Either running or road riding, make logs of whichever you do.

If you can’t spare many hours I’d do the running personally, if you have got free evening/weekend time, get ramping up to crazy miles and join in the Endomondo challenge with a few of us, gives you a bit of a target:

http://www.endomondo.com/challenges/11677495

I’ve only had a couple of months of the road riding, but being able to ride every couple of days has made a massive difference on the trails.

I suppose there are people somewhere that take these ‘rules’ seriously…

There are? Just seems like a bit of fun :)

I use a gps computer, mountain bike pedals and shoes, refer to all distances in miles, don’t shave my legs, wear long socks etc.. break more than I adhere to tbh.

I like that Rule #40 is frequently cited on here:

Rule #40
// Tires are to be mounted with the label centered over the valve stem.

Pro mechanics do it because it makes it easier to find the valve. You do this because that’s the way pro mechanics do it.

Lol, what’s rule 29

The Rules

:D

To be honest, if I was wasting money, I’d get:

http://www.charliethebikemonger.com/vincero-designs-stratus20-system-magnetic-bottle-and-cage-system-2567-p.asp

and enough magnets for all of my bikes.

The biggest thing slowing you down on a road bike at speed is the air resistance, not the 36 grams of your bottle cage.

Due to the BB drop and the roll centre being higher. Your weight transfer rearward when climbing is reduced. Less pitch sensitivity.

I didn’t think you’d get out of that one, but that actually makes sense. You’d still think most climbing bob would would vertical forces, very small amount being horizontal?

I had one of the Topeak Mono cages, with the soft plastic on the front, the plastic fell to bits. Got an army of Specialized Rib cages now, very secure!

36g again

Lycra comes in handy for stopping wildlife disappearing up your shorts

You’ve just reminded me, randomly saw a kid holding a ferret in a village I went through tonight. He watched me go by in a children of the corn sort of way, the ferret made him much less ominous though.

Good job by the way! 16mph certainly sounds like a respectable first ride :)

Fit could be out or it could be your posture, since it’s a bit alien :) When your confidence gets up a bit you might find you move around the bars a bit more while riding too.

CO2 No No,

In my saddle bag…

Woah there, rule #29!!

http://www.bikeradar.com/mtb/gear/category/bikes/mountainbikes/29er/product/review-specialized-stumpjumper-fsr-expert-carbon-evo-29-14-47453

Ooh, infact, that one! Shocking that I look at a £4500 bike and actually think it looks quite good value.

Interesting. Why?

Because they handle square edged bumps like they’re on rails, or something.

My money would go on the Stumpy Evo Carbon to be honest :) I’ve got a regular alloy one (which is still slacker than the Tallboy LT), absolutely loving it.

There’s others, Garmin is the norm though, so you’ll find the Strava/MapMyRide/Connect/Endomondo process very smooth. If you’re looking to find routes online I’d go Garmin personally.

The Edge 200/500 have a dotted line you can follow, you can see when turns are coming up and not a lot else.

If you want maps it’s 510, 800 or 810.

Other way round, shirley?

Depends whether it’s pointing forwards or backwards, shirley? :P

is it more likely to lift the front wheel on steep climbs?

No, you’ll be more over the front wheel.

Just stick a tiny amount of sealant in personally, far less than it recommends, 40ml per tyre or so maybe? It’s always lasted the lifespan of the tyres, so topping up has never been an issue.

Once again, might be due to mincing though :P

Scraping the latex out is a massive pain in the arse, I’ve tried to swap back to tubes on some tyres, gave up and just had sticky tyres.

I’d be game for the downlift days. Ride to the top, get a lift back down to start again.

Shimano PTFE lube stuff here, have for a year or so now. Getting on very well with it.

Didn’t like Squirt, you don’t need to clean your chain but it does build up on the jockey wheels and things, seems to wear off in a very short amount of miles too.

Because if group A set off at 23:45 on Saturday & and group B set off at 00:15 on Sunday they’d meet head on.

Group A would now be travelling the wrong direction though, they’ve have to awkwardly turn around on the trail and continue!

I’ve got a cheap one, no idea where from, looks very much like:

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/cyclus-headset-press/

The bits on the end fit lots of standard headset sizes. I’m sure the hammer technique works almost all the time, can’t see why you’d ever want even the slightest risk of writing off a frame to save £35 though personally.

Probably how hard you ride, or don’t as well :) Nothing much more than a foot or so drop for me, mainly trail center with the odd bit of mincing around the peaks. Zero issues ever though.

The strips are about the same weight as light tubes, really crap solution and I’d be surpised if you needed them.

What do I need to run a Stan’s rim tubeless i.e. rim tape, rim strip?
Whether running with tubes or tubeless Stan’s rims require yellow tubeless tape. Stan’s mountain rims require one layer of yellow tape (21mm for the Alpine & 25mm for all others) plus a 35mm Universal Valve Stem.

