The Recon TK damper is noticeably poor if you’re used to motion control or better (like in the Rebas).

I run both Recon gold TKs and Reba RLs in 29er guise. The Recon rebound damper doesn’t have enough range, the compression damping is not well controlled, and it’s recently been playing up with some kind of intermittent hydraulic lock. No scope for adding volume tokens in the Recon either (unless you buy a Reba top cap), if you care about that.

I’d get some 2nd-hand Rebas off the classifieds if I was you!

Superstar have/had some in their clearance section. I had some of those in the past and they worked pretty well with not much paint damage etc.

New Edges have a much shorter battery life than you might be used to with the Edge 200. Something like the Lezyne GPS units could a option – 15% off at highonbikes today as well :)

Thanks transition1 – sounds like an XL will be fine for me too.

Anyone else around 6 foot 2 in height? What size Smuggler did you go for? Got my eye on one, but cannot decide between L and XL.

Shocking! Once would be bad enough. At least it wasn’t carbon.

Personally I avoid Ritchey stuff completely now. I have no idea how their (his?) stuff gets decent reviews, because the headset and clipless pedals I had (back in 2005 or something) both lasted about a month. The sealing on the headset was abysmal, and the pedal body came off the axle on a ride.

Put the seals in the freezer for a bit. Shrinks them then they pop in easily. Works for Rockshox at least!

I used the live chat to speak to them today, as I had had no dispatch email. Turned out that they had run out of one of the things on the order and it had basically been in limbo because of that. Nice of them to tell me! At least my card hadn’t been debited.

The guy did say they had been totally caught out by the demand.

I reckon you can do a lot worse than this one from Planet X – far and away the brightest rear light I’ve used, and cheap too.

If You Want Blood You’ve Got It

Close to £1 at On-One/Planet-X at the moment too

I highly recommend Evergreen Lodge in Groveland, if you have a car. There are lots of activities for kids, and it’s about a 30 min drive to the vistor centre/valley.

Shimano originals last well, but are dear. Personally prefer Superstar over uberbike pads. 25% off superstar pads at the moment with BK25EMAIL code.

Another thumbs-up for the Yepp Mini Ahead. Will probably get a rear fitting Yepp when the wee one outgrows the Mini – bonus is that the rear one doesn’t appear to need a rack, or rack mounts, to fit.

I had this with my Gore Oxygen jacket. Special zip according to one tailor who wanted ~£30 to replace it. Another repair place (Stitches, Brunstfield, Edinburgh) fixed the zip with some pliers in 30 seconds for free. You want to carefully squeeze each side of the zipper together – hard to explain!

Lollipop made a real mess of my Nexus 4. Buggiest Android release ever? Have a read on the web about the various bugs before taking the plunge.

Wish I had stuck with kitkat. The worst bug is that the phone app doesn’t work after a certain period – so my phone’s now just a mini-tablet until I reboot it!

Just booked two standing for Glasgow :) Glad I checked STW this morning as I’d completely missed they were going on sale.

I’m using the Integral ones in my kitchen and bathroom, and am impressed. They’re not much dearer than the Ikea ones, but are 5W instead of 4W for the Ikea LEDs.

Saved me a bit – thanks very much!

Flotec in Linlithgow? Seemed OK when I got my Float shock serviced there.

Remember that the parking charges are up to £5 per car for a day!

I’ve bought some good value stuff from them over the years, but ordered a couple of things from their latest sale, and neither is as described on the website. Funny how their phone lines are always experiencing an abnormally high volume of calls as well – maybe it’s everyone on this thread jostling to get through :)

I didn’t venture too far when I lived there (10 years ago now :o), but the woods at the North end of the town have a few trails in them, linked by mainly forest road.

This On-One pump’s very good value and works perfectly for me. Pull-out hose, thumb-lock and wee foot – Phaart Rumbler

Interesting article about Lyme disease and treatment that a mate sent me earlier this week:

Pedals[/url] in Bruntsfield is definitely worth a look. Had good service from James and Ryan in the past.

Thanks for the PSA – stocked up on spares :)

Well worth finding out what all the conditions are before taking up insurance. A lot of companies I called up required bikes to be locked to anchor points even in your locked garage. I ended up going with Hiscox for a second year, but it wasn’t cheap.

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

Halfords sell them too.

Tom Ritchey stuff (WCS anyway) is just brilliant kit.

Not IME! Pedals that fall to bits after 2 rides, headsets that seize after 6 weeks. I gave up after that – overpriced rubbish.

Another shout for the Phaart Rumbler – great VFM, comes with frame clip, and works! It has a pull-out hose which avoids valve ripping.

Deuter for me. Good built-in rain cover and quality zips.

Plenty of climbing each lap, so try getting out a bit more during the week – can you ride to work, even on the road? Just getting out regularly helps. High 5 Zero tablets are great for staving off cramps. Try and take a helper too, both for encouragement, and to make up drinks/sort out food for you when you come back each lap.

Look up Duane on here. I got a roll from him and it’s lasted really well on my Transition and hasn’t yellowed 1 year on. Price seemed fair, and came with some instructions and alcohol wipes too.

Lots of Bender Fenders on sale at the moment on their website: here

I got fed up of the neoguards jamming up with handfuls of mud (enough to stop the wheel spinning!), so all my bikes have bender fenders now. cheap, light and works!

Maidens is apparently OK (see Pentlands Hill Users group on Facebook for latest news).

We were up last Saturday, and the top half of Puke Hill was a hard slog just pushing! Heading downhill wasn’t much better.

It snowed again last night, so expect a couple of inches of fresh stuff up there!

Try Pedals in Edinburgh?

x-lite stubbies, if you can find some.

The streaming is a bit behind, so we have the DVD+online lovefilm subscription. Tried netflix and it was poor in comparison, but OK for watching series. I’m told there’s a way to set up netflix (DNS servers maybe?) so it thinks you’re in the US, and you get a much better selection of films that way – Google?