OV9

After some mechanical advice. I have an annoying squeak on the bike. It seems to only happen under load. When it starts light pressure on the front brakes seems to fix it. Any ideas? I don't want to randomly lube up....

Rub some copper grease onto your brake pads, that’ll fix it

Do you get resistance on the wheel when the squeak starts?

I had a sticky calliper that would mean the first time I used the brake one of the pads stayed in contact with the disc. Stripped it down and reset the pad and it was fine.

FYI if anyone gets a bike from chain reaction don’t rely on them doing a good job of building it. I’ve had to re adjust every bit of the bike I got from them

New Bike! Well it is less than a year old anyway, new bikes still like gold dust. Bought a LaPierre Zesty. I think it is just the basic model but it is Medium and what a difference. My lovely wife now has a lovely CF Vitus with a small frame! Hopefully we will get up Glentress soon to give them a good batter down some hills.

The back end in particular is far heavier to lift on the L but it feels better balanced for me just doing small jumps.

Had a fantastic ride round the Herefordshire/Gloucestershire border today. Plenty of hills so I wouldn’t have gone there without electric assistance.

Crossed the river Wye a few times; there are a couple of lovely old pedestrian suspension bridges between Ross and Mordiford which are perfectly usable on a bike:

How’s your bike Rich? And others who’ve got an eMTB this year?

Hadn’t used mine for over a month, too busy at work and holidays taking up my free time. Went out today for a fantastic ride, despite not having charged the battery since the day after I last used it. Range showed just 29 miles as I set off but I did 36 miles/3000ft of climbing and had 10 miles left showing at the end.

Popped in to see Harvey Price:


Cheese rolling hill:


Toposcope on top of Chosen Hill, shown as a trig point on the OS map so a nice surprise:


Being dry I haven’t needed to wash it after the last half a dozen or so rides. Quite looking forward to getting it dirty again as autumn arrives.

Yep, I've not done loads of riding recently, but I went to 417 a month ago (great fun, plus we got two extra runs in when the vans stopped at lunch thanks to the ebikes) then Black Mountain 2 weeks ago which was amazing - probably the best condition trails I've ever seen - we've ridden there 3 or 4 times but it was just epic - crazy fast.

No real issues with the bike, though I went tubeless on the rear after I had a puncture at 417. I'm still not convinced by the idea though, firstly it went down over night, secondly I hate riding low pressure, so no real benefit there - then to top it all, my brother got a puncture with tubeless at BM and it ended his ride because it wasn't sealing (he put another load of slime in later and it did seal). I guess he'd burped out all the original sealant or it had gone off. No plans to do the front tyre and I expect I'll go back to tubes on the rear.

I’ve not gone tubeless despite getting everything I need - might do so next year but no obvious reason to when I’ve not been getting thorns in the tyres.

My ride today took me right round 417 but I’ve never been to it. Is it any good? I’m still not yet sold on bike parks but haven’t properly tried them to be honest.

I mainly ride parks - Rogate, windhill, Black Mountain, 417, BPW, Aston hill, FoD, etc... we're all into DH and if we only get 1 or 2 rides per month, we want them to be all action and it seems a bit of a waste to just do average rides. Plus with half the group still on normal bikes, uplift days level it out so everyone has the same experience.

417 is good - plenty for all skill levels. Not a huge hill, but they make pretty good use out of it (though we did sprint an ebike lap from the bottom to the top and back down in under 6 minutes.)

I've not ridden mine much this year through combination of injury, timing and now lockdowns. It did go into the shop a few weeks back for a quick check over and fitment of a rubber guard that fits around the lower pivot/motor area. On mine, the first year of the current frame design for Levos there was no protection there and it started becoming a trap for pine needles and crap. The subsequent years' bikes have all had this extra guard so I ordered it to be fitted. Two days to arrive from importer and fitted in the shop for the equivalent of about 25 quid. I was pretty happy with that given the usual Specialized tax

Rich B wrote: ↑Sat Sep 11, 2021 9:32 pm I mainly ride parks

Rich B earlier..,

Not entirely inaccurate!!!!

Tootled around Glentress yesterday, haven't been in a while. Great fun.

A win for tubeless last night - heading to the night ride meeting spot, must have hit a chunk of glass or something on the road. Loud psssssh, sealant spraying out. Spun wheel so it was at the bottom, bit of sealant dribbled but it just about held, not well enough to ride on though. Got out the jabber, stuck in a repair strip, few pumps of air to replace what was lost and was on my way again. No issues for the rest of the ride.

Took a couple of minutes tops. I'll take that any day over the faff of changing a tube.

Sticking this here because, well Cobbles…

Paris Roubaix’s on Eurosport and even more miserable than usual…

dinny_g wrote: ↑Sun Oct 03, 2021 1:24 pm Sticking this here because, we’ll Cobbles…

Paris Roubaix’s on Eurosport and even more miserable than usual…

Watched the end of the Women's tour of Britain first stage last night on ITV4, they mentioned that there was a roundabout about 1.2k from the end they had to negotiate. I though well if it's wet and they all have to take a turn or two at speed in quick succession in a pack it should be a bit hairy. How wrong was I, they didn't force them round in one direction but allowed them to split and use both sides of the roundabout. Don't know if it's normal practice but doesn't seem too bright as the full speed merge is only likely to end one way.

2:30 onwards

I've seen that approach before on the TdF...

Riders seem to know what to do - I suppose it's no more safe or dangerous than 200 odd cyclists at full tilt in the peloton - it all just teems to work

Looking to do a bit of mountain biking and gravel biking over the winter, what's the deal with lights these days as its been years and years since I've looked. Worth spending a bit of cash or just picking up something cheap and bright on eBay which will last a year or two?

Ascender wrote: ↑Tue Nov 09, 2021 7:06 pm Looking to do a bit of mountain biking and gravel biking over the winter, what's the deal with lights these days as its been years and years since I've looked. Worth spending a bit of cash or just picking up something cheap and bright on eBay which will last a year or two?

i have a cheap Chinese set (magic shine with a separate battery pack) from a few years back, they’re more than adequate for night rides (offroad) - though these days the all in one units are just as good.

You don’t need to spend hundreds any more - Just a half decent handlebar one and a smaller helmet one do the job as well as the £300 sets of 10 years ago. Loads of vids on YouTube for what’s good…