Education We Like to Ride Bicycles

Looks dead angry. Love it (except the seat, sorry).

 

The seat is the greatest piece of cycling art ever to grace the face of the earth. I don’t know what you could possibly dislike about it. It’s incredible

 

It's not a Selle San Marco Rolls, is enough for me.

I bought one back in the 80s, never looked back.

 

All I can say is Oi Oi.

 

My hose blew out of my lever today emptying fluid all over.
As you can see, the collet and needle are still inside.. weird.

I’ve now cut down the hose, fitted new collet and needle, put it all back together and done 4 bleeds without success.

I have zero air bubbles (from what I can see) a nice firm lever BUT zero power when braking to the point I can push the bike through the fully pressed lever action.

Thinking I may have contaminated my rotor and pads I’ve stripped it back, soaked the rotor in brake cleaner and put new EBC blues on the bike. Bled again, perfect feeling lever yet again and then I’ve tried to bed in and again, zero power.

Master cylinder failure maybe or am I missing something ?

Answers on a post card…

IMG_6816 by andrew8200m posted 5 Feb 2025 at 21:13

 

So today is a sad day.

I stripped the Scout down to nothing more than a box of parts and a frame.

I shall be doing the same with the Status and reverting the status back to stock. All of the parts from the Scout will get sold, the status will get sold as a complete back to factory spec bike.

Then we have the great day rolled in for good measure.

Here is my new Bosch Gen5 based Cube ONE77!! It’s currently rocking a make do with the Roval wheels as the ones that came on it were the worst cheese I’ve ever encountered. Terrifyingly cheap!

I’ll be adding the DHX2 to it, the Zeb Ultimate and the MT7 Pro HC3s.

I’ve got an GX AXS wireless to go on so I can use my old wheels, cassettes and rotors properly (this came with centerlock and Shimano XT m8120 with XT m8100 groupset).

So if anyone is interested in some nice goodies let me know and I’ll get a sale thread up.

IMG_7407 by andrew8200m posted 25 Feb 2025 at 22:01

As part lists go it’s actually quite the eye opener.. there’s also the full Status 160 to consider with that and the Charge cooker 1 :/

MT5 Pros, MDR-P 203 rotors
SLX cranks and 32t chain ring 170mm
SLX derailleur
SLX cassette
SLX shifter
Burgtec carbon bars
Burgtec stem
Burgtec grips (various)
Evosid DUB crank and 32t chainring 160mm
XT 4 pots with 203 centerlock rotors
XT shifter
XT cassette
XT derailleur
One up V2 dropper post and lever
Renthal 35/35 stem
Scout 290 M frame in black with headset
RockShox Dominion 140
Random mullet wheel sets…

the list goes on.

 

Should have given me a shout, I sell Cube.

 

I saw a guy take a nasty fall yesterday evening. I'd just come out of work and was sitting in the cycle lane behind another cyclist. It was pretty wet and there was quite a lot of standing water. This other cyclist was filtering and passed a car on the left, through a massive puddle. The guy suddenly flipped right over the bars and came down pretty hard - there must have been a big pothole hidden by the standing water.

I stopped to make sure he was alright, as you do. The guy seemed to be okay, but was pretty shaken up, and he was also absolutely soaked and completely filthy. And to add insult to injury, although his bike was fine, his light had come off and about two seconds after we spotted it lying in the road, a bus ran over it

 

Now he says

 

Sorry, I missed your post saying you were buying a Cube. Oh, because there wasn't one!

If your selling your Scout free drop me a pm with a price. My mate wishes he'd got one instead of his Orange Crush, I can ask if he's interested.

In other news, Nukeproof live. But I've known this for months as I'm also a Ridley dealer.

 

Something puzzles me about today's mountain bikes, the gearing. I can see that MTBs are better in every every way now, than my first, which I bought in 1984 but, I don't understand the way new MTBs have gone with gear ratios. Two things, firstly you've got a very wide range with only 12 ratios, secondly, the gearing is very low. On my first MTB gearing ranged from 32 on 32 to 48 on 12 (with a triple chainset) and, as I was always primarily a roady, that top gear still seemed a bit low.

The above has puzzled me for some time, so I would be interested in the thoughts of current owners.

 

I think they're great. Super easy to pedal and fast enough for downhill. What's the problem? I run 10sp on one bike, 11 on another and 12 on my main bike- all good.

