Post a pic of your non trials bike

[Tom Booth]

5 hours ago, Mark W said:

To be fair, I really enjoyed riding my hardtail but full sus does open up more trails to be fun in some ways. There's a hill down here which is a local favourite that I hated on my Meta, but is really fun on the Swoop. It's in a fairly old forest and has been ridden in a lot so there are a lot of awkward root clusters to deal with. On the Meta, it felt like it was impossible to not get hung up on a lot of them and just bleed speed. With the Swoop I can carry more speed over it which in turn means that there are some gaps to try and hit, and just a lot more fun to be had really. There are some tech trails which are kind of rough that you can pick a smoother line through that are workable on a hardtail, but ultimately there are some that are just going to be harsh no matter what. 

I'm definitely glad I had a couple of years on a HT to get used to picking lines properly and working out how to ride steep stuff without just relying on a bike to get me through it, but full sus really opens up some doors! It is a hindrance in some ways, but I think that's more to do with the suspension on my bike rather than anything else - the Swoop is 170mm front and rear, so on the flatter/smoother stuff here I'm fairly over-biked. I've got a decent amount of air and all the tokens in the shock to try and firm it up a bit so it isn't as wallow-y, but it's still not going to be as sprightly as a shorter travel bike.

It'd be fun to try out a 140 or 150mm-ish bike and see what the difference is like, but that's one for another day...

I've absolutley love the Cotic, and contemplating keeping hold of it to have the luxury of swapping back and forth, but realistically know I won't, I'll just stick to the hightower haha.

I do know what you mean about line choice and riding habits with the HT, other then pines I'm lucky enough to have some nice short trails around here that have been well worn in, you can plow through them on the 5010 but the HT just takes abit more finessing through I suppose. The HT has taught me alot about my jumping too and ironed out some bad habits too, which was nice!

Pines has some new sections which are like quite long berm-y slightly downhill runs, not too extreme as its only blue but it's super flow if you pump the speed out of it. The difference in grip is night and day between the HT and the FS I'd say, you can really dig hard on the FS and it just rewards you with more speed and push out the other end, the HT feels mega fast in but seems to die flat abit in the middle. That's probably more to do with me though and not trusting it enough to dig in.

[forteh]

Picked this up for 200 quid, needed a new gear cable

1x11, narrow wide with clutch mech, hydraulic disks and already set up tubeless.

Using it for the work commute as it's much faster than the mountainbike, it's actually really fun to ride.

Persephone is currently racing cyclocross and is badgering me to enter a race in the vets category

[Mark W]

18 hours ago, Tom Booth said:

The HT has taught me alot about my jumping too and ironed out some bad habits too, which was nice!

I think it's probably due to the geo of it, but weirdly my Meta felt way worse for jumping than my Swoop! That said, part of that may be because I learned to jump on my Inspired, so going to just front suspension felt weirdly imbalanced. Once I got to full sus it felt a lot more balanced again, and a lot less weird than it used to.

Pumping through berms and on little trail bumps is definitely something the Swoop sucks at more than the Meta. There's a woods 5mins from my house that's my go-to quick lap, and a bit of it is a really fun series of little ruts and catch berms through an undulating woods. On the HT you can really pump through it super hard and pick up a lot of speed, whereas the Swoop always feels like I need to get on the pedals to generate more. You can get some speed out of pumping on it but there's that bit too much suspension to go through. It's kind of fair enough though really as that bike is designed for rougher, chunkier stuff, and when you get to that kind of trail it's really composed and confidence inspiring!

Speaking of grip, one of the nicest changes to full sus was how nice it is for climbing! I thought that the lack of efficiency would really harm it, but the extra grip from the rear suspension makes life so much easier on climbs. It's amazing what you can just sit down and spin through vs. what I had to deal with on my HT. That's fully open too, I pretty much never use the climb switch and if I do touch it it's usually only to go into the middle compression setting rather than full climb mode.

