So bit of an update, after the very clear cut “we will not be replacing your frame or offering a refund”, I kept pushing on the paint warranty listed on the website and a frame has now appeared! Different colour but I’m 100% over the moon. The manager I spoke to seemed confused as to why I was ever told “no”.

If anyone finds themselves in a similar situation I’d definitely just buckle up and keep battling. It’s a shame the initial response wasn’t just a new frame, I can’t see that this approach helps their brand name hugely. Looks like I shall actually be back riding a Propel 🎉

Regarding the shop asking to check your torque wrench, did you see them test it? Is the bike shop mechanic qualified to test torque wrenches?

I suspect he was subtly accusing you of not using or owning a torque wrench.

I was a little offended if I’m honest! I’ve been riding in the cycling club here for years, gone through dozens of bikes without issue. I think the wedge aero seatpost bolt is about the one thing I’d be doubly certain on, hate those things! Didn’t see them testing it, but they seemed to confirm it was bang on. I was very tempted to not take it in, there didn’t seem to be much to be gained from handing it over, but I didn’t want to appear defensive.

Oh indeed, my other Propel is 7 years old and is now getting regular use, I’d not buy another though after this though. My eyes are set on a Supersix next I think, I hadn’t realised they’d swapped back to BSA bottom brackets!

Can I suggest you try to get the ” it’s just the paint” reply in writing ( if you haven’t already) as I bet they will probably go for ” yeah it’s broke because you overtightened it” line,which will be harder to fight

I think I’m good on that one, as mentioned the shop asked me to bring my torque wrench in. It seemed almost a bit rude, we’ve used them for years. Regardless, I went along with it, it was tested and came back almost being bang on. The emails they’ve given back have stated they believe it to be a paint crack, so it should be an easy battle.

I’ve told him to ditch the warranty and go with refund/replace!

Love you guys, this stuff is gold :) To battle!

So delighted to hear this, bizarrely the news that I might not get to have another Five shaped bike made me want one all the more.

Quite a few E8000s brand new for sale on ebay, mainly shipping from Germany. Also very easy to personalise/replace screens, controls, wiring. I swapped the old shifter style E8000 to up/down buttons on mine, replacement just bought from a UK online shop and plugged straight in.

The reliability still gets me down though, imagine the fuss if there was a line of cars/motorbikes that often broke at 500 miles with the engine totally written off.

Still very much delighted with my 2021 Vitus E-Sommet, very similar to the Megawatt, shares a lot of the same tubing/geometry as they’re built in the same factory for the same company.

I used to have a Meta with the old Shimano E8000 before and I’m much preferring the EP8. It doesn’t offer loads more torque, but there’s considerably less resistance through the pedals when riding over 15.5mph. The Shimano setups just seem so simple, very easy to replace anything. It also faired very well in a crazy wet week in Scotland, which has put my wife’s Giant E bike in for repair for water ingress.

If I’d not got this I think it would have been a Decoy or Megawatt (which wasn’t out at time of purchase).

Cheers all. Seemed to go up fine, loads of water trapped in the rim bizarrely. Letting it drain out of the valve hole didn’t seem to work, so I just covered the opposite side and blew into it until it was empty*.

The factory tape looked good, which I guess contributed to the water getting stuck in there.

Edit: * Apologies, that sounded a bit more saucy than intended.

Not hugely fair comparing the Race Clip to the M520. It’s weight is closer to the M9100 XTR than anything else, which also happens to be the same shape as a £20 M520.

If they’re Shimano compatible I don’t think they look too bad.

On a positive note about the PlanetX recall, I sent them a message asking if I’d explode if I ignored the recall and used it anyway. They told me it was an issue which only affected a few stoves, they then sent me a refund without me having to return the stove. A service you certainly wouldn’t get with a random Chinese brand on Amazon, I’ll deffo buy another one when they list them, until then I’ll risky fiery explosion.

That looks identical to the one PlanetX sold with their Jobsworth brand, they recently issues a recall and told everyone to stop using them due to the body potentially cracking when attaching the gas can. Apparently the pin was too short, which meant you had to tighten them up too much. Mine’s worked great though to be honest, no issues, aside from the threads being a bit crap on first use.

Boils water miles faster than the normal gas stoves you see about for cheap, especially when trying to heat it in a breeze.

Apparently they’re going to get a new one released soon. I wonder if the above is the revised design.

Frame is completely different. After that all bikes are the same mix of COTS parts (with a few exceptions)

I wouldn’t go that far, look at the down tube, head tube, top tube, motor area. Even minor stuff like the battery compartment arrangement is the same. Very similar geometry, travel, the same awkward internal cable routing headset, both mullet, head angle the same, seat tube angle the same, chainstay length identical to the mm.

Really just seems to be the shock placement, slightly longer front triangle and the brand name, for a bit more cash.

If anyone was considering the lowest Nukeproof I’d genuinely have a look at the Vitus ESommet VRS, £400 less for bigger battery and better wheels. Most sizes in stock. I bought one recently and I’m totally over the moon with it. My old Meta Power is in the classified now!

