RampantBadger

I'm a big fan of Specialized, I'd go with the Sirrus Disc out of those choices.

The bossnut / beastnut get absolutely brilliant reviews. If you are dead set on a full suspension then that is where my cash would go. You'd get better components on a hardtail, a Whyte 901 is a touch over your budget but is a beast of a bike...

Today's view, I bloody love where I live! Slippery in places after last night's rain, absolutely brilliant fun.

Well my colleague finished 60th in the women's race, approx 15 mins behind Lizzie Deignan. Considering Jen is semi pro in her 2nd season and the winner is a former world champion I think that is very respectable.

Should be an interesting watch. One of the Women I work with is racing on the Saturday for Fusion RT Fierlan

It is an acquired taste! there was a more subdued colour scheme but it seems to have sold out everywhere, I wonder why... I've heard of Sonder bikes, but I wasn't familiar with the Transmitter. It looks like a really nice bit of kit! Thoroughly modern geometry too, long, low and a slack head angle will make it very stable when it gets steep, a relatively steep seat tube will mean it will pedal back up to the top well and the plus size tyres will give massive grip in the corners. A proper 'all mountain' bike. I'm not sure I would want to do too much tarmac work on plus tyres though, plus sized tyres are run at quite low pressures (sub 20 psi) so they deform over trail obstacles and find huge grip in loads of places, it can make them quite heavy and draggy on tarmac though. However, all 650+ bikes are compatible with 29" wheels too (the outside diameter of a 650b wheel clad with a 3" wide + tyre is almost identical to a 29er wheel with a 2.3" tyre). A cheap set of 29er wheels clad with lightly knobbled tyres would be ideal for commuting then you could swap to the plus wheels for weekend trail riding. Or you could ride it for a while then tell your wife you need another bike for commuting N+1 (N+1 is the formula for the correct number of bikes to own, where N is the current number of bikes you own).

No worries, bike to work is an excellent way of funding a new toy! After a bit more checking the Bird has crept over the £1k mark now so it's just out of budget which is a shame as its a cracking bike, the Vitus Sentier VRS seems to be out of stock everywhere, the Ragley however is in stock and £850 which gives you some wiggle room for kit (the colours are pretty lairy though). Ragley Marley As for the top 10 things, er let me see: 1. Helmet - a decent lid is an absolute must when mountain biking, look for one that fits well and has plenty of ventilation. 'Enduro' style lids (ones which drop down low at the back of your head to give a little more protection) are very popular at the moment. I use a Bell Super 2R (the 3R has just been released so the 2R is on sale in a lot of places at the moment, they have a removable chin guard which makes it handy for downhilling days). 2. Trail pack - some people will say they prefer to ride unencumbered using a water bottle and some spares in pockets / strapped to their bike, I find having a pack with a hydration bladder and somewhere to put your spares / tools / snacks / waterproof to be very handy. Don't think you need a huge pack, a small one with just enough space for a couple of bits and pieces is more than good enough. For most of my rides I use an Army surplus camelback, like this This there is more than enough room for a few spares and some snacks for a couple of hours riding. 3. Padded Shorts - again some ride without but I find them to be essential, I like the Endura Hummvee shorts, they are baggy shorts with a click in padded lycra liner (just don't wear pants under them). 4. Gloves - personal preference, I always wear full finger gloves on the mountain bike as I've crashed without gloves on and its not fun. 5. Tools - I'm not talking taking a Halfords professional kit with you, but a small multitool with a chain splitter on it and a small pump will get you out of most problems you may encounter. 6. Spares - A spare quick chain link, a gear cable, an inner tube and a few cable ties. Most trailside issues can be fixed with those. Chain lube to stash in the car To be honest those are what I would consider the only real 'essentials', everything else is nice to have. 7. Cycle Jersey - you can ride in a t shirt but a jersey will wick the sweat away, will be cut in the right shape and they normally have pockets for stashing bits and pieces. 8. Cycling Glasses - there is nothing worse than getting mud in your eye when thumping down a nice descent. 9. Cleaning Gear - Muc Off, Degreaser, Brushes etc. to keep your steed nice and shiny between rides. 10. Waterproof - let's be honest, we are in the UK, it will rain on you at some point and having a half decent waterproof will turn those rides from a slog into a more enjoyable experience. I do wear a pair of knee pads and occasionally elbow pads but these are firmly in the nice to have bracket and definitely not essential...