Also found just how much more grip there was recently by trying some slightly lower pressures. I'd been struggling a bit to get my bars to feel the right height when I was riding, and ultimately tracked it down to my rear suspension being out of balance with the front, so essentially I would sit lower into the forks and have it feel like my bars were too low. When I balanced it out I ended up at slightly lower pressures than before (and also ended up taking a volume spacer out of the fork) and the difference in cornering grip was pretty remarkable.

[Mark W]

On 9/22/2022 at 11:26 PM, AdamR28 said:

First ride this year with lights yesterday though... winter is coming, yuck! Do you guys carry on through the winter evenings, or give it a rest?

Forgot to say, but nicely done for the results Ads! Good base to build on for next year.

I've been trying to get out slightly earlier for rides recently to try and sneak them in before it gets dark, but we need lights in the trees from about 6pm now so the lights are going back on charge. Not reeeeally looking forward to it, but we'll see how it goes... Last winter I barely did any night rides as I just couldn't bring my self to do them, whereas the year before that I was pretty keen and kept riding with a fairly 'normal' schedule. Hopefully this year it'll be more of the latter than the former.

[Tom Booth]

Its abit big

Specs largely unchanged from the Cotic,

Lyrik select forks

Hunt trail wide V2s, Maxxis DHR 2.4s

Hope Evo 170, 30t Hope narrowide and Hope BB

30mm DMR Defy stem, Burgtec 38mm bars, Burgtec playdough grips

Slx cassette, chain, XT mech and shifter

OneUp 240mm dropper, Charge spoon saddle.

Finished building this morning and spent the afternoon on local stuff, the fit is so good, it's the first bike I dont swamp, and manuals feel very nice!

[MadManMike]

Needs NSFW tags on that 

That colour is stunning and the tan walls complete it, what a beast.

I really do need to dust mine off and head for the hills at some point!

[Tom Booth]

Haha Cheers Mike, I'm really pleased how it turned out. It's supposed to be my first day back in the workshop today after a week off, but trails are callin'..

[Mark W]

Thought I'd actually participate in this thread properly  

Sport mode.

Eco mode.

It's a Radon Swoop 170. Running it with the flip-chip in 'Tour' setting (the highest/steepest of the three settings), but with a -2° angleset to give it the same head angle as the 'Park' setting (the lowest/slackest setting). Gives it a bit of the best of both worlds really. Had thought about dropping down to either the mid or low setting to see what that's like, although to be fair even with 165s I'm somewhat prone to pedal/crank strikes, so I'm not sure I'd want to drop another 5mm of BB height!

It's set up to be pretty bombproof, so running Assegai/DHR II both in DoubleDown, with Rimpact inserts. Lightweight Unite Co bashguard too just in case. There's a neat little Granite tubeless repair kit in the bars, got a tube/CO2/tyre levers setup strapped to the top tube, and there are some spare zipties hidden away on there too. It means I only really need to carry the awesome little Topeak multi-tool I bought a while back on me and I'm able to solve most things trail side if I need to. Living that bag free life... It's the same setup I had for Ard Rock and it was nice being able to just focus on riding rather than worrying about breaking stuff. It'd be interesting to try it out with some lighter tyres to see how it rides, but the DD casings are so compliant that I think although the reduced weight would make the bike probably feel a little more agile, the damped/stable feel it has would be reduced quite a bit, especially for the kind of trails around here.

The hand guards are certainly pretty marmite, but I've had them on there for well over a year now and almost every ride something happens that makes me glad I've got them on! The way riding spots are dotted around down here means that on most rides there'll be sections getting from one place to another that aren't necessarily maintained, so from spring onwards they can get pretty overgrown. The guards mean that I'm no longer picking thorns and stuff out of my hands after every ride. They've also saved my hands from some tree strikes, as well as protected my brake levers a good few times in some crashes. There are some decent scratches and gouges in them, and essentially those would have either been on my hands or on my levers so they've done the job. They're pretty good at keeping water/rain off too!

I've even converted some of the local riders into either getting them or considering getting them. I had them off the other day to sort my brakes out, and it was so weird seeing 'open' bars again...

