I use CRC, Wiggle, SJS, bikediscount.de,r2bike, merlin most. Winstanleys, Tweeks, JEJames, and a bunch of others have been fine too.

Could it have been the bolt creaking rather than the bar. Metal on metal.

Very nice. I just finished up building a bike around a discounted V1 frame.

If you set your sag right, around 25% front and rear, perhaps more rear, then your air pressure will be right. Then you set your rebound. I like to ride off a decent sized kerb, watching the suspension. You want it to compress then rebound fast enough to rebound once past the sag point then settle. If it is oscillating then it’s too fast, if it’s not no passing the sag on return at all it’s probably too slow. It sounds like you might be a bit soft.

I’ve cut the rear brake hose too short on my current frame build twice now! It’s one with left side internal rear cable routing which is a pain to get clean. It looked perfect until I realised my shimano caliper mount wasn’t cutting it with the Hope E4 and the proper Hope one I just installed shifts the caliper up and back taking a couple of inches of hose with it. Gah! I’d already bled it too. First time round I tried to reuse olives and the jammed up between cable an ferrule, when I pulled the ferrule back to look, olive went with it and wouldn’t slide back up. Had to cut them off.

The fact it’s now showing in stock again on their website suggests they couldn’t initially find it, assumed out of stock, cancelled your order, and marked it out of stock. Then it turned up and they’ve relisted it. I’d be tempted to try again. CRC and Wiggle have always been brilliant and really what t do you have to lose now, if it’s still an error they’ll refund you?

£3500 is for the full bike from Shand. It’s half that for the frame and fork.

@rugbydick – I can’t even find my own ad any more!

Oh, and PMs are horribly broken on iPhone with the messages off the left of the screen, and only viewable in landscape mode.

Why don’t we get email notification if someone responds to an AD, or even sends a PM. The only notification of a PM is a wee flag at the top of the screen (and even that’s hidden on iPhone where I do most of my forum browsing). Often I’m not logged into the site for ages, even though I’m browsing, only when I plan to post. Surely email notifications are the most basic of forum functionality?

Something too cheap can be a turn off, they are too hard to play. I’d be tempted electric as easier to play and more likely to graduate to learning a song they like on electric – most folk want to learn a song they know, and for many that’s rock music. I started my kid out on a cheap £99 electric and found I couldn’t play it myself despite playing 30 years. Wouldn’t stay in tune so I spent more on a second hand full size electric. Worth it, hard to say, he goes back to playing Highway to Hell on it every other month, and it looks pretty on his wall. :)

He brought a Ukekele home from school for a week, neither of us knew what do do with it. It’s guitar shaped, but a totally different instrument, tuning, everything.

As a kid, what kept me at it was learning simple riffs from Poison, ACDC, etc. I’d have given up if I’d had a Ukekele or Acoustic. Are they focused on learning songs they like, or are they interested it music theory. That’ll really govern which instrument you should by.

I’ve got a 150mm Pike I’m looking to sell. Came off my 2017 Hightower. I’d take £270 shipped inc PayPal fees. Low mileage on them too. You’d just need a new air spring to shorten them which would no doubt be a nice upgrade too.

@getonyourbike I’ve not seen a single pro review or ride impression yet that says the 21 is anything other than an improvement over the 20. You and Poah aside obviously.

I’ve not ridden either, but my heavily discounted 20 Lyrik turned out to be out of stock so Ive ordered a still well discounted 21 instead from R2. Hopefully it’ll be nicer than my 16/17 Pikes.

@solarider – thanks!

Lyrik gets a lot of love at the moment. Doesn’t seem to be much heavier than a Pike, but more sensitive than a 36. I’ve got a Lyrik Ultimate 160 on order from R2-bike for just £580.

Here’s mine.

I can’t say I noticed a huge difference between my GX 10-42 and my XT 11-46 (Sunrace) other than I run a smaller chain ring on the GX. Shifting feels about the same.

Also, if you happen to be in Surrey and are after a 54cm frame, by father bought one of those Orro Gold STC Disc DI2 bikes, with Fulcrum Carbon Disc wheels (which I believe were an upgrade). He’s had it a couple of years and ridden it half a dozen times. Beautiful bike. He’s likely willing to sell it for £1500 to £1800. If it weren’t for lockdown he’d have shipped it to me in Glasgow to breakdown to parts and eBay.

I had a 2015 Defy Advanced Pro 2, but always really fancied a Supersix. Picked up a Supersix Evo Hi Mod frame last year from Sigma Sport on sale. It’s a great, badass, super bike. But really, I was more comfortable on my Defy and am tempted to get an Endurance style frame again post Lockdown – Defy doesn’t seem to be available as a frame only, so maybe I’ll get a Roubaix frame on sale.

If you wan’t something comfy, the Defy would be my choice. Just watch the frame sizes. Their M/L is a L in most other brands. At just over 6 foot, the M/L fit me well. I went with a 58cm SuperSix with a 100mm stem to get a feel not too dissimilar to the Defy I had and it’s fine – smooth, fast, but it’s just not quite right for my aging back.

I found the 2015 Defy Advanced Pro (same gen as I think last years more or less) worked great with 28mm tyres, and the Defy is on the more racey end of the endurance bikes – was plenty snappy. My Supersix is snappier still, but not massively so. The Defy was great.

