JohnMcL7

I definitely agree with the quick link recommendation, really handy to get going quickly after a chain break. A lot of MTB stuff comes down to preference and I'm sure you'll settle into whatever suits you, I was digging though my older cycling videos from when I started mountain biking and quite amused at how different is to now...I wonder how I ever managed with a very weak single light, a coffee flask thing for water (I thought it was better at keeping it cool, not really it turned out), heavy clothing etc. I do find this time of year a little tricky for mountain biking as it's going from dry trails and no lights to muddy trails, waterproofs and lights but then you quickly get used to it and that's what I like about mountain biking, even on cold, wet and muddy nights you can still get out and enjoy yourself. John

I quite fancied trying to get down to have a look for a change rather than finding out the information through online news articles but ultimately was a bit far to come and would probably rather go to some sort of demo day where I could ride the bikes rather than be envious of them sitting there. John

I'm the same, I've been trying different setups - I now have a double XML2 light on my bars which gives a nice wide beam and then a single XML2 torch light on my helmet to give a more focused spot light. I like the torch design as it's easy to move between different positions or to different bikes, we have a local group ride on a Thursday night and people are frequently caught out with lights either not having something suitable or running out of power which is no good in the middle of a dark forest. So I take a few XML2 torches and bar mounts with me so I'm not stuck if I have any failures myself or more commonly, can lend them to others if they're stuck. John

Unfortunately you're going to find idiots everywhere, if you have to explain to someone why repairing a bike in the middle of a trail is a bad idea then they're probably not going to take it in. I rarely have issues at trail centres and same on 24 hour races (where most people are considerate to others) although did have someone walking their dogs, backwards up a dedicated downhill trail which was clearly signposted and when coming by, didn't warn us that he had a second dog also off the lead further along. I have to laugh at MTB snobbery, I don't judge people at all by their bikes or equipment as it usually has no relation to their skill. One of the best riders I know for a long time just rode a single speed rigid MTB and there were few people faster than him, I see plenty of pretty basic hardtails that people just fling down technical features no problem.

I love the 'supercharged' lettering on the bonnet vents, good thing it's a saloon not an estate otherwise I'd be tempted to have a look. John

With mountain bikes there's trade offs everywhere and a lot of it also comes down to personal preference, the collection of bikes on our local group rides is hugely varied on the same terrain - rigids, hardtails, full suspensions (short travel, mid travel), 26, 650b's, 29er's, fat bikes, 650b+ bikes, even CX bikes occasionally. The fast riders are fast because they're good riders rather than the bike, some of the guys are embarassingly fast on everything on blooming SS rigids! I ride mostly natural trails and my rigid fat bike is the fastest climber (vs a FS 29er and 29+ hardtail) in those conditions as its huge amount of traction means you can get a lot of power down even on steep, loose climbs despite the bike's hefty 15kg weight (2015 Farly 6). It's also fast cross country as the big tyres float over rough terrain I needed to partially unlock the suspension for I can ride fine with the rigid and just belt along. I find the rigid hard going on long downhill stuff though as the tyres don't soak up impacts like suspension does so I find my wrists and shoulders a bit sore. I don't like the feel of the 29er any more so decided to try a 29+ hardtail as a summer bike to accompany the fat bike as it seemed a happy medium, It's a well designed bike as despite the colossal wheels, it's quite short at the back and noticeably more agile than the fat bike with a bit more BB clearance although it feels more like a grippy 29er than a faster fat bike. It doesn't have much float and can't run off trail like the fat bike can which was making me think I should have gone for a FS fat bike or FS plus bike. I perhaps just need to ride it more though as it's impressive at speed, I was horsing down a fast section behind a 29er which was sliding on the dusty surface as the guy was trying to keep the speed on the corners while the plus sized wheels were gripping fine. I recently relented and fitted a dropper post which I'm loving so far and was surprised to get a load of personal bests last week on stuff I've ridden for ages.