 

[Luke Rainbird]

Sounds like a good fit for what you're after, Mark. What sort of trails are you riding these days? Bagless ***.

 

I'd add my own non-trials update while I'm here, but I barely got round to building the Yeti I mentioned 38928 years ago and haven't taken it out yet. 

[Mark W]

There's plenty to ride down here, but a lot of it is more winch-and-plummet type stuff. We have some more mountain biking-y stuff as well, but the hills down here tend to be short(ish) and sharp(ish), in managed forests, so a lot of it is fire road climbing to then bomb down some stuff. There are some pro trail builders who live in this area who have developed some of the hills, and then some dedicated dig groups who manage the others, so there's some good quality stuff out there! It's a good mix of foresty/tree-y/rooty kind of stuff, then other more open rocky hillsides too. Spoilt for choice!

It does feel in a way like I don't really do 'real' mountain biking as such, but it's a lot of fun so I'm not too bothered. If you start linking the different hills together you can do some pretty big days out, so if you want to cover some decent mileage (with a lot of elevation) you can do.

Are you saving that Yeti build for the TF Cannock meet?  

[Luke Rainbird]

That sounds cool. I guess if you're not doing long slogs constantly the long travel bike isn't a problem like it could potentially be if you were needing extra efficiency uphill? Although the Swoop seems to get a decent write up in that regard anyway from what I can see.

Oh yeah, a TF meet. Should be able to make that work if I expedite my usual timeline, given they usually take 5 years to materialise. I'm so grotesquely unfit now that an eeb might be a better fit 

[Tom Booth]

3 hours ago, Mark W said:

There's a neat little Granite tubeless repair kit in the bars, got a tube/CO2/tyre levers setup strapped to the top tube, and there are some spare zipties hidden away on there too. It means I only really need to carry the awesome little Topeak multi-tool I bought a while back on me and I'm able to solve most things trail side if I need to. Living that bag free life...

Peak riding backpack free, what do you think to the granite stuff dude?

I've always had OneUp EDClite om the 5010 and I'm gonna transfer it to the hightower, but its not lasting quite aswell as I'd like, especially to say its a occasional/get out of jail kinda tool.

The Swoop looks awesome! Really nice setup dude. Can't beat a high front end on a trail bike. The handguards seem a pretty common thing now, I cant blame people for using them in winter too, its always the cold hands/dried brambles that kill across the knuckles.

I keep meaning to ask how your getting on with the Yeti, Rbizzle, hope you've got your axle woes sorted

I went out most of yesterday on the Hightower, rode from home to Pines, a mixed lap of blue and red, cherry picking the best sections to make a lap up and a nice pedal home. Seriously impressed with it, climbing position is super comfy, attack position is super roomy but also not overwhelming and it jumps so so well. Super happy with it! Derbyshire suspension have availability to get a new steerer pressed into the Lyriks so that's on the list to do.

Have a bike tart picture while I'm posting .....

 

 

[Mark W]

20 minutes ago, Luke Rainbird said:

That sounds cool. I guess if you're not doing long slogs constantly the long travel bike isn't a problem like it could potentially be if you were needing extra efficiency uphill? Although the Swoop seems to get a decent write up in that regard anyway from what I can see.

Oh yeah, a TF meet. Should be able to make that work if I expedite my usual timeline, given they usually take 5 years to materialise. I'm so grotesquely unfit now that an eeb might be a better fit 

It's surprising alright for longer climbs to be fair, it's no XC whippet but it feels reasonably fine to me. I leave it fully open the whole time so I've got a few extra clicks of "f**k this is horrible" help if I need it  

16 minutes ago, Tom Booth said:

Peak riding backpack free, what do you think to the granite stuff dude?

I've always had OneUp EDClite om the 5010 and I'm gonna transfer it to the hightower, but its not lasting quite aswell as I'd like, especially to say its a occasional/get out of jail kinda tool.

The Swoop looks awesome! Really nice setup dude. Can't beat a high front end on a trail bike.

