Big Bike Thread

[Raymond Lin]

Wanna hear some bad luck? My Fox 40's leaked oil all over the place yesterday, took them to Mojo this morning who basically told me the stantions and bushes are knackered, stantions are £108 EACH, Bushes £30 and a Service with new seals etc is £90... OUCH!

New forks time ?

 

[LordSplodge]

That Orange is about £4k isn't it ?

I saw a guy the other day with an Orange of a similar price on the back of a Citroen that must have been worth a fair bit less than the bike.

I commented to my passenger that he would be gutted if somebody ran into the back of him, and not because of any damage done to his car!

 

[SgtTupac]

New forks time ?

Opted to have them repaired. Being as a new set is gonna be at leaat £600ish, and the forks are worth £1.1k

 

[Psymonkee]

ooo look what I picked up today

Sadly I'm so unfit it's not funny

Oh yeah and the right pedal sheared off after about 10 mins Getting fixed tomorrow by the shop I bought it from though :]

 

[SgtTupac]

Went to Mynydd Du DH race this weekend. What an awesome weekend, track was very hard and technical with wet roots and rocks all over the place. Had a major crash on my 3rd practise run, was a dodgy line coming off one slope, as i got to the bottom i hit a water pipe sticking out and flipped over the handle bars, didnt even manage to get my hands out so the elbow, sholder and head took the force. No body armour so resulted in lots of cuts and pain. Next day had a few praccy runs which were fine. First race run was going well until i hit a drop and flipped straight over the handle bars and down a banking. Not good Hurt my wrist bad so had a crap time. Then on my second run got about 3 metres from the start and my rear mech snapped clean off the frame, went up and wrapped around my chain device. Then that knackered my chain device, Had to stop, pulled my chain off and carried on.. which resulted in my rear mech wrapping around my frame

 

[Bennah]

Psymonkee, how much did you pay for the Cinder Cone?

Do like the colour of it, I must say.

 

[Psymonkee]

Local shop did it for 550

20 quid more than evanscycles but it's local and the guys are really friendly there

Now just gotta get used to cycling again and get a whole crap load fitter/thinner

 

[Bennah]

Well a bike is a pretty *** thing to start getting fitter.

Dont know what I would do without mind, go everywhere with it. Does need a couple of little things sorting out to bring it back to 100%.

The other day me and a mate went out for a ride. We came to this very steep hill we had to go down. With my front brake needing bleading, I was using the back brake the most. At the bottom the disc was so hot it melted my glove as I touched it to see how warm it was

 

[Psymonkee]

I assume the stars where g-u-d?

But yeah due to my weight/knee I've been advised against running/jogging. Walking is off atm due to achilles tendonitis so that leaves cycling or swimming.

Should really take pics of me & start a blog of uber weight loss (and I mean UBER...)

Sadly I can't take mine to work as although it's < half a mile (which I want to walk but it hurts too much) theres nowhere safe to lock up such a nice bike

 

[Banny]

Wow what a monster thread, got myself a bike yesterday, not superb by some standards in this thread, but seems fine and it was a good price for £350 with a few little upgrades.
Kona Kula 2006
with these extra upgrades
easton monkey bars ea70
bontrager big earl lock ons

Took it out today around 10 mile offroad, seems a really nice bike, very happy with it.
Now back to read this thread on page 50 at the moment.

 

[Bennah]

Hehehe. This is the thread for everything to do with bikes

You get very helpful information indeed in here.

Anyway, today I decided to give the bike a wash. I pulled out the jet wash and began to wash. With a bit of muc-off it came up well. could have spent more time on it really but it started to rain

Some parts of the bike where I have come off in the past and where the paint was chipped, started to come off a lot when I had the jet wash over the area.

At first I thought that it was dirt coming off untill a 'print' on the frame started to disappear. I was like W.T.F

Anyone else found anything like this before or is it just Dawes Oxide's crap paint.

Will get some pics tomrrow in the daylight.

EDIT: 100th page...

 

[willhub]

I was going to wash my bike, got dog crap all over the frame somehow , but my from wheel is rusty, suspension is rusty, frame has bits of paint chipped off and rust, anyway to get all the rust off and then cover up the pain chips with some paint, but what paint?

 

[Bennah]

You mean the total frame?

You would be best stripping all the bike down if your the spraying the frame. Idealy with paint chips, you would be best to strip all the paint off. Not sure what the best way to do this is though.

Then prime, add your desired paint, couple of coats maybe then a top coat.

Dont quote me on that though as Im not expert on this type of things, but I might have to start to learn the way my bike is going on. Im having visions of me going down a large hill, picking up some speed and the paint peeling off the frame, layer by layer. It will be like a shuttle burning up as its traveling to the sun Saying that, my bike is orange

 

[willhub]

You mean the total frame?

You would be best stripping all the bike down if your the spraying the frame. Idealy with paint chips, you would be best to strip all the paint off. Not sure what the best way to do this is though.

Then prime, add your desired paint, couple of coats maybe then a top coat.

Dont quote me on that though as Im not expert on this type of things, but I might have to start to learn the way my bike is going on. Im having visions of me going down a large hill, picking up some speed and the paint peeling off the frame, layer by layer. It will be like a shuttle burning up as its traveling to the sun Saying that, my bike is orange

Sounds expensive.

My dad paid for a new wheel / gear cogs on the back wheel too, cost £40 form Halfords , we bought just a thing that goes through the wheel for £10, but my dad needed to take this whole thing off the wheel to get the new bearing in, but would not budge, so he took the wheel to the shop and they said the wheel was buggered, was old and too worn to be used again, turned out when my dad took it apart using some force, there was nothing wrong with it, got conned from the guy at halfords coz he wanted to make a sale.

