PS4 for me, by a long shot. Even now, much prefer the interface on the PS3, my networked media appears under the Videos tab, rather than having to find some convoluted player app before I can see it (Videos tab -> Video Player Apps -> System Video Player -> My Network Drive *phew*).

Turn the PS3 on, it’s near silent, the Xbox 360 is like a vaccuum cleaner.

Cancelled Xbox Live after I realised it wasn’t actually giving me anything. Subscribed to Playstation Plus and have downloaded tons of games. The fact that I couldn’t even use Netflix without Xbox Live Gold was insanity, zero cost to them but they want a cut of the profits.

Then you get the $100 extra charge for the XBone for a camera I’d honestly rather not have. The advertising is all focused around how you can change channels on your TV in seconds, it completely baffles me, what planet have they been living on?

Lending a friend a game was the icing on the cake for me. Friends list for 30 days etc is fine, that’s exactly how I use it now.

Xbox fanboy for years, we own stacks of Xbox games and bugger all PS3 ones. Seriously hope the tables turn this time. Sony just need to learn about social media, friends lists, achievements etc.

Wouldn’t worry, given we’d planned on getting there evening-ish. I’ll probably end up camping in the day carpark.

I thought free camping was part of the fee, not a “chance of camping”.

I’m still cross at them last year after realising the marshalls didn’t actually have radio access to the announcement booth overnight. Pitch dark, terrible conditions, no communication possible, good work! Quite what they were going to announce I don’t know.

Hmm, so 1866mhz memory, 12 logical cores, PCI-E storage, two GPUs, USB3, HDMI 1.4?

Welcome to the 20th century guys!

If you want a quick tech preview you can pick up most of this stuff on a £50 Micro-ATX motherboard.

Been with them for years here too, only had to call a couple of times and they’ve been very good. As above they share network with Orange (EE) so coverage has been fine.

I’ve always liked that they never charge for data usage (contract dependant I’d imagine), if you run out of your designated amount they just lower your data bandwidth. I’ve never been charged a penny extra and merrily tethered my phone to my laptop/tablet on numerous holidays, going way over my limits.

mountain biking over the last few years has hit a platue and finally got it right!

Haven’t you just described the conception of 29ers? ‘Plateau’ by the way.

my gnat ratio

You can get sprays to sort that.

Can’t be arsed with breaking bones and bikes personally, pushing my speed through sections is the fun bit for me, not the 2 second rush on techy features. Know people who have given up on the sport entirely through breaking bones, sure they’re very gnar sat watching TV at the weekend.

Not fallen off for a good few years now, generally sit in the top third or so on Strava for trail centery stuff, work in IT, weigh 15 stone and ride an Orange Five. I feel that I’ve accidentally fallen into a stereotype here, not sure when that happened :)

I went fully rigid on my first one, with big tyres, absolutely loved it. Tons of clearance for mud and things as well.

The OPs original link has actually improved a bit, Saturday looks ok. Even the BBC just say “Light Rain Shower” for Saturday and Sunday.

Just hope it doesn’t get as water logged from the weeks rain, like the last venue did.

http://www.yr.no/place/United_Kingdom/England/Stroud/long.html

Ugh Sunday, 14 mm precipitation per 24 hours.

I’m going with the BBC, they say no rain on Saturday.

Built this up and went around Follow the Dog a few times to make sure it would hold together for Mayhem next week. Absolutely loving it.

Stem feels a bit long and front a bit too high, but it’s near enough. Doesn’t look too silly given it’s an XXL, should see the state of my 26ers. Slaughtered all my old Strava times at what felt like gentle pootle speed.

I’ve got one on my Five, but not other bikes. Can’t decide what to make of it, heavy, clunky, fragile, expensive thing that I only use once per ride.

Curiously I like it most for just lowering the saddle an inch or so, to make it feel more roomy on the downhill stuff, rather than slamming it totally.

Usually don’t agree with these posts, but I like this one :) Looks like there might be a bit of toe overlap on the front tho.

or the toe overlap.

