Heatsink

Thanks for your message Sam! Some good news for those waiting - I've had a productive evening to completely catch up with orders including the CNC Magura backed Coust / HSB Red pad orders. All the parcels are going out tomorrow for delivery Wednesday if the Postie is on form. Thanks again to everyone for their patience, and I look forward to not having delays like these again. Straight onto building up stocks now Steve

Hi Jimmy, My sincere apologies for the really poor service, and to all others who had the same experience. I've got your order here, marked the 14th of April, which is a crazy wait for anyone. I can't find any of the emails you've sent, but nevertheless I should have been proactive in emailing you the status. I've been struggling for time more than normal recently, and when time is particularly short then it's easy to get an email backlog too. I'm guilty of not keeping riders up to date on delays via email. Then I ran out of CNC backings due to embarrassing stock control, just to make ontime delivery more challenging. Stocks of pads and backings are high again now, so I'm getting back upto speed, and am completing the last outstanding 10 orders in these next few days. I am working to get things back to the same day send out that I myself would expect. I'm really want to restore riders confidence in HSB send out. No special excuses for being busy, I've been delivering poor service and I'm not happy about that. I know that it's just a question of being better organised and planning ahead which I can definitely do better. Once I've caught up, then I will get the organisation improvements in to stop these slowdown periods for good! Best wishes, Steve

Let's set the end date for 12 Midday Saturday 25th May. I'm really impressed with recent entries! I have my current favs, and I'm liking the tweaks everyone is trying! I think that the CAD drawing thing would work great, with something ressembling a CAD drawing next to a photo of the real thing. I will make up some CAD drg mock ups as material. It is a challenge to get the balance between content (rider, text, components) right so it has enough, but isn't too busy. I think that the connecting background is important. Skies, scenary and nice colour gradients work well to make the image less busy. From a riding image point of view, photos which show the extent of the move (height, distance) are powerful, but this would take up more space and so mean the rider is in less detail. I like the close ups of parts, with careful cropping so the item can be large. Secondary parts in outline (like the bash on Chris' one) look great. A process would look good - CAD drawing - CAD - Photo. Thanks for all your work so far! I will catch up again tonight. Steve

I was thinking an impressive action photo of one of the Cousts, with their logo in close proximity would work well. Cheers, Steve

Great to see this gathering momentum after a shaky start! I'll have a closer look later this evening, but for now, a rich seam of Coust riding photos: http://www.vttcoustellier.com/fr/photos/index.asp Thanks! Steve

I'm looking forward to it being built and hopefully I can get some time down there agreed from the powers that be! Steve

Hi Glynn! The Sunset banner is to be ditched. I would love a more Trialsy Heatsink/Coust Banner to be produced from scratch to the loose details in my 1st message. Thanks, Steve

Hi, I'd really like to improve on the sunset banner on my website at the moment, but am hampered by a distinct lack of Photoshop skills! Consider this an open offer for production of a better banner for my website with the reward of free CNC red Vee or Magura brake pads + major kudos for the design used. It really should have one of more close ups of some recognised HSB components plus integrated in a photo of a Coustellier (recognisably so) their logo, plus room for the same stuff as present: address + email, blank bit at the bottom which the horizontal menu sits on. Current banner - Plus check it out on the site to see how the horiz menu sits on the grey like sea area. Also, I'd like to stick with this font too (Windows "Alba") to match the rest of the site. Thanks in advance for your help! Steve

Good advice from Tom ^^ Stem wise, I'm running an old black 100mm KORE stem. The white logo can be scratched off for a stealthy look which is nice. The whole stem has clean lines, and 3 bar clamp bolts. For looks why not consider whether black/white/silver is best to match your intended fork and frame (I only have black forks so it's black forks/stem/bars that I'm going with), plus I think the tube shaped stems go better with the frame tubing rather than the rectangular ones (eg. World Force). For strength under trials conditions I would side-step the ones with a 2 bolt bar clamp and instead go for a 3 or 4 bolt version. Looking at CRC, if I was buying I'd be happy with some of the stems around 80-100mm for as low as £10-£15 like the KORE, Azonic, Titec ones. I've got bars with a 25.4mm (1 inch) clamp. CRC Stems by price On the bars front, that's a harder one to choose. A huge choice of apprantly very similar looking items. From the thumbnails on CRC it's hard to tell the difference between bars. Pick them on length, rise, colour, brand, clamp size. I'd be tempted to avoid the £15 bars though from experience! Maybe aim at a reputable brand around £25-£30. Stems very rarely break so I'm not fussed about the names stamped on the side of these, but bars on the other hand I would be happy to spend abit more on! Steve

Nice bike! Never out of date I reckon You should have alot of fun on it even in 2008 Steve

Hi Rich, Beautiful filming & Beasty riding! You're on Fire there Rich! Well done for getting the momentum going so well with all your recent vids coming in close succession Keep doing what you're doing! Steve

Hi! It's always a good idea to do a test fit without glue so that you can check the pad inserts properly before getting messy. If it needs a bit trimmed off when you have glue in there, then it means a bit for work as you will have to cut away some dried glue aswell to get the pads to fit in properly. It's perfectly salvageable from where you are at the moment though. Another good idea is to take the opportunity to square the braking surfaces of the pads off before you get to work, although this does require care if you're not doing it all the time. I use an sander turned upside down and have taken the skin off my hands enough times to have worked out how to do it safely! I should have mentioned in my last message that I don't mind doing this fitting for you if it helps. I've noticed that my "How to" guide could do with some more details to make it a solid guide, so it would be useful for me aswell to do a fitting and get some photos & guide text sorted. Steve

