Big Bike Thread

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janesssssy said:
Oh here it goes 'again' Pfttt. My front Roval had a slight buckle so brought it to the lbs. Its great they have straightened it, pop'd it in the forks and the wheel / rim is 5mm off center!!:eek::mad::mad::mad:

They have dished my front bloody wheel. And what makes it worse I'm racing a 6 hour enduro tomorrow. I'm going to get to the bike shop at 9am tomorrow, where do I stand etc.? can they fix it in 30mins? is the wheel buggered? do they pay?

Me = not happy atm.
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WOW. bloke along the street has played with bikes most his life,he has straighten a few rims for me, some mine and some for friends but always a spectacular job and i have to say so consistent that i was thinking about getting a spoke tool and doing the job myself as it really cant be that hard but if an actively trading wage paying bike shop cant do the job ill not bother and stick to what works.
 
Im gonna have to learn to do it myself too, my only local bike shop went out of buisness this week, and the only ones ive got close to me now, is a JJB with the bike department, and Halfords neither of which are any good around here :(
Ive taken a few slight buckles out, but anything serious i gave up on due to not knowing exactly what im doing.
 
Guys, I have a stumbling block! Just went to order those new tyres but I have no idea which size I need. The current ones on my bike are 26" x 2.0 apparently.

I'm guessing the latter part is width? If so, what's the difference between the 2.0 and 1.75 aside from the 2.0 obviously being larger?

Should I be aiming to get 2.0s again, or is it better to have the 1.75, or 1.9s etc.?

I'm assuming it's totally dependent on the tyre itself?

I'm looking at getting these: http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=24622
 
Thinner the tyre, the less rolling resistance you will get, fatter the tyre more rolling resistance and more grip should you need it - As for what you need ive not got a scoobydoo, but in saying that, judging by the tyre your looking at 1.9 maybe? Should add you have the size comparison correct, 1.75 thin, 2+ fat
 
Thanks Knight. When I sat and thought about it, I actually realised that must be the case due to the increased/decreased surface area touching the ground. However, still no idea which is best for this tyre and purpose although I'm inclined to agree that 1.9 might be a better option. As for 2.0, I think Wiggle may have them in stock in that size.

Stupid question again: if I've got smaller tyres (say a 1.75 for argument's sake), do I need to get smaller inner-tubes to fit too?
 
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Usually inner tubes are sized as such to stretch from 1.x to at least 2.1 I think, also there is road ones and high volume ones for tyres 2.3+. So I think you should be fine with the current tubes you have got already.
 
KnightStalker said:
Thinner the tyre, the less rolling resistance you will get, fatter the tyre more rolling resistance and more grip should you need it
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Not strictly true - wider tyres actually have less rolling resistance.
Rolling resistance is determined by the contact patch size on the surface. Check out Schwalbe's explanation below.

Read more info here : http://www.schwalbe.co.uk/pdf/techinfo.pdf

tyre-area.jpg
 
Hmm Llandegla Red+True Blue today, making it a 2 week event for me!

I don't quite feel up to doing the Black yet, maybe next time as the Red felt quite comfortable last time I was there.

/me checks weather forcast.
 
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Just got back from Carron Valley. Wasn't sure if the weather would hold up and, on cue, the heavens opened as I turned into the place :rolleyes: I decided to give it 15 mins to see what would happen and eventually stopped so off I went :)

Never ridden CV before so not sure what to expect. As I was there at 9am there wasn't a single car in the carpark and I didnt see another person till just as I was finishing up around 10:45 so I had the place to myself :D


I went all the way to the top and did a double lap of Eas Dubh before heading down Pipe Dream, looping back round and finishing up with a lap of The Runway totalling 8 miles. MAP HERE


Decent enough trails although taking the left hand spur to go down Pipe Dream was a mistake as, TBH, it's pretty crap. It has 1 decent berm on it and that's it :(

Eas-Dubh is good (hence doing it twice) and has some nice drop offs although I nearly came a cropper on the big one before Kelpies Staircase on my second run as the front end started skidding on the loose/wet gravel on landing but just managed to keep myself up :o. Quite happy that I didnt use any chicken runs and jumped off all drop-offs.

