigger issue identified in one of the pictures in the main piece we need to discuss… XO cranks on a downhill bike, REALLY?! Think of the children etc.