If you want good spec then go for a Hardtail, you will get much better components at that price point than a full suspension. Have a look at a Bird Zero, Vitus Sentier, Ragley Marley, Whyte 901 (if you can find one with a bit knocked off), Norco Torrent. There are probably a few more good bikes too but these are very highly regarded. Consider Plus sized bikes too, the extra tyre depth gives you a bit more cushioning over a standard sized tyre. You will struggle to find a 'really good' full suspension bike at under £1000, however there are some good options out there. The one that really springs to mind is the Calibre Bossnut. Its sold by Go Outdoors and is £999 with the discount card. MBR Magazine gave it 10/10 and everyone I know who has tried one says its a riot, if you're not bothered by brands and are handy with the spanners to check its been built properly then its well worth a look. If you want a really good bike then 2nd hand would be the best bet, you could get a 1 year old barely ridden bike for a bargain price if you hunt around (my winter hardtail, a Whyte 629, cost me £500 from a colleague, he'd ridden it twice and paid over £1k for it 12 months before...)

If the bike is being used for tarmac 70% of the time you don't want a tyre with too aggressive a tread pattern, those should be fine. Tyres are easy to change if you do find she needs something with more of a knobble on it, they look to be 700c x 38 tyres so are a fairly standard size, there will be lads of choice.

It is brilliant isn't it, I absolutely love it here. There are so many trails outside of the main cycle centre too, you could spend days riding and not do them all...

From yesterday at the epic Bike Park Wales! That's probably the most photographed sign there...

This is my main trail bike, a Specialized Stumpjumper Evo 29er. It has a few tweaks from stock, a 150mm Rockshox Lyrik fork, Stans Flow mk3 rims with Hope Pro 4 hubs, a Hope stem and Easton Haven Carbon bars, it's been converted to 1x10 gearing too. It's a proper ripper, at home putting in big miles or smashing an uplift day. Oh and I took this photo on Tuesday night, you can't beat a blast on the bike while the sun goes down!

That's a lot of bike for the money then! I'd see if you can get a test ride on one, even though it does get great reviews it is a lot of money to spend...

You really can't knock the spec of that Boardman for the price! Pikes, a monarch, 1x11 GX and Guide brakes for £1500 is incredible! It is missing a dropper post which imo is an essential bit of kit these days. By the time you have added a dropper you will be getting perilously close to a Canyon Spectral AL 5.0 EX https://www.canyon.com/en-gb/mtb/spectral/spectral-al-5-0-ex.html Mail order bikes give you massive bang per buck, its similarly specced with the addition of a dropper, slightly more suspension travel and slightly better wheels. The new YT Jeffsy 27 starts at a similar price and is an absolute ripper too https://www.yt-industries.com/uk/detail/index/sArticle/1364/sCategory/508 If you are interested in the YT then they have a demo day at the Forest of Dean on the 13th May, just turn up and ride. alternatively if you can hang on until the end of the summer then all the bike shops start looking to get rid of stock to make way for next years models, you can normally pick up some absolute bargains...

after a quick google, that mech is the long cage and has a total capacity of 37 Teeth, your current setup requires (50-34)+(32-11)= 37 Teeth, I'm afraid you are at capacity on that derailleur. That's not to say giving an expander a go will not work, as long as you are not cross chaining you should be ok going to a 36t sprocket. It's worth a try if you are struggling. The other option would be to try dropping your granny ring down to a 32 or even a 30 tooth, that will give you easier gearing for climbing without sacrificing top speed for the flats and descents.

I wouldn't bother with an expander, if you are already running 11 speed and you have the capacity in your rear derailleur and do a lot of climbing fit a cyclocross or a mountain bike cassette. They will give you much more even jumps between the gears, an expander usually requires the removal of one of the mid range sprockets to fit. SRAM do a PG1130 11-36t CX cassette but if you need more than that a Shimano XT 11-40 would be the one however you would probably need a long cage derailleur to use one...

