Big Bike Thread

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China has a Worldwide reputation of importing someone else's product, reverse engineering it, re-manufacturing it with cheaper materials and then flooding the market with them at "discount" prices (in comparison to the originals)

They have done this to the point that some companies refuse to ship items to China.

Anyway, the point is that it will get to such an extreme that companies like Hope have the possibility of eventually dying off as people will not pay more for their components even when they are higher quality than the "knock-offs"

Also, I would rather support a home company than a foreign market.



/steps off soapbox :p
 
it shouldn't be up to us to support these british companies by overpaying (i can accept why people do) , it should be up to the government to cut them some slack and stop taxing them into moving production to china.

your speaking about 30 years ago china anyway

those rotors will be made on the same or better machines that hope make them on and superstar state the materials and spec (they will have someone who goes out to check on it)

i could maybe understand if we where on about something that was handmade or was a new design but its a bloomin CNCd brake rotor! you cant go wrong aslong as the materials and designs are decent

people like to jump on china but they have caught up with manufacturing and at this rate will be leaving us for dust. design... well that leaves some to be desired but more and more western companies are setting up there and it will improve
 
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Well i choose to support british manufacturers as long as there products are good. Its not as much about taxes as you might thing, more comes down to production costs mainly labour costs.

Anyway just ordered my Santa Cruz Nomad 2 and hope headset, had to be the normal stack height as my forks wouldnt clear with the low stack.
 
Stuck some new pads (organics) in before a trip to Machynlleth & Nant Yr Arian last weekend... didnt have time to bed the pads in. They bedded in slightly but are still like poo.

Any tips on how I can get them biting like they should? There's loads of info on the net and I don't want to be trying them all! Pads and rotors are clean.

Brakes are Formula RX's. Should i sand the rotors a little?
 
robj20 said:
Well i choose to support british manufacturers as long as there products are good. Its not as much about taxes as you might thing, more comes down to production costs mainly labour costs.
Click to expand...

theres very little labour costs in CNCing some bike components compared to everything else involved like the building services , the business rates , the materials , the tools/machines.

a taiwanese welder or machinists wage is comparable to one here anyway
 
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Not what our company is saying, we do the bulk of our manufacturing in Malta but have plants Asia, its cheap because staff wages is negligable as is sourcing materials. We still do the building of our stuff in the UK though where its easier and faster to configure to customers needs at short turnaround. Labour costs for our UK staff is far higher than that of Asia and Malta.

Back to bikes, i find sanding pads does nothing for the long term. Heat cycling is your best bet, get them hot and cool them fast and repeat a couple of times.
Usuaully though i just leave the brake touching and pedal away get them too hot to touch, then let them cool and repeat.
 
2012 fox stuff at sea otter :
http://www.singletrackworld.com/2011/04/sea-otter-2012-fox-racing-shox/
ti crown forks!
GF7U7688-640x426.jpg


kashmina coated everything

going to be even more expensive than their 2011 range
 
i've bought a new bike pump and its one of the ones with the levers rather than a screw thread.

The damn thing doesnt come with a manual, how is it supposed to work ?

I'm guessing you put it on the tyre with the lever up, then squeeze it down to tighten, but i don't seem to be having much luck.
 
thats where i was going wrong.

cheers for that :D

As you can tell i've not bought a bike pump for at least 10 years :D getting into it again now my lad is wanting to riding his bike.
 
I'm still trying to find an SX trail for £1k, what other options have i got for full sus that will descend nicely, not too bad pedalling and be short enough to jump?

Orange blood looks good as does Transition's bottle rocket but cant find any cheap enough.

cheers
collisster
 
Gah!. Gave my bike a full clean this morning and noticed a lot of "damage". Got quite a bit of cable rub scrapes under the top tube, one on the side of the head tube right through the paint and a pretty nasty gouge on the drive side chainstay which has a small amount of metal missing.

I had a protector on the chainstay but this is right up on the chainstay where the lower strut joins both stays together hidden behind the chainrings so never noticed it before.

I know MTB's are never going to stay damage free forever but I am a bit annoyed about the actual metal damage to the frame after only 6 months and circa 150 miles TBH.

I have moved the protector over this bit now and taped up the rear bit thats now exposed.

Is it worth giving Specialized an email about it or will they just say its "wear and tear"?

I can accept this for some of the cable rubs and for any stone chips but for the metal damage I cant accept this as wear and tear as I have hardly done anything extreme on the bike and have never fell off it or dropped it to cause the damage especially over such a short period of time.

Thoughts or should I just suck it up as a "war wound"?


Don't get me wrong, I will get over it but you know what its like when your first new shiny bike gets some nasty damage on it at first :(


Edit - pics of what I mean...


Gouge at chainstay

IMAG0051%20%28Large%29.jpg



Headtube cable rub (moved cable out of way):

IMAG0049%20%28Large%29.jpg
 
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