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

I only moved back north about 10 months ago. They’ve not given me my Official Northerner Card or my Orange 5 back yet.

Surrey Hills for me tomorrow morning, I’m going to take both bikes with me and leave one locked up whilst I ride the other- should be interesting having back to back rides on the same trails.

I know Sheffield isn't as far north as Halifax but it's still the North.

I've also got a Flaremax, it's a great bike, the travel isn't an issue for me, I've got 140/132 and it hardly ever smash through all that. If you think 125 is too short in the rear wall Cotic because you might be able to just increase the stroke of the shock like I did when I bought a new one. The Xfusion shocks aren't a patch on Cane Creek BTW.

Giant Fathom 2!

Forks apparently prone to exploding but seems good otherwise. I’ll keep an eye out for something 120mm for when they do

First time out with the shockwiz on my fork. A wonderfully pricey way to discover manufacturers recommendations are pretty accurate and all I needed to do was reduce high speed compression by two clicks. Next time I need to finish off the test ride of its suggestion and then I’ll test the shock. As someone who wouldn’t really know if the suspension was set up correctly it’s quite reassuring.

Fun video - 2006 vs 2021 V10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lybZaKLw1U

Holy shit, it was wet out there today. Only a few brave souls in Peaslake this morning. Gave the coil a good test run, it's absolutely brilliant. Tonnes of grip compared to the air version, which was welcome considering most of today was spent trying to find anything that wasn't a 12" deep puddle. Even set a few PBs so it must be working ok!

And to top it off, I broke my little finger.

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Even set a few PBs so it must be working ok!

Exact measurements or gtfo >>>>>

Did you break your finger with the coil?

I had a minor off on Wet'n'Wild (I think) where my little finger helpfully stopped me falling over completely by taking my entire weight

Fun fact. I beat Greg Minnaar down Pleney....he stopped for a piss. A wins a win.

Sorry for the boring technical question, but this thread seems to get a bit more traffic than the groupset thread. Will an 11sp Shimano MTB rear mech (rd-m7000) work with a shimano 10 speed shifter/cassette (deore/sunrace)? As far as I know they use the same pull ratio so should be good?

(And who has one too sell me)

I use an M6000 11s rear mech with a Saint 10s shifter & Sunrace 10s cassette and it works fine. Not sure if the ratios are 100% the same but close enough.

Thanks. I think rd-5120 is my guy. Officially up to 46t in 1x and 42 in 2x, both of which are cassettes I already have, and importantly cheaper than the SLX.

I use similar on 2 bikes; XTR M985 shifter / XTM8000 RD / Sunrace 11-46. I have been running that combo for 3-4 years now. Works great.

Lights, camera (phone), action (ish)..

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Nice! What light is it?

A Tobole MTB 8000LM 5 x CREE XM-L T6.. £26.

Battery pack is reliably shit. Lasted just over an hour before it cut out (thankfully on a blue trail). Might try the old Solarstorm that's lurking in the garage. New battery pack needs to be ordered.

Does anyone have a good resource that shows how bad off-road riding at night is?
My guess is that animals are disturbed and that's not nice.
Scariest thing that ever happened to me in the woods (apart from the whole wild boar fear when wildcamping, different story) was when I almost crashed into a badger.

Scariest thing that ever happened to me in the woods (apart from the whole wild boar fear when wildcamping, different story) was when I almost crashed into a badger

That was probably @Ramsaye

In the grand scheme of environmental calamities that humans wreak on the natural world, I suspect that mtb night riding is pretty low down on the list.

I used to go lamping rabbits so mtbing in the dark seems relatively benign!

doggers are disturbed

I know.

You can help stop this MTB scourge by donating to the Doggers In Cars Keep Safe fund, through the website http://www.dicks.org.uk

Every little tip helps.

I'm surprised you didn't use this as an excuse to post the gif of me crashing into are Platypus

Ps. You can't post it now because I already said about it first. Those are the rules