Ive only ridded dalby

That was definitely my favouritest bit in here, and I readed it all!

Looking at 2012 prices, it’s probably been renamed the £750 bike thread.

15 stone here, 3 years on my Flow Hope Hoops, no issues. They’re currently run tubeless with yellow tape so even more saved.

But then, Mavic MUST be better, they’re heavier right?

Don’t buy what hype? The only hype I’m hearing is that I need eyelets or my wheels are death traps.

Feel free to use 100g heavier rims if they make you feel better. I’ve found Deore hubs, chainsets and cassettes very solid too, I’d ditch that high end rubbish, it’ll only break 5 years down the line.

My mother would always tell me that I was ‘big boned’ and ‘broad’, unlike herself who was very slender, blonde, and Miss Pelsall 1962, don’t you know … -_- She also told me that I shouldn’t wear skirts with hems on the knee or higher, because I hadn’t got the legs to carry it off.

My sister in law, upon seeing pictures of my brother as a baby, squealed, “He looks like Smeagol!”

One of the (many) girls who got pregnant at my school brought her newborn son into the common room. Lots of girls were going, ‘so cute’, and my mate Davenport chimed in with “fudge off is he, he looks like Sloth from the Goonies!”

Edit: this is Mrs Toast, by the way, forgot Mr Toast has been using my iPad. He also doesn’t wear skirts above the knee….

http://www.nextdaytyres.co.uk/%5B/url%5D ?

Same finish as my 2008 Carbon Zaskar Team, that claimed to be matt carbon, and looked nothing like the pictures on the GT website. Still, I snapped that mofo and got my money back, have at thee badly finished frame!

‘tubeless’ isn’t the weight-saver we all think it is.

you take out an inner-tube, which weighs 200g, and replace it with 100g of sealant, and a rim strip (heavier than you think).

often, you end up using a slightly heavier tyre / rim too.

Not always.

You use a Crest (320g) or Arch (420g), instead of a 717 (395g) or 719 (460g).

Stans Yellow Tape weighs about the same as a rim tape.

Then stick 50g of sealant in, you can stick more in, but I’ve never had issues.

If you’re going to use heavy rim strips, in standard rims, they’ll come out heavier than standard light tubes obviously.

And, yes, 300 miles is what I used to do, every week, for 10 years or so.

We used to do 500 miles a day, riding on round rocks for wheels. Even downhills were uphills in those days and energy drinks were all coal based. Young children used to be employed to crawl into mechs to clear out sticks and mud, sometimes we gave them pity and stopped riding while they were working.

The OPs question is fair enough, he’s obviously keen to make the right choice in an upcoming race and wants to reinforce his opinion. Posting on a forum costs nothing, it’s a bit of light natter to pass the time while not riding around :)

Fantastic event, great course, cheers to all those involved! Myself and both our teams are definitely coming back next year.

That platercine-paté-clay-mud after the rain was hideous, especially with sod all front wheel clearance, traumatic lap that one 8O Amazing how well it recovered within a few hours though.

Just woken up after 10 hours sleep, properly buggered day/night cycle.

When he split to form Ragley, all the press releases felt very like On-One was a warm up, his new frames would be far better in all ways! I know he has to be like this somewhat, but it did strike me as fairly bad form.

If they need someone experienced to handle the Titus side it sounds like a top idea, as soon as Titus start suggesting hammering in headsets though I’m running.

Do they? Not quite the same, but my 2010 Tricross Comp for £1250 came with a decent Roval wheelset, 105 gearing, carbon seatpost/seat stays/forks. It was more expensive than the equiv road bike due to having to pay cyclocross niche tax.

Having a quick look, Specialized don’t do much for the same price, but there’s a Giant XTC 2 for £1295. Recon forks, Deore brakes, Deore hubs on Giant branded rims, SLX gearing.

Curiously I’d always thought the opposite. Maybe at the £500 price range mountain bikes win, due to there being more demand for casual riders. When you’re up to £1000 I think road bikes offer much more than mountain bikes though. Never mind full sus, which adds an obscene amount, given it’s just £20 of bearings + a £150 shock.