The plug tool I've got was surprisingly nice quality. With it being relatively cheap I was expecting it to maybe be a bit average, but it's nicer than a lot of tools I've seen that cost way more! The only downside with their EDC Lite style tool is that I don't think there's quite the same variety of tools/bits in it? Not that the 8mm on the EDC Lite would be good for much, but I'd rather have one there to roll the dice with than not... I have got an EDC Lite tool here ready to go into my steerer, but I cracked and bent one of the EDC Lite tools (I was loosening my front axle which I had tightened with that tool, and it just cracked around the rivet holes and bent so it was a parallelogram shape), and had the actual body of the steerer tube housing shear mid-ride as well so I'm a bit reluctant to f**k about with it again really. It's a nice idea and it was really handy, but I think I'd either go for the proper version of it or not at all.

That's the multi tool I carry - it's the Topeak Mini PT30. I've got a spare quick link stashed in the little housing in it too. It's an amazing little tool! Super high quality and has all the tools I've ever really needed. I've used the chain tool as a general "workshop" chain tool before and it held up fine. All the other bits have worked out nicely too, even the knife (handy for shortening emergency zipties and stuff). It's got the reaming bit and a jabber for a tyre plug so I could theoretically bin the bar mounted one off, but having had to plug a tyre in the past I think I'd prefer a bit of extra leverage. The plug jabber and the knife both have lock-outs, FYI. It's a dinky little tool and comes in a little neoprene pouch, so it just goes in my pocket and I forget about it. I'm a fan of minimising weight I'm carrying on me, but it's such a good tool it's kind of a no brainer for me now. If the EDC Lite tool was a bit stronger I'd just roll with that again, but having had it fail in multiple ways on rides now I'm a little reluctant.

[EDIT: Forgot to add, but it's got a super handy little tool built into it which allows you to disconnect quick links super easily.

 

 

It's a proper game changer! Such a good system.]

And yeah, I'm reining myself in a bit with the front end height! I've always liked a high front end on every type of bike I've ridden, and this is no exception, but I can definitely feel when it's too high on this in terms of getting front end grip. It's a playful feeling bike though, and with a lot of the trails being pretty steep down here having a slightly higher front does come in handy at times.

The 50mm rise bars came about when I got some second hand forks for my hardtail that had a shorter steerer than I was expecting. They feel nice to ride with in general so I carried them over to the Swoop, and it's given me the flexibility to play around with bar height a bit more now as I've got some stackers to play with.

[Luke Rainbird]

Interesting that you don't rate the EDC lite, Mark. I was thinking about dropping one in but will stick to my trusty old Topeak multitool in a pocket for now.

Loving the SC on tanwalls, Tom.

  

1 hour ago, Tom Booth said:

I keep meaning to ask how your getting on with the Yeti, Rbizzle, hope you've got your axle woes sorted

I did - ended up rebuilding both hubs with fresh bearings and stuck a new freehub body on the rear, laced up to some Hope Fortus 26 rims. Swapped out the 32t, Boost offset chainring that came with he cranks for a 34t 6mm offset too, though on paper I could have gone further as this still has significantly more range than my old 10spd 40t setup - the extra spinners may help me haul my unfit ass up some steep bits I guess!

Couple of minor bits to address, but really I just need to make time to get out and get some miles in my legs and work out the kinks as I go. Main gripe is that the frame, being a Large, is a smidge too long for me to run a 150mm dropper. That's a first world problem I can address at some point down the line though. I think there's enough insertion depth available (giggidy) that I could chop the seattube by 1" or so and run a bigger clamp without any issues if it really came to it. For now, old (non stealth) Reverb will do just fine. 

[Tom Booth]

20 minutes ago, Luke Rainbird said:

Interesting that you don't rate the EDC lite, Mark. I was thinking about dropping one in but will stick to my trusty old Topeak multitool in a pocket for now.

Loving the SC on tanwalls, Tom.

