The MTB THREAD .....*Spring has Sprung, dust production March*

[Cypher]

Afternoon Chaps!

My eventual aim is to do the Marin Trail in North Wales (25km of mountain biking).

Advice is as always appreciated!

I did the Marin Trail last year (technically called the Gwydir Mawr Trail these days) after 10 weeks of zero exercise after breaking my collar bone, it was absolute torture but I made it round. There's a lot of fireroad climbs which I personally find to be a boring grind but then I'm used to doing DH with uplifts so any pedalling seems like hard work to me.

However that being said, I did spend 4 days in North Wales over the weekend where I tackled the Llandegla black route (22km) and found that to be quite manageable, especially as there's about 500ft less climbing over the course of the Llandegla black route compared to Gwydir Mawr so I'd definitely have a go at that first.

[Chaz]

More quantocks exploration today

[Cypher]

Aaaand it's video time again ladies and gentlemen! These are a series of clips from runs during my second of 2 days at Revolution Bike Park in North Wales last week, the day after I rode the 22km black route at Llandegla! So so steep, never ridden anything with trails quite as vertical as Revs before. Well out of my comfort zone on some of the blacks!

[coiler]

More quantocks exploration today

MOJO back yet Chaz? Cracking pic, look at that cliff! Challenge this season is to get a better admnin hoss and bike pic in the quannys!

Looks super gnar that Cypher, i'd be mincing down most of that lol

[Cypher]

Sunday 22nd Ride Report:

So after managing to survive 4 days riding some of the gnarliest terrain North Wales has to offer, I took a trip to the Forest of Dean yesterday for a quick lap round the red XC and then 3 or 4 runs on the uplift in the afternoon, what could go wrong, right?

Within the first 10 minutes a fellow rider came flying over a jump having forgotten to put his dropper down, got bucked off and went crashing into a wooden post sending echoes through the otherwise quiet woodland. He was winded but otherwise fine, god knows how!

Then 20 minutes further on me and the female friend I was riding with came upon a small skills area with a roughly 10m long roller coaster wooden 'skinny' type thing. I decided I would show her my amazing tekkers and proceeded to attack the aforementioned wooden construction.

Front wheel up fine, but little did I know the entry ramp was broken so my rear wheel tipped off, grinding down the side of the plank instead of following the front wheel up. The end result was me having a fairly unspectacular tumble off the roughly 2 foot high section I'd already made it onto, no bother right?

Get up, dust myself off and then realised that I've broken my riding glasses which were hung from my bag strap, snapped my Garmin stem mount off and BENT A PEDAL AXLE! How!? So I had to ride from lunchtime onwards with a wonky pedal that felt like something that resembled a suspended funhouse floor, horrible!

I'm crossing my fingers it hasn't damaged the bushing in the crank, so I've treated myself to a set of stealth black Superstar Nano Evo pedals with their current 20% off code to cheer myself up. Although if I fit the pedals and it turns out the crank bushing is bent I'm in trouble as I'll then need to buy and fit new cranks before Friday as I'm off to Bike Park Wales on Saturday!

Looks super gnar that Cypher, i'd be mincing down most of that lol

Definitely the most hardcore trails I've ridden to date! I found myself on one particular black run by accident as I took the wrong trail split where I should have gone on a red. First time I've ever got off and tried to push back up, it was that bad! haha

[coiler]

Crazy the axles bent! Doubt the crank will have taken damage super tough, but the black nanos look stunning, so perhaps it was meant to be What pedals were they?

Do you ride without glasses sometimes? I've got mates that do, mine are on perma due to contact lenses drying out.

[Cypher]

I know! I got back on the bike and was like "are you kidding me?" of all the crashes I've had that was the least spectacular but did by far the most damage to my bike. haha

They were the same £24.99 model of Nukeproof Electron Evo (plastic chassis, CroMo axle) I've run on my last 2 bikes. To be fair I think what happened was that the pedal on the drive side must have got caught between two of the planks on the skinny and I levered it over with my whole bodyweight as the bike went down. So it was a very abnormal set of circumstances.

I would have no reservations about getting another set to replace them, but they are out of stock in black literally everywhere and I need them asap for Saturday!

Well for the proper DH stuff I wear goggles with my Super 3R in full face mode, but on the XC stuff I go chinbar-less with glasses. But because we'd just finished a long slow climb I'd taken them off for extra ventilation otherwise they would have been safely on my face.

[Chaz]

MOJO back yet Chaz? Cracking pic, look at that cliff! Challenge this season is to get a better admnin hoss and bike pic in the quannys!

