MidAirCrisis the Geordie Mountain Bikers

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OOOps! Short travel Manitous... Our Bikes Here Video Stuff Upgrading Slime

This piccie may explain why Dean isn't so keen to take his Giant XTC off-road. Last time out for him at Newcastleton, and right at the end of the day's ride, the spring popped out of his left hand fork leg, firing the cap at the underside of his chinny-chin-chin. Hilarious now, but if it's trajectory had been calculated by NASA it could well have hit one of his eyes. Not a nice thought. Probably a moral here... avoid cheap and nasty Manitou Skarebs! Come to think of it, there's a lot of negative stuff on the Forums about many of Manitou's products. Between the local bike shop where he bought the XTC and the Manitou agents, it took quite a while for Dean to get satisfaction and a replacement factory-modified fork top for a known problem on a fairly new bike!There's another lesson here aswell - keep a few tough cable ties in your backpack/bumbag/saddlebag. They can fix anything. Probably. can advise on all crisicle repairs.

John's Forks September 2007

SLIME! I've used this stuff from Halfords in both motorbike tyres, MTB treads and even a trolley at work, and it does work. Here's the mess it made inside the back wheel of my Suzy SV650:

Not very pretty, but when it's relatively fresh it works with glass cuts, nails, screws and thorns. When it goes off a bit, though, like in the shot above, it stops plugging the holes. Halfords now do their own orange stuff and I can vouch for that aswell. Just for interest, I had to scrap this tyre with a perfectly good tread because they aren't allowed to repair them because of their speed rating! And if I puncture my new £100 boolie I'll have to chuck that away an 'all! HOW TO USE

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I've been desperate to find some winter tyres that won't spit me off every time I get near a wet tree root. My trusty Kona Bear had great use out of a pair of Nokian Gazzaloddi Dual 2.3s in 2005 but whenever it rained I suffered. Fantastic in the dry but sometimes evil in the wet. I put this down to the never-wearing lumps sticking out the sides of the treads, giving the tyres a flat profile a bit like a tractor tyre. The treads on my Barracuda (don't laugh - it's a great little bike) are just the opposite - super-sticky in the dry and grippy in the mud with no square corners - just wrap-around suction pads. They're Specialized Enduro Pro 2.2 Folders.

Anyway, the last time Cycle Promotions had a show on at Gateshead I bought a pair of 2.35in Maxxis Swamp Things. I fitted these to the Bear for the Hamsterley Trailblazer ride, which just happened to be quite wet. I can confidently proclaim I've found what I was looking for. Even submerged under two feet of swollen river torrent at Hamsterley they gripped fine, with only the lack of rider skill letting the bike down. Sploosh! They were great going down in the mud (!) and wet roots didn't push the front wheel off line much at all, even when taken at bad angles.

Another thing I did before the ride was to wind down the preload on the Junior T forks almost to minimum. This gave me about 25% sag on the front to match the Fox Vanilla on the back, and it was a great improvement with no more chattering on the mid-sized rocks and much gentler wallops from tv-sized items. So all-in-all it was a good day for riding and ride tuning. Thanks Trailblazers. Of course, the tyres and forks now belong to someone else, don't they? Kill a bike thief today and Feel Good.

Hayes Hydraulic Brakes

Four of us now have Konas fitted with Hayes HFX-9 hydraulics, either XC, DH or Mag. Three of the four bikes have suffered from lever reach adjustment screws coming loose. Luckily, the screws are captive by design so can't be lost, but it's a bit annoying. The threads are coated with Loctite or similar from new but it seems to break down quickly. The moral of this tale? - Two, actually: first one - keep a titchy Allen key handy if you have Hayes - it's about 2mm (better check now!). And the second: Use Hayes hydraulic discs - they have fantastic stopping power! Also, BluTac fixes the screw loosening problem!

