Dan Clark

To follow with Stan and Mark and everyone else who's upgrading their street rigs this month, I've treated myself to new bars, stem, seat and grips on the Marino. Decided to snap some photos before I went out and got my lovely seat covered in mud. What's this? A package from Tarty Bikes? All nicely fitted: Spec: Marino Fourplay geo Echo Hifi forks Trialtech High Rise bars Onza 85x20 stem Federal grips Hope Mono Trial Magura HS33 w/Plazmatic CRM's Éclat Complex seat Middleburn RS7's Outland Sealed pedals Onza Disc hub on Reggie rim Chris King Classic on Ronnie rim DMR Moto Digger and Maxxis Swamp Thing tyres Considering removing the stickers on the frame, but they are vinyl so it seems like a massive task to get them unstuck. New bars and stem feel awesome, much easier to bunnyhop and pull onto the backwheel, and I have a grip fetish, so new ones always make me happy. Éclat seat weighs approximately nothing and saved a whole 1lb over my last seat and post combo.

Oli Sparrow, the resident amazing rider of Colchester always just used black pads the whole time. Kids these days have it too easy. I loved the notes on my order by the way, I'll get some photos of the whole bike up sometime today hopefully.

I agree that a lot of young riders have poor brake technique. I have a 24" with a standard Magura, Plaz pads, no booster, a 3 year old grind so worn beyond smooth, no tar and a fairly shoddily setup brake really, and I'm a fat f**ker, yet I have no problems with my back brake holding. You go on rides and there's 14 year old kids with super light mods who must weigh half of what I weigh, with all these fancy new pads, mega booster, rims grinded the hell out of that morning, yet they are still bitching because their brake is slippy. Either they aren't using any pedal pressure at all or they can't pull a lever to save their lives or they simply aren't getting near the top of things and are being delusional and thinking its the brake. Everyone should have to ride with shit brakes/no brakes at some time, it does make you better.

Same as people who spent £100's on a shiny iPod or iPhone, then cover it in a massive hideous case to keep it unscratched. Looks nice when you take the case off, but no-one does that. A scratched up frame looks better than a pristine one with a massive hulking Armourdillo on.

Actually I'll be home till April 19th, yet another large Leeds ride that coincidentally I miss.

To Josh Barker: This is the second time I've seen you get sand in your vagina over people having Leeds rides, any reason why you seem to have a problem with people riding there? If you want people to come see you in Mansfield then create a thread about it, I don't understand what you hope to achieve by moaning when people choose to ride elsewhere, and if these £50 quotes are true, it's no surprise, I always felt pissed off about spending £20 to go ride London when I lived in Essex, and I'm sure London is far far better to ride than Mansfield.

If I'm not down in Essex I'll come.

Awesome, I'm looking forward to it.

Could always get a Marino and get him to put some beefier dropouts on to compensate. In fact you get one with 116mm spacing and 14mm dropouts if you wanted, then run a Profile.

Ashton's and Leesons were from about the same time, unless you meant the build you were planning or something. Anyway, Leeson, steel is real and all that. Although they are totally different bikes really, this topic is weird.

He needs to be shot for first making his frame red and white striped, then thinking green finishing bits would be a good mix.

Looks sweet as anything, brakeless is terrifying though. I was going to get that seat and post combo but it didn't come in my size, looks nice.

No, just no.

Fair enough, I assumed this was an evening ride for some reason.

I'm in uni till 3, what are the chances of you still being about after then?

What time were you all heading up?

Answered your own question. An inbuilt booster will be better than nothing, because it'll stop the frame flexing to some degree, but there's also a load of flex in the brake bolts which an inbuilt booster does nothing to fix. A properly fitted booster covers both flexes.

This topic is hilarious.

I've only got Nikon stuff I'm afraid. I'll bring along my flash, that'll work on your camera if you run it in manual I think.

I'm definitely going then if other are. Bring the camera along Danny, it'll be a laugh.

People still coming to this?

In.

I imagine that the stop-start braking of trials makes it matter even less, I could imagine it potentially meaning something on an XC or DH bike when you modulate loads.

I'll assume divide/depart means break. Wheelset throws a total spanner in the works though.

When are you up at Leeds? Give us a shout when you do.