They said April/May at the start of the year, so I wouldn’t hold your breathe :P

Absolutely loving my Scandal 29er. It’s one of the newish racing green ones, couple of small paint chips, but nothing too bad. Depends a lot on the colour I think. :?

Loving the versatility of it, 15 mins and you can swap from a rigid 23lb almost cyclocross speed beast to a 27lb trail bike with beefy tyres and sus.

Didn’t they have a carbon 29er on their website a while ago, or did I imagine that?

They did sell a carbon xc 29er, top notch build quality and only in 18″ I think, for quite a hefty sum. The Lurcher is due to be more in line with the Whippet, so slightly more sensible price and a full size range.

FS: Meta 5.5
WTB: 22″ Orange Five

Just practicing. Wooh!

Definitely keen on this idea, at 6’6″ the Orange was just a bit too small, so was the Meta really to be honest.

Great stuff, been after exactly this. Thanks!

Flex. Didn’t notice any and i am 16 stone. Actually after tonight it may well be 17.

Cheers Charlie, sounds solid. Might well look into getting one in a month or so.

Interesting, I’ll be keen to hear how you get on with it :)

someone manages a better exchange/ import rate

Thats the minority though, Chumba are offering a good rate, rather than everyone else who is the norm.

Speaking about the above, would it not have stacks of sideways flex, given the stays are designed to flex anyway. I get that they’re ovalised, but would it make that much difference? I can see how it works in things like the Jekyl/ASR5, but carbon would be suited to exactly that.

Any platform on the Monarch as well? That’d be my other concern. Looks fantastic value though!

What frame are you comparing it too STATO? I fit very well on my 21″ Scandal and was hoping the XL Spearfish would be much the same. :?

All US frames have a similar conversion rate, Tallboy and Jet9 for example are pretty much £ = $. The Spearfish seems like a bargain here :-)

Really intruiged to hear some more feedback, my main worry is it being a bit flexy for 6’6″, 14-15 stone riders :?

The Specialized ones are pretty long, Camber?

I did enjoy the Lynskey frames, but is it worth the hassle? I seriously can’t see that Cannondale being hugely more solid in that area.

Cheapy Scandal set me back £124 on ebay and I’d be seriously hard pressed to tell the difference. Note the saddle in orbit, slightly masked by the bag.

Is that a 410mm Thomson? Even if that wasn’t the issue, having a longer seatpost will spread the load a bit.

Not hugely likely, but there’s a couple of Specialised ones going cheap at Bikescene.

Edit: Oh and it’s probably worth noting, I’ve killed a Zaskar Carbon Team frame at that exact same spot you broke yours. :) I would say I’ve given up on carbon, but I like the look of the Lurcher and the Scott Scale Pro 29 :(

“Mysterious prize” arrived today too. 3 pack of 9Bars, most appreciated! 1 remains, for the moment.

the climbs just kept on going though. and going, and going. and if your moaning that it was too bumpy for your full rigid singlespeed, you were on the wrong bike.

I dunno, rigid 29er here, spent most of my time hoping for more hills, took loads of people. If you found the hills too much you were on the wrong bike.

One thing, check the battery usage and see where it’s being used? In “Settings/About phone/Battery Use”. Assuming it’s idling it should be mainly display, followed by cell idle.

What apps are you running on it? I know Google Listen for example utterly slaughters the battery life as it looks for new streams all the time.

The term often used is that you sit “in” a 29er, not “on” it as opposed to a 26″. For me this is certainly the case,

Indeed, once again taller riders will have their center of gravity way over the bike, shifting the axles up was definitely a big positive here.

On the note about taller people, at 6’6″ I’m fitting much better on my Scandal 29er than any bike I’ve ever owned. When your saddle is in orbit on an XL frame, adding 10-20mm to the headtube over a normal bike isn’t going to correct the geometry.

I’ve had comments that I look like I’m in a racey XC position while sat on my Meta. Raising the bars just makes the front lift off even more as I’m dangling off the back due to the huge seatpost. :/

Speaking of which, lap times are shockingly close around Cannock Chase between the two (less than 1% difference in times). The Scandal is rigid though, I think it’ll pull away with a sus fork and lighter wheels.

