“a light that looked like a gravy boat with some drops at the end came on – I didnt know what it was so I just carried on”.

Pfft, everyone knows that’s the Magic Lamp warning light. He should have stopped the car immediately, I bet his genie escaped.

EDIT: Mrs Toast btw, once again using Mr Toast’s laptop and forgetting to log him out beforehand before posting nonsense….

I think the rip off with the Five isn’t the frame for me, it’s the fact they then charge £1400 on top of that for a £200 groupset, £200 wheelset*, OEM forks.

The spec on a Five Pro looks very similar to a bottom end Canyon AM come to mention it: http://www.canyon.com/_uk/mountainbikes/bike.html?b=2563

*Hope hubs laced to the cheapest rims Mavic make, good call.

Just pointing out they’re good value, full XTR groupset + carbon everything + expensive Trigon wheelset is a bargain for £3k :-)

skywalker – Member

Not bad in a Tesco value kind of way.

You know you were considering a Blur LT Carbon? Probably worth mentioning that:

http://www.stif.co.uk/mtb/product/santa-cruz-blur-lt-carbon–frame-2012/7612
+
http://www.canyon.com/_uk/mountainbikes/bike.html?b=2568

Would be £1000 cheaper than:

http://www.stif.co.uk/mtb/product/santa-cruz-blur-lt-carbon-xtr-am–bike-2012/8669

After selling the Canyon frame you’d be £1500 better off, with a better wheelset too. In a Tesco Value sort of way though right? :P

Edit: See, I say that, yet this is why Canyon also baffles me. How do they manage to still weigh 27.5lbs with crazy light wheels, full XTR and carbon everything?

I’ve been very tempted by that exact bike :-) Either one of those or a 2012 Stumpy FSR I think, I think the Canyon might be a bit too beefy for my needs but it does seem like a bargain.

The 2012 colour schemes look much better than last years!

Oh and centerlock is an awesome invention, centerlock wheels will be 50g lighter! Of course rotors will be 75g heavier but hey, you can’t have everything.

It made a far greater spider creature than it did hub to be honest. Those ones were from custom built wheels, I did also have a factory wheelset for a while that seemed a bit flexy, I put it down to them being 24 spoke and sold them on here. The new owner warranty claimed and got them swapped, apparently the insides didn’t quite fit together.

If you’re after a similar replacement for an XT hub my first suggestion would be a Ginsters Sausage Roll with a hole drilled in the middle.

I decided to email Brant too and got a reply within 10 minutes, at 7am. Crazy. Good work! :)

OnOne were great dropped the wheel off on Tuesday for them to look at and got an email yesterday saying they had sent a replacement out for me.

Sounds like, contrary to their advice this is the way to go. I fired a set of wheels back to the returns address and have been lingering for a couple of weeks without any word as to what the resolution might be.

What sort of collar and lead should I be looking at (puppy and/or dog)?

– We use a short lead for local walks around the street, and an extending lead for him to mooch around the woods and wrap people up like maypoles. We also have a harness, although he managed to slip through it once after becoming obsessed by a squirrel.

Where does your dog sleep?

– On the sofa. He’s always slept very well at night, with the exception of the one night we stayed at my mothers before Christmas. Our cunning plan was to have him sleep in the bedroom – we brought his throw from home. Unfortnately the entire situation confused the hell out of him. It was as if he thought we needed guarding as we slept, so he kept patrolling by our heads (we were on a futon), occasionally giving a single, quiet bark by the door. And then barking loudly if he heard anyone outside.

I ended up in the living room, with the dog lying on me, with me trying to comfort him. I had four houses of nearly snoozing off, then feeling the dog go tense and alert, and quickly trying to comfort him before he started barking. He was fine at the in-laws though, where he just slept on the sofa. It’s made us a bit worried about what will happen if we go to a B&B with him. :(

Do you use a crate/cage?

-No, fortunately he came fully housetrained from the Dogs Trust, which was a surprise because no-one knew that at the time! He’s also not destructive if we go out, which is nice.

What do you use to clean up it’s crap whilst out and about?

-Poo bags. Always take extra in case of unexpected poopage or double bagging.

EDIT: This is Mrs Toast by the way, forgot to log out t’husband from the laptop…

Went from Galaxy S to Galaxy S2, very impressed, it’s like the same phone but fractionally better in every way. Slightly better camera/screen, much better GPS, slightly lighter/slimmer.

The tech isn’t going to be eclipsed too badly though. Battery tech has barely moved in the past 5 years, the camera is limited by the lens and CCD size, which can’t change hugely due to phone size.

One thing the SGS2 needs is a better firmware from Samsung releasing, the current one munches battery stupidly fast when WIFI is turned on. My SGS1 (with DarkyRom on) could last 5 days of mild use without charging, the SGS2 needs WIFI leaving off to get even close to that.

The next leaps will be quad core processors and 4G, can’t say either will make much difference from my perspective.

