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

Well that's entirely up to you.

It's not a whole lot more TBH, it was just enough more to put it out of my reach because I couldn't get some bits second hand. I think the SLX 10 speed shifters are cheaper than the 9.

2014 Rockshox Pike looks interesting

Anyone want any 9 speed kit? I have an XTR rear mech, top clamp LX (remember LX?) front and LX shifters I'm not going to use. 2003 vintage - but very little use.

^Maybe. What do you want for it?

I'll take some photos and ping them over to you with a price. Also have cranks and cassette, again not much use but old... original X9 and hollowtech.

Red trail opens at Swinley tomorrow, there's a big train ride meeting at 10. I'll be on an orange ss, say hi if you see me

Colour, make or both?

Colour. It's a Ragley.

Back to yesterday's manual discussion, I raised my bars bars today by about 1 cm and the front picks up like Jimmy Savile guesting on Saturday Swap Shop. I still can't manual for toffee...

Rode both the new Swinley loops today... Blue is really good, the kind of trail that gets better the faster you ride it (there's already a video of one person making a 3ft double into a 40ft stepdown). I was a little less impressed with the red, it's mainly old trails with a few, admittedly very good, new sections added in.

I think it's definitely going to be mid-week rides only for me there from now on, I've never seen so many riders.

Blue is indeed goooodt.

Boom! The Flow is built, brakes could do with a bleed and there's a smaller rear sprocket on it's way, but it's a fun little beastie.

really nice build, magic gear or eccentric BB?

I was Fortunate with an almost magic gear, you can see a little slack being taken up by the chain guide but it runs well. The smaller 14t might cause a problem but we'll see.

Today was awesome at Woburn, completely dry and dusty, got shown the best bits by a local mate and spanked my riding buddy on all of the dh sections, nice

Rode around the Cwmcarn trail on friday. Did an experiment to see how low I could run the tyre pressures. Tried 18psi in High Roller 2.3" XC. Too low. I heard the rim a few times when going over rocks and took it easy over other bits due to being too lazy to get the pump out of my bag. By the end of the loop the tyre and inner tube on the front had rotated about 10mm.

Oops.

What is this inner tube you speak of?

They're these strange retro things that bikes used to have. They're of the same era as 9 speed cassettes.

How were conditions at Cwm Carne?

A little muddy due to snow slowly melting. They're repairing parts of it which has made it so much more fun.

I now need to get fitter.

Is it open then? I read on some site or other that Twrch is shut for a bit. I guess it's only sections that are shut...

I might be up for a ride up there soon if you wanna meet. It's pretty easy to get to from here (devon)

Twyrch was open last weekend apart from a section where there is apparently being work done. It was still a good ride though. Closed section runs parallel to a road which you use instead.

Yeah, the one section is shut. It's the bit which goes past the BBQ area. You join back up where the almost unrideable concrete bit is.

They've adjusted some small parts of the next bit as it goes through the trees. So much better, the flow is back.

Gimmie a shout when you're planning to ride it and I'll see if I have the time. Work is rather unpredictable so I tend to ride whenever I can.

Almost unrideable? Try more than 18psi ;-)

Only joking, think I must have skipped a bit by accident as I rejoined the trail where there's a little bench and an open view. Probably missed the best bit. Bugger

Shane, my work is pretty unpredictable too, I tend to ride weekdays at lot, if I am waiting around for clients to sort their shit out!

anyone know how muddy epping is at the moment?