Stu,

Where was one of your other videos, “K steps”, taken?

Your other K vid looks like the trail leading away from Kinver towards Enville. It’s the only one of your kinver vids I can’t place.

Hi Trout,

YGM

I’ve hit and been taken off by a badger on two separate occasions. Most of my none biking friends seemed more concerned for the badger then me. 😕

When you disconnect the cables put some red electrical tape (or the proper red sleeving) on the black cable thats in with the brown one.

As per chico this is your switched live, and as well as making it harder to get them mixed up, the sleeving is supposed to be present to comply with regs.

that’s not creativity, that’s happenstance. Creativity involves forming an idea and finding out how to implement it.

But don’t you need to know what’s possible so you can develop and form you’re ideas? It shouldn’t be your only source of inspiration, but to dismiss it…

I wonder if you’re confusing creativity with gimmickism ? Yes you can play about with DOF if you wish (yawn), add streaks or jimmy the exposure, but I prefer to be as true as I can to the original scene/subject(s), not try to add spurious “value”…

It really depends on how important “spurious value” is to you. I believe you take pictures that that either record a place or event in time, or go beyond that and try and be more creative.

The only way to understand how it all works is to go and play with the settings and see what happens. You can make a pigs ear of it and ruin a fantastic shot because you cocked up, but at least you can’t blame the camera!

New stickers and re-applying heli-tape 😯

I like the muddy, scuffed and well used look myself. Spend the £20 on petrol and ride it somewhere new rather than worrying what it looks like.

Failing that buy beer instead.

argh!

a triple XPG running one of BCTs drivers on full will be on paper lumens of 1050 lumens.per can.
there will of course be losses so real out the front lumens will be more like 800 per can.

I have never had a working Lumi halogen in to compare as they are bust when I get them.

the XPE will be down about 150 lumens but will have a tighter beam

Trout,

Which bct driver are those figures based around? With the ones already available on ebay and the talk of custom ones above, what would be a safe max output given the lack of material in the can.

How floody and spotty are the LEDs? I’m using a Lumi HID as my main light at the moment and was thinking of getting one of each, but am wondering if two floods would be better.

pdw,

I see you’ve used a resistor to give a low power mode, what rating is it? I can’t quite make out the colours of the two dark bands.

It’s been a while since I last did anything with a soldering iron and this is wetting my appetite nicely 🙂

Hi Trout,

How much would I be looking at for a spot and a flood? I’ve got two old lumi cans that would benefit from just this upgrade 😮

I’d also be very interested in a kit, but knowing what to buy (and from who) is confusing.

If anyone wants beer tokens in exchange for LEDs/optics/drivers/heatsinks, my email is in profile 🙂

Rear DS spokes are 274mm.

I ordered the replacments from JE James but it took them nearly two weeks to deliver an instock item! 🙁 I used Sapim race this time as the OEM ones didn’t fill me with confidence.

Also worth noting, If the freehub fails you can replace the spring with a campag/fulcrum one, takes a fair bit of hammering to get the freehub body off though.

Is the rear drive side?

I decided to replace all that side after snapping 4 in less than 10 rides, give me a minute and I’ll see if i can find the order. I found another had cracked at the threaded end when I was working on them.

Fronts and none drive side I don’t have a clue though. These are lighweight wheels that look good on paper but don’t seem to hold up too well.

A few people are getting overly evangelical here methinks 😉

I can see the attraction of 1×9/10, but it all depends on what and where you ride. My regular loop has a few sections that go from being a bit dull to quite challanging just by putting a bit of effort in and cranking into them on 44×12.

In my experience they are either one extreme or the other.

Plenty of stuff turns up within 48 hours, but the odd order gets properly cocked up, usually if the stock levels on their computer don't tally with what they have on the shelf.

An in-stock jersey I ordered last week went suddenly from "awaiting dispatch" to "on back order" and it was only when I called to swap it that things got moving again.

Their prices aren't to be sniffed at though 🙂

Love the picture!

It depends on what you're looking for at the end of the day. Buys some, I bet you could flog them on here or ebay and only loose a bit if you don't get on with them.

As long as you don't want to ride anywhere with narrow gaps you'll be fine, or end up turning them into OnOne mary bars by accident.

As tempting as no insurance might be on a cost front, you could well end up in an even more dire situation if the worst happens.