As a fellow mountain biker I know what you mean but it can be difficult to explain, my friends think I'm crazy particularly in winter heading off into the dark, wet and muddy countryside to go mountain biking but doing it for enjoyment rather than fitness. It's not something I would have understood either when I started as I found it stressful and hard work but now of course it's the other way round, it's a superb mental release particularly if I'm stressed about something. John

I also wear mostly the same stuff on the road or MTB, just vary it depending on the weather and conditions - usually a pair of shorts over cycling shorts or leggings for winter and a t-shirt with arm warmers or jacket when it's colder or wetter. I hope you enjoy the mountain biking, when I wanted to do more cycling than just commuting I joined a local MTB group as it was October and there's not so much else at that time. It was a steep learning curve as I bought my first proper MTB the day before and then headed off into my first night ride lacking decent lights, clothing, fitness and technical skills. On the second ride most of the beginners abandoned the ride on the first hill and the two of us left were meant to go down an easier route while the rest went on the technical downhill. Except we got lost and faced with being left in a dark forest on our own or trying to chase the rapidly disappearing lights on the technical trail, we went for the latter. I had to carry my bike down that dark, muddy, slippery trail and by the bottom I'd had enough - I didn't care I'd bought the MTB and I thought the group wouldn't want a useless cyclist like me along anyway. I was completely wrong, afterwards in a cafe I was told that was a tough ride but it would get easier to and to keep at it, keep coming back. He was right and still go out cycling with the same group and what I like about mountain biking is the rides are quite casual and you can go any time, any where and in any weather and it's mostly still fun. I do like the effortless feel of a road bike as it glides along the road but it's not much fun in poor weather. John

Correct, that wasn't the point and nor am I wanting to buy an Outlander so you're three for three on missing the point. I fully understand that RWD components take up space in a car and I'm well aware that RWD vehicles lose space for those components, the point was why vehicles with similar sized boots and capacities why one would gain so much more space with the seats down and one wouldn't. The answer is nothing to do with RWD components, Octavias or C-class estates but that the reviewers are using the wrong figure or non-representative figure - the Outlander in reality has around the same capacity as the Mazda6 estate which makes sense. John

No, this isn't the point I was making at all - the Outlander has a larger boot than the Mazda (I'm really wondering how many more times I need to repeat this? Four times so far and still needing to do so again apparently) and that's where most of the rear wheel drive parts are, what I couldn't understand is when the Mazda and Oultander have similar sized passenger areas how the Mazda could gain so much more space than the Outlander when the seats were folded down. I think the correct answer is the one above that either the reviewer is using the wrong measurements or the measurements used aren't comparable between the estate and 4x4. John

None of that was the issue though - the Outlander is similar size to the Mazda and had a slightly larger boot yet with the seats down somehow the Mazda was 70% larger which made no sense and I think the post above is correct that they're measuring them differently, there's no way they could be that different unless the Outlander had an almost non-existent passenger area which isn't the case. What caught my eye about the 4x4's was a discussion on a bike forum about how people carried their bikes and there were a few 4x4's (not UK forums so not UK models) where they'd used the height to be able to mount the bikes standing up whereas in the estate, the bikes have to lie on their side and I can just stack them two high without dismantling them. A bit more ground clearance at times would be handy as it's primarily off road riding I do and space is very tight at some of the big races which has been a bit of a challenge with the Mazda but not enough on its own to justify a change. Not that I'm planning on changing the car at the moment as it's running fine but probably one of the windowed small vans would be ideal as they've masses of load space although it's a little hard to swallow how expensive they are for little spec. I found a Caddy Maxi Life the same age as my Mazda6 but it was a few thousand pounds more despite having spec similar to my 99 Octavia GLX (even the same buttons and controls) while the Mazda has a pretty decent spec. Just the way it is with vans I realise. John

Agreed, I've been surprised at the number of 'hate' posts particularly the Clint Eastwood one above - if being a 'man' means being old, boring and not to have any fun then anyone is welcome to my man card especially since it's apparently fine for the same people to flood stuff with their sports interests and which I have no interest in, Not that I've got into Pokemon Go myself (can't see the appeal and prefer the console versions) but there's been many great positive stories about the game which are of course largely ignored for the few negative ones, like this: http://www.thestarpress.com/story/news/local/2016/07/18/muncie-animal-shelter-facebook-famous/87241620/ This cartoon sums it up for me:

Unfortunately that's not an option for me, not many cars up here so it's usually a couple of hundred mile trip to see a car which means I have to pretty serious about it. John

I'm not sure it's lazy and more just they're using the same measurement for all vehicles but what you've said definitely makes sense looking at the two vehicles, there's no way the Mazda has 70% more space. I have had a look for what measuring to the window line actually means but can't find any information on it, with the terms being quite generic it throws up lots of other unrelated items. John

