Mark W

That's a new one to me, but a quick Maps search reveals all! That's unfortunate positioning though, there's a lot of stuff going on a short drive from you but appreciate that driving-to-ride feels significantly different to pedalling out the door. If you do decide to have a pedal out, I'd be happy to meet somewhere! If you've not been on your bike much then a cruise around somewhere like Cwmcarn would be a good place to start. It's a pretty fun trail centre with some proper signposted routes and a lot of fun off piste stuff, but the climbs there are a bit more welcoming than some of the absolute bastards you can find in the valleys down here... Think it's about 30mins or so from you by the looks of things.

I've seen some snapped Echo Ti BBs. Don't seem to recall seeing any snapped Trialtech or Reset BBs, but I'm sure someone will have done no doubt. The Trialtech ones should be pretty tough though, they're M14 rather than M15 so there's a bit more material in the axle.

I shot the photos of the TMS frames when they came in to TartyBikes, and from memory the only differences between them were just the head tubes. We don't know why they were different, but it was a fun surprise... https://www.tartybikes.co.uk/24_inch_frames/tms_silex_v4_24_inch/c70p13612.html Bit more info there, including the different head tube lengths in case that's any use. Glad you're enjoying the new bike Tharun!

2015-ish, from memory - there was a complete change to the dropout design and disc mount integration that allowed them to stop using the brace design. The new design overall is a stronger component than the previous design, so it wasn't needed.

There is that, but if you are concerned just keep an eye on things. Alloy frames don't just snap, there will always be a crack there first, so keep an eye on/around the welds at the higher stressed parts of the frame and you should be able to spot things before they get that far.

Ah, didn't realise you'd popped over this side of the border! Whereabouts are you? The whole of South Wales is ridiculous for the amount of riding available. So many dig crews everywhere!

It's above a village called Machen - technically it's Mynydd Machen. Some cool trail building on the go there, I believe back in the day they ran some Dragon DH races there. There were some other races too, then the forest got felled and unofficial trails kind of took over.

Some from the other day... Pretty sweet day for it once you broke through the cloud layer. Less so knowing you've got to drop back into that cloud... Took in some of the more fun hills in my area - I live down in the valley to the left of this shot. First series of trails are on that dark looking wooded hill. You climb up the left side and all the trails drop down to the right, with a nice little fire road climb to get back up and do more. Once you're done with those you climb back out, skirt around that slag heap you can see poking out the clouds then climb up to where I took this from. From there there are a bunch of trails to drop down, then onward up the next hill that loops around to another hill the other side of town, with an easy, flat road ride back home. Primo. That trail just disappeared into it. The hill's only about 350m high - started at the top of it and was warm in the sun, got to the bottom about 2mins later and my braking fingers were completely numb...

Ironically, he was out in SF to film this video a few years ago but ended up crashing and broke his kneecap which put the project on hold until he went out this year to film it. Super good video though, as Flipp said, he's definitely still got it! Not really a surprise, but it's still great to see. So good to watch a genuine street video again without there being some kind of narrative f**kabout with it. Just great riding, captured well. That's all people need...

That will probably be a result of that. Interesting to hear they're that much lower though, I thought they were more of a clone. Glad you like them either way

The hook on the top of the rim is the key one really, that's what really holds things in place. My Spank rims didn't have much of a stepped/shouldered shelf at the lower end, and it didn't really make much difference apart from it being a little harder to seat the tyre initially as the bead was binding on the rim and not popping out fully. Gorilla tape is a good shout though! I've used that on awkward tubeless setups before and it did the trick.

If you use Interparcel, they act as a broker - it's basically a price comparison site so you can just search there and they'll show the different prices and shipping speeds. I just had a check and it looks like the only one available is (ironically) DPD - it's £71.35 for their 'Classic' service which is a 2-5working day service. From my experience their tracking is better than Parcel Force, and they use their own couriers within France as well (again, as far as I know) so it's all in-house whereas Parcel Force will tend to use different companies in different countries.

Usually you can just go to somewhere like www.interparcel.com and see what prices are like. Most of the 'big' couriers will be all good (e.g. FedEx, DHL, UPS, DPD/Chronopost). In terms of shipping it it won't be much different to how it was before - you don't have to do anything else. You'll have to fill in a customs form before you ship the bike but AFAIK that's about it.