I’ve come from being VERY hesitant about buying a 29er, liking the idea but not really enjoying demo rides, to making it my main bike and planning to take it to MM next weekend over a far better specced trail bike.

Using Darkys 10.1 final here, and really impressed! I used 9.5 before which was fairly similar but 10.1 is a bit tidier and built around 2.3.3.

Battery life wise, I turn off GPS and wifi most of the time, and leave it connecting only to GSM networks. The battery is less than 1% per hour, while idle. It’s made it 3+ days on the trot without being charged.

Very pleased with it! The old stock 2.1 rom was rubbish, I used to take my G1 everywhere as the battery and stability was so much better.

No real downsides I can think of, everything still works (which is important as I develop on it at work), 9.5 had a better alarm clock sound.. :)

2008 Meta XT in XL here. Just ride generic trail center stuff most of the time. 6’6″ and fairly tall all over, so have the seat very high and laid back (with a 90mm stem). This does mean I’m sat a bit too far over the axle and steep climbing is generally only done out of the saddle or it lifts off very easily.

Aside from that it rides very nicely. Weigh about 215lbs, and run the rear shock at 200lbs, so it’s fairly soft, it never seems to bottom out though and there’s a nice ramp on the travel.

I’ve got an XL Pitch as well, very similar bike but much longer, probably fits me better realistically. Much less fun feeling though. The Pitch is far more stiff though, I’ve been toying with getting 12mm rear for ages now, probably with a 9mm axle on the front as I love the Float RLs I’ve got on the front and don’t want to splash out £200 getting new lowers.

Edit: Oh, use Hope Hoops with Flows as well, fantastic wheelset :) Bit weary about upgrading to 12mm due to the cracked axles, should be fine with a normal 12mm axle though. I’ve noticed a few people mentioning you can upgrade to Evo hubs by changing a few bits?

If it’s downloading fine, but your PC can’t open and install big programs it sounds like your RAM is playing up. Do you get the occational crash? You can get the the odd broken block, only getting spotted when you open big things.

It can give you the same hash check fails, trying zipping up a huge file, then unzipping it again.

Sort of, basically there was a decent spec Orange 5 on ebay. I stuck a £1k bid down and went for a ride, when I got back I saw I’d lost by £1 which was unfortunate but fair enough.

The second Gratwick had won he’d gone around Bikeradar and PinkBike to try and sell it on again. The original bike was as a 2005 Orange 5 (adjusted for 130mm forks), in his posts he was claiming it was 2006, with 1 careful owner. I linked the ebay article in his post and he claimed he’d forgotten the details of the ebay sale he’d just won that day.

I mailed the original owner out of curiosity, and apparently Gratwick hadn’t even seen the bike in the flesh. He was picking it up the next week, the story about selling to fund a new bike, 1 careful owner etc, was absolute rubbish. He was banned from BikeRadar as a result of this, most bizarrely he then contacted me directly and asked if I wanted to buy it at a much inflated cost.

Dodgy wheeler dealer type, there’s a chance the item isn’t as advertised. You might get a bargain but bare in mind it’s very random what the quality will be like, assuming he bothers to send it at all, he’ll also have bought it for cheaper somewhere.

There are 3 levels of it, there’s certain films you can get with ANY membership. These are generally obscure and rubbish. There’s the middle level which you have to pay a bit more for, with some semi decent films. Then the top level, which covers a shocking large number of films, you have to pay a rental fee for, regardless of membership type.

I was shocked I couldn’t just watch anything when paying specifically for the online streaming package, I ditched it fairly quick and went back down to the cheapest one.

The Humble Bundle, that was it.

Ah nice, some really top notch bits. Braid is definitely one of my favourite games ever after playing it through, genius game.

I have the sort of ADD you describe, only with computer games. Lost count of the number of games I’ve splashed thirty quid on and then played twice.

Yeah, the Steam sales near Xmas were good for this. Loads of top games for £3 :) Bought a few and haven’t even bothered downloading them yet. Things I wouldn’t normally buy just recieved £3.

