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

monstrosity

U mad bro?

this is BS

This is true.

Although they did post a link to a little thing mentioning a wolftooth tanpan travel adjuster thing that will make them work together.

yes, with shiftmate / tanpan it can work, but not otherwise

http://www.jtekengineering.com/shiftmate/shiftmate-compatibility-charts-choices/

Yer, pretty much BS.

It's just very un-pretty isn't it?

Dtswiss. I'd get some Xm241 into some 240 hubs. Will last forever. Failing dt hub then hope.

Someone asked for pit’s old bikes? (The salsa bike packing with kids, the carbonda at the bottom of hafjell bike park, where I almost died going down with a SID.)

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Think more along the lines of modern trail bike slack rather than Nicolai Geometron slack I suppose but slacker than what would have been standard in the glory days of 26 bikes?

I find it quite refreshing after seeing so many smooth, fat bellied, jelly mould carbon trail/enduro bikes

Oh my days. I’m jealous. Is the v10 your own or a rental?

I’ve still never been.
How long you there for?
Would be keen to hear what kind of accommodation you used?

I’ve wondered if Whistler would have enough to do if my wife and young kids came in tow.

I dunno how it works if you were getting custom geo, but if it was 26 and you asked them for modern LLS geo, wouldn’t the bb being really low be an issue? If it’s 26 wheels that would have it loooow yeah? I might be wrong though.

But I’m all for you going 26 if it can work. Indeed parts would be cheap as fuck.

Edit to add that I have a 170 travel bike and a short travel 130 trail bike. I thought I’d use the short travel bike often but in reality I almost always take the 170 bike even on longer xc rides.
Not that I’d ever tell someone not to buy another bike though. You absolutely should do it. But be prepared to find you end up favouring one and the other just sits there.

Looks on par with South Wales wouldn’t you say?
I hope to be able to judge for myself in the next year or two with ex forumer and ex south London ginger bearded mechanic now residing there

Envy level: high.

How would you say it compares to what’s available in Morzine/Les Gets?

I get you but this is more my cup of tea

This is the problem with my Capra being so capable even with 180mm of travel to be honest... I'm hoping I can come up with something different enough to differentiate the two...

I definitely won't be able to just copy modern geo verbatim but I think by picking out some key characteristics it could add up to a super fun bike!

Thinking in the region of the following figures to start -
HA - c.65°
STA - c.75°
Chain Stay - c.425mm
Reach - c.430mm

I'm not entirely sure what I'm at but I guess I just want a relatively short back end with ST and HT angles to suit good pedally-ness and good handling?

I like this

Yeah it's a pretty special place. The scenery is amazing, and I think the autumn leaves added to that.

There's trails for all skill levels there and they provide a progression matrix that rates trails in order of difficulty, the idea being you tick them off one at a time if you're unsure. I did a warm up lap on one of the greens and whilst it was very tame, it was still a lot of fun.

Talking of dying, my second run down I was trying out the dual slalom type trail that runs right under the chair lift in whistler village. Some people were yelling at me from the chair lift. Seeing as I was on my own I assume it was a case of mistaken identity. But when the occupants of the next chair were also shouting at me I thought I better stop to see what they were trying to tell me. Turns out there was a bear on the trail just ahead of me! I was within 10m of it at this point. Hasty retreat back up the hill to find another way down. Took a pic of it from the chairlift on the way back up.

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Not my V10, a rental. Best compliment I can make about the frame was that I didn't really notice it. It just felt confident and did what I asked it to do without fuss. The fork needed more small bump sensitivity amd didn't cope with the braking bumps as well as the rear end, but overall, for a rental it was well maintained and the perfect tool for the job.

I was only there for the weekend. Without boring you to tears, I've got to attend an exhibition in Chicago for work and covid rules means you can't fly into the US direct from the UK, you have to fly in to a "safe" country for a minimum of 14 days before the US will let you in.

So I drew the short straw of 2 weeks in Canada visiting some of our customers. And to achieve the 14 days I had to fly in to Vancouver on the Friday pm amd wouldn't need to see any customers until the Monday.