  

I did - ended up rebuilding both hubs with fresh bearings and stuck a new freehub body on the rear, laced up to some Hope Fortus 26 rims. Swapped out the 32t, Boost offset chainring that came with he cranks for a 34t 6mm offset too, though on paper I could have gone further as this still has significantly more range than my old 10spd 40t setup - the extra spinners may help me haul my unfit ass up some steep bits I guess!

Couple of minor bits to address, but really I just need to make time to get out and get some miles in my legs and work out the kinks as I go. Main gripe is that the frame, being a Large, is a smidge too long for me to run a 150mm dropper. That's a first world problem I can address at some point down the line though. I think there's enough insertion depth available (giggidy) that I could chop the seattube by 1" or so and run a bigger clamp without any issues if it really came to it. For now, old (non stealth) Reverb will do just fine. 

On the back of Marks comments on the EDC lite, I really rate mine but it seems like the carriers worn and its an absolute b*****d to get out now, which is dissapointing, because I don't use it all that much. I've always got a crank brothers multitool in my pocket too (force of habit) which now lives in the glove box on the SC. So really its probably only been used a dozen times. I do agree with Mark though, I think if I was to go again with EDC, I'd go the whole hog and get the full version.

Cheers dude, I wasn't sure if the green would pull off the tanwalls but they sit really well I think!

Glad you got your axles sorted in the end! Yeti looks awesome! Can you not shim the reverb down to lessen the travel? I know other posts its possible but not sure on a reverb.

Reverting back to your earlier post TF group ride is a must! I liked Adams suggestion of Cannock a few pages back (for no reason other then its 50 mins away and I'm lazy But I'd be happy to head somewhere else if others voted for it, could even do a weekender or something if we did a forestry commission location, most have camping now and a weekend riding/drinking is probably a good idea right?

[Luke Rainbird]

13 minutes ago, Tom Booth said:

Glad you got your axles sorted in the end! Yeti looks awesome! Can you not shim the reverb down to lessen the travel? I know other posts its possible but not sure on a reverb.

  Reverb pictured is 125mm so works fine, but I have a brand new 150mm Fox Transfer Post that I'd quite like to run really (it's internally routed, plus it's not a Reverb). It's a smidge higher than ideal at full extension, and given I don't need more height, it's the extra 25mm of drop which would be ideal.

13 minutes ago, Tom Booth said:

Reverting back to your earlier post TF group ride is a must! I liked Adams suggestion of Cannock a few pages back (for no reason other then its 50 mins away and I'm lazy But I'd be happy to head somewhere else if others voted for it, could even do a weekender or something if we did a forestry commission location, most have camping now and a weekend riding/drinking is probably a good idea right?

Nowhere is close to me really (unless people want to trek all the way to Cornwall for a day at somewhere like Woody's, but there are so many better options for a proper day's ride that I understandably can't see it happening. Cannock is pretty central, which is entirely sensible. Abotu 3 and a half hours from me, but I can probably find a way to man maths that down a bit. 

I'm actually up in (almost) your neck of the woods in a few days. Ashby for work and we're racing at Donington this weekend. No space/time for the bike though, sadly.

[Tom Booth]

3 hours ago, Luke Rainbird said:

I'm actually up in (almost) your neck of the woods in a few days. Ashby for work and we're racing at Donington this weekend. No space/time for the bike though, sadly.

What's the point in telling me that you dog egg? Bring your bicycle so we can go bicycling.

[Mark W]

13 hours ago, Tom Booth said:

On the back of Marks comments on the EDC lite, I really rate mine but it seems like the carriers worn and its an absolute b*****d to get out now, which is dissapointing, because I don't use it all that much. I've always got a crank brothers multitool in my pocket too (force of habit) which now lives in the glove box on the SC. So really its probably only been used a dozen times. I do agree with Mark though, I think if I was to go again with EDC, I'd go the whole hog and get the full version.

I really liked the EDC Lite - I liked the idea of it, the finish of it and the feel of it, but it was just the durability that's a deal-breaker for me really. I am still tempted to throw it in as I've essentially got one sitting around here doing nothing, but if you're buying new I'm not sure it's such a great proposition any more. Just for context, that Topeak tool I bum is £34.99. The EDC Lite tool is £5 more, has less than a third of the functionality and in my experience significantly less durability. The only thing it really has going for it is that the EDC Lite is much cooler! 