On top of that, we needed a 26" wheel, they first gave my dad a 24" wheel, then pointed out that it is the wrong size, so then the guy said he'll go get the right one, so he got home, then to find it was a 28" :\.

I dunno if I'm up to painting my bike, I'm a total noob when it comes to bikes, gonna have to learn more.

I used to go down this really big hill on my bike, but its covered in weeds now

One of my dad's friends in harrogate said he has a bike I can have, it's full suspension, I dont like rear suspension, slows me down, but could be used as parts, apparently was going to be chucked on the scrap just because of a punctured wheel and the front suspension was all stiff.

 

[Bennah]

Typical Halfords from my area really. Not all of them are bad though.

Jonny ///M, irrc works at a Halfords in sunny Scotland and he knows a fair bit about bikes, quite a lot actually.

I hardly go Halfords for bike parts apart from a pump adapter and maybe a car foot pump, thats about it.

Have you got any local bike shops around your area you can go to in the future?

Might be worth checking out - www.wiggle.co.uk / www.chainreactioncycles.co.uk / www.evanscycles.co.uk to name a few, for some parts, bikes etc in the future. The bay of 'E could be an option too.

 

[willhub]

Typical Halfords from my area really. Not all of them are bad though.

Jonny ///M, irrc works at a Halfords in sunny Scotland and he knows a fair bit about bikes, quite a lot actually.

I hardly go Halfords for bike parts apart from a pump adapter and maybe a car foot pump, thats about it.

Have you got any local bike shops around your area you can go to in the future?

Might be worth checking out - www.wiggle.co.uk / www.chainreactioncycles.co.uk / www.evanscycles.co.uk to name a few, for some parts, bikes etc in the future. The bay of 'E could be an option too.

There is a small bike shop in the town center, dunno if it's any good.

I seen a racing bike for £350 the other day too, looked awsome, bet I could fly on that thing.

I had 2 other bikes scrapped, my last one was called an Apollo vendetta or something, and the back of the bike kept falling off, should have kept it for spares, I took the disk brake off it and put it on my sarac Xray.

I think the guys at the halfords I went to knew what they were doing, I would not ask em to look at my bike or even touch it tho, they'll charge an arm and a leg.

 

[Jonny ///M]

Typical Halfords from my area really. Not all of them are bad though.

Jonny ///M, irrc works at a Halfords in sunny Scotland and he knows a fair bit about bikes, quite a lot actually.

I hardly go Halfords for bike parts apart from a pump adapter and maybe a car foot pump, thats about it.

Have you got any local bike shops around your area you can go to in the future?

Might be worth checking out - www.wiggle.co.uk / www.chainreactioncycles.co.uk / www.evanscycles.co.uk to name a few, for some parts, bikes etc in the future. The bay of 'E could be an option too.

I do work in halfords and i do know quite a bit. If i dont know i will tell the customer/person. I have told many a customer to go to the local bike shop or the good shops in Glasgow.


eidt: im still riding my brother bike. I dunno if i have done the BB in or just the pedals. I had to the replce the 22t chainring as i bent it so had to take the cranks off and due to the truvativ external BB system im not sure if i preloaded the bearings properly and now i have creaking from the BB area. Hopefully its just the pedals(no grease in the V8s) and no the BB as i cant be arsed buying a £30 bottom bracket for his bike.
A rear wheel from halfords is £25 or £27 for a black one and a freewheel(gear cogs) is £17 so that sounds about right. Sometimes freewheels are hard to get off but that why me and my boss used a 2foot scaffolf pole + adjustable wrench to make a tool to take freewheels off.

Most of the Halfords staff are noobs,we have a guy who doesnt know his way around a bike and he gets left to assemble bikes by himself. One full time guy lets him but the other full timer(my brother) doesnt want him to pdi bikes until he is trained.

Good way to find out if the staff know what they are talking about is to ask if they ride and what they ride.

Regarding willhub. The wheel axle and bearings does cost £10 and you need to remove the freewheel so you can adjust the cones once you put the axle in. If the staff where decent they would have did this for you(removing the freewheel) as it takes like a minute tops. A few weeks ago a guy came in riding lands end to john a groats and wanted a spoke to put in his wheel because he didnt have the tool to take the freewheel off. I took the freewheel off and put the spoke in his wheel(had to file the spoke down as it stuck it past the nippe so could have caused a puncture). It took quite a bit of time but he was happy and i felt good cause i had helped him, my manager disagreed though.

Willhub, if the forks are stuck stiff it is no doubt a cheap FS bike so no wonder it slows you down. Try and get a ride of a decent full suspension bike and you will change your mind on it. My brothers bike has 4" of travel on air shock and it feels amazing. My own bike has 8" of super plush travel and feels like having sex on a waterbed!

an apollo vendetta is hardly a good bike by any stetch of the imaginiation and a saracen xray would be specced with dire parts. I had the xile which was the one up from the xray and it only came with V brakes and cheap parts. I still have the frame but with decent parts on it. If the guys at halfords knew what they were doing and were into bikes themselves they would help you out. I help people out all the time and when i go to other good bike shops they are usually pretty helpfull with me.

 

[SgtTupac]

Hey guys,

Im thinking of buying a Santa Cruz V10 06/07 model, does anyne on here have one and what do they think of them? I want frame only as ive got all top rate components to go on it already. So what does everyone think of them? Anyone ridden one?

 

[Raymond Lin]

Hey guys,

Im thinking of buying a Santa Cruz V10 06/07 model, does anyne on here have one and what do they think of them? I want frame only as ive got all top rate components to go on it already. So what does everyone think of them? Anyone ridden one?

Westcott has a SC IIRC.

 

[Bennah]

Did'nt he have a Heckler and a Nomad?