Nggh, literally wrote the above before reading that. It’s the one thing that bugs me about my Tricross.

http://www.mobiles.co.uk/o2-samsung-galaxy-ace-2-pay-as-you-go.html

Jelly Bean’s being rolled out to it now.

http://www.uswitch.com/mobiles/news/2013/05/samsung_galaxy_ace_2_android_jelly_bean_update_rolling_out/%5B/url%5D

Wouldn’t worry too much about Jelly Bean though to be honest. Every iteration has got a bit slicker, but Gingerbread/ICS wasn’t bad.

Yeah, they’re not crazy high output like an XML, they’re more similar to the 300-400 lumen XPGs you see in torches these days.

Cree Q5, my ancient Fenix L2D has one of those, must be 6-7 years now. 2 house moves ago.

Got to wonder about a company that measures light output in meters.

If I could see a light 1 mile in the distance, does that mean the light has a > 1 mile range?

Had a bit of a dodgy week:

Full 2×10 SLX for a new Stumpy FSR I’m building up.
Charge Spoon.
Exposure Joystick for a bargain price.
Lots of gear cables inners and outers.
A dodgy PF30 to BSA adapter that I don’t trust.
50 meters of turf (which is dying as we speak).
Reverb for the missus.

Sold a laptop for ~£600 on ebay recently, that cash didn’t hang around long. What I find most appaling is that out of all of the above I got NO haribo.

It’s a dead cert, I’ve saved you all by laying a brand new lawn. It’s not going to rain for a couple of weeks now until it’s properly dead.

I personally went for:

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/exposure-joystick-with-headband-red-eye-micro-light-set/%5B/url%5D

and a helmet mount. Arrived yesterday, sparkly new Mk7 model.

Similar GXP30 model thing?

So, with a standard 73mm bottom bracket I need to stick the wavey thing, 2.5mm spacer and a transparent disc on the drivetrain side? Then mount the other side as normal?

“73 mm bottom bracket shell width
: Install the wave washer, one 2.5 mm
shim, and one 0.5 mm shim onto the crankarm spindle.”

Man, these things are convoluted.

Just shy of 60 mile of blue and red stuff around Cannock Chase in preparation for MM coming up. I’m only in a team of 4 so I shouldn’t have to ramp up much farther to be honest.

Failed to see any snakes which was disappointing.

No, it’ll be fine. 2 inches = 50.8mm, which gets quoted as 51mm at some places, and 50mm in others.

thanks for the link Toasty. They look much better than the SRAM. Have more confidence in aluminium than plastic! I assume they will also work with Hope BB’s?

The KCNC one IS a bottom bracket. You stick your chain set straight into it. Sounded like a tidier solution to me, not convinced yet, it was very easy to fit though.

I’m surprised so few people have tried them to be honest. Mine hasn’t been ridden, completely run out of funds building a bike up :) Relying solely on the “spin the cranks around” test.

Yeah, as I say, for that exact solution I used:

http://www.planet-x-bikes.co.uk/i/q/BBSRPFKCNC-BLK/kcnc_sram_pf30_adapter___black

I’m using an XT chainset with it. It could well turn out to be great with a bit of riding, definitely feels to be loads of friction at the moment though.

I think what’s bugging me even more about PF30 is that you can’t buy chainsets with PF30 BBs as stock in the UK. How is that in any way a “standard”.

My Stumpy HT frame came with a Direct Mount 140 brake adapter on the back too, which is even more grief. I completely failed to find an adapter, ended up buying an Avid one, which doesn’t work with my Shimanos. Just going to accept defeat and use a 140mm rotor.

Standard answers to this:

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_786851_langId_-1_categoryId_165499

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_810695_langId_-1_categoryId_165499

http://www.decathlon.co.uk/rockrider-53-mountain-bike-white-id_8206682.html

http://www.decathlon.co.uk/rockrider-big-rr-53-mountain-bike-white-id_8202905.html

All can be peeped at in the shops. If she did want rigids, the Boardman hybrids looks like top value. None of the forks are that atrocious though.