If you use an insured car for business use you'll probably end up with no job, and a car that's a bit smaller and more cube shaped than when it started if you get caught. Plus the points for an offence that marks you out as a very high risk for a loooong time.

Hope you can get it sorted somehow, but short of selling a kidney or other organ I'm a bit stuck. Do you have anything you could flog, even for well under market value to get you out of the hole? LCD TV, laptop, or other electrical stuff?

What would you're employer do if your car was off the road for whatever reason, places i've worked before have been sympathetic enough to come to an arangement for a few weeks, even though it meant having no car for paersonal use.

I always wear contacts when riding and that has never happened to me! I do wonder at the point of wearing contacts if you have to wear glasses anyway to protect them…

What sort do you use?

I find my gas permiable lenses to be more suseptable to dirt and wind than daily disposables, but the vision to be better than glasses with both. In fact the last time I tried to ride in normal glasses it seemed to change my depth perception and peripheral vision slightly, which did seem a bit wierd for the first couple of miles. Could be my -6.5 prescription though?

Can't say I'm keen to go out without dog egg protection either.

Contact lenses seem to make the slightest bit of grit or dust feel like i've been stabbed in the eye, so never go out without some sort of glasses on. Hunting for a contact lens in long grass ruins my flow 😛

I use Radar's with yellow lenses most of the time, adding a downtube mounted Crud thing when it's muddy. I've also got some grey lenses that came with the glasses that make any shadey patches of woodland riding interesting, but are good for our on the road.

The bearings in CK headsets are without doubt the best I've seen, as per most of the comments above they cope well with neglect and seem to last forever.

…but the lack of a wedge in the topcap means that you are hoping that whoever made your forks works to the same levels of precision with the steerer tube that CK do with the cap, which they probably don't. One guy I know had a creaking front end that only went quiet after he greased his top cap and steerer.

It always makes me chuckle that they talk about how precise the whole thing is but rely on an soft, bendy, deform-with-age o-ring to take up the gap between the cap and the fork.

I'm quite happy with my (non OEM) FSA orbit extreme pro, 5 years old and been in 3 frames, not felt the need to regrease it yet and no play creaking or rust . 😛 Just don't get me started on Cane Creek.

Chippy – Member
Unklebuck tubes coming your way for repairs

My record was about 20 is on one tube, as long as there weren't more than two overlapping patches in one place they were usualy ok. Looked a bit warty when deflated though. You need to see it as a challange, only bin if you need to use more than the tubes replacement cost worth of patches in one go 😯

… but thinking about it, have only ever run Schwalbe tubeless.

They're as light and quick as they are because they as so thin, softer suspension, higher pressures and careful line choices are the only advice I can offer, or try something a little more robust.

I swapped from 2.25 nobby nics to 2.1 maxxis advantage after putting a hole in the carcass that was a bit too big to seal twice in the space of 3 weeks. I know that 2.1 tyres aren't considered rad-core enough these days, but they do give more grip, seem sturdier and roll almost as quickly.

I've only ever had a handfull of pinch flats that can't be patched and reused if done properly, some of them big enough to put your finger through!! Unless the hole is huge the repair is easiy as strong as the rest of the rest of the tube, have always seen it as a challange to get as many patches on as possible before having to bin it 😆

I'm the same weight as you and never ran a tubed 2.25 tyre higher than 35 psi, only got the odd pinch flat on a section of trail local to me that's surfaced with broken house bricks, but I like to hit it at the kind of speeds your doing accross that smooth grassy hillside 😉

When I got my Push'd RP23 for my old '05 Five, TF advised 220psi which felt dreadful. I settled on 195 and get full travel a couple of times a ride, at 220 I was only getting about 2/3rds travel.

There seems to be a lot of people on here who expect the impossible from their suspension, and I don't think that the mag and marketing hype help this either.

The holy grail of suspension that doesn't bob under pedaling, doesn't squat through dips, yet feels plush on smaller bumps, gives the best grip and still able to deal with the bigger stuff and drops means vastly different things to different people from reading this.

I'm keen to understand why people who like running the higher pressures do so.

bigd – I found that the stock Fox PP seems to react better in those circumstances than the Push'd shock.

The Push'd shock seems to be more reluctant to go through the platform even though I reckon it to be less effective at reducing pedaling bob.

I'm tempted to put the smaller air can on the newer shock and see how it feels.

