Just buy an old MTB, swap on some fat slicks and wide bars and go for it.

Sam Hill did it for years and it never slowed him Down.

I’ve run DHF front and rear on most of my bikes and really like it. I did it originally as I had one spare and thought if it’s good enough for Sam it would probably work for me (what with us obviously being equals in the bike skills department). Suffice to say they work well on either end and i didn’t turn out to be as fast as him.

Tom KP

Google ghetto tubeless for advice. I’ve always used a split BMX tube for all my rims apart from the GF’s E13 rims which worked perfectly with a few wraps of 1″ electrical tape.

Tom kp

I’ve not had any stiffness problems with a 135 Maxle rear axle.

Including a BSO and 3road bikes I’m had 10 bikes in total from the age of 16-39 and still manage to ride at least once a week.

Tom KP

My Marz 55 RC3 Ti forks from a few years back still outperform a lot of the newer, lighter forks I’ve tried over the past few years. And a set of 2012 Boxxer Teams set up by tF Tuned were better than a lot of the new stuff I’ve tried out of the box.

I’m sure there are improvements but apart from a few leaps and bounds I’m sure top end forks from 5 years ago are no worse than the latest Lyriks or Pikes.
Most of the Pro riders will be running custom set up and internals anyway.

Tom KP.

Do Sprung do custom work? Not sure if they modify and machine stuff themselves or just fit
Prepare stuff from other brands.

Tom KP

Max Commencal stopped using carbon for the same reason.
Personally I haven’t ridden a carbon fibre mountain bike thqt ‘ve found to be any better than a good aluminium bike (but then I am an Orange-loving Luddite). I’ve ridden great carbon hikes such as Enduros, Capras and Nomads, but I found the Aluminium Capra to be as good a bike as the carbon one.

I don’t think my next bike will be carbon and part if that is the environmental factors and another is that I perceive the extra cost of carbon to not be worth it.

Others will have opinions that differ but that’s fine with me.

Road bikes are a different matter, I’ve preferred most of the carbon road bikes I’ve tried to their aluminium stablemates.

Tom KP

IKEA,. The Hyllestad in our spare room (£300ish for the mattress) is almost as comfy as the £1500 (only paid £700) Tempa mattress in the main bedroom.

Tom KP

I’ve been running my 521s Ghetto tubeless with BMX tubes for years, they’ve never had a problem. Schrader valves work really well for tubeless as you just remove the valve core and the spout of the small. Stan’s bottle fits in the valve so no mess.

Once the tyres are seated and sealed you can trim the BMX tube flush with the tyre so it looks better
Cheap and effective.

Tom KP

I see their ‘revolutionary’ and ‘game-changing’ on-the-fly geometry adjusting thingybob (already forgotten it’s name) is gone now. I thought Canyon said it was going to be around for years and would be the best thing ever?

Tom KP

Mine are really comfy, can’t remember what thickness, I just trimmed the bit of the flange that got in the way of my shifter.

Tom kp

5’11 here and I agree that the Large us the way to go.

Yep, it’ll look better than anything you’ll manage to do and they are do easy to fit.

Tom Kp

The old Shimano DX shoes were great as you could dremmel the slots back loads. Think about where you’d position your feet on flats.
When my wife switched from flats to clips about 4 years ago she found it was like riding on tippy-toes in comparison and struggled downhill. We drilled the slots back to almost midfoot and solved the problem. She’s no slower on the climbs and back to being fast on the downhill again.

Here’s Fabien explaining it. Fab talks cleat placement

Tom KP

An invisiframe kit. It’s worth the money. You’ll never notice it’s on there and will look a million times better than a DIY attempt.

Tom KP

As a paramedic who has carried out many ECGs and been taught to interpret them I can tell you that that comes up Very often when the ECG monitor auto assesses the tracing and nearly always is wrong. That’s why We never look at that bit and just interpret it ourselves.

Quite a few GP surgeries don’t perform ECGs any more because they are not exposed to them regularly so aren’t great at interpreting them.

Without seeing yours I’d put money on it not being a problem as a GP should still be able to spot anything obvious.

Tom KP

Pockets. I can fit a tube, levers, tool in the pockets if my Endura Mt500 shorts without any bother. Although usually I strap the tube to the top tube just behind the head tube.

Just spent £100 on a Carrera Kraken for the Missus to commute on in town as her tope end Trek Madone or Capra would last about 30 Seconds in Bristol before it’s nicked.

Tell hydraulic brakess, SRAM X5 3×9, not too heavy and Matt dull grey. Perfect for around town as looks cheap and boring.

It would probably be fine around FOD (although the forks are cheap Suntors). I was hoping it would be invisible and too dull for thieves but now you’ve got me worried that the kids will nick it over some of the other stuff parked there (which is the opposite of the reason I bought it!).

Tom KP

Belly, arse and moob fat.

Then wheels, forks, tubeless, and other stuff.

Take everything off your bike and weigh each component, compile a spreadsheet and figure out what you can swap that gives you the best weight for codt.

