It's possible you've heard me whinging. I hardly ever stop.

Just lately it's been about aluminium spoke nipples. This all came about because four of us now have the same bike - Chris K and his pal Mick got them first - 2008 Fuel EX-8s. I was immediately impressed when I tried Chris', so much so that I managed to get one exactly the same, and I love it to bits.

Terry H also found one at an excellent price a few months ago so now at least we four have something in common. Dodgy nipples. Also, recent addition to the ranks, Geoff from North Shields had bad experiences with these on some of his wheels and those of a mate, and so did Stewart if my memory tells me true.

They are used to gain a slight weight advantage exactly where it counts most on a bike - at the outer perimeter of your wheels. Anything you do in this area (rim, tyre, tube, spokes) to lose weight has the greatest effect on the acceleration and lively "feel" of your bike. It also affects the inertia and gyroscopic effect of the spinning wheel, especially when airborne, but adversely in that case.

Unfortunately, aluminium spoke heads (yes, nipple is the correct term) as well as being somewhat lighter than the normal brass affair, are inherently less able to withstand the rigours of slamming your wheels into rocks and landing drop-offs. Not only that, but once installed they begin to make mad, passionate, chemical love with the same material in your rims and do not want to be parted, til death do it.

I've been suffering more than the odd snapped head for the last four or five months on these Bontrager Race wheels which are standard on a lot of Trek bikes, and I'm getting a bit peeved with it all. This is what I was left with after the ride at Blanchland recently - not the hardest of rides as far as wheel-battering goes.

The previous Thursday Geoff discovered a broken one on the back wheel of my Trek as Christelle was getting ready to ride it. Five in two rides. One dollop of horse, cow, dog or plain old mud is enough to make the difference in weight non-existent so why on earth do they bother?

Ah, that's better. I sit back and wait for the abuse...

BUT NOT UNTIL...

just a word about forks. Until 2007 Marzocchi were still making Junior T Bomber forks, triple crown with 170mm travel and STANDARD 9mm quick release dropouts. You'll find these on almost every amateur Downhill race bike built since the mid 90's but you won't hear very much about the dropouts snapping off, even under race conditions. All this new stuff about the need for 12mm, 15mm, 20mm and now stupidly 24mm front axles is a load of bollocks. The slowest DH racers of ten years ago were about 3 times faster than we are, even then, and they didn't need all this crap. Just thought I'd add to my lack of mechanical nouse telling you this. Same goes for 1.5 inch head tubes. Bollocks. (careful - I'm not saying they ain't stiffer, I'm saying they ain't needed).

Join Newcastle MBC Now!      on WWW on midaircrisis.co.uk                                                 you are safe to accept activeX controls from this site - used for visual enhancement(!) only.