If you wanted to farm midges the Red Squirrel would be a good place to buy. It just ticks all boxes for midge hell, but there’s decent pub within walking distance and the location is stunning which sort of makes up for it.

I did Tyndrum > B of O > Glen Kinglass > Loch Etive > Taynuilt earlier this year. It’s about 40 miles point to point. Very scenic and some great quality riding in Glen Kinglass but overall a lot of landrover track. That would be a good day of your two day ride. My dad who spends a lot of time sea kayaking says he has seen quite a few bikers coming down the side of Loch Etive (carrying in places!) so there must be a route from Glencoe but haven’t done it.

I saw one locked up outside Tesco in Aviemore if that count?

I couldn’t be bothered riding off road this weekend after two foul midweek rides and more rain at the weekend. I MTFUed out on the road bike this afternoon as it was only drizzling. Towards the end of the ride this yellow/orange thing appeared in the sky but luckily I was nearly home so I could hide away.

No obviously not, wiggle also deal with Mobi in that case.

No obviously not, wiggle also deal with Mobi in that case.

Ardec – I’ll have a look at the trance, I think I can get a demo locally.

teamhurtmore – I’ll post up later next week once I’ve given it a shot.

Dantsw13 – yes I had looked at the Canyon but I’d like to demo it ideally. Also, my local shops are really helpful and would probably fill the frame with ball bearings if I ran in on a Friday begging for a quick repair on my Canyon.

Thanks for that. I had a go of an Anthem X2 recently and it was a nice bike. Petty I know but I can’t get the Anthem anyway because my friend has one. If I get an X2 it would look odd riding matching bikes and if I got an X1 he’d think I was a nob. It overlapps a bit too much with my hardtail anyway, and wouldn’t help me out that much on descents.

They sell direct as well,

http://www.mobiwasher.co.uk/

The large site I’m at at the moment has a truly awful canteen. They do chips + something every day and that’s pretty much it. Last Friday was soggy chips with “rat burger” with a ladle of chilli corn carne dumped on the burger. Truly amazing.

have you got just yellow tape or a rim strip? I’ve Arch rims and tyres seem fairly slack on them with just the yellow tape but they seat fine tubeless. Good luck

I bought a set like that off ebay about 18 months ago, about £3.93 delivered from HK or something ridiculous like that. These:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/12W-220V-Portable-Shoes-Boot-Glove-Warmer-Dryer-Dry-/200543760492?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item2eb156f06c

They do work to an extent, but they don’t really get the air circulation needed to dry a pair of boots and cause localised heating. They are better than leaving the boots, but not as good as rolled up newspaper and a radiator. I also would not ever ever leave these plugged in while I slept or went out of the house. Dodgy Chinese electronics with no certification in a wet boot and all that.

So in summary, good value for <£5, they haven’t burnt my house down yet but they are no substitute for the proper hot air blower types boot dryers or rolled up newspaper.

Tom

There’s a small shop called Rotec in Shinfield just outside Reading (M4 J11)that’s decent. The mechanic is very helpful, opens useful hours too and will work to suit your timescale. Very good value in my experience.

I got one of these recently, friend’s email account got hacked. It was a scam, but I’d say it was one of the more “real” looking ones. I bet the hook a few people out of every thousand they send. Since LinkedIn got hacked my spam count in general has gone through the roof, some convincing ones from “DHL” or other organisations.

I was getting tired of wearing bits out on the mtb over winter so got a cheap-ish road bike (well <£1k). I’ve really enjoyed it, it has made me fitter and the mtb needs less work as it’s getting used for “quality” riding rather than mile bashing. The road bike has done about 500 miles and has needed nothing other than cleaning.

I had my bike serviced by the reprobates at Berkshire Bikes a couple of years ago. They made an ass of servicing it, and when I took it out the shop (about 30seconds) the bars spun round when I dropped off a kerb because the stem / steerer bolts were loose. I took it back 1 minute after leaving to complain and got told “I must have loosened them off to make them look bad”. Not much you can do unfortunately, I just slate them at every opportunity.

I was in the Glentress cafe for the first time today, I thought it was decent. Service was friendly, they were getting through a lot of people and the food was good. I quite liked the building, and the “mud welcome” sign on the door was a nice touch.

Yeah it can happen anywhere I suppose. The warden seemed like a nice and very keen chap last year, maybe they’ve improved it. You could always give them a call and see what their policy is on group booking because location wise it was a top site, would be a shame if this puts people off.

I think the sealing on the newer Shimano hubs seems really good. My 2010 Deore & SLX were completely clean inside after 6 months hard use. My older Deore hub didn’t seem to keep the dirt out so well. I just bought some new wheels with SLX hubs, couldn’t justify the extra cost of hope hubs when the Shimano’s did so well. They’re no fashionable, but work and last and won’t die if the cones are serviced properly.

I can’t say I though the site at Gt Langdale was rowdy, not many big groups at all and any that we’re seemed to be families. This was late June last year.

Stayed at the NT Site at Great Langdale last year. I was very impressed, has decent facilities and two nice pubs nearby. It feels very remote, and quiet even on a busy weekend. So if you want somewhere nice but not like a big holiday park it’s worth a look. Only possible downside is it’s low lying in the valley so could get a bit moist on a wet weekend.

It’s not quite as easy as that.

You need to be very careful when you tighten the hub back up. If you over tighten the cones the hub will die quickly. Have a look on google there are some guides for doing this with pictures. Take your time, put everything back in the right order and don’t over tighten. It helps to have a vice to hold the axle when you tighten it up.

Once you’ve done it once it will be easy the next time.

