Let's offroad / mountain bike / mtb / ride dirt

He apparently asked why it didn't come with a bell..

Nooooooooooooooooooo

Anyone know of a decent off-road London to Brighton route?

This one is meant to be good. http://www.lfgss.com/events/518/

maybe, more singletrack please though.

My partner is getting more into mountain-biking and (since it's a good activity we can do together without having to spend a full weekend away in the wilderness), I decided to get her a new bike - a friend of mine owns a bike shop and supplied me with last year's Norco Charger hardtail for (the equivalent of) 425 quid, which I was pleased with. Deore drivetrain and brakes, RS XC32 fork, SRAM hubs - good bike for the money I think.

Anyway yesterday we went on a ride around my favourite local track, she absolutely loved it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY3nZDpxIpw

Here's a video of part of it (taken by an acquaintance). She only walked the nasty-steep-hairpin-into-bridge bit - a huge boost in confidence over her old 26" steel Rockhopper. I also hit a couple of the jumps in the video without throwing a wobbly afterwards, which felt pretty cool.

Also a couple more impressions on my two-month-old Krampus. While it's amazingly good fun on flowy tracks and also on technical sections, it's a bit of a pig on really tight hairpins. It doesn't feel as long as I expected, but it's certainly not as nippy as some other bikes I test-rode (especially in Large). That's to be expected though.

Also I ran out of gears on the steep uphill slogs - smaller chainring required, or Hope 40t sprocket thingy. The Krampus is geared so high I can't imagine anyone using the highest gears - it's a rigid bike for fun trail rides, not an XC racer... again I think this is Surly's budget-conscious speccing (like the seriously crap finishing kit and lack of QRs anywhere). I'll be rebuilding it in a year anyway (sending the frame & fork back to the UK and selling the rest).

I don't know what pressure my tyres were at, but I pumped them up enough so that I just about couldn't pinch them down to the rim with two hands, then a bit more on the rear (running ghetto tubeless).

any recommendations for a pair of good touring yet knobbly mtb tyres
26" x 2.1 max something of an all rounder for the odd bit of mud / road and gravel
ideally solid side walls nothing too flimsy

Schwalbe Smart Sams are a good mixed use tyre. I've used a slightly narrower version than 2.1 and they roll surprisingly well.

They even have a version with puncture protection*.

*assuming you use inner tubes.

Soo many choices! Mostly 1.9 - 2.2
Specialised hemarmadillo, moto digger / , virtvittorirando kevchwalbe land crudschwalbeiser, etc.

A block pattern or one of the above do most dry trails, muddy means bets are off.

^ sorry my phone is being weird.

I just bought a new toy....

Marathon XR If you can find any NOS, Marathon Mondial as the modern replacement

Finally got to take the Dee 29 properly off road, so much fun! Especially for sub-£300!

Yup, size Mediums are 240 on CRC at the moment... or 220 for the Vee (the V-braked version). Very similar to my Inbred setup but half the price, and probably lighter too.

How do you find the Promax discs?

Surprisingly good actually, had a spare pair of BB7s I brought over to fit but don't really have any reason to at the moment.

Awesome. If they're still that cheap in a year I might grab one when I return to Blighty.

I get a bit of an ache at the base of my thumbs after 2-3 hours trail riding. My 10-degree-sweep bars do feel especially straight but that's probably only in comparison to the Mary bars on my commuter.

I have tweaked the brake levers around and that hasn't made any difference. One thing I'm wondering is whether it's because the BB7s on my Krampus need a proper two-finger pull, so I'm hanging on the bars via my thumbs. How do people find the wide Ergon (or Ergon-style) grips on a mountain bike?

I've got the Mary's on my London MTB (On One Lurcher) and I think I prefer them over the straight bars on the Vitus. Though it's been a few months since I've been out on the Lurcher so it's hard to say. Though I'm enjoying the Vitus so much I'm considering swapping the Lurcher for one. Taking the Lurcher out in a week or so so will decide then!

After fiddling with the Vitus' brakes yesterday I got them to bite a hell of a lot better, but still not enough to be fully comfortable with just one finger. Though I've got some compressionless cables to fit which will make that much better I imagine. As a result I had the same hanging onto the bars with the thumbs like you were stating.

I have 45 degree sweep with my Jones bars, the other day I rode my Liteville around the yard with Renthal bars, fuck me, uncomfortable!

I'm using Ergons, had them on narrow/straight flat bars, wide risers, 20deg flat bars and now Jones loops. They're super comfortable, the large GP1s are nice and chunky which works well for me. Tried their skinny race GX1s or something and while they're half the weight, they weren't anywhere near as comfortable. I'm not even tempted to try those ESI things everyone seems to be using now!

Ha, I have ergons right now, but I am about to try ESI. Ergons are rock solid, and as I'm gonna be on rickety gravel for 20-25 days, 16 hours a day, I think foam might be better. Jones bars are a total win in the comfort stakes though.

While I'm here...

Took the Karate Monkey out towards Littleborough yesterday. Went scouting out some trails, trying to string together a handful of bridleways to make a decent evening loop. Had been warned the top of Windy Hill is a popular dogging spot, Hope trials hub managed to disturb a couple making the most of their bank holiday in the back of a Fiesta coasting towards the gate out to the main road.

Crossed over the motorway to Blackstone Edge, got a bit confused if I was on a footpath but as it's all fresh packhorse slabs figured I wasn't doing much damage either way, need to dig out the OS map tonight and take a look. The top's a bit of a boulder field but after that there's some nice flowy singletrack that brings you out by the reservoir. Rolled down to the Pennine Bridleway and back to the train station. Was nice to go on a shorter ride for a change and still managed to squeeze in few good ups as well as downs!

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This seems like the best place to ask about this.

I've convinced myself a dropper post will improve the experience of riding my bike but I'm limited in which posts I can use as my frame is 27.2 and also quite small for me (intentionally) so I need 400mm+ of post.

That narrows it down to pretty much Gravity Dropper or Thomson.

I think id prefer not having a remote lever so if I went GD it'd be the Descender with the knob on the front and if Thomson I'd be looking to get/fit the under the saddle lever. Not actually 100% sure these are still available though.

The Thomson's a bit longer but the GD should be long enough.

Is the infinite adjustability (and better quality - if it is better) of the Thomson worth triple the cost of the GD?

My usual riding buddies are talking of doing Mary Townley Loop at some point this summer. Gonna be both epic and grim.

Clockwise or anti? Got a date? and mind if I tag along?

not sure on the first two... the more the merrier :-)

Remote lever is well worth having. The convenience of seeing a descent and just pushing a button to lower the saddle, and then at the bottom of a climb while carrying momentum from the previous descent being able to raise it again without having to take a hand from the bars makes things so much easier. Having to take a hand from the bars and grapple with a lever under my crotch whilst at speed on uneven terrain does not have appeal in this or most other contexts.