Considering how much a small change in pressure changes the way the suspension feels, there's some pretty wide ranging pressures being run here!

For what its worth, I'm 14st 8lbs straight out the shower, so add a camelbak with spares + 3 litres of water and riding kit I'd add another 10lbs to that if not more.

My 5 frame is a crash replacement (thanks to Ben at Orange) 2011 and the RP23 BoostValve shock it came with needs to be run at 210psi ish to not blow through the travel too easily, although it does feel a bit firm on small stuff if run any harder. Can't say it bobs much unless I give it some welly out of the saddle even with the pro pedal off.

Just out of curiosity I tried it with the Push'd RP23 off my termially cracked frame for the last couple of rides and settled that at 195 psi as it's got the lower volume air can. If the platform worked properly on this I'd probably leave it on. It feels slightly less taught, but feels loads more controlled on fast rocky stuff.

Sound's like Mr Woppit should have bought a hardtail. 🙂

It took a bit for me to get a setup I was happy with, the 08 140mm on my Cotic seemed to take a lot longer to bed in than the 09 150mm on my 5, although the setup is almost the same on both in the end.

Both are run at 85psi, with between 2 and 5 clicks of compression depending on terrain.

Rebound I tend to do by feel, but there only seem to be 2 settings one click appart that feel right, one slightly faster, one slower.

I'm just the right side of 14 1/2 stone.

I'm gutted for you chap, Matt told me on Wednesday night.

You are the most unlucky guy on a bike I know, will have to take you out on a nice gentle XC ride once you're up to it.

Will can confirm the easy pace and lack of techy stuff. 😉

We used promise homepacks for ours, came in at just over 200 quid.

Was the cheapest we could find, although solicitors tend to get some of the searches redone as part of the conveyancing process.

They're a waste of time in all fairness, a great idea but so watered down from what they were origioanlly supposed to be they just become another pointless fee.

Because it's so tame at low speed it is fantastic for beginners, they can comfortably ride it slowly and they feel like they've done some propper mountain biking. Then go faster or try more techy stuff elsewhere having gained a bit of confidence.

If you like trails that present a challenge to just ride along you'll hate it, if you can pump, jump and rail round the corners you can get enough speed up to properly scare yourself. Once you've come close to running off flat out into the trees a couple of times you start to see the other side of its split personality.

The idea with this bike is that it going to see nothing more than a few drops of finishline green lube on a still wet and muddy chain after each ride and no more. 😈

Hence why I'm opting for the cheapest and least moving parts option, the rigid singlespeed ethos only with gears!

It's good, not techy but if you really go at it hell for leather it still gives enough "twitchy" moments.

I bet those who don't like it take about 2 hours to get round! 😉

Looking at the On One site the normal frame's head tube does extend slightly further below the down tube than the 456. I hadn't spotted that!

Why a 456 tho

I prefer the colour 🙂

6'0" and a 35" inside leg, ride an 05 18".

Reach is perfect with a 90mm stem but I have to have the saddle really high to get a good position for seated pedaling. If you prefer a small frame and happy to have a silly amount of a long seat post showing for more XC stuff then I reckon you'll be just about ok.

Sounds like a sticking piston to me, TJ’s method above should work but may have to almost pump the pistons out of the caliper a few dozen times to get them moving properly.

Are the pads new, I always seem to get this more when the pads are thicker?

Also, CRC and UKBikeStore both sell the saw rotors in the older sizes as well as the +3mm ones for the newer models.

My early 2005 5 cracked on the seat tube/bb weld about 2 weeks before it went out of warrenty.

It was repaired and resprayed by Orange and has been fine ever since. The welding over the repair is a bit lumpy but you’d not spot it unless I pointed it out. No issues with confidence in the repair, even with my 15st on it…

Apparently the weld hadn’t penetrated enough when it was built. I only found it after it started creaking when pedaling sat down and I spotted the paint lifting by the crack.

I’ve used bathroom sealant over small holes on tubeless before, works ok as long as you clean it well and there isn’t too much damage to the threading in the tyre carcass. Not sure how well it’d work on a 5mm slit though.

Super glue doesn’t stick very well and flakes off.

Put a long thin screwdriver through one side of the hub and against the back of the adapter you want to remove. Hit it with a hammer and it should pop out.

The void between the adapters is already 20mm diameter so you should be able to locate it ok. They are only held in with an O ring but can be a pain to take out. The rear ones are even worse.