XC in kent- Any willing volunteers!!!

nicklouse

mmm i think we need a new topic for kent in 2009?

someone want to start a new one and then i will lock this?

PM me if you do.

deadpool2e

I think it will be sad to see this thread die.........

What do us regulars here who actualy ride think? a new one or stick with this one?

impished

deadpool2e wrote:

I think it will be sad to see this thread die.........

What do us regulars here who actualy ride think? a new one or stick with this one?

I think it would be a shame too. I'd rather see the earlier posts moved/archived to a "XC in Kent (OLD)" locked thread and we can carry on with the very popular current one.
Mods; don't forget, when we go out biking we try to talk everyone we meet to sign up to Bikeradar. It would be a shame/hassle to have to set-up our own forum or go elsewhere.

stevet1992

yeh would be a shame to say goodbye to this thread helped me get into XC and have met some great people 8)

anyway its not 2009 just yet

nicklouse

ok it stays.

I was just a thought as it was so long and i would not have thought that the first 100 pages would be much use now.

And the first of the year would be a good time as any to start a fresh.

deadpool2e

Just spoke to Nicklouse and we can keep the thread....

andyturner28

deadpool2e wrote:

Just spoke to Nicklouse and we can keep the thread....

Thanks Nicklouse, would have been a massive shame to loose this.

stevet1992

Happy new years guys

may 2009 bring us all more XC fun

impished

Happy new whatsit..... year.... that's the one
Glad to see you bribed Nicklouse Mark

breezer

Why on earth did I drink so much then attempt to sleep on a sofa which didnt work, now to find the bike and find Blean!

stevet1992

breezer wrote:

Why on earth did I drink so much then attempt to sleep on a sofa which didnt work, now to find the bike and find Blean!

ive found the bike

finding blean is going to be the hard bit

RussAlf

Happy New Year!

stevet1992

good ride today guys

shame some of you p*ss heads o wait i mean light drinkers :roll: couldnt make it

breezer

Yes good ride, nice to finally see Blean, will sort the map in a minute.

I had a hangover and found quite a good cure....agreeing to go on a ride with Andy then having him lead the way :shock: That soon blew it out of my head trying and failing to keep up! Things improved a bit once I got past my normal slowness at the start of rides

stevet1992

breezer wrote:

Yes good ride, nice to finally see Blean, will sort the map in a minute.

I had a hangover and found quite a good cure....agreeing to go on a ride with Andy then having him lead the way :shock: That soon blew it out of my head trying and failing to keep up! Things improved a bit once I got past my normal slowness at the start of rides

i felt quite good keeping up with you during your slowness, you 2 soon blasted off though :oops:

so how far did we end up doing thten?

breezer

Right, Bleans quite good. I see what you mean about it being flat although there are some hills in the south of it looking at the map. Fortunately it was dry enough that it was still fun, I can imagine though that when it rains a lot, it would turn into quite a slog and not be that great. There were paths everywhere, most of which we went down even if only for a while due to Andys "amazing" sense of direction

He had a puncture when I arrived and had also ripped a valve off a spare tube, he then lost an argument with a rut. Steve apparently enjoyed a moment of passion with his metal tipped saddle and his bottom. I will now change my nick name to scarface due to the long cut on my left cheek when this tree jumped out of nowhere and attacked me as I rode past. Any comments about me not seeing it due to being hungover will be ignored :P

Thanks to Andy for the guided tour and Steve for begging with Andy for a cereal bar break when I too was about to keel over, saving me asking

16.3 miles according to my phone/gps although in practise its probably 1-1.5 miles more than that due to the slow sampling rate of my gps and the amount of twisty tracks there

stevet1992

:shock: i didnt think we did that many miles obviosuly i underestimate 8)

:oops: im still feeling the loving from my saddle wasent a nice feeling
what maping software is that breezer? its just my phone does external GPS and is windows mobile so might have to cough up the cash

Papa Smurf

I woke up and wanted to join you guys for the ride around Blean, unfortunately I didn't get up till 11 and when it come down to it, I didn't have the stomach for much today. Plus I did only get in at 4am.

But on the plus side.. I cant remember anything that happened after 12.10 this morning!! Untill I woke up at 11 that is... I remember that and from then on :P

breezer

Memory map which has its own windows mobile version, its quite cheap but the maps cost a lot if you pay for them......

Only problem with using just the phone with built in gps is that it really needs line of sight, ie mounted on the bars of something. The phone I use is old so I had a small self contained gps module cable tied to my helmet which the phone talks to via bluetooth.

Not used maps till a year or so ago but they are great for seeing where you have been, plotting out the odd ride before hand and also looking for new bits in woods where you have been before etc then you can mark new trails. I mean look above for example, tons more of Blean to investigate, the bit in the middle at the bottom may have some fun downhills as the contour lines are so close

stevet1992

ok cheers for that, im looking to replace the phone anyway (problems with sim card reader) so i might buy a shell and mount it onto the bars.

:shock: the only problem with downhills is going back up them and with my back tyre :roll: well you got a face full on the first muddy up hill

i think we should have a mass ride at blean one time 8)

PS: breezer or andy did you get a look at what bike the guy andy knew from kent trails was riding, looked quite nice

breezer

Commencal Meta 5.2 or something similar

Legless

sounds like you all had fun! Blean is a great place for a good blast you can spend hours there. If only kent had some proper hills! Dragged myself round wareham forest today, was not feeling a lot of love as i was pretty ill! New forks are rather tasty, looking forward to heading to devon tomorrow and doing a solid 20 miles there.

Will keep the kent flag flying over here!

andyturner28

stevet1992 wrote:

ok cheers for that, im looking to replace the phone anyway (problems with sim card reader) so i might buy a shell and mount it onto the bars.