More photos! To contrast with my bike you can see my son's brand new bike. No brakes or pedals! It seems that the easiest way to teach a child to ride a bike is via one without pedals, rather than one with pedals and stabilisers. Our son is very keen on his new bike! We're going to be helping him with his riding this weekend! Steve

A bit of paint work to hide a proto tensioner being tried out! Steve

I couldn't resist building up my very first proper MTB frame again. This is the frame that I bought when first getting into XC riding when I lived in Bath. Later it was my first frame getting into Trials. It's got alot of memories for me! I used to commute up the Bath hills on this to University everyday come rain or shine. Then blast around the countryside on it in the evenings and weekends. Happy days racing University buses down Bathwick hill, and spending all day in SPDs! I learn the Trials basics on this frame from Mart Ashton's MBUK tutorials in the late 90s, and it was left as a Trialsy build (as much as this was possible back then!) when I got my first job since there was no local XC to be had anymore. Gradually I added more Trials orientated parts to it, until I bought what I thought was a more Trialsy frame, the X-tort, from now defunct X-Street. Yes, I still had alot to learn about Trials back then! Currently it's brakeless on the rear, which is making things interesting. I'm limited to bunnyhopping and riding up stuff, but surprisingly I've been finding the challenge of having no rear brake quite good fun. It's made me realise how often I was using my rear brake when I didn't need to, and it's making me ride off obstacles in a smoother way since I can't revert to the old habit of doing hops to back wheel and off. Instead, the options are smoother pedal based moves to raise the front wheel, or simple sidehops where the whole bike drops a minimal distance. I'll have the back brake on soon. I don't mind about the BB drop and long stays. I could do with the extra exercise anyway, and it'll sure be nice to not have to continually explain to my work colleagues why my bike doesn't have a seat and looks so unusual! Steve

Hi! There are some tweaks that will be added in the next batch, lets call it the Mk2.5, all from rider and forum feedback: Slightly tweaked seat position to maximise ease of seat slamming without hitting the tyre. Slight raising of the seat stay - top tube join up the seat tube, to assist with (1) and also to improve looks. Integrated booster bottom edge is now revised for max tyre clearance (2.7" Maxxis tyre plus plenty of room if your wheel isn't 100% true) Under downtube gusset from BB is now decreased in length. It was rather long before! This improves looks and reduces weight. Rear Magura 4bolt spacing being reviewed. Possibly brought in from 103mm. Cable guides under top tube to be zip tie type ones. Even more cable hold when the frame is thrown around. Finally the Paypal cart is working again on my site after over a week being down, so I'm looking forward to helping hook up more riders with 24UKs up until the 15th May Pre-order cut off date. Expect detailed build guides going up on my site soon too, to help answer the many FAQs I get asked via email. Also, a photo based guide to how I got my new 24" specific forks sorted with Magura 4 bolt mounts added on the rear. I'll be building up an 24UK with these on very soon with all maguras F&R rather than the Vees F&R I've been running in recent years. Steve

Koxx pads are harder to remove with the boiling method than some. The oven method is quick, clean and works every time Pad glue wise, superglue is great for tight fitting pads (as used for the original pads which are made to be a snug fit for HSB CNC backings ). Superglue is thin and so is great at wetting the surfaces in small gaps, plus it dries quickly for speed of assembly. The best pad & backing combo is where the pads are a tight fit and so will actually hold strongly in the backings when pressed in. In this case, it's useful to wet the surfaces with super-glue to lubricate the surfaces so the pad inserts fully. Innuendo unintended but unavoidable! If you end up with a pad from a plastic backing which is a loose fit due to material lost in the original backing, or it being undersized from normal, then Epoxy glue (The one with the 2 tubes) is great because it can be used as a space filler. The strong Epoxy glues (see packaging for info) will dry in hours rather than seconds for the Superglues. Something to be mindful of before you put them on your bike and go out riding! Don't forget the CNC backing guide up on my website which gives step by step help with photos on replacing pads in HSB Vee & Magura backings. Steve

Update: Now taking pre-orders upto May 15th Steve

Hello! I can sort this out for you no probs Please email me to discuss. Cheers, Steve

The site looks a good strong base for content. Good work! However, you need to get the designs up on the site asap because at the moment there is zilch content on that site! Be sure to get all English and grammar sorted for max credibility. Aside from the points already noted, you should replace the first comma in the "Home" text to a full stop. "Hello and welcome to the zest series clothing company, products.....". Capital letters for your company name? Etc, etc. Best of luck with it all, Steve

Aurelien Fontenoy (UCI Jr World Champ) has started using Snowies recently, following on after so much success with the Heatsink CNC backed pads. He's really pleased with these white HSB pads. He's given me an enthusiastic thumbs up for these being his pads of choice this season. I was wondering recently if the success of Heatsink CNC backings has distracted abit from the plastic backed HSB pads. I should get back to reminding riders about these! They are the product of inordinate hours of work, and I'm proud of their quality and performance after so much investment of time and money. Back to cooking the tea! Steve

Impressive live feed Class Clown! I'm not usually one to follow boxing, but in this case - Come on Joe! Steve

Top notch!

Winging its way to you I wish I could send the car too, but I didn't have a big enough box Steve

I hope you enjoyed it Did you notice this other thing?: Rugged Urban & Space Exploration (R.U.S.E.) Roll on April 1st next year! Steve