Edit: Oh actually, a note about the internal routing! It’s not that bad, unlike most internally routed bikes you can still get easy access to the cables by popping the battery out! I had to shuffle mine about to move the dropper up a bit.

The length of the travel is determined by the air spring, did you definitely upgrade to a 140mm air spring?

Good news, hoping you keep similar geometry on the Swifts and resist the urge to turn it into a long/low/slack monster like everything else :)

The grub screws in the EBB in my Swift seized, totally from lack of maintenance on my side. One hole now has a snapped allen key head in it, the other one has a broken drill bit in it. I am defeated.

I avoided them as long as possible, knowing I’d probably want one. Demo’d a few, wanted one immediately.

We live quite a distance from any decent trails, so always want max fun when I’m out. Just ride my road bike locally, which I think compliments the ebike really well.

Max heart rate on Saturday around Cannock was 145, over 24 miles. Similar to what I’d get on my normal bike I think, you just don’t feel it as much. I’m maxed when I’m hammering down descents, the uphills are over too quick to really drag the figure down. Part of the selling point was the ability to do more scary stuff in a ride, while not totally out of breath, to get my confidence/skill up a bit.

On the OP note about pondering MX bikes, I picked up a 2021 Vitus ESommet and I’m loving it. Really good combination of confidence on the front and the bike feeling pretty eager to take off.

Maybe cheating, I went there last weekend and stayed at the Premier Inn in Port Talbot about 10 minutes down the road. Bike friendly and decent breakfast at the attached pub (although eating a full cooked breakfast then heading out immediately was a terrible idea).

Used to have mine long a good 20 years ago, I’d been pondering growing it again, then Covid hit and pretty much sealed the deal. Currently about shoulder length! I bet loads more people will have long hair after this, hiding inside means you can skip the awkward teenager looking stage without anyone seeing.

Oof, the pricing.

It’s taken ages to get cable fitted here (due on the 14th!) so we’ve been using a Voxi sim with a mobile router, £35 a month, unlimited data, uses the Vodafone network, no contract. Might be worth a look.

We’re both working from home on it and downloading lots. Apparently over 100gb in the last 24 hours alone.

Lots of rubbish in here, must admit I do quite fancy a new M1 Macbook :) Very impressed that they can waltz into the desktop PC market with a new CPU that rivals the top low power efforts from Intel and AMD.

I’ve owned a few XPS (recent 13 and 15 for example), a Surface, a couple of Macbooks etc. The Macbooks are definitely premium and generally annoy me less than the others, they’re not infallible though. They keep changing their keyboard design, the previous ones felt terrible and could knacker with the smallest of crumbs. Most generations of Macbook Pro 15 will thermal throttle like mad and spend most of their life sounding like a vacuum cleaner and running at 25% speed.

My wifes iMacs randomly slowed down after a while, to a completely unusable level. Some sort of software issue, she had it reset and it came back after a while. Fortunately the screen then died, rendering the entire thing completely unusable. It was a work one so they’ve swapped it for a new one. Still don’t understand iMacs, it’s like an immovable laptop.

Also +1 to the above, Finder is rubbish, far worse than Windows Explorer. Xcode and Safari are rubbish too!

As I say, I do like the new Macbooks. Really fancy swapping my faithful 2014 Macbook Pro 15 for one, which I’m sure I’ll regret. All the rubbish about them never having issues simply isn’t true though. I have a 2012 Lenovo Thinkpad X230 which runs Windows 10 happily, I’ve upgraded the SSD, ram and trackpad, keep eyeing up new IPS screens for it for £50 :)

I rode from (a village a few miles outside) Leamington to Birmingham and back yesterday, only 67 miles total but far more fatiguing than I’d expected. Most of it was speedy with the odd draining section. Riding a rigid Swift, with 2.2 Ardent Race 29.

Keen to go the other way and head to London next time.

I painted a bike with https://spray.bike stuff recently, the paint it is great stuff, comes out evenly and dries almost immediately. I regret bothering with the lacquer though, as it didn’t seem to do anything.

I’d love to do something like this. Alas, it would be too dangerous, my son is only 2 and I’m riding on a CBT. He struggled with the Islabikes at the bike show.

On a less silly note, genuinely inspiring stuff, it’s this sort of thing that appeals to me the most about motorbiking in general.

I’ve used Unraid on a little microserver for quite a few years now. Hosting a few random bits of software, Plex, Git and general NAS duties. It’s been really solid. Software RAID type setup, very reliable from my experience, easy to SSH into if you need to but it’s got a nice little console for installing apps, dockers or running full VMs from it. Drives can be later added to the pool, used as a parity drive, cache drives etc.

My server is an ancient NL54, probably less powerful than my phone, so the OS certainly isn’t hungry.

I hope this is something to do with “SAN”, I can’t say it’s an acronym I’ve ever used :P

And the C101PA is like a mini version of the C302CA, if that appealed at all. It’s more like a flippy iPad with a proper OS and built in keyboard though. Most Android apps seem to work, very well made for the price.

its all free this and bargain that like my children aren’t the product being bartered.