Vaguely related, stuck a KCNC PF30 BB in a couple of days back. The thing looked the biz, clamped in very easily. Sadly any pressure and the bearings really stick. Even barely touching it doesn’t spin as well as a fresh Deore one.

Not quite sure I’m getting this BB30/PF30 lark. Seems to be worse in every way. 50g lighter frame! 100g heavier bb, for triple the price, err with a tiny lifespan. Hmm.

Amazing discounts on 26er means I can buy an olympic class xc fs frameset. Same money buys not much in29er. I will fall faster and harder on my 21lb 26er.

Curiously I’ve found the opposite, a couple of years back 29ers were much more niche, everything cost a fortune. Stacks of really decent 29er frames, forks and wheels about for not much money now. That said, if you’re purely looking at the scales then you’re definitely better off sticking on the smaller wheels. :P

What Olympic quality frame did you buy that is terrible value in 29″?

Stuck the 23″ Stumpjumper S-Works 29er jobby with my other bikes after building it up. It actually looks slightly bigger than my 61cm Tricross, I may have gone a bit far :)

6’6″ btw! The Mojo was a particularly bad example, that seat tube really accentuates the stupidly long seat post. Shortly after taking that picture it got some scary looking cosmetic cracks, oops.

Being really tall and riding stupidly sized bikes, I’m glad to say my new 23″ Stumpjumper HT 29er looks completely normal. It just looks like it’s closer than it really is. I’ve not taken a photo yet, need a wider camera lens to get it all in shot.

Riding 410mm seatposts maxed out on 26″ bikes looked stupid, even on the standard 21″ max frame size.

I bought a 23″ Stumpy FSR 29er too, should be interesting.

I take it you can’t just take the seat post out and pour it out there?

Sorry, I mean, pour drain cleaner in the seat tube, it’ll foam up and silence the swishing.

Student method:

…

Clean sink

You were a rubbish student.

“175mm Single Speed 32T” – the other one on there might make a nice 1 x 10-11 setup?

If he’s just got them out of the packaging, clamped them on and squeezed the levers there might be air in the system that will float up into the reservoir overnight. To be honest they’re very easy things to bleed anyway.

Can’t see anything from his email that would justify a refund.

He said he’s had 3 sets of hydraulics before, the vast majority of hydraulic brakes I’ve bought brand new have been shockingly bled from the factory.

Do people actually quote weights without pedals then!?

Most people on the internet do “without wheels” I think.

Yeah, exactly the reason I got the regular one. Bought a massive size which would only make the issue worse.

Done and Facebooked.

Bizarre thing to save that much weight on, if it’s for posing just do “without pedals” weights, like everyone else does. I’m hope you’re wearing ballerina shoes and not some hefty 2 pound set of Five Tens. I’ve given up trying to skimp on the contact points, the rest is fair game though.

Higher BB on the non-Evo, so I’d assume even higher with 140s on. Not a huge amount aside from that, slightly shorter top tube, slightly longer wheelbase, both of which might come from the longer forks.

4gb will be a bit tight for Minecraft saves, he’ll definitely not be able to download many demos and things.

28.25ers? Faster handling than 29ers, hold momentum better than 650b! I’m sold and I’ve only just made them up.

Good news about the Stumpy :) I’ve got a regular one waiting to be built, with some tapered Revs.

Bikescene chucked in an S-Works M5 frame for £200 and I’m currently in turmoil, trying to decide which to chuck cash at and build up first. Mayhem in a month, not sure how well the FSR will handle slop.

Tragically when I built up my first 29er, I got some Reetard wheels, £99 + free Nevegals (which were like 1kg each), huge wide things, the bike was awesome. Upgraded to expensive narrow wheels, it’s never been quite as much fun.

I see from the OPs own threads, he neglects to line up the tyre/rim logos on his wheels. Seriously need to educate the masses on here because its a recurring problem.