Hayes Mechanical Disc Brakes

I got these on the Bear when I bought it, but moved them to the Barracuda when the Bear went Hydro. That was two years ago now and they've only had one pad change since. Just before Christmas, however, I lost the use of the rear brake in Chopwell Woods and haven't yet looked at them to see what the problem is. Power is completely gone but there's no metal-to-metal squealing so I reckon the pads are still there. Must get it done. Point is, however, that you can get these fairly cheap and they do work very well from new, so if you're on a tight budget check out our favourite shops for them.

All Disc Brake Rotors

Be aware, should you ever have need to remove your disc rotors, that this can be a particularly painful little task. I've just put some 203mm Aztec rotors onto the Barracuda's Hayes HFX-9s and I thought it was going to be a ten minute job. It would have been, had not the six rotor fixing bolts on each wheel been jammed solid into the hub flanges. If you've got any doubt about doing this apparently simple job yourself, DON'T! Take it to your local bike shop and get them to do it. Unless you have good sharp hexagon or Torx keys exactly the right size you've got no chance. If you don't have the tools, your chances are even less. I thought I had the necessaries so set about the work. It was immediately apparent that these things were TIGHT. I managed to shear two Allen keys before realising that severe steps were necessary. First I tried banging each bolt head with a 1lb engineers hammer to try and loosen their grip. That didn't work. I applied a minute amount of GT85 and tried the hammer tap again - still no movement. There wasn't quite enough head depth on the bolts to get hold of with Mole grips. Stuck, I was, but desperate to try out my new eight inchers as soon as I could. So I resorted to trying to move them with cold chisel and a nail punch. Eventually I got two of them to give using this method, and the combination of everything I'd done made the other four loose enough to turn out normally. Same thing happened with the other wheel. If you get nowhere like this you could try using a junior hacksaw to cut a standard screwdriver slot across the centre of each bolt head, but you'll still need an evil screwdriver to get them out. I got the replacement bolts at Edinburgh Cycle Co-operative and they're stainless steel, much better than the original plain steel items. BUT dissimilar metals, as here with the bolts and the aluminium hub, never get on very well with each other, so it's worth loosening them and applying gel every blue moon. We learn as we go. Here are a few pix of useful stuff for the job:

choice of greases and methylated spirit (hic!) to clean oil from rotors-

nice old rag for keeping your bits clean- (and your Granny ring)

some tools for the task- and some nice new rotors-

close-up of old innocent-looking rotor bolts- note position of nail punch.

new bolts greased up (I used Holts No-Crode coz it's red-

and the finished article-

NOTE get the surplus grease off before you ride it. I didn't put new pads in, so you can see the uneven band of pad contact on the disc - this will gradually fill in and cover the whole area of the pad as the brakes bed in over the first ride or two. You can speed the process up by riding with the brakes slightly dragging for 15 or 20 minutes, but it's hard work, so do it down hill.

Crud Raceguard Rears

Beware if you buy one of these. It'll be fine if you have a short travel rig or a hardtail, but if you extend past 4 inches of rear wheel travel and still want a seat height lower than Venus, it won't work. The part of the guard that fixes to your seat post just drops too fast towards the ground so that any movement of your suspension further than roughly 4 inches will see the tyre bashing on the Crud with possibly nasty consequences.

My New Bike see also Upgrading Page Well now. Time is fast approaching when I can show you pix of my new bike - bet you can't wait! As you may know (noticed any reference to bike thieves on this site yet?) my good ol' Kona Bear was nicked from my garage, together with David's Coiler Dee Lux, before Christmas. We've now got replacements, his being a 2006 Coiler Deluxe (new spelling!) and mine a 2005 model Coiler. These things just get better and better with each release.

However, as I'd spent so much on the Bear and got it pretty much evil, I've had to do the same with the new one (c'mon, back me up lads!). I now live fairly close to the (in)famous Whitley Bay but over the Christmas hols I spent most of my time off work in eBay. And the result is an empty bank account but some juicy kit for the Coiler. Anyway, I'm still waiting for the final piece in the jigsaw before I can bolt all the new bits together and show you the finished article. I've already had it on the Stanes with it's new suspension and it is soopah, just what I expected, so that's what I'm calling it.