Tom IP

The DHF is a brilliant tyre front or back. It’s my tyre of choice (and Jared Graves’ – he still talks about how good they are even though he’s sponsored by Specialized for tyres now). I tend to run 60a are 3C on the back and a Super Tacky on the front. 2.5 or 2.35 depending on your local terrain.

The top end Decathlon baggies are also good (and cheap) as are the Altura Mayhems (I’d still be wearing mine now but my thighs are a bit too chunky for them nowadays. I’d still go for Singletracks or MT500s Myself though.

Endura Singletrack shorts and MT500s have been my favourites for years. Mine have lasted years and no sign of giving up the ghost yet.

Tom KP

They’re a great bike. They pedal and climb great anddescend even better. We have an Alu one and a Carbon Pro in our house and either are up there with some of the best bikes I’ve ridden including some that cost over twice as much.

Tom KP

I fitted offset bushes to my Orange Alpine and then after a year I whacked in a Works -1 headset and I prefer it now. At the time I couldn’t get a -2 for my bike but would probably have fitted that instead. Currently measured at 63.5 degrees and loving it.

Tom KP

Maxxis Minion DHF in 2.35 or 2.5. It’s The best tyre out there.

Tom Kp

Always been a DMR fan. But I thought the top tube made these look terrible when they were first released. But your XL frame looks much better and normal. Especially in the retro colours.

Now I’m tempted by one. Damn you!
Any idea what your build weighs in at?

Tom KP

I’ve got the basic Park one, it’s very old now and still is as good and reliable as the day I got it.

Tom KP

A friend had one for a few years. I got to ride it quite a few times. To be honest I thought they were fairly rubbish. Even back then they felt too tall and not long enough.
Breaking was the best thing he ever did.

Tom KP

Original Renthal Fatbar. They just feel nice, not so stiff your wrists get wrecked and 780mm.
It just depends if you like the gold colour or not.

All the bikes I’ve tried with 35mm bars seem to harsher on your wrists/arms.

Personally I think it’s a new ‘standard’ that isn’t needed.

Tom KP

I’ve got a set of Mars Dirt Jumper 1s, the top end ones, not the rubbish OEM ones.
Lowers have rub marks from bike racks but in good condition with 1/18 steerer. I had then on an old Kona Howler that I built up for XC duties a few years ago if you want them? £50 plus postage. The steerer is still quite long as the Kona had a really tall Head tube.

Tom KP

The main problem with waterproof gloves is that no matter what you make them from they’re always going to have a massive hole at one end to let your hands in.

I’ve always gone for warm gloves over waterproof – currently using a pair of Madison gloves which cost about £15 and are ‘water resistant’, comfy and warm (neoprene like material) so even when your hands get wet they stay warm.

The professional climber Andy Kirkpatrick (no relation) has a good piece about gloves on his blog Psychovertical.

Tom KP

As far as E-bikes go I like it as much as any other and more than some.

I thought the box section downtube was an ideal place for the battery.

Also the single pivot works and rides well so why complicate things with extra pivots?

Tom KP

Buy a cheap van between you, run it for the month and then flog it for £500. We’ve done this many times in the past when younger. Just pay for some half decent cover to.tow you to a garage.
If it totally dies then just fly home (never needed to).
Vans are brilliant for Europe,. You can sleep in them. They’re more secure than a bike rack, more stealth than a bike rack as well.

But an old.Pug Boxxer or Citreon Relay, get a long wheel, high top and then you can knock up a bed/shelf the entire length of the van to sleep on (imagine sleeping bags laid out like in a tent) and all the kit/bikes go underneath. If it’s just 2 of you you can even have different beds. They layouts are limitless.

As you’re not planning on keeping it and thus do not have to worry about it being practical for day to day life then a big cheap one would be ideal for you beeds.

I’ve picked up old Boxxers and Relays for £500-800 and sold them on for pretty much the same money. And being French the parts are easy to get in Europe (Sprinter parts are rather costly!!)

I think bikes will keep getting longer, but then they’ll go a bit shorter again until back to a similar length to now. Same with HA, all the DH pros were running 61-63 a few years ago but a lot are now back at 63-64. Same with weight before that when everyone was aiming sub 30lb DH bike only to settle around 34-38lbs nowadays

At least you know that in 5-10 years when you need spareparts for your propriety hub that Hope will most likely still be able to sort you out unlike most other companies

Search on the Dirt Website. I’m pretty sure they experimented with running an Enduro with different wheel and tyre combos last year. Was quite a good read. I think as long as the BB isn’t too low it should be ok and give you the option to run 29 if you need to.

Tom.KP

The old Nobby Nics were terrible, the new ones are a bit less terrible.
I’ve found that they tend to be too delicate and pumping them up enough that they don’t wallow and/good over in corners made them lose all traction as too hard. Others like them though.

Personally I’m a Maxxis Minion DHF fan. To quote Graves ‘With Maxxis, you just run the Minion and you just call it good.’ Jared Gaves bike check

And this was after he’d switched to bring sponsored by Specialised tyres.

DMR.

No, I just give them away or sell them cheap to people who haven’t got a lot of cash so they can start/keep riding. Bikes are meant to be ridden not looked at.