:shock: the only problem with downhills is going back up them and with my back tyre :roll: well you got a face full on the first muddy up hill

i think we should have a mass ride at blean one time 8)

PS: breezer or andy did you get a look at what bike the guy andy knew from kent trails was riding, looked quite nice

It's an 07 Commencial Meta 5. I can highly reccomend a Pannaracer Trailraker as a rear mud tire, or as Breeza said the Bontrager Mud X is supposed to be good too, i might try one when my Trailraker wears out.
I like your GPS too Breezer, i am after a new phone and have been wanting a GPS for a while, so might give that a go. How much did the GPS module cost.

Anyway glad you both enjoyed it. Sorry about getting us lost a couple of times, i did tell you that was inevitable, and didn't claim to know the area like the back of my hand, so i think that should absolve me of any piss taking I'v got to pay more attention to where we go on the Kent-Trails rides, there is sooo much more round there but i just can't remember it all :roll:

breezer

Problem with mud x's is they only go up to 2" so fine for really bad mud but little narrow for stuff like today. My Inbred is actually winding me right up. The brakes are useless, forks have issues, seat keeps sliding down, it weighs 30+ lb's and yet its so good to ride and I get no aches etc that I wonder why I even own a FS bike half the time! Almost tempted to quickly chuck the Turners light wheels and Hopes on it just to see what a reasonably light modern hard tail is like although it would still be heavier than the Turner as the forks are nearly a pound more and the frames similar

Was only jesting about getting lost heh, it all looked the same to me except the odd deja vu moment. I think my bluetooth gps module was £20 or less off ebay, charged via usb and has a phone style battery in.

On a different note, it was quite funny that we were the red bike brigade today but now my friend who you may recall I mentioned earlier, the one I sold my old small Dmr frame to, after having such a fit at how good my Inbred was as it was longer and more suitable for longer rides, has just won this on ebay heh, bit of a bargain as they normally got for £150 odd despite that being not much less than new! http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=130278073618

stevet1992

yeh we was the red bike brigade :twisted:

funnily enough :roll: i was looking into getting a on-one 456 in a month or twos time and then swapped/upgrading parts :shock: scary ehh

andyturner28

breezer wrote:

Problem with mud x's is they only go up to 2" so fine for really bad mud but little narrow for stuff like today. My Inbred is actually winding me right up. The brakes are useless, forks have issues, seat keeps sliding down, it weighs 30+ lb's and yet its so good to ride and I get no aches etc that I wonder why I even own a FS bike half the time! Almost tempted to quickly chuck the Turners light wheels and Hopes on it just to see what a reasonably light modern hard tail is like although it would still be heavier than the Turner as the forks are nearly a pound more and the frames similar

Was only jesting about getting lost heh, it all looked the same to me except the odd deja vu moment. I think my bluetooth gps module was £20 or less off ebay, charged via usb and has a phone style battery in.

On a different note, it was quite funny that we were the red bike brigade today but now my friend who you may recall I mentioned earlier, the one I sold my old small Dmr frame to, after having such a fit at how good my Inbred was as it was longer and more suitable for longer rides, has just won this on ebay heh, bit of a bargain as they normally got for £150 odd despite that being not much less than new! http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=130278073618

"Cheap as chips" springs to mind, and they have put the retail price up a lot, £186! Looks much better with the cable routing underneath the top tube too.

I only run mud tires on the back, i tried a 2.1 Trailraker on the front once and it scared the living crap out of me, as they don't have much lateral grip and felt stupidly unstable being so narrow, I will never go smaller than 2.35 up front again. I would definitely try the Turners wheels on yours. Mine are fairly light and i think mine weighs about the same as Nick's Trance.

Steve, if you do decide to get an InBred bear in mind that the forks you are about to order will be too short. Although you can run 100mm forks (and i did for a week or so) the head angle will be a bit steep which will make it very darty up steep climbs and scary downhill. Maybe you should look for forks with travel adjust up to 130mm, can't think of any off the top of my head.

andyturner28

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Mode ... elID=13113 These will do

stevet1992

yep i have thought of that and im going to put off ordering the forks for another month and get a uturn fork so i can crank it down to 100mm for the vulcan and then when i do get it crank it back up to 130mm

ill just have to space the steerer tube above and below like hell when i put them on the vulcan as to give me enough length to cut them propely for the 456 8)

so it looks like this months paycheck is going to be spent on a new rear tyre

EDIT: how about http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Vertu-Ascent-Ti-R ... 240%3A1318 for a new phone then andy ? you could mount it to your bars aswell

andyturner28

stevet1992 wrote:

yep i have thought of that and im going to put off ordering the forks for another month and get a uturn fork so i can crank it down to 100mm for the vulcan and then when i do get it crank it back up to 130mm

ill just have to space the steerer tube above and below like hell when i put them on the vulcan as to give me enough length to cut them propely for the 456 8)

so it looks like this months paycheck is going to be spent on a new rear tyre

EDIT: how about this for a new phone then andy ? you could mount it to your bars aswell

Looks like we are both having link problems today :roll:

andyturner28

stevet1992 wrote:

yep i have thought of that and im going to put off ordering the forks for another month and get a uturn fork so i can crank it down to 100mm for the vulcan and then when i do get it crank it back up to 130mm

ill just have to space the steerer tube above and below like hell when i put them on the vulcan as to give me enough length to cut them propely for the 456 8)

so it looks like this months paycheck is going to be spent on a new rear tyre

EDIT: how about http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Vertu-Ascent-Ti-R ... 240%3A1318] this for a new phone then andy ? you could mount it to your bars aswell

Ah dont need to use url tags :oops: Holy crap, what overpaid money splurging knob would pay that much just for a phone!?