Currently got my eye on:

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=72853

Seems like a bargain, especially for a carbon frame + Rebas + decent gearing + wheels. Got bored of waiting for a Lurcher, to be honest the only feedback I’ve heard about that makes it sound fairly generic anyway. Really wanted the On-One carbon xc frame but gave up on that one completely after 2 years and still only 1 size exists… occationally.

Apologies for ignoring the budget, it is a full bike though :-)

Benny Lava, the Tibetan Terroriser of Squirrels.

6’6″ here, currently own:

XL Scandal 29er – which fits perfectly – I worry a bit about the new one having a shorter chainstay.
XL Meta 55 – which has always been a bit short, I’m sat too far off the back really, good fun though!
61cm Tricross – fits very well.

Previously owned:

Ibis Mojo XL – far too short wheelbase, both off the back, and over the front at the same time somehow.
XL Specialized Pitch – huge looong bike, fit very well, rode a bit too like the Meta so it got sold, in retrospect I should have kept this one really.
XL GT Avalanche – too short, sold it on quick

Has anyone tried an XL Anthem X 29er? Very tempted next year. Although completely different kettle of fish, the Horsethief looks huge too.

I’ve seen a few about, and always heard good things. I’d be tempted were it not for the crazy short top tubes they seem to claim to have on their geometry.

Set of SB8s and a set of Nevegals here, good for swapping between dependant on the weather. Using Nev front, SB8 back at the moment and it’s been fine, 2x SB8 was great fun in summer when it was dry.

Thick mud is the one time they both fail, my Nevs totally packed up with mud at Sleepless in the summer, to the point of scratching the frame (Scandal) to bits.

there are more important aspects of the design than <1% of Scandium in an aluminium frame.

Who said there wasn’t? It was a fair enough question, I can’t see the link between these two statements to be honest.

People still cling on to those old 853 Inbreds and scandium Scandals :)

Interesting to see Niner dropping scandium this year, it does make the Air 9 even more bonkers overpriced.

Stack height is mainly personal preference, unless you have any odd requirements with frame/fork crown clearance. I’d go for similar to before, just so you don’t need to mess with spacers to get the same ride.

I’ve got a Smoothie too, exactly the same, didn’t ever fit. I can faff with the bearings and half a ride on it’s clicking and out of line again. I’d just get a standard Cane Creek/FSA jobby to be honest, haven’t ever had issues with either.

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=2217

Pondering the new style Scandals with tapered headtube, and trying one of the Superstar tapered headsets next time I think.

“technically”

Phew, close one.

its aluminium alloy, but scandium alloy is mostly aluminium anyway.

Can’t help but feel you’ve missed the point there somewhat.

The new carbon frames are made out of coal apparently, coal is mostly carbon anyway.

Is the seat tube angle the same too? 6’6″ here and run the seat pretty high, I worry a bit about being far further over the back, and the wheel further forward?

Looks very nice though, glad you’ve done a raw one :) Shame the tapered reducer headsets are all £50 instead of the £20 ones the old frame could run, still.

Dangerous? Rubbish, the wife and I go there every weekend and I’ve not had an off in years (literally, rather tragically). Some blisteringly hot summers the sand can get a bit crazy, it’s in good nick at the moment though, the new section 10 is awesome too. Awesome seeing the quality of sections improve with each iteration.

Compared to most Scottish and Welsh trails Cannock probably gets 10x the traffic, with 1/10th the budget, loads of them get tourism grants.

Nice, seems worth a shot, cheers :)

Ah, if it’s from a large or xl thats perfectly fine in that case, I’m not even 100% sure if mine was medium of heavy to be honest. If you chuck a mail to toasting@gmail.com I’ll chuck you £90 via whatever suits.

Cheers!

Definitely interested unless some forum ninja has emailed you!

On a similar note, I’ll actually have a:

200×51 2008 Float R
200×51 2007 RP2 with HV chamber

to go for cheap, just incase anyone did buy the above frame :) The High Volume RP2 was just a bit soft under my 15 stone, and the Float R has Pro Pedal, I missed the option of having an open valve. I actually gave away it’s original RP2 with a Mojo frame I sold, then regret it for the following year :(

Apologies for going vaguely offtopic, how much would you be after for the RP2 Ecky? I’m the other half mentioned above, I’d have mailed but can’t find any address :)

I take it 2010 still use 200×51 (7.875″ x 2.0″) shocks? What rebound tune is it?

Oh and to the original question. The top Carbon Epic has £500 Specialized own brand wheels, compared to the £1500 carbon wheelset on the BMC. If you don’t want £1500 wheels, don’t buy that model.

Why compare the top end £6000 models in a convo about “real world pricing”? It’s like comparing super cars for boot space, who’s to say more cash has gone into one top end carbon frame than the other.

How about this one?

Mid-low full susser

Better value than the equiv 2012 Camber Comp, or Cannondale Rize One-20 3.

While we’re on the topic of Specialized’s fantastic value frames.

Cheap aluminium hardtail frame, bottom end forks, Alivio bits … £1000

They’ve only lowered prices by lowering spec on EVERYTHING* and deleting their only good value bike remaining, the Pitch, entirely from the range. Want a light AM/trail bike, apparently the £2700 Specialized EVO is the replacement it was clashing with. The 2009 Pitch was £1000, that’s some meaty inflation there, still running SRAM X7 bits though I see.