On Saturday I spent a seriously good day at the MBR Demo Day. The setup was absolutely superb, loads of manufacturers turned up and they all had plenty of lovely shiny bikes to ride. You got each bike for an hour and there was a nice red rooty loamy decent out of the event village to give you a bit of a challenge. I managed to get an uplift pass on the day so I could hit the red decent and one of the many downhill trails at the pedalabikeaway centre in the hours demo. On my first loop I managed to take a wrong turn and got lost so I turned round and pedalled back to try and find where I went wrong. While I was riding back up the hill I saw another rider coming down so I flagged them down to ask if they new the way, it was only Tracey Mosley! (for those who don't know the name, Tracey is a Downhill world champion and 3 time Enduro world series champion) She said she thought she knew the way and I was welcome to join her, happy days it's not every day you get to ride with a multiple world champion is it! Bugger me she is fast too, she was just cruising but I had to pull everything out of the bag to keep up. She was incredibly friendly and happy to just chat about bikes. Now for the bikes, my first ride was on a Whyte G160S. It's a great looking bike and fit really nicely too, the suspension action was nice. But as competent as it was there was no sparkle to it, it did everything you wanted but just didn't feel special. Maybe I needed more time to gel on it? Next up was the Intense Primer Factory, all £8,700 of it! What a machine, if the Whyte was lacking sparkle then this certainly made up for it. It's a relatively short travel 29er and was dripping in bling, SRAM eagle, Fox 34's, carbon wheels etc. It accelerated like a maniac and had razor sharp handling, it rode like something with much more travel but without the lag from the suspension. It weighs 4/5 of bugger all so climbing was incredibly efficient too. I still managed to crash it though, got the front wheel jammed in some roots and went straight over the bars. Even with that it was definitely my bike of the day! Next was something completely different, the Canyon Sender. I'd not ridden a downhill bike for over 10 years so I wasn't sure what to expect. As I pedalled out of the centre I thought I'd made a huge mistake, it was heavy, slow handling and didn't seem to want to go anywhere when you stood on the pedals. As the trail started to get steeper it all started to make sense. The weight made it stable in the corners, the slow steering made higher speeds more manageable and the gearing started came into its own. On the proper downhill trails it was an absolute weapon, I've never been down Sheepskull (my favourite descent at FoD) so fast, jumping off things I'd never consider on my other bikes. It was a lot of fun but I just don't do enough of that sort of riding to justify one. Now for the most surprising bike of the day, the Cannondale Moterra 130. I've never ridden an e-bike before and this is no normal e-bike! It's an enduro weapon with great suspension, plus size wheels wearing 2.8 wide Maxxis Minion DHF tyres and brilliant brakes. The assistance makes itself felt immediately on the flat helping to get you get up to speed quickly but the big surprise was how it handled downhill. The motor and battery are mounted as low as possible keeping the centre of gravity low and it was very manageable in the corners, dare I say it but lots of fun! The minions grip tenaciously too meaning you can really throw it around. I decided to pedal up instead of using the uplift and it was utterly hilarious, the push up track at FoD is steep, ridable but properly steep and seems to go on for ever. Not on this bad boy, stick it in turbo and it flys up like you would not believe! I was giggling like an idiot all the way up. I get the point of e-bikes now, in an hour on the bike I was just as tired on the dale but I did 2 laps quicker than with the uplift. It's a proper mountain bike on the descents but helps you go further and ride more. I'm not going to go out and buy one right now but when I get older it's definitely on the map... The final bike I rode was a Kona Process 153. This thing is hilarious, it just wants to play! When you ride it you find yourself sliding in the corners, jumping off anything you can see and generally acting like a hooligan! It's brilliant fun, if you like to ride trail centres and do uplift days it would be the perfect bike. In all it was a bloody brilliant day, I broke my e-bike duck, crashed, jumped, slid, giggled, rode with Tracey Mosley and generally had fun in gorgeous sunshine. Happy Rich!!!

Yes they are!!!

I've recently moved to the Forest of Dean and now have trails on my doorstep! This photo of my winter hardtail was taken 10 minutes pedal from my house at the head of some absolutely superb singletrack! Every time I go out I find more trails to play on, happy days...

It worked like a charm! Once the 7.1.2 beta was installed on my phone it connected first time. Thank you!

I'm not, I hadn't realised that was an option! I will look into it, thank you.

It appears my issue is one that is shared with a lot of other Pixel users, they are having serious problems connecting via Bluetooth to car hands free kits of multiple manufacturers. It is believed that it is an issue with Android 7 as it is only Pixels and some versions of the Nexus that are running it and both handsets are having similar issues, fingers crossed it get sorted in the next update...

I've just upgraded to a new phone (Google Pixel) its absolutely superb however it just will not connect to my Bolero head unit in my '11 Octavia. I set the phone to discoverable then go to phone search on the car, it initially finds the phone and gives me the code to input. Once the code is input the car changes to connecting but the phone flashes up wanting a second code. If I leave it the connection fails, if I re-input the same code it also fails! Has anyone had a similar problem? and is there a work around to get the thing connected? Rich

We had a dusting in Bristol last night, not much but just enough for a big childish handbrake turn in the work carpark this morning...

Any sign of THUNDERSNOW yet?