I was led to believe Kelpies Staircase was a tricky obstacle but I didnt even break my stride as I came up to it and straight down without incident so not sure what the big deal is with it as I have seen loads of vids of people falling off on it :confused:


The very last drop off on Eas-Dub is good especially if you have picked up a good head of steam as, once you land, you need to hammer the brakes and basically skid to a stop before the trail ends :D


The Runway is a great way to end the trails taking you back to the car park. The speed you can pick up on it and literally fly off the drops is immense fun :D


CV isn't a patch on GT granted but they have quite a bit of land that's not been harvested yet so hopefully they will develop it into something really good. I am hoping that, because its a Forestry place that it can end up really good like all the other Forestry 7 Stanes sites


Nice wee morning jaunt all in all :)
 
Berger said:
Hmm Llandegla Red+True Blue today, making it a 2 week event for me!

I don't quite feel up to doing the Black yet, maybe next time as the Red felt quite comfortable last time I was there.

/me checks weather forcast.
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Have fun! :) I've been enjoying going there for the last few weekends, can't wait to get a bike again now so I can go again!
 
OK so thanks for the advice in previous posts about bunny hopping. I just went out and had another go outside and something happened.....I did a bunnyhop. Ok so the height is not good at the mo, but I think I get the technique. The key thing that suddenly made it click for me was just going along trying to get the back wheel up by itself. First few times I was thinking, this is not possible, how on earth can you get the back wheel to come up without whacking the front brake on or something.

Then suddenly I got the back wheel to come up a tiny bit and it bobbled accross the floor. I was like....hmm. Hang on. Then I did it a few more times and started getting it higher by being more aggressive leaning over the front more. Then I went uber aggressive and actually accidentally pulled the front as well and it basically turned into a bunny hop. I thought.....hmm that's actually really easy. Within minutes I was bunny hopping along on the flat thinking it was good so I tried to bunny hop onto a curb and it's just not happening as I can't seem to get much height or distance yet. So next hurdle, actually using it for anything remotely useful.


As for making wheels true. I had a quick look on youtube the other day and realised it was all about just turning the spoke tighteners. I bought a spoke tightening tool with the hope of getting my old bikes wheels back in better shape, as this is the main reason it is unrideable at the mo as the brakes cannot be adjusted to a useable point with the wheel so out. Either they rub or the brakes have to be adjusted so far apart the lever has too much travel to be useable.

So I had a quick go myself outside earlier. No I did not take the tyre even off the rim and no I did not use a vice/trueing device. I simply wanted a quick go to see if it even was possible to do it yourself so turned the bike upside down and started gradually adjusting the worst bits. Within about 5 minutes of quick ameturish adjusting the wheel was about 80% straight. Muuuuuch better than before. I think you are never going to get it bang on but it's really good now. I would never pay someone to do this based on this experience. I think taking the tyre off and using it in a better purpose built device (you could mak one easily yourself) could bring better results still.

The spoke tightening tool cost me like £3.
 
Just because the wheel is true doesn't mean it's strong and back to 100%, you can have a true wheel and still have uneven spoke tension.

Building and truing wheels is an art and at the moment I'm happy to pay the bike shop a tenner to get my wheels in as good a condition as they can be.
 
Andelusion said:
Just because the wheel is true doesn't mean it's strong and back to 100%, you can have a true wheel and still have uneven spoke tension
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If you've bent the rim then no matter who trues it then the spoke tension has to be uneven to get it true again as you're using the spokes to pull it straight.

Andelusion said:
Building and truing wheels is an art and at the moment I'm happy to pay the bike shop a tenner to get my wheels in as good a condition as they can be.
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********, it's science and it's not all that hard. Truing a bent wheel does require some skill but building up a wheel with straight new parts is fairly easy with a home made stand or even just a pair of forks with a few cable ties on.
 
Richie said:
CV isn't a patch on GT granted but they have quite a bit of land that's not been harvested yet so hopefully they will develop it into something really good. I am hoping that, because its a Forestry place that it can end up really good like all the other Forestry 7 Stanes sites


Nice wee morning jaunt all in all :)
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good stuff - only an hour away for me.

CV was supposed to be a massive mountain biking place however the funding that was received for it appears to have been misplaced/misspent etc

Loads of information here on what should have been and what is actually happening

http://www.carronvalley.org.uk/
 
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