Not sure about Steam but, from experience, I know a lot of digital distibuters like this pay 70% directly back to the developers, this is DRASTICALLY more than they’d get after it had gone through publishers, like 10x the amount sort of figures. Fantastic news for everyone except the fat cats making money for other people’s work.

LoveFilms streaming is odd, most semi decent films you have to pay a rental fee, so a couple of quid to watch it. Which seems to defeat the point completely. America has some really good streaming film companies out, so I’m sure it’s just a matter of time though.

I used to download loads of music, spend lots of time at the computer due to my job. If I buy an album I’ll have listened to it to death within a day or two, it just wasn’t what I wanted. Used to have a really big downloaded mp3 collection. Then the likes of Spotify came about* and completely worked with what I was after, listen to one artist for a bit, then something else, I’ll more than happily pay the Premium rate. All my mp3s deleted, lots of collections on Spotify instead.

Discover loads of artists I’d never have heard about, loads of variety all day long, fantastic.

I wish there was a better digital equiv for films, America are starting to get it, LoveFilm is half way there. Their online streaming service was rubbish though, I downgraded my account again due to all the films being ancient and rubbish.

*and Pandora before it, that was good before it became US only :)

Do you mean 1 repository or 1 SVN server?

1 repository, we have lots of jumping between projects and sharing of code between teams*

*well technically 2 repos now I think, the second one was a small offshoot though :)

Having so may people working out of a single repository do you not find that the logs become very confusing, flitting back from one project to the other?

Not at all, the projects are similar to how nickname mentions. Contained within the root of the repositary is all the parent folders for each project, each one of these is a 1-3 year project with 5-10 or so coders on each so they get quite hefty.

You check out any specific folder you require locally in the exact same way as you would do the root. You can query any of these folder and get a log specific to that branch, this obviously means the version numbers don’t increment by 1 every time, but you can still “get” the project at revision 10,000 or similar, branch over ranges and things. The revision number is in the hundreds of thousands now I think, I can check tomorrow, it’s not used in the projects as a versioning number, it does get used to tag where bug fixes and things can be found though.

We do all work in 1 big office though, I can see that over numerous sites it might not be the best way to go :)

What do you mean by separate hooks and properties for each component? If you’re going to be sharing code between separate repositories then they probably shouldn’t be separate.

That’s was what I thought. The physical size of the code in there really shouldn’t be an issue, I work in a 250ish person company who have been sharing 1 repo between everyone for yeears now, it’s rock solid.

You can give access to specific people, on a per folder basis, to allow sharing of code as required.

When you say 3 companies, are they all on the same site?

So Spoke calls all SRAM parts inferior, I balance it by saying I think SRAM are genuinely superior for most parts (not all) yet I get stick for it from two clueless halfwits?

To be fair Mat, everyone else is quoting their experience, you’re quoting the experience of some guy you met once. It seems a bit ironic that you disregard peoples opinions and call them “clueless”, when you have no thoughts of your own.

And all seems to be sorted out on the 2010 Alu versions has they
had them made else where.

Who are you and what have you done with grantway?!

I understand you’re trying to sell one and all, but FAR more 2009 ones cracked than 2008. They’d claimed they’d fixed it in 2009 by changing the factory and adding more weight, but tragically the problems got drastically worse.

This year they claimed they’d fixed it again, sadly it was like the boy who cried wolf though and everyone still seems to have them written off, it’s a shame given the new 2010 onwards ones seem solid.

I’ve seen dozens of 2009 cracked, to be honest there’s even a cracked 2009 frame on ebay right now.

24!? Good lord, that’s a boat anchor

I think I’m just not spending enough money. The carbon Zaskar frame I had was pretty hefty and flexy, and the 24 spoke wheels wobbled around every corner.

I’m 6’6″ as well so everything is huge which doesn’t help :) I weighed a stock £4k Scott Spark 10 in XL and that came in at 24lbs last year, I think people often see claims of 20-22lb bikes and assume it’s an easy task getting there, rather than needing lots of sacrifices.