Like you, I'd never been and always wanted to go to Whistler, so my choices were kill time in a Vancouver Lenny's Lodge on drive on up to Whistler. Did feel a bit blessed for all the stars to align the way they did.

I stayed in a place called the Whistler Village Inn & Suites. It was pretty basic, a pull down bed, a sink and a fridge etc, but it was very central which allowed me to make the most of my short time there. There wasn't really any hotel facilities but there's so many cafes, bars and restaurants in the centre I certainly didn't go hungry. There's also a fairly big supermarket within walking distance.

Got to be honest, I'd probably not take the family. Its extremely expensive, I certainly couldn't afford to do it if I had to pay for everything myself, even as a solo traveller. Even being fortunate enough that my work was picking up the flights, car hire, hotel, etc, the bike hire, lift passes and the mtb specific 2 day travel insurance I took out cost me a small fortune.

There is stuff in the surrounding areas that a family would enjoy (if they don't bike) but having had family holidays in the Alps, where there's loads more for the whole family to enjoy, I'd recommend that over whistler all day long. 4 bums in a car to drive to the alps will cost you a fraction of what flights to Canada for 4 would cost. Whistler itself is clearly a purpose built ski resort and feels much more commercial ie just set up to extract maximum cash from the visitors. And unlike in the alps there aren't any mountain bars or restaurants you can pull over to. You have to return to the resort for drinks or food.

I'm sure your family would enjoy it, and the whole area is ridiculously beautiful but I think they'd enjoy the alps more, and that's even before any cost considerations.

South Wales ftw. If you've got a friend out there who can show you around and you can crash with then definitely give it a whirl. I reckon 2 days in the park is probably plenty TBH (maybe that's because I was on my own and it would be more fun with friends) but if you have someone with local knowledge then the trails all around the area and in Pemberton, Squamish and the hills around Vancouver too are meant to be amazing.

Honestly, if you're comparing Whistler bike park with the whole PdS region it doesn't come close. It's tiny by comparison and there's only 3 lifts that service the whole park, so it gets very congested. There's only 1 lift out of whistler village itself (might be 2 in peak season, but right now only 1) and apart from the first 2 runs each day, the queues and waiting times were ridiculous.

I learnt quite quickly to stay up the mountain on the Garbanzo chair and also dropped into the newer and quieter trails on the Creekside gondola just to make sure I got maximum riding time for my limited time there.

Creekside only opened in 2018 and is quite a refreshing change to the main park. More technical, less jump, jump, berm, berm, repeat than the rest of the park. I think they're trying to replicate the more natural trails you'd find elsewhere in BC. There's still tonnes of big man made swooping berms and trails, but less tables and no high consequence gaps and drops.

My own money would go on an alpine trip all day long, but I do feel privileged to have had the chance to ride so many of the trails I've always dreamed of riding, and I think with friends and with more time to explore beyond the park it would be a trip of a lifetime.

I had to rein it in a bit; the thought of spannering my whole trip and my company's plans to be at this exhibition if I had a serious crash was in the back of my mind, as well as riding solo, but it was still a proper "pinch yourself" moment when I rode A line and Freight Train for the first time. I particularly enjoyed FT as it had a really variety of features, drops, step ups, gaps, techy rock sections, fast flowy jump lines. Just everything that makes mtb great. But my fave trail was undoubtedly Crank It Up. The features weren't a big, but it's just so much fun and you can break off onto Joy Ride which includes some progressively bigger drops before joining back up with the rest of Crank It Up.

But in all honestly in terms of size, variety and "holiday feels" it doesn't even come close to PdS.

How would you say it compares to what’s available in Morzine/Les Gets?

Everything's 5x bigger

Not much cheese

Bears

Not much cheese

Out.

And yes, SLX should work fine with a 105 shifter, or a GRX one

this is BS

I figured so. Bloody bike standards!

135/100, disc, qr, 11sp Shimano, 29er for 2.4 tyres, XC and bike packing.
What wheels do I buy (will consider new or secondhand). Halo vapour any good?

New trek fuel looks nice. Could be a nice marathon and trail bike