Yeah, that was certainly my experience with my E4s. They took way more maintenance than my MT5/MT7 calipers to keep things moving properly. From memory it was also the case with my Trial Zone/Mono Trial calipers too, although to a lesser/not-as-noticeable extent. Plenty of other brands go smaller, but I think it's part of the problem of having to design one lever that works with such a range of calipers. On the TZ creaky lever front, I'm guessing it'll just be between the brass barrel and the alloy blade. As soon as either wear you're pretty screwed, really. I expect it's to do with what I mentioned above, specifically Hope making one lever that has to work with such a broad range of calipers. If they bifurcated their range as they kind of did with the Race levers before and had a couple of XC/light trail-orientated calipers with a lever designed to suit them, and then enduro/DH/'gravity' focussed calipers with a corresponding lever, the lever architectures would look different to each other, and also look different to how they've had to do the Tech 4. Hope appear to be ever-more gearing towards simplifying production lines though, so I don't see that happening.

Part of it is that the Trial Zone has a reasonable chunk more power so it will have more flex in comparison regardless of the caliper architecture. That said, to reduce weight they reduced the size of the fin that links the two sides of the caliper, so you have more flex as a result of that too. Not the ideal combo for lever feel... This interview with one of Hope's engineers is worth a listen: https://blisterreview.com/podcasts/hope-on-their-new-tech-4-brakes-sweating-the-details-ep-122 It's principally about the Tech 4 brakes, and in it they mention about the Tech 4 having a spongier lever feel 'in the car park' due to the extra power it has, but believing that it was less noticeable on the trail as you never pull the brakes when you're actually riding compared to standing over your bike. I think there's an element of truth to that for trials too. Obviously there are higher peak loads for trials than there are MTB, but even so I think flex is often less noticeable in use than it seems when you're just standing there. I'm definitely more of a fan of a solid feeling brake for riding, but there is generally going to be a trade off between feel and power unfortunately. Some are better than others though, and I do agree with you about the Trial Zone lever feeling a bit wafty. Also not a fan of the creak either, which I assume is brass barrel/lever blade/pushrod related?

Benito is the ultimate weight weenie. He goes above and beyond to make his bike light - the Trial Zone lever is lighter, so I expect that's why he uses it. The levers are all broadly speaking interchangeable so you could use whatever you wanted, but the strength, feel and extra adjustment on the Tech 3 would make me go for that over the Trial Zone every time.

The Trialtech rim should stay true longer (assuming it's built properly, naturally!). I was there when the Trialtech rim was tested against a Jitsie (and I think a Hashtagg) rim for stiffness/rigidity and it was ridiculous how much difference there was. It is noticeable, and will be when you ride too. Appreciate you could buy a couple of Jitsie rims for the price of a Trialtech rim, but you will definitely be spending a lot more time with a spoke key in hand. The Trialtech rim will also have the performance advantage of being that much stiffer too. I remember reading a message from Gilles Coustellier when he first tried them saying he couldn't believe how much different his bike felt with them on. That said, the Hashtagg rims do seem to be good. If you're not too bothered about the strength/stiffness side of things with the TT rim, the Hashtagg is the best alternative IMO. In general though, I'd say for a rear rim, it's worth spending a bit more rather than just going for the cheaper options. That whole "Buy cheap, buy twice" thing really holds true for rims. They take a lot of stick, so it's worth investing in a better product to have a better experience.

It is, but it won't do much for the "protecting" element you mentioned in your first post.

I've got a riding friend locally who's got a 3D printer and makes bike bits on it, I'll see what he makes of it.

SRAM don't do replacements for them and just want you to buy a new set. There are aftermarket ones but they don't have the little locating grooves for the spacers that the SRAM ones have, so you'd need to modify or get some new spacers to go with them too. Just as an example, there's these, but I imagine once you include shipping you're not far off new BB price anyway unfortunately!

This is an excellent development.

Nah, I get what you're saying. They're definitely holding back in practise and they aren't doing top-to-bottoms, but it does remove some of the mystique of it a bit. I see why Red Bull want to put coverage out now to get people hyped and ready to watch it live, but I imagine most people who are going to watch Rampage are going to watch it regardless, not because they saw Semenuk punt a massive whip in practise. Part of the reason I don't tend to watch it live is that the live show is usually a bit stop-start-y, due to wind, crashes and stuff like that. Those holds are fair enough, but it doesn't really make for the best viewing experience. I'd always prefer to watch a World Cup live rather than watch the replay, but with Rampage it kind of feels like the replay is almost the better option as you can at least skip to the interesting stuff without having to sit through 30mins of tedious American commentator chat while they're waiting for the wind to die down.

