Bicyclist thread

[Simon]

You're a lot shorter than I imagined

[Rich B]

We’re not in Kansas any more Toto!

[ste]

Fence included?

I’m sure we could hedge something.

[JonMad]

Cool, I’ll chat to my wife about it. Daughter still refuses to ride anything other than the bike she learned on, even though she’s now over 120cm tall. She’s almost at the point of hitting the handlebars with her knees.

[NotoriousREV]

I think Ste has been out causing trouble.

[ste]

Yeah, probably me.

In other news, I washed this and used the MucOff Bike Protect spray on it. It's fucking amazing stuff. It brings rubber, plastic etc back to an amazing new sheen.

[JonMad]

Swinley Forest - are there plenty of flat wide paths to ride on? Daughter’s not yet got the hang of pushing off on an uphill (nor, in fact, riding up anything seemingly more than a 1% gradient without moaning about it being hard work and therefore stopping).

[Rich B]

Swinley Forest - are there plenty of flat wide paths to ride on? Daughter’s not yet got the hang of pushing off on an uphill (nor, in fact, riding up anything seemingly more than a 1% gradient without moaning about it being hard work and therefore stopping).

Loads of big fire roads and around the lookout is pretty flat, but the area as a whole is fairly hilly (hence it being a place to ride!)

[JonMad]

Swinley Forest - are there plenty of flat wide paths to ride on? Daughter’s not yet got the hang of pushing off on an uphill (nor, in fact, riding up anything seemingly more than a 1% gradient without moaning about it being hard work and therefore stopping).

Loads of big fire roads and around the lookout is pretty flat, but the area as a whole is fairly hilly (hence it being a place to ride!)

Cool, we’ll try those fire roads first then.

[drcarlos]

Swinley Forest - are there plenty of flat wide paths to ride on? Daughter’s not yet got the hang of pushing off on an uphill (nor, in fact, riding up anything seemingly more than a 1% gradient without moaning about it being hard work and therefore stopping).

Loads of big fire roads and around the lookout is pretty flat, but the area as a whole is fairly hilly (hence it being a place to ride!)

Cool, we’ll try those fire roads first then.

If you Park at the lookout and head for the start of the trails you’ll find green and blue, the green my middle boy was riding at 5 quite happily it has some gentle climbs and some gentle downhill with a few small yomps thrown in. It’s all single track so give them a good idea of what to expect on blue. Mine rode it several times and then were begging to go onto blue. Get her started on green before you head off on the fire roads and she may see the trail markers and ask to see what down there if she’s familiar with the format. Don’t worry about pushing and walking on blue, it’s a family trail so people expect it. I always smile when I see a young family having a crack at it as. I know in a couple of years they’ll be riding it properly.
I may take mine out if my calf is feeling better tomorrow.

Carl.

Carl

[IanF]

Loads of big fire roads and around the lookout is pretty flat, but the area as a whole is fairly hilly (hence it being a place to ride!)

Cool, we’ll try those fire roads first then.

If you Park at the lookout and head for the start of the trails you’ll find green and blue, the green my middle boy was riding at 5 quite happily it has some gentle climbs and some gentle downhill with a few small yomps thrown in. It’s all single track so give them a good idea of what to expect on blue. Mine rode it several times and then were begging to go onto blue. Get her started on green before you head off on the fire roads and she may see the trail markers and ask to see what down there if she’s familiar with the format. Don’t worry about pushing and walking on blue, it’s a family trail so people expect it. I always smile when I see a young family having a crack at it as. I know in a couple of years they’ll be riding it properly.
I may take mine out if my calf is feeling better tomorrow.

Carl.

Carl

If you park on Vicarage Road in Bagshot, you can ride the fire Trails from there. It’s free parking there as well

[JonMad]

Loads of big fire roads and around the lookout is pretty flat, but the area as a whole is fairly hilly (hence it being a place to ride!)

Cool, we’ll try those fire roads first then.