No you aren’t, just the yellow tape.

+1

Done this for years on Flows, even done this on a new Roval rim and it’s been fine, with a huge variety of tyres, none of which were tubeless. 15 stone rider, never lost air.

NoTubes website says:

Fully tubeless compatible with the 25mm yellow tape and valve stem.

http://www.notubes.com/ZTR-Arch-26-32-Hole-White-P331C21.aspx

A trail blazer in trying out wide bars and short stems?! Is it a retro cycling club or something? :wink:

Well can you see metal and spoke holes? If not, there’s something in there.

Is it smooth, waterproof, stuck in place and yellow? If so it’s been taped.

If it’s not stuck in place, it’s just a rim strip.

You need airtight tape, not a strip.

I think he’s trying to say it’s got yellow tape fitted.

If it’s a yellow airtight tape, you’re good to go. Just stick a tyre on and pump up, you don’t even need a tubeless tyre most of the time.

I don’t think anyone said they “should correlate” did they? It just often works out with less compromises on bigger frames. The most notable thing would be the centre of gravity differences between the two, after years of riding bikes miles over the axles, just shifting it up an inch made me feel a lot more stable.

I’d also assume a taller rider would have an easier time chucking a 29er about, due to being further from the axles.

3,600

Nah, you weren’t the first ;)

With the Easton haven being 711mm. Is that wide enough?

Thanks Toasty. I’ve been looking at the Easton stems on Merlin. I take it they are reduced because they are last seasons?

Indeed, the Haven bits are lovely, very pleased with them. 6’6″ skinny chap here, I’ve tried wider but didn’t get on with them, 711mm seems to be about my limit.

That said, it’s better to overestimate and cut down, than to buy too small and be stuffed. :) Renthal are a good 20% heavier, bet they’d last forever though. Haven stem is a very similar beast to the Thomson equiv.

What really drives me up the wall, isn’t the act itself, it’s the attitude that seems to be acceptable. If I started making jokes about running down other minorities would that be fine?

The hollow apology seems to completely miss the point.

There seems to be a lot of back and forth arguing on twitter between drivers being annoyed by cyclists, and cyclists having drivers aggressively overtaking. The major difference here being, one party risks getting annoyed, the other party risks being killed.

Easton Haven bits are reduced all over at the moment, picked up some new 711mm low rise alloy bars for £38 last week from Merlin. Wiggle have them reduced as well.

Edit: How many seconds before I get told 711mm is narrow these days :)

29″ wheels definitely look more normal on my bikes, 6’6″ and ride 21-23″ frames.

Even though the saddle is in orbit, everything is sort of in proportion. The bars are lower now, it’s using a 70mm 0 rise stem and low riser bars, those were a temp measure.

It depends on your chainset, down to 28T I think. I’d guess even lower would be possible with the splined >X7 cranks.

Climbs better, it is 3lbs lighter then my 2012 model.

Even if they’ve saved a couple of hundred grams from the frame, the wheels, forks and tyres will add it back again I’d guess.

Wonder if they’ve sorted proper clearance for doubles, that was always a bit of a mess up at their end.

B Eagle?

I read it the OP did NOT want big wheels. On an XS bike why would you?

Not sure where you read that. He even pondered an EMD9 half way down the page.

Contessa Scales are tiny. Sounds like the right sort of bike.

14.6″, the one pictured, 29er.

14 mountain bikes (7 hardtails, 7 full sus), 2 road bikes. Still have 5 bikes out of those lot I’ve kept. The tragic thing is about 8 of those are all from the last 5 years.

Quite often buy just a frame though, 9 of those mountain bikes were bought as frames. My gearing and finishing kit lasts a lot longer.

You don’t need special tyres, but bear in mind it’ll eat through tyres a lot quicker than road miles. Stick to cheap ones if it’s being used regularly imo.

I fully understand compactbgeo.

I’d be very surprised if you could find ANY other frames pushing the compact geometery thing more than these (well the Secteurs even more so). Most compact 61cm frames are 58cm center to top.

The other thing being that they don’t ship ANY 64cms to the UK anymore, the nearest you can get is going into a dealership and ordering a £3000 Roubaix SL4, which is the only 64cm they even manufacture now.

If he can get his contact points into the correct positions, using parts of the geometry which are designed to be adjusted, I can’t see the issue. The idea that he should run a bigger frame, just so he can run a shorter stem and slam it, just for fashion is getting so silly.

This isn’t an arse in the air race bike.

The bike really looks like you need a 64cm, not a 61cm

They’re meant to, very compact geometry.

The “61cm” is actually “56.5cm” bb to seat tube top. Secteurs are even more silly, 61cm is actually 53.5cm.

I like, I was hoping to find a 61cm Roubaix frame on ebay at some point in the distant future. Really like the unashamed high front end to be honest, looks like something you could ride silly distances.