Tom's Bikes

Yeah for basic framesets they are great. I feel there were very similar to Claud Butler or Muddy fox. Affordable good quality bikes.

Thanks I am really pleased with it.

Went away in the Van with the family for just over a week. Great time with great weather. Got back Friday evening and decided the best way to recover was to join some friends on a little overnight Bike packing trip ha. How often can you plan a trip with a guarantee of no rain. Que rushing out to get a new sleeping bag and mad packing at midnight to get ready.
Did cycle route 45 mainly from Bromsgrove way to Shrewsbury. This Goes Wyre Forest way, out to Ironbridge then next to the Wreakin out to Shrewsbury.
Best thing about this route was there is a great selection of places to stop en route, such as Bridgnorth/Ironbridge, plus it follows the river a lot of the way so loads of places to swim.
Did around 115miles over the two days. Lovely weather, a bit warm at times but I'm not complaining. Reminded me of riding in Majorca to be honest with a nice calm warm Breeze.
Rode my Glencoe which was great, love the bike so much. 6 of us total with a friend joining us for a ride from Shrewsbury back. No mechanicals or issues. Only thing was my pannier bolts came loose after about 80 miles. Decided I may need to go down from a 44t to a 42t on the front as it was a bit of a slog on a couple of off road hills. It wasn't that bad though.
Shared a tarp with a friend and slept on a blanket with my sleeping bag on top. Ground was lumpy but it was a good spot and I slept ok. Harvest moon was phenomenal on Saturday night and we spent ages chatting and looking at the stars. Early morning swim as we were next to the river was great as well.
Did a bit of a random Komoot map on the way back to Iornbridge to mix it up, which made use of some great bridleways.
If anyone does this and wants to know any of the decent places to stop at let me know.

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Pics

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both the bike and camping looks great!!

I rode over to shropshire, through Kinver, Clee hill, ludlow and camped in craven arms. Then circled back through bridgenorth, Wrye forest, bewdley and home!!

Very hilly that side of the midlands!!

Ah nice good route that but yes very hilly. I normally head out that way so I know what's coming ha.
Next 2 day trip will be out to Elan Valley to camp so will go a very similar way to you. From there to Aber and train home maybe. Don't know when yet though!

Never had to do woodwork on a bike before.

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I did birmingham to Aberystwyth via Elan Valley last year. wales is such a nice place to cycle! The bits we were on anyway :)

And beautiful scenery!

Phenomenal Route that. I head out that way loads as I love it out there. Elan is stunning to ride around isn't it? The long pass down towards devils bridge looks a great road to cycle down if you have a clear run. I assume you went via Ludlow and Knighton?

We are planning to do that in Spring I think.

After lots of cleaning and a coat of varnish.

Bike pictured is as it came spec wise. I have the large pannier bags for it and I quickly chucked the big smoke bars on to see how they felt as I didn't like the curved bars plus they will work as stoker bars on the back.

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First ride on the Ute yesterday. A few tweaks to position and it rides really well.

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Hi all,

Was having a check over my Whyte Glencoe last night. I was adjusting a couple of things and spotted that my forks may be cracked. I have attached the pictures below. What I can't tell is if they are cracked or if it's just a bit messy where they attached the dropouts to the fork lowers?

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Have you got a photo?

Will be there now.

Hmm that looks too straight to be a crack and could potentially be where the bonding between the two parts is.

The fact that the paint isnt fractured is a good sign. Just looks like a messy manufacturing process.

defo keep an eye on it.

I was thinking that. It wasn't there before though, so something is moving if you know what I mean.
What I don't know is if these forks are cast as one or the dropouts are attached after.

Can you contact Whyte for confirmation?

Yeah, I managed to get a direct email for them. I didn't know if anyone on here had experienced a similar issue.

Nothing wrong with asking around, I was just thinking it’s worth keeping them in the loop! They might be like, 100% fine which I would tend to find pretty reassuring from them. More so than a random bod on the interwebs 😆

Went out on a gravel ride with a mate last night super wet, really sandy, bit muddy in places.

Was on my Glencoe which has TRP HY-Road brakes. Didn't seem too bad for the first mile, once they got wet and slightly dirty they were a write off. Never had brakes so bad, they were dangerous on a scale of 1-10 they were honestly a 1. I had to walk down some downhill road sections as I couldn't make the corners and stop at junctions. I was really disappointed and slightly annoyed as these are a liability in these conditions. I have done loads of riding on it and luckily never had an issue before but only recall one really muddy ride, it was thick mud though. It's so bad it's not even worth riding in conditions like that again which is a bit ridiculous really.

Has anyone had this before? I am running standard pads (red backed organic) with shimano rotors. I think I am going to get some aftermarket sintered pads first then maybe change the rotors to something more aggressive that have more cutouts for mud clearance. Any good recommendations for decent cable pull discs at the moment?

Have you got a route for this? Out past the clent hills?

I can give you waypoints just in case MCamb doesn't. Do you mean Clee not Clent as well?

I've done some nice routes from Birmingham to church stretton and beyond, but coming from South Birmingham there are a load of big hills in the way, lickeys, clent, kinver edge, then all hills around the severn valley.

They aren't big hills. Ha. Merely rolling terrain.

long long rolling terrain