The EDC V2 Threadless setup is interesting as way easier to install than the big boi version, although it is a little more limited in what it can hold than the threaded version. Whether it's worth it probably depends on what storage setups you've got available already though - seeing as Tom's baller and got his fancy glove box he can throw stuff in I guess it's a little less relevant in some ways.

Speaking of Cannock, out of interest when you guys go there do you typically ride the 'official' stuff or the off piste stuff? I went there a little while ago and we used some official stuff to get to the off piste stuff, and what we did ride of the proper stuff seemed kind of odd to me.  I just have memories of awkward, janky, man-made rock garden type setups, weird jump setups and that kind of hard pack gravelly trail surface? I'm not sure if I was riding the good stuff there or not though... We wound up riding some trails around from what I believe was the original Cannock DH line. Some of them were steeper, more MTB-y stuff, and some of them were shorter bermy/jumpy type stuff.

It was only a relatively short ride so we didn't do a full loop of the trail centre stuff as we were mainly aiming for that off piste area. Just curious about what the rest of it is like really.

[Luke Rainbird]

11 hours ago, Tom Booth said:

What's the point in telling me that you dog egg? Bring your bicycle so we can go bicycling.

Come racing instead. You can ride around the paddock like the cool kids if you want.

[Tom Booth]

9 hours ago, Luke Rainbird said:

Come racing instead. You can ride around the paddock like the cool kids if you want.

Sounds like effort on my part. Nah.

[Tom Booth]

Anybody interested in buying my XL 5010? The original buyers pulled out (fully ghosted me for 2 weeks now)...

Its a big spec bike for the money, really solid build..

Lyrik Ultimates

Raceface carbon bars, dmr defy+ stem

Hope fortus 35s, maxxis minions

Xt mech and shifter, slx cassette and chain

One up 240mm dropper and charge spoon saddle

Slx m7120 front brake, m7100 rear, rt86 rotors and uberbike pads

Raceface crankset and chainring

 

Mega fun, really playful and does everything really well. Looking for £3k, but I'll listen to sensible offers. It fitted me OK at 6ft5, but its kinda maxed out at that, I'd suggest 5'11" to 6'4" realistically. I've never registered the frame with SC either, so as far as I know the free bearing replacement/lifetime warranty is still available for the next guy.

 

Also, Cotic BFEMAX XL frame for sale, used for 4 months, less then 250 miles I'd of guessed, not really a mark on it other then some cable rub areas. I'd be looking for £375 for it, can post but at buyers expense. Awesome hardtail frame, really enjoyed it.

[Mark W]

Some from the other day...

Pretty sweet day for it once you broke through the cloud layer.



Less so knowing you've got to drop back into that cloud...



Took in some of the more fun hills in my area - I live down in the valley to the left of this shot. First series of trails are on that dark looking wooded hill. You climb up the left side and all the trails drop down to the right, with a nice little fire road climb to get back up and do more. Once you're done with those you climb back out, skirt around that slag heap you can see poking out the clouds then climb up to where I took this from. From there there are a bunch of trails to drop down, then onward up the next hill that loops around to another hill the other side of town, with an easy, flat road ride back home. Primo.



That trail just disappeared into it. The hill's only about 350m high - started at the top of it and was warm in the sun, got to the bottom about 2mins later and my braking fingers were completely numb...

[MadManMike]

That landscape photo looks amazing, where is that?

[Mark W]

It's above a village called Machen - technically it's Mynydd Machen. Some cool trail building on the go there, I believe back in the day they ran some Dragon DH races there. There were some other races too, then the forest got felled and unofficial trails kind of took over. 

[MadManMike]

Oh awesome, didn't realise it was that local - I'll have to check it out at some point. I say "at some point" because my bike is under quite a thick layer of dust at the moment... I've been very lazy since moving out here, even before the arrival of the wee boy.