Think it may be coming back slowly, certainly very much enjoying it! Seeing new parts of quannys is really nice

[Chaz]

650b hoss v2 achieved but forum avatar thing seems borked and wont let me change even with a resized image

[{SAS}TB]

Wow, so much to catch up on in here

Im ashamed to say I have been out most Sunday mornings in a "0600 Sunday Club" with 2 mates


On Felicity so havent been posting in the MTB thread, however 4+ hours and deceny climbs over 40,50,60,70 miles has done my fitness and stamina the world of good

I am however now in a position to say I was out, today, on Bronwyn !!!!

Started off dank and mizzly



Nice views at the meet spot



Nice pootle around Macc Forest, up to the Cat and Fiddle and almost did 3 Shires Head too, but didn't













Cracking ride out. hot, sunny, windy - great terrain and a little "mechanical" about 1/2 way in when my front rotar was griding like mad, looked like a shot breakpad (see end) other than that awesome morning with 4 mate (should have been 6!)

[{SAS}TB]

Sunny sunny when got back



and popped the front pads (well pad) out and the retention spring had gone and I had lost a pad - never had that before!



Luckilly i have a part worn spare but think Bronny is well overdue a service ........

Right, will catch up on the thread

[Cypher]

New pedals arrived on Wednesday, fitted them only to discover that some of the pedal wobble was still there, which meant not only had I bent a pedal axle, but I'd also bent a crank! So £140 later a new set of SRAM GX cranks turned up and were fitted ready for today's ride. No picture of cranks as they were a like-for-like swap but the pedals are very nice!



So I've had this day at BikePark Wales booked for nearly 3 months as I was introducing a female friend to her first taste of bike park riding and it was the only weekend we were both free. We've been counting down the weeks approaching today, thinking how lucky we were to have accidentally booked it during the driest summer since 1976.

We left Oxfordshire with partly cloudy blue skies and arrived in South Wales with roughly the same, as per picture below before our first run down.



However the forecast was for heavy rain/thunder storms and with drizzle/rain on and off shortly after our 2nd run we felt our luck may have been fading as the day went on. By 2pm the rain was torrential (see rivers flowing down the uplift trail below) and we were literally just discussing whether we should abandon the day still with 2 1/2 hour of uplift still to run, when we saw a flash in the distance which was caught on the GoPro I'd lent her (also see picture below) followed by an almighty crash of thunder.

So we cut our losses and headed back to the cafe/shop building, got changed into dry clothes and were sat in the cafe wondering if we should have tried to wait it out, when we overheard that the uplift had been shut down for at least an hour anyway due to the potential hazard of lighting atop the hill, so we felt all the more justified in having stopped when we did!

Anyway, she had a great time on the few runs we managed before calling it off and hopefully I'll be taking her back for round 2 on a sunnier day in a month or two as she's still super keen despite the appalling conditions!

[coiler]

#Thy great VPP strip down of 2018, that took much longer than expected!


Few weeks back on the last ride on Blur, heard a strange noise, smelt burning, and bike felt odd. Afterwards discovered 1cm of pure play in the lower pivot, and eventually got all the required tools from Germany (santa UK no stock for months) to investigate!



The explosion and resultant oil leak!





Large bearing removal tool




All bearings out both links but a small bearing didn't make it and exploded leaving the outer race stuck in link, this wasted another hour trying to get out lol




Resorted to using an old pivot axle and the expanding collet to remove the stuck out old exploded race.





Pre popping off the seals and the rusty ultimate lower bearings are rusted, very loose inner race, and turn with an awful grind








The pivot axle which took the bearing burn, replaced this with a spare from last LBS VPP service





Torquing the smaller collet bolt to spec broke the bolt, which added another hour of trying to then get the pivot axle out with half a bolt stuck in it, drill came out! Was able to use the old pivot and bolt from last year. Looks like its a rite of VPP service passage, accoring to forums, as SC have overspecced all the torques on all old literature.






Snapped bolt.

[coiler]

Press tool. Smaller bearings had to go in one at a time which I soon learnt, after double pressing and never getting a flush seat.






Icing on cake flushing through with some nice fresh Marine Alumimium Oxide grease pre fitting on bike








Had to nip out for an 11/16 American Fine spanner which added more time. End of day cold beer was much welcome.

Would I service myself again? With the above knowledge yes! Was a quality day of fettling

[coiler]

Nice HOSS + 650b chaz nice to see you getting out on Strava again

SAS this is a cracking pic, looks like the ultimate suspension setup run lol, near wildboarclough this part isn't it?

https://i.imgur.com/GpAecCy.jpg