Luke Rainbird

Sounds like a good fit for what you're after, Mark. What sort of trails are you riding these days? Bagless ***. I'd add my own non-trials update while I'm here, but I barely got round to building the Yeti I mentioned 38928 years ago and haven't taken it out yet.

How very dare you, I'm not a filthy accountant! I occasionally help people avoid uneccessary tax, but certainly not evade it Not sure I get paid that good money either, perhaps I should see if Red Bull will pay me - a minor raise of £1.8M should do the trick.

Snacks and sick pay, innit.

Oh wow, that's absolutely flown!

I meant the wash cycle, not the kids No judgement for what folk do on the latter regardless. Besides, Aneurin can't be 3 yet, right?

7 years? Surely they're done by now?!

Quite like Mike @ Stanceworks' vids, but know where you're coming from with the voice!

Yeah, Avonmouth is not the one. For the love of god PLEASE do not judge the rest of the country on that basis

Sadface Thank f*** face. Sometimes I get a bit sad at the way forums have gone over the years. Occasionally, just occasionally, a wall of text like that gives me a glimmer of hope. Props for spending some time laying it all out for people who may stumble across this down the line

I was even luckier that neither of ours would even entertain a bottle Once the nighttime poos calmed down, I was getting decent sleep before too long - given the sleep deprivation is the most brutal part of it all, I was thankful. There's definitely a line somewhere where they go from being largely inanimate to being more on the go and things get much trickier, but then you keep going and they turn into proper little people and it's all kinds of awesome. Ella's 4 tomorrow (which is a pretty mad concept in itself) and she's a proper little winner when she's not having a diva moment. Oscar's nearly 2 and a half, and wants to get stuck into everything. I didn't really think much of it before when people would say shit like "it'll fly past, enjoy while they're small", but it's so feckin' true. Both of them being small small is a proper blur, so I'm thankful we did the whole "21st century millennial parent" thing of taking loads of photos as we have a Google album of the best ones for family to look at (rather than spamming FB etc) so often go through that when they're being a bit tricky.

Well that seems to suggest the risk was worth taking. Nice one Sam, stoked to see it's working out well for you man.

When you had Zoo pads, why would you need any other options?!

When I first moved to Bristol for uni, I could only navigate about the city using riding spots for the first month or so. This wouldn't normally be a massive issue, but they had to be in a very specific order, which was NOT the most direct way at all, so some of the freshers' events in the centre that should have taken me about 10 minutes to walk to were a 30 minute stumble home after a heavy session

Shame you're such a shortarse, Tom.

Sounds like a cool addition to the stable, gives you optionsssssssssss

I can't really blame anyone else for this one, sadly! Ah well, cheap and cheerful solution. In other "FFS Rainbird you mong" news: Laced up the new front wheel yesterday, got the bike out of the garage to use the forks as a truing stand and proceeded to drop a brake fitting. Naturally, it went straight through between the decking boards never to be seen again. Classic.

Well, after feeling all positive about getting the bike (pretty much) done this weekend, I've been the master of my own downfall. A while back (9 years, according to eBay) I had to convert my Pro 2 rear hub from 36h to 32h. It appears I grabbed a Pro 2 EVO shell at that point, which is the same as the non-evo version so swapped straight over. The axle, of course, isn't the same at all so the 142x12 end caps, which I bought after checking the shell and seeing it was definitely an EVO, don't fit and I can't get it on the bike as hoped. Muppet. Ah well, the new axle is only £20 and it's a good excuse to replace the bearings as they're also 8 years old

Yeah, ideally I'd have picked up something 130-140mm straight off the bat, but I got impatient after nothing turned up silly cheap within a week so ordered Yeti parts instead I might try and swap/sell&buy my way to an SB5 instead at some stage, but I'm not so keen on the way they look and as well all know, that's the most important factor with bikes... Soph still mentions that random ride we had at Cannock years ago with @forteh. Will have to do something similar in due course. I don't tend to get so far as Mansfield these days, but do occasionally visit Leicester (ish) with work and racing so it might be doable!

As much as I can't condone the lycra, the bike looks great, Ads. It's like when cars look quick standing still. Do you know the weight, looks a pretty svelt setup? Some exciting news for @Tom Booth to enjoy in mid-July, the Yeti build is starting to come together a bit now. Frame hardware arrived. Pivot and shock bolts, mech hanger, dogbone linkage: Found an unused set of MG-1s in the spares box: Had some play in the BB - the one which came in the frame didn't have the wavy washer and end cap/seals that new SRAM GXP BBs have, so I pinched them off the old bike to fill the gap and all spot on: The wheels in that photo are a set of Mavic XA I acquired FOC a couple of years ago. They had spacers to adapt to 148mm and the Yeti is 142mm, so for want of a quick fix I found some suitable steel tube to act as an axle, and the grinder span the spacer as a makeshift handheld lathe to part off some of the length: I'd picked up some MT7 levers and calipers back in the first lockdown. They came without hoses, but were dirt cheap so I figured I'd build them up eventually. 2 years on, I finally did. Only to find one lever had an issue rendering it useless. Ah well, still cheap just for the calipers to be honest! I've since swapped out for my SLX levers and gone Shigura. Waiting on a bleed cup to get a small amount of air out but they feel good so far. Set of Hope Fortus 26 wheels arrived yesterday - Got these for a good price, and a friend is buying the hubs off me. Spoke lengths work out such that I can lace the rims up to my existing Pro II EVO hubs just fine, and new cost of the wheels will be about £50 which is a win Some drivetrainy bits also arrived the past couple of days, albeit no photos of most of it. NX Eagle 12spd cassette (11-50t, so will fit my current HG freehub rather than needing an XD driver), NX shifter and mech, and a GX chain. Dug a few other bits out and mocked it all up to resemble a bike: It'll be more than I need by a long chalk, but if I can keep the weight down (should be ~30lb or so, all being well) and the frame is as efficient uphill as the early reviews suggseted, then it should be tolerable for my needs. Worst case, the frame and fork get sold and replaced with something in the 130mm region. The SB66 was a dream bike when it first came out, so it's nice to be able to build something similar either way, plus it'll give me an excuse to learn to jump and drop if nothing else!

Could these be the PowerPros of 2022?

Well, after having good intentions to pick up something more modern but suitable for the stuff we ride, it all went a bit wrong and I went full retard ordering bits to complete the incomplete Yeti SB6C frame I acquired a while back. Guess I'm building an enduro bike now

Nice one Mike. I was about to ask if that was a pass in the Black Mountains then saw your vid title. Fun roads around there, and a decent chippy at the southern end from memory too!

Nice one Tom, bike sounds great and that's a considerable drop in organic mass, congrats! I picked up a Whyte T130 for Soph 6 months ago and it's been great - currently looking for a c130mm 27.5" trail bike to replace my old 2010 Stumpy and struggling to find much that ticks the box as well as another T130 for the money. Don't really want to be "that" guy rocking up at the trail centre with matching His'n'hers setups though

I've only run Rainsports (3/5) on our daily Volvo for years and been very happy. If you were abusing the car often in the dry then they wear faster, but for general UK road use I've been very pleased. People run them at club racing level as an inter/wet tyre, so the performance can't be awful! The only other thing I'd run on it are Pilot Sports really, which are a little more dry-weather focused. Typically above your budget, though Costco have reasonably frequent deals on them which bring them into the right sort of range from memory.

"It's basically parkour on a bicycle and it's how babies are created" Sounds about right.