I really liked the EDC Lite - I liked the idea of it, the finish of it and the feel of it, but it was just the durability that's a deal-breaker for me really. I am still tempted to throw it in as I've essentially got one sitting around here doing nothing, but if you're buying new I'm not sure it's such a great proposition any more. Just for context, that Topeak tool I bum is £34.99. The EDC Lite tool is £5 more, has less than a third of the functionality and in my experience significantly less durability. The only thing it really has going for it is that the EDC Lite is much cooler! The EDC V2 Threadless setup is interesting as way easier to install than the big boi version, although it is a little more limited in what it can hold than the threaded version. Whether it's worth it probably depends on what storage setups you've got available already though - seeing as Tom's baller and got his fancy glove box he can throw stuff in I guess it's a little less relevant in some ways. Speaking of Cannock, out of interest when you guys go there do you typically ride the 'official' stuff or the off piste stuff? I went there a little while ago and we used some official stuff to get to the off piste stuff, and what we did ride of the proper stuff seemed kind of odd to me. I just have memories of awkward, janky, man-made rock garden type setups, weird jump setups and that kind of hard pack gravelly trail surface? I'm not sure if I was riding the good stuff there or not though... We wound up riding some trails around from what I believe was the original Cannock DH line. Some of them were steeper, more MTB-y stuff, and some of them were shorter bermy/jumpy type stuff. It was only a relatively short ride so we didn't do a full loop of the trail centre stuff as we were mainly aiming for that off piste area. Just curious about what the rest of it is like really.

It's surprising alright for longer climbs to be fair, it's no XC whippet but it feels reasonably fine to me. I leave it fully open the whole time so I've got a few extra clicks of "f**k this is horrible" help if I need it The plug tool I've got was surprisingly nice quality. With it being relatively cheap I was expecting it to maybe be a bit average, but it's nicer than a lot of tools I've seen that cost way more! The only downside with their EDC Lite style tool is that I don't think there's quite the same variety of tools/bits in it? Not that the 8mm on the EDC Lite would be good for much, but I'd rather have one there to roll the dice with than not... I have got an EDC Lite tool here ready to go into my steerer, but I cracked and bent one of the EDC Lite tools (I was loosening my front axle which I had tightened with that tool, and it just cracked around the rivet holes and bent so it was a parallelogram shape), and had the actual body of the steerer tube housing shear mid-ride as well so I'm a bit reluctant to f**k about with it again really. It's a nice idea and it was really handy, but I think I'd either go for the proper version of it or not at all. That's the multi tool I carry - it's the Topeak Mini PT30. I've got a spare quick link stashed in the little housing in it too. It's an amazing little tool! Super high quality and has all the tools I've ever really needed. I've used the chain tool as a general "workshop" chain tool before and it held up fine. All the other bits have worked out nicely too, even the knife (handy for shortening emergency zipties and stuff). It's got the reaming bit and a jabber for a tyre plug so I could theoretically bin the bar mounted one off, but having had to plug a tyre in the past I think I'd prefer a bit of extra leverage. The plug jabber and the knife both have lock-outs, FYI. It's a dinky little tool and comes in a little neoprene pouch, so it just goes in my pocket and I forget about it. I'm a fan of minimising weight I'm carrying on me, but it's such a good tool it's kind of a no brainer for me now. If the EDC Lite tool was a bit stronger I'd just roll with that again, but having had it fail in multiple ways on rides now I'm a little reluctant. [EDIT: Forgot to add, but it's got a super handy little tool built into it which allows you to disconnect quick links super easily. It's a proper game changer! Such a good system.] And yeah, I'm reining myself in a bit with the front end height! I've always liked a high front end on every type of bike I've ridden, and this is no exception, but I can definitely feel when it's too high on this in terms of getting front end grip. It's a playful feeling bike though, and with a lot of the trails being pretty steep down here having a slightly higher front does come in handy at times. The 50mm rise bars came about when I got some second hand forks for my hardtail that had a shorter steerer than I was expecting. They feel nice to ride with in general so I carried them over to the Swoop, and it's given me the flexibility to play around with bar height a bit more now as I've got some stackers to play with.

There's plenty to ride down here, but a lot of it is more winch-and-plummet type stuff. We have some more mountain biking-y stuff as well, but the hills down here tend to be short(ish) and sharp(ish), in managed forests, so a lot of it is fire road climbing to then bomb down some stuff. There are some pro trail builders who live in this area who have developed some of the hills, and then some dedicated dig groups who manage the others, so there's some good quality stuff out there! It's a good mix of foresty/tree-y/rooty kind of stuff, then other more open rocky hillsides too. Spoilt for choice! It does feel in a way like I don't really do 'real' mountain biking as such, but it's a lot of fun so I'm not too bothered. If you start linking the different hills together you can do some pretty big days out, so if you want to cover some decent mileage (with a lot of elevation) you can do. Are you saving that Yeti build for the TF Cannock meet?