You can still get last years Supersix frame for a great price. I had to buy a few bits, but mostly moved everything over from my Defy and upgraded it later.

https://www.sigmasports.com/item/Cannondale/SuperSix-Evo-Hi-MOD-Disc-Frameset/F65J?s=1

You’d get more answers to this posting in a guitar forum – maybe thegearpage?

What do you plan to use it for? Is it something you want to put infront of an amp, in the FX loop, or are you looking for a modelling device to use alone with headphones and just your guitar.

If it’s either of the former, analog pedals use the same tech now as they did then and have gone up in price with inflation, so you won’t get much for £50. You could buy a handful of Chinese clone pedals for £100, or a couple of cheap Tone City or Mooer pedals, to stick in front of an amp. If it’s digital multifx to stick in front of an amp, I think you’ll struggle a bit.

On the other hand, if it’s not for use with an amp, you can spend a few quid on an interface to connect your guitar to an iPhone/iPad and get something like Bias for free with an amp or two and buy some more FX and amps if you need them. It gets the job done, isn’t going to feel or sound like a Kemper or Axe FX III, but I survived a few months with Bias.

An old Line 6 POD / XT / X3 will fall into your £50 to £100 budget too.

My kids schools gave them an office 365 account. We just installed office on Mac (and iPad) and all the apps, including Teams, work fine. We don’t attempt to use in browser at all.

If your kids have a Glow account, chances are they have office 365.

The Muin B+ does have calculated power plus speed and cadence. Despite being called Smart on the box, it’s resistance can’t be controlled by anything other than the gears of your bike so there’s limited value in pairing it with a phone or PC (unless you have no bike computer of course). I run mine with a Wahoo Elemnt over Ant+ and it’s been fine so far. Aside from the preinstalled battery dieing after two rides in the sensor.

Another repack recommendation from me. I run mine 2/3 to 3/4 bladder full. Phone in there too. Snacks on the belt pockets. Stays put and is comfy.

Installed etap yesterday. :)

HRD Wifli with supplied rotors, and a pair of bar top blips. Using my Ultegra chain, 105 cassette and chainset. Took a lot longer than anticipated, particularly the brakes.

Still to ride it. :(

Ta. Tempted with the deals.

Any etap wifli users here suffer from what looks like a fairly common rear mech failure? I’ve come close to a purchase a few times but that put me off, especially given it must be close to end of life? Looks so good otherwise.

I enjoyed my Defy. It’s firmer and racier than most endurance style bikes. I recently sold my frame (for next to nothing sadly) because I felt it was a bit short. Replaced it with a Supersix which surprisingly feels smoother and more compliant over bumps. No complaints with the Defy though.

My main reason to change to Wahoo from Garmin was live segments. I wanted to chase my PR not that of the fastest person I was following.

I went from a 520 to the larger sized ELEMNT rather than Bolt. Love it. Particularly like how well it integrates with the iPhone app, Strava, Ride With GPS, etc and my home wifi. Bigger screen is great too.

Love mine. Fitted to my Hightower. Wish my Pike was as push. Super sensitive. Almost no stiction and low breakaway force.

Creaking. Check the stem top cap isn’t rubbing the top of the steerer. Mine was (had a recessed bolt as it was a Garmin top cap mount). That made a creaking noise.

Click click click noise on same bike was the brake pads rattling in the caliper, had to prise the spring clip open some to tighten.

I think I may well fit one of these to my Hightower soon, £100 less than Push makes it more appealing, though it’s about 140g heavier than the Push.

My 29er came with 150mm forks rather than the standard 140mm, so I may take the Smashpot as an opportunity to set it to the factory 140mm to see if it makes the bike more manageable on steep technical ups. Easy enough to set it back to 150mm with this kit if I prefer the longer travel.

Could always wait for the new models to roll out and get last years bike? Depends on when you need it I guess. I saved about 30% on my Hightower when I bought it about a year and a bit ago, S build.

I’ve used a few. Liked Espacar the best. One visit I hired a car for 3 days, had them collect it, then drop one off towards the end of the holiday for a other 3 days. Saved me a weeks hire in the middle. Helped that they had a hub near where we stayed.

Bringing this back from the dead – it depends on what headset came with your Cannondale. My Supersix came with a bung where the top cap is actually a 5mm spacer and top cap combined and is designed to slot over the top of the steerer. The Cannondale manual requires 2-3mm of steerer exposed over the top, then the cap locates over the top like a spacer would and then you compress down.

Left my MTB at home this week and took my new road frame out for a spin.

No maintenance on my E4s in 2 years aside from a bleed when I moved them between bikes.

Can’t imagine you’d need threadlock on caliper bolts.

I can’t live without a dropper on my MTB. Both from a confidence perspective – I’m just much more comfortable over tech with the saddle down, so mine is up and down constantly; but also from a practical perspective – the saddle is pretty far from the ground on a 140mm FS and at 47 I’m not flexible enough to reliably get me leg over the thing. It’s become a crutch to mount my bike. I can just manage my road bike without a dropper.

I’ve had a neighbor set them off at 2am and then 7am same day. Both were unreasonable I thought. Wasn’t New Years or Nov 5th.