Dammit’s adventures in mountain biking

I'm starting to paralyse myself with this. The MD of RAAW is 182cm tall and rides an L - I'm 5cm taller than he is.

Definitely nothing to worry about. The stem lengths are only recommendations.
I run 35mm stems on my Nomad and 5010. Both come spec’s with 50mm as standard.

Running the Pace in the way you have it configured will have shortened the reach but only very sightly, 2 or 3mm at most.

The small rear wheel and slightly longer fork will have the most pronounced effect on the head angle.

Well, too late to change anything now, and I've done my best to match the fit of my 295 which I really enjoy so fingers crossed.

I thought that I'd get the Madonna in late April - seems unreal that it might be here by the end of the week.

Is the Fort William track as unpleasant as it looks?

Well hooks are fine tied to string or other non elastic cords. If you want to avoid hooks all together thicker old electrical cords are great for something anti slip as the rubbery outer part has a lot of friction.
For tying stuff down I would always use ratchet straps or Voile type straps.

Is the Fort William track as unpleasant as it looks?

It's absolutely terrifying. You'll love it

RAAW recommend either a 40 or 50mm stem

Possibly to stop people putting 35mm stems on, rotating the bars back and moving the hand positions behind the steering axis.

Their MD talked about this advice in a YouTube vid - he says it's to get enough weight over the front wheel.

RAAW Madonna V2.2 frame (got)
Ohlins TTX22M coil shock w. 502lbs spring (got)
Ohlins RXF 38 fork at 170mm (got)
Cane Creek Hellbender headset (got)
Renthal 30mm stem (got)
Renthal 800mm bars (got)
Renthal grips (got)
Magura MT7 four piston brakes w. 203mm rear and 220mm front MDR-P floating vented rotors (need the 220 rotor - Bikester)
XX1 AXS shifter (BikeInn)
Wolfs Tooth Magura dropper lever (Sigma)
Santa Cruz Reserve 30 wheels with DHR II front, Dissector rear, Rimpact inserts (got)
XTR cranks with XT ring (got)
XTR BB (BikeInn)
XTR cassette (got)
XX1 AXS mech (BikeInn)
Fox Transfer Performance Elite 200mm dropper (Sigma)
Ergon SM Pro S/M Saddle (Bikester)
Pembree pedals (Ordered)
XTR Chain (Bikester)
Lezyne bottle cage (got)
Wolfs tooth little bag thing (got)
+
Magura QM-40 adapter to go from 200mm to 220mm (ordered)
Wolf Tooth anodised bling kit (ordered)
Shift cable for dropper (ordered)
Wolf Tooth Magura to Matchmaker shifter mount (ordered)

I do hope you're going to weigh all those components separately

Why are you ordering a 220mm rotor?Just get some brakes that work...

I saw these and thought of you.....
[https://m.pinkbike.com/news/review-oak-components-root-lever-magura-brakes.html]
They look to have the appropriate level of fiddle-about_withness; you have to split the brake lines to fit them, so more bleeding required. And crucially they're suitably ridiculously expensive, what's not to love?

The review is full of lies

Installation & Setup

To guide you through the installation, Oak Components has created a
full tutorial video. Overall the process is fairly straightforward and
doesn't require a full brake bleed.

We all know that just looking at Magura brakes makes them require a full bleed

I’ve been eating a lot of cake recently

And (real reason) I think bikes look better with a bigger rotor at the front.

Got my spare XTR cranks out of the garage and there's no ring. Balls.

Good enough reason for me!

Ordered the ring. Surprisingly expensive.

Good enough reason for me!

200 at both ends was tempting because = no adapters, but having a bigger rotor at the front won out.

reassuringly expensive.

I just found (well, my girlfriend just found) my stash of 12 speed XTR chains that I had given up for lost. I now have many chains.

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Went to QECP today, I’ve been before but there was a lot of forestry work going on, that is now a memory and I really enjoyed myself.

QECP

I see the Southern Enduro series visits there a couple of times this year

Yes, something of a recce

Getting some Michelins smuggled through the Gammon curtain.

QECP - is fun, will go back.

Helm mk2 Coil - really like this fork, fiddled with the damping a little when I got it and now it's in the "just works" box.

Rockshox SDU+MegNeg - I might try this with a single token in to increase ramp, but first I'm going to try 25% sag, however my digital shock pump doesn't seem to want to keep any charge so I need to resolve that.

Anyone know if Fox will service a shock pump that's a few years old, and outside of warranty?