You’re in luck to be honest, the GDPR stuff of late means that legally companies aren’t allowed to keep any user identifying data, without the user specifically agreeing. Companies are super paranoid about this at the moment, so it doesn’t get hidden in big EULAs.

The bulk of metrics logged by companies like Google will be no more intrusive than the council counting how many people drive down a certain road. I’m not sure why you think Google would give a shit that your kids like Peppa Pig to be honest. PCs use cookies to track your preferences obviously, which you can wipe, mobile devices use AdvertisingID/IDFA, which is something that you can reset whenever you fancy.

I don’t like TV companies logging what I watch, which is why I peep though other people’s windows to watch their TV on an evening.

I’d be the same, I’d want a refund if I’d bought them or accept a refund if I were the seller. Seems a bit crap, especially when asking such a high price for them.

If I was in your boat and couldn’t get a refund, I’d be a bit miffed, make an arsey post, then use them anyway.

Tragically I’ll likely also avoid his sales in the future, knowing he’s just buying junk on ebay and selling it straight on here for a big profit. I’m sure a lot of people search for user names when buying things as well, seems silly denying the refund if you plan on keeping this up.

No image appearing, is this just me? Intrigued :)

I rode a bike the other day, bloody marvellous! Almost 30mph on the flat (with a fair bit of effort) it made popping into town a pleasure.

I also drove a car today, absolutely riotous. Almost 50mph on a 50 road (with a fair bit of effort).

it was a BMW if anyone’s interested. Heartily recommended if you need to go fast and don’t give two hoots about the environment.

If so, what a ridiculous waste of a frame. I don’t even think I’d have looked at those little white marks twice. Given it’s around an area where there will be metal threads bonded into the carbon, it’s bound to have more movement.

I recognized the big one as a sticker, I was struggling to see what you were talking about. There’s a super faint scratch on the top part, I was wondering if it was that, tragically.

“Changing is fine and you get all that range”

The GX has a 10% wider range on the bottom end, than the Sunrace 11-50, due to the 10 tooth ring on the XD driver cassettes. You could run a smaller chain ring and get the same low end gears.

I’ve gone GX on one bike XT on the other. The one part of the GX I really like is the XD driver cassettes, I’ll probably swap my XT setup to use an XG 10-42 when it runs out.

Ooh, good thread. Love this stuff. Cheers for the OP.

I used to buy Rebas for £200-300 on my short travel bikes and Revelations for £300-400 on my trail bikes. These days I buy Rebas for £200-300 on my short travel bikes* and Pikes for £300-400 on my trail bikes.

If anything I’m amazed it’s done as well as it has, the price of full bikes and frames has rocketed far more.

*For example, my most recent was bought on June 27th, this year. £219 for 2017 Reba RL Solo 29, 120mm travel, tapered. Probably less than I paid for forks 15 years ago.

I almost wrote what nickjb said, even using Thomson as the example again, totally agree. Don’t get me wrong, I often buy pretty stems, don’t be under the illusion it’s better/lighter/stiffer though.

On a more serious note, I’ve subscribed a few times now, but I’ve let it lapse this last time. I used to read the magazines, but nowadays I just trawl the internet consuming the endless amounts of information floating around. I often buy magazines when shopping, but it’s as much out of habit and they end up on the coffee table very quickly, barely read. I’m sure there will come a point where my brain realises and I stop buying magazines entirely.

I’m glad to see you do quite a bit of online and Youtube type content, but I often find it’s a bit too clinical, talking about a component or bike while panning around it. I’d rather see someone having fun on a bike, even if the end opinion ends up a bit subjective. I could merrily sit watching GMBN rubbish for hours, I appreciate it’s a completely different type of media. I’d love to see more videos of adventures you guys get out having (or I like to imagine you have).

I also like that you’ve started embracing ebikes and things online a bit more, even if just to see how angry it makes Americans.

Velcro is where it’s at though.

You should attach a small piece of velcro to the front of the magazine, like MBUK did this month. That would bring back the masses.

Edit: Apologies, after that long post, this doesn’t feel hugely constructive.

Interesting, does the SRAM setup differ? Would you not just loosen the screw a bit if it were noticeable?

When you’re riding your bike the system is sat in the travel, the chain pulling back to extended state, it’s no more stiction than the spring on the suspension.

Even if you did happen to weigh 10 pounds and find the clutch was altering the curve of the suspension to a noticeable degree, would you not just compensate by running half a PSI less? Or remove a nugget of spacer from the air can to straighten it out a bit?

The biggest thing stopping your rear end moving is that big air/metal spring, the clutch is just a smaller spring.

I was going to chuck my XXL Stumpy 29 on the For Sale tonight. Loved it all the time I had it, sadly I’ve got a Tallboy and Enduro at the moment, so much overlap! I only get to ride a couple of times a month so it’s a bit ridiculous.

For an XXL it was always pretty normal looking, long with low BB, I think most of my PBs are with that monster.