 

Yeah I'm not sure I've ever felt the need for a 4:1 ratio on a mountain bike. The top ratio on my road / gravel bike is 48:11 and I don't think I've ever felt the need for more - 100 rpm in that gear equates to about 35mph.

Edit: That's with a two-by setup - 48/31 at the front and 11-32 at the back.

 

Back when I was still cycling, gearing was, I think, generally higher. To me, using very low gearing just felt like spinning away and going nowhere, On my road bike, when I did a bit of time-trialling, I used 42/54 on 12/21 (7 speed freewheel!). Shimano’s Freehub was just beginning to gain traction, when I gave up doing much cycling.

BTW: If you think I’m being a bit of an old fart, I remember my Uncle George, who got me into cycling, telling me how he used to race on the track, using cane rims…

 

With an MTB 1x it's simplicity, it allows for faster shifting (due to not having to move a front mech), with the invention of clutch mechs chain retention is better but all at the sacrafice of ratios. Due to the current crop of 12speed bikes and their range going from 10t to 50ish teeth on the rear, the spread of ratios is huge. Going back to older road bikes you had an 11 to 23 or 25 with a consistent jump between gears, but because of this you needed a granny ring to climb.

It's pushing people to have either more than 1 bike, or compromise on a bike to do everything but nothing perfectly.

You also have to look at it from a manufacturers point of view. They are releasing "tech" now that may seem daft, but it's for a future avenue. Recently SRAM invented the UDH (universal hanger) and got a number of frame builders to adopt it because there are currently hundreds of hangers available for different frames of different ages. Makes total sense to have one generic one that fits everything. It took off and is fitted as standard to most new bikes of say £1000+ now.

BUT... SRAM were playing the long game and having manufacturers make a frame that would fit their new rear mechs without the need for a hanger.

 

Presumably the rear mech mounting was only changed in the first place, as a way of trying to lock new bike buyers, into a manufacturer’s ecosystem. There was nothing wrong with the way it was before that and, any rear derailleur could be fitted to any frame. Manufacturers trying to screw customers, who expected that?…

 

The UDH still allows for any mech to be fitted, but removing the UDH and bolting the new SRAM mech directly to the frame (UDH kind of built into the mech) also makes for a stronger connection. I believe there are pictures of people stood on it.

 

My personal opinion is that bikes are, as a general rule, over-geared. I think that's a consequence of trends being driven to a large extent by what the pros do, but there's a world of difference between pros and day to day cyclists. You see it with gearing but also with bike geometry - it's all well and good for pros in their 20s to have super aggressive "head down, arse up" riding positions where they're stretched out to the max horizontally, but that's not ideal for non-pros.

If you're a keen amateur who is into time-trialling then that's fair enough, but such people make up a very small proportion of cyclists

 

I was contemplating a GX transmission but the cost to replace my free hub bodies to XD at £170 a pop for 3 wheels and to get 2 additional cassettes gave me an aneurysm. It’s was looking like it would cost £800 for the Bosch kit and then ad additional £510 for the free hub XDs and then £560 for two additional cassettes.

The older GX “upgrade kit” at £419 ish is the way forward. I can use my NX and GX cassettes that way.

Yea I didn’t post, it was an impulse buy.

Edit.
How much “Scout” would he want?

I can do frame, a Black RS spec frame in size M 290 by its self or with any of the following.

SLX cranks, BB, SLX derailleur, SLX shifter, one up dropper, one up dropper lever, Nukeproof saddle, headset, MT5 Pro Brakes or Codes, bars, STEM, Burgtec or Deity Grips.

I don’t have a set of wheels for it as I will be putting them back on the status. As for a cassette, I have a ZTTO spare that’s been used for about 10 miles as well as an M7100 chain that was put on recently and I don’t think used beyond setting it up.

Let me know, I can always drop either of you a call and drive up, your only 30mins up the road anyway if I recall.

 

I think the answer to that's pretty simple. MTB gearing has gone from using touring bike triple set ups to gears that reflect how a mountain bike is actually ridden now.

Riding off road you only really use the gears in three blocks. the lowest couple for steep or technical climbs where torque is everything because you won't be gaining momentum.
The middle third are for shallow climbs and traverse.
The highest couple of gears for the flat and downhill.
After about 20mph you're either rolling down a flat road and not pedalling, or you're going mach stupid down the trail and not pedalling.

Compared to road (or cross) you don't need a lot of gears to finely manage cadence, you need a really low gear, a fairly high gear and some in the middle for not up-not down. The best cadence is the one that keeps you going rather than the most efficient.

Also ground clearance.