If you Park at the lookout and head for the start of the trails you’ll find green and blue, the green my middle boy was riding at 5 quite happily it has some gentle climbs and some gentle downhill with a few small yomps thrown in. It’s all single track so give them a good idea of what to expect on blue. Mine rode it several times and then were begging to go onto blue. Get her started on green before you head off on the fire roads and she may see the trail markers and ask to see what down there if she’s familiar with the format. Don’t worry about pushing and walking on blue, it’s a family trail so people expect it. I always smile when I see a young family having a crack at it as. I know in a couple of years they’ll be riding it properly.
I may take mine out if my calf is feeling better tomorrow.

Carl.

Carl

Well she rode to the start of the green and blue trails from the picnic benches. Promising so far. Then we got 15 yards into the green trail and she’d stopped 5 times because it was ‘too steep’. Tried going along the trail outside the start of that and there were ‘too many rocks’. Basically she doesn’t know the meaning of physical effort, like actually pressing a pedal. I think she was just cold as she did much more at Alice Holt on Monday when it was warm. So we rode (flat) back to the car and went for a play instead.

[Rich B]

Kids are funny once they get an idea in their head!

[ste]

Good that she got out there though and next time she’ll do that little bit better. It’s really disheartening at first when they just refuse to ride stuff, but so rewarding once they start to improve.

[JonMad]

Cheers. Yep, she was straight back out on the bike at home. So still has the enthusiasm.

[ste]

I've been after a '16 Evo '2' HiMod fork for quite a while. They're obviously lighter than pre-'16 forks but they look so much better too in my opinion. The straighter, simpler and thinner lines are so much cleaner and give a much crisper updated look. I managed to bag one in the US and got it shipped over.

Cut to length it was a really impressive weight of 250g



Obviously the red paint job wouldn't work, so I sanded all the paint off and then shot over a very thin ghost coat of satin black to match the Black-Inc paint job. I faded the bottom of the legs out to leave the carbon weave showing though.



Sanded and repainted the weight was down to 244g. The original glossy paintjob was actually very thin. Cannondale certainly seem to keep things weenie at times.



My '13 Black-Inc nano carbon frame weighs 706g. Adding the 244g of the '16 HiMod fork gives an overall fameweight of 950g 8) . I wonder if that combo is the lightest permutation of Supersix? I'm half tempted to fully sand it just to see how light it could go...

To fit the new fork I bought some of the FSA SL alu top and bottom headset bearings.





Top and bottom with the standard Cannondale compression ring are 31g.



Fork fitted:





New weight, 5.47kg

[240PP]

I want something to ride to work on and the odd trail. £500 budget. Is this decent for the money?

https://www.cyclestore.co.uk/specialize ... 9-ID_72659

[ste]

Yep, spot on for the money.

You'd do well to consider something 2nd hand though. Loads of people buy bikes and hardly use them, you can normally take advantage of this and get something on eBay etc barely used for a fraction of its new price.

[ste]

The main things with the one you've linked to is that it's a triple (3 chain rings on the crankset and a derailleur and shifter fitted to switch between them) and has a very cheap fork. What may seem strange is that more expensive bikes and groupsets will tend to come with a single on the front now. It's partly fashion but also they just work much better and the newer cassettes (the gears on the back) have a wide enough range to not need different ratios on the front. Like all things in life, simpler tends to be better here. The fork has a spring in it, so will be quite primitive.

For £500 you should be able to pick up an as-good-as-new bike that retailed for £1k+ or something with a bit more use on it that was initially £1500+

As a comparison I bought my son a Whyte 806 on eBay recently. RRP is £999 but we got it for £500. It had been ridden once or twice, by the looks of it, probably on road. It was the current year's model and the woman that had it realised she just wouldn't ever use it. It was effectively as good as new. That's got a proper Rockshox Judy, Deore, tubeless, Tektro hydro brakes etc.

[240PP]

Yes, 2nd hand is a good shout for my needs. I've had a look at few on eBay today.

I've been loaned this by a colleague today to use over Christmas and Jan. I've not had a go yet but it looks in good nick. I think it's about 18 months old and about £5-600 new, he bought it about 6 months ago for £200. I doubt he'd sell it but I'll ask, if I get on with it. It has lock-out forks too, which the Specialized I linked to doesn't.

It's a Scott Aspect 950.