Be Excellent To Each Other

Yeah, that's good. When I was a teenager, the woods were only about 5 miles from home, so that made it a nice distance. I wish there were more woods near here. The proximity also makes for a shorter push home when things break.



Heh. Acebest. When I raced, the worst thing happened as there were 4 attractive wimmins watching by the side, I noticed them and then gracefully slid the bike on its side down the PERFECTLY FLAT bit of grass...



Well, only really for 8 hours. Unless we make him do all of it and we sit there and get drunk.

Objection withdrawn.

C'mon, let's do it. There are 3 possible outcomes:

1) Awesomeness, we win
2) Awesomeness, we don't win but have a good time trying
3) 24 hours of absolute hell and everyone laughs at us
4) The world blows up

You need TEEM BEEX lycra

I'm hoping 4.

Good, so TeemBeeX would be :

Myp
Grim...
Malabar Front and myself.

Mimi can make the uniforms.

We'd probably need lots and lots of spares as well. So rather than waste time fixing shit, I suggest we get 2 spare bikes. As then we'd only have to change the pedals.

Technically Myps would read 'TBX'

Er...
I haven't yet seen what TEAM BEEX is actually intending to compete in. I'm guessing it has something to do with mountain bikes? Anyway: No, thanks. Doesn't DBSnappa ride bikes a lot?

It's only a 24 hour team based endurance event.

Technically, I don't own a (decent) mountain bike, though.

Can I use the Land Rover?

I fully expect you'll be needed to pull us out of some bog or similar.

Change the tyres and it'll be fine.

With no suspension?

Just bend your knees.

You George Michael fans are all the same.

You can have a borrow of mine.

Suspension is not a "need". Your legs and arms ahve more travel in them than any suspension fork, so they'll do.

Simple Myp - You ride Mali's bike, and Mali and his telescopic limbs can ride yours.

Haha, sounds like a plan. Go, go gadget Mali!

He'd last 200 yards on Vikki. It's a man's bike, not a Myp's bike.

Do you have to ride her hard, Mali?

No, it takes all my money and tries to kill me.

Be very careful buying old GT full sussers as they had some proprietary linkage swingarm they invented that they no longer support, so getting spares will be a nightmare.

Did I mention I have two Trek VRX 400 frames in my shed...

I do. A shop in the west end I used to frequent a lot looked into entering one of these 24hr MTB races a few years back - it never went anywhere as whenever they thought of entering the comp was closed. I think it sounds like my idea of hell and you will be scared at the level of fitness of most of the amateurs that turn up at these things, let alone the pros. One of the courses I regularly ride (Penhydd at Afan Argoed) frequently runs comps and the pros who turn up do the course twice, on single speed bikes in approximately half the time it takes me to do it once.

yeah, I think that might be a problem, as when I emailed GT, they couldn'tt ell me the seatpost size, or BB size. I'm reading about the VRX 400 frames atm..

I'm wanting to go out today,as it's lovely and sunny. However, I'm not sure which route I wish to do. There's the southern route, which was OK, but the firing range is still in use, or there is the Western route which I did the other week and it was a quagmire and I don't fancy the shortened southern loop. To the East there is a potential "there and back again" route, but I often dislike them, and it's mostly on road, but does have a hill. So if I do that, do i go up the hill on road, or down it off road?

Today I foolishly went out with a puncture repair kit & no tyre levers, it did give me a chance to try this technique though & it works surprisingly well even with deep walled rims & the worlds tightest tyre^TM (Primo Walls).

Dunno if any of the other guides are of any use to you big bike loving types.

Kevlar beaded tyres also help. Another alternative is to stuff they tyrre full of grass.

I have a set of beaded tyres for the Tomcat, but I can't imagine it's for the same reason. Do you reduce the air pressure in bike tyres for more traction?

The short answer to that is "no".

It can be done. I don't as I don't carry a pump and can't be arsed with that amount of technical stuff. I tend to run tyre pressures at a constant level and ride around the compromise by weight shifting, which you end up doing a lot anyway to vary the loads on the tyres. I prefer a higher pressure in the front to let the shocks do the work and avoid punctures and a hard back tyre to avoid punctures as I'm not the most delicate of riders at times.

I prefer the beaded tyres for ease of getting on and off rim, though, and the small weight reduction that they bring.

It's a process of compromises, really, as I like a bike to do most things OK, whereas others set up to excel in other sorts of riding. My prefereance is for long draggy climbs with short technical uphills as i've got the build of a climber and quickk technical rider, not that of an out and out downhiller, so malibike is set up to reflect that preference (quick steering, weight over the back wheel, shorter reach to bars, bar ends to make things more comfortable).

Aha, it sounds like a different process. A beaded off-road tyre is a metal ring that goes inside the tyre so you get a ring - tyre - rim sandwich. Then you drill a load of holes through all three and bolt it all together so the tyre can't get away from the rim.
Then you can run pressures as low as 6psi for more traction without worrying about losing a tyre.

That's perhaps not the proper name for the process, though.

Ah, if it's soft, I run the thinnest possible tyres, at the highest pressures. They cut through the gloop to get to the hard stuff underneath. At the moment, I'm running something stupid, a 2.1 on the front and a 2.14 inch on the rear, which is shit for mud as the clearance is so thin by the frame, the mud clogs it up. And the wheels stop turning.

As a further note on the "quick steering" issue:

My forks have about 100mm of travel, so I run them really soft, so about a third of that is used when I'm on the bike riding normally, which gets around the head angle issues and makes the sterring "normal" for the frame and not slower.

I always found that the beading hindered rather than helped (for pulling the tyre off, not for 80 PSI cruising (yes that's what I ride)). The grass trick is great, though if you're pished you never do it right & have to buy a new tyre in the morning

Just went over the bike. Currently need:

Spoke key
Gear Cables
Oil
2 sets front and rear brake blocks

Ho hum.

What is a typical bike tyre PSI anyway? My trail bike has fairly skinny tyres (about an inch across, perhaps? I'll measure later) and I just pumped them up until they felt alright -- 40psi ish.

Depends on what/where they're used for, I ride a hyrid dirt/street BMX. My front is a Primo DirtMonster/VMonster (can't remember which) and it has 65 on it's wall which is what I run it at unless I'm playing in dirt, then it drops to 50. The back is a Primo Wall that says 80 PSI & I run it at 50 on dirt. Both are 20*2.25 which may or may not mean anything in the land of bigger wheels.

I run 50psi front and back, because I read it somewhere and don't know any better. It seems to handle road and off-road well.

40-65lb PSI depending on profile and personal preference. I generally run about 45-50lb PSI in my tyres.
[edit] that's mountain bike tyres and rims - so 26" rim, 2.25 width.

Tyres say 35-65 PSI. I think I run toward the upper end of that, as I got tired of pinch flats a while back.

Don't know why we're bothering as I know the lazy cunt isn't actually going to ride it anywhere, hence there being no air in the bloody tyres anyway

I rode it a few times up until a couple of weeks back when my leg starting hurting, actually. So neener neener.

Funny that, your leg hurting from riding a bike for the first time in two years.

Nah, I took it out a few times, then didn't for a couple of weeks, then the pain started. Doc thinks it's a calf sprain now, although I had to have a blood test for DVT.

Good god, you're falling apart man! That happens in your 30s, unfortunately.

In that case turned upside down & pumped up to a whopping 0 PSI.Is that the noise the Ambulance made when you thought your chest was exploding?