Yes very easy. Just mix oats and whatever else with buttery syrupy mix and bake. Energt bars are pretty much flapjacks without the butter so more chewy. Although I find when you make something from scratch it’s always surprising how much sugar / butter is in it. Makes you think what goes into a lot of processed foods.

I think there is some value in bought energy bars being edible but not so nice as you’d eat them with tea before the ride. The also last well in jersey pockets. I kind of agree with the fat content thing for hard excercise it doesn’t agree with me. If i was on a very long, slower paced rider it’s a bit different.

I tried making my own energy bars a few times to a similar recipe as the bought ones. Suprisingly easy, takes 15 minutes prep and 30mins to bake. They taste absolutely fine and are cheap to make (a mix of oats, rice crispies, syrup, honey, dried fruit, jam, sugar and maltodextrin.

If you don’t want an exact match you could spec a wheel that looks similar. So go onto merlin.co.uk or chainreactioncycles.com and choose a hub, spoke and rim colour to match.

If you don’t want it to happen again, you can change the quick release skewers for allen key skewers. It’s not much of deterrent but just makes it that bit harder for someone to take. Either that or a long thin cable to feed through the wheels and attach to the main lock.

Sorry to hear about it feel your pain.

I really like it but it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. Very rooty, feels like more up than down but an absolute blast in bits. If it’s wet double the fun. You also have to pay as it’s a private estate not FC. They have put a lot of work into the trails and provide top notch toilet / shower facilities and the trails are excellent so I can stomach the cost.

I’m fairly new to the road bike, and as has been said there are a lot of variables (distance, hills, weather, road surface etc). When I started I could do about 14mph avg over a moderately hilly course (Scotlandshire). Now I’m able to get up over 15mph (24kph). I think I’m still improving! With a small group the speed goes up 1-2 mph for me due the motivation and slipstreaming. At the moment I don’t think I could manage 16mph+ on my own unless it was a short flattish run.

Tesco seem to do a liquid jacket wash stuff for waterproofs. I haven’t tried it yet, but from what it said on the label it was supposed to equivalent to the green nikwax and was fairly cheap.

I just buy the nikwax stuff in the bigger containers so it’s not too pricey.

I’ve had this at work when transferring from one operating company to another. It’s odd, as effectively you leave then get employed by the other company. All benefits were made continuous though so it didn’t make a difference.

The video on the notubes website is good, but it sounds as though you’ve used tubeless a fair bit so you probably know what you’re doing. Using an old set of panaracers I had to spend quite a bit of time following the method shown in the video. Shake, lay flat, check for leaks with soap. Repeat for a couple of days. On the other hand two sets of specialized 2Bliss tyres have gone up and stayed up with no faff.

That’s an interesting idea about cutting a small slot in the axle. I just used a vice but I was very careful to apply the minimum force to avoid damage.

I’ve just had another idea, what about a piece of broom handle or similar? If you tapered it slightly to fit, tap it in and clamp in the vice then tap it out from other side when done.

I have opened mine up and serviced it. It’s quite easy but the cone spanners are difficult to get hold of. Although I only bought the 28mm as you can just use a big 32mm spanner or adjustable for the outer locknut.

Assuming you are able to service normal shimano cup & cone bearing hub then I’d say the 20mm SLX is a bit easier as one of the cones is fixed on the axle and you only need to adjust one side. Have a look at this for all the internals and bearings you need:

Shimano Tech Doc

Service Instructions

The tools are shown in the document. I haven’t used the “hub setting tool” but you’ll need some way of holding the axle.

Yeah I think I would kill a crest going by past experience so speccing a custom wheel with arch rims (or similar) makes sense. I will look at those DT Swiss hubs for a more bling option.

What’s Mavic or DTs “tough” XC rim which compares to a NoTubes Arch?

They had the whole bike to start with, that’s why it’s doubly dissapointing.

Yep I think you’re right with it being the wrong freehub body, I just looked at the receipt and it’s looks like its the replacement freehub doesn’t have the right part number for the hub.

If you want to stick with Specialized tyres the 2.0″ Captains are a good all round tyre. More nobbly than the FastTrak but fast rolling enough to be good over the summer. Good value as well, less then £30 each for the control version.

I got one of these Krups grinders about a year ago.

Really nice solid thing, grinds enough coffee for a few days in one go so OK as long as you don’t plan to start a coffee shop. It’s pretty straightforward, you make it course or fine depending how long you hold it down. Makes a lot of noise though. The girlfriend has an almost idendtical Bosch one which she’s had for years and is also good.

Whoah, hold on, are you me?

No I don’t think so. I think T5 vans are a pretty common bike mobile though!

It’s a bit vain but when I chose a van it couldn’t be white, a transit, the vauxhall/nissan/renault thing, the fiat/peugeot/citreon thing. This left the Transporter or Merc Vito. I think they’re just a bit nicer.

I switched my car for a 2004 T5 van last year. It’s the SWB 104 model. Fuel seems to be around high 30s mpg, up to 40mpg if driven carefully.

I’m really happy with it, great bike wagon. I don’t miss the car as it fits in normal spaces and almost every car park. Only downsides are higher running costs for insurance, fuel, road tax but I had factored that in.

This has happened to me a couple of time. For me the sealant was almost new so hadn’t dried out and still had plenty of the latext crumbs so it wasn’t that. I think it was to do with the tyre I was using in one case and the other it was the location. The tyre had pretty thin walls so even though the cut was small it opened up and wouldn’t seal very well. I got it to seal by letting the pressure down as low as could be riddena and gave it time to seal up. The other time it was close to the bead and wouldn’t seal because of the flex I guess.