It's a real pain having to store the bikes away from home after the theft of the old ones but I'm not going to risk a repeat performance. I would offer you all a piece of advice though - it MIGHT happen to YOU, so GET INSURED.

Here's the spec changes for my CoilAir Soopah:
2005 Coiler Frame 17"
Marzocchi All Mountain SL 150 forks
Fox DHX5 Air shock
Hope DH mini stem
Avid Juicy Seven Hydraulic discs
Middleburn SlikShift alloy chainring set middle and inner rings only
Shimano XT Hollowtech II external bearing crankset
Welgo flat pedals with gnarly pins
Shimano XT front derailleur
Shimano XTR rear derailleur
Shimano XT cassette
A2Z Titanium Skewers
Hope XC hubs
Vuelta Excalibur DH rims
DT Swiss Stainless spokes
Specialized Chunder 1.9" tyres for summer
SGS bum rest

Before fitting my new homebuilt wheels it weighed 33.2 lbs. That's a small chunk less than the new CoilAir that Kona have released this year for a mere £2,600, so I'm fairly happy that my bike's even lighter with cheaper components fitted. Admittedly I don't have the 36mm stanchions of the Fox 36s fitted to the CoilAir, but my 32mm Marzocchi AM SLs are fantastic and lighter than the Foxes. Mind you, it took me a week of fiddling with pressures and seeing what everyone else had tried on the Web before I hit on what seems a perfect setting. There are FIVE separate air chambers on these babies as well as mechanical rebound adjustment AND shutdown all the way to full lockout! And you just HAVE to get them all set properly for correct performance. Really worth it in the end, though.

You've probably heard or read about people having trouble with brand new Marzocchi forks bedding in. When I got these, they wouldn't compress at all, you had to jump up and land on the handlebars to get them moving. However, after their first ride out in Scotland they are now smooth all the way down, so don't worry if you get a set that initially seem dodgy.

Part of my project plan was to get the Coiler to look good, and make me feel better after losing the Bear, so a fair slice of my budget went on goodies - dare I say, unnecessary ones? - (sorry, Oh She Who Must Be Obeyed). Anyway, the whole bike is worth a wee bit less than a standard CoilAir so I'm still on the winning side - just. And it's only a few pounds heavier than a Whyte 46 but way, way tougher with better suspension and much better looking (OK, my opinion). Here's a sneak preview of the Soopah with it's new suspension. See the whole thing here when I get my new brakes, pedals and chainrings on.

detail pix here

Here's a quick lesson in Sliming

First, buy this: NOTE! get TUBE type, NOT TYRE. Then get your tube. I'm using a Schrader (car valve) type here, it's much easier than getting it into a Presta valved tube! And here's my tube Look closely and you can see the valve core hidden inside the valve body (just in case you've never blown up a tyre before!) The top of the slime bottle has a plastic cap, the base of which is used as a valve core remover so you don't need one of these unless your valve core is dead tight. Here's a look down the valve housing The black or silver caps above fit over the valve core and you screw it out anti-clockwise. Here it is almost out and here a bit further so you can see the flat shoulders that fit in the cap and here you've won the first round WARNING!! If you don't let some air out before the valve core becomes loose, it can become the smallest Scud Missile ever and do your eyeballs the world of no good. Here's the space you are left with into which you squirt a quarter of a bottle of the green gunk junk using the short length of clear plastic hose attached to the Slime, ignoring what it says on the bottle or you'll think you've got lead in your tyres when you ride it. After you've done injecting, screw the valve core back in, tight but not crazy tight, hold it high with the rest of the tube below it, and pump away. I would advise you to blow it up fairly hard first to enable the slime to roll around easily and coat the inside of the tube. Do this any way you like by spinning it slowly or rotating slowly in all directions for a minute. Deflate keeping the valve high and replace it in your wheel. Ride safe in the knowledge you've had your last puncture. Trust me, I'm a Dafty.

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