*no joke, check out the TOP Rockhopper – 30mm forks and Alivio – it’s cheaper, because it’s turd compared to the 2011!

Can you give me an example? Is a quad cree a 4 light.

I meant something along the lines of the MJ872 Magicshine jobby which uses 4 XPG emitters to give out a big flooded area.

All the big branded lights use the same range of LEDs, if anything they seem to be much slower to adapt to the new emitters which come out due to their smaller batches.

Curiously I’d rather save my money and get a better battery setup than spend more on the light head :(

A lot of the cost is the huge battery pack as well, for £60 you could have had a much more powerful emitter and a big rechargable battery pack.

For double that again you could have a quad cree with a big flood, for double again you’d get a solid warranty + support + a nicely CNC’d + waterpoof guaranteed body.

Diminishing returns, as with anything obviously.

Though often a faster CPU does also mean better battery life

Lower nm process used in the CPU means longer battery life. This in turn means lower heat, which often means higher clockspeeds.

To be honest, 90% will go on your screen anyway.

HTC and Samsung released 1.2Ghz twin core devices with 1Gb of RAM earlier in the year and the speed with which they work is superb….Apple respond with 1Ghz and 1Mb?….poor show….particularly with 1.5Ghz devices round the corner.

You compare completely irrelevant statistics. Would a 4ghz Pentium 4 roast a 2.5ghz i7? The vast majority of the time I’d rather have a modern chip run at a lower clockspeed, lowering heat and raising battery life.

Do you mean solely for 3d processing in games? Those Snapdragons have absolutely terrible 3d processing power, or anything floating point for that matter. The Galaxy S2 has a load of power… because it uses the same ARM A9-Cortex architechture as the iPhones. Pure CPU wise I’d take the iPhones over the crappy Qualcomm in the HTC Sensation anyday.

Then you have adobe being soooo slow to update flash …. (Is there a 64bit version out yet ? )

64 bit doesn’t mean it runs faster, it means it has access to more memory. Flash windows generally don’t eat multiple gigabytes of memory.

Really? Not seeing any of them because my work laptop has Flashdance installed. Any of them doing anything exciting and useful then? Contributing to your browsing experience in any useful way?

No, adverts, but I like the option of picking what I see :)

My point being flash is everywhere, and still offers more compatibility and power than the likes of HTML5. Phones are rapidly getting faster, running flash content isn’t going to make them bat an eyelid.

What sites do you browse then? The front page is covered in flash videos, the BBC and most big content providers websites have loads of flash content. They can work around and use HTML5 in places, but then why should they have to bother? Especially when HTML5 is only partially supported in all browsers. In what way is HTML5 in any way better?!

What an awesome thread, only Apple fans could convince themselves an absence of Flash was a good thing. If you think it’s on it’s way out you’ve spent too long on your iPhone browsing, hell, even this page has Flash applets running.

HTML5 is another one of those standards, that’s going to be different on every browser for donkeys. The very fact that http://www.html5test.com/%5B/url%5D exists is testament to this. Once everyone has rewritten all the memory hogging pages into HTML5 do you really think they’ll be swift? Do you seriously think the language is the slow part?

Why couldn’t Apple give the option in a menu somewhere at very least? Maybe they’re concerned everyone will go off and play Flash games rather than fill their coffers from the market.

im not wrong, ive just never encountered it, doesnt make me wrong

No, the wrong part was when you very matter-of-factly stated flex was a marketing term.

When you realise it’s a mini-computer, then you will.

AKA a modern phone without the phone part.

I dropped my touch 4th gen about 8 inches to a laminate flooring last night, the screen exploded. Really not sold on them! The old ones were much tougher, as is my Galaxy S.

Buy what from On-One?

On-One briefly stocked an 18″ carbon 29er frame, aside from that they’ve never had any carbon 29ers. The Lurcher is quoted as being a while off, I’d assume new stock of the Race 29er will take a while, and they’re very reluctant to give solid answers regarding other frame sizes.

Over priced for what it is. Similar available from Giant, Scott and many others for a lot less £££££

Not as a frame though? A full Scott Scale 29 Comp is tempting, but then all the parts off it would be hard to sell. Maybe the forks and wheels would go for a hack bike. The price of the 2012 Specialized Carve seems to be a huge p-take I noticed, Alivio on a £1000 hardtail!

On-One are out of stock of Scandals for a good while so I’m pondering options, just spotted a gouge in the side of the seatstay that doesn’t look healthy. :( To be honest I was quite content with their old Scandal frames, the battle for shorter chainstays on the new model doesn’t really appeal, especially as it was a 21″ frame.

The EMD looks better value (relatively speaking of course)? Especially now that the Air will be 90% the same?

Potentially means a bit heavier, realistically means they make more profit on every unit sold, as I doubt they’ll lower the price.

Saying that, my Scandal frame is on it’s last legs and I’m tempted :(