I'd love to do it but I'm not good enough solo over 24 hours and couldn't get a team from here to do it with, it's a long way to go just to do a few laps on my own. John

That's exactly it and I find in most cases that works well, it's just the small number of idiots (they're always there regardless of the form of transport) that spoil it. It does remind me of a cycle a few weeks ago where I was going along a single track section of road on my road bike and got a little beep on my Garmin to say there was something coming up behind so swung into a passing place allowing what turned out to be a motorbike to get past me and I didn't need to lose much speed either earning me a wave from the biker as they went by. A couple of miles later the track went downhill and it was quite tight and twisty so I caught up to the motorbike but didn't want to go by as I knew I couldn't keep that pace up however I was amused when the motorbike pulled into a passing place and waved me on to overtake, copying my maneuver. I went past and sped up although once the hill was over and I was climbing into a headwind the motorbike caught back up to me, came alongside and the pillion passenger lifted their visor and complimented me for managing to go over 35 mph, gave me a thumbs up and went ahead. I've got a Garmin Edge 520 which has the livetrack feature and particularly handy when doing solo off road cycling night although I agree with the posts above that it can cause more worry at times when it's out of range or it's misbehaving (rare but does happen) however there seems enough reception around here that it works enough of the time. I'm also impressed with the varia radar system which is pricey and doesn't sound that useful but I like knowing there are cars behind me and it's particularly useful as it shows the speed they're approaching at and how many cars there are. If I see a car approaching at speed I know they're unlikely to give me much space so I tend to get right over to the edge of the road to try and maximise the gap. John

I only got properly into cycling recently thanks to what I thought was a failing turbo on my Octavia and the DPF, decided I needed to stop doing short journeys and start cycling instead. I wanted something hassle free so this hybrid appealed to me thanks to its disc/drum brakes, hub gears and carbon belt which ran great - this is 2011 Trek Soho Deluxe: After finding I liked cycling I joined a new local MTB group to take my cycling further and bought an ex-hire 2012 Trek 4900 Disc - fairly standard hardtail but decent parts and ran well: Wanting to extend my road range, I picked up a road bike - a 2013 Trek 1.5, fairly standard road bike but nothing fancy and clocked up many miles with it including going all the way round Loch Ness which was my longest cycle at the time: I was getting very into my mountain biking so decided on a new bike and my most expensive one, I took part in my first 24 hour race on this one and my first CX race on the 2014 Trek Fuel 29er - a hugely capable full suspension bike with 120mm travel front and rear, immensely quick cross country and flexible bike: If I had to pick a favourite of my bikes, it would probably be the 2015 Trek Farley 6 which is a rigid 4in fat bike that I bought as a winter bike to deal with the slippy, muddy conditions over winter leaving the 29er as a summer bike. However since then the 29er has done little more than gather dust as I didn't expect the fat bike to be so much fun or so fast, I'm not a race person but ended up doing three endurance races and four CX races on it last year including my first Puffer: On dry fast trail centres the fat bike was quite hard work with reduced benefit from its big tyres an the rigid fork is hard work on long, downhill sections as the big tyres are good for bumpy ground but not great on impacts after drops and jumps. I had my eye on Trek's 29+ 2016 Stache which seemed a good balance, it offered 3in tyres putting it between the 29er and the fat bike plus it had front suspension help soak up the bumps. It has an unusual rear chainstay design with the front chainring overlapping the rear wheel to stop the massive 29+ wheel forcing the bike to be too long (it's taller than even the fat bike wheels), I was rather lucky and got this one 'second hand' from Trek's marketting department, it had a third off the price and was completely untouched, never turned a crank. I am struggling a bit with it though, it's an odd bike as it feels like a 29er and it's more agile than the Fuel despite the huge wheels but lacks the tank like solidarity of the fat bike plus cross country it can't match the fat bike either as the bigger tyres on the Farley allow it to easily carry speed over rough terrain. On the other hand, it's a demon at the trail centres and on some of the downhill sections it's completely demolished my PR's as it can easily carry a lot of speed. And finally my newest purchase, a 2016 Pinnacle Dolomite - I wanted a road bike that didn't stand out and had Shimano hydraulic discs plus mudguard mounts. I've never liked the rim brakes on the road bike compared to the consistent performance of the MTB discs and minimal effort, I've been very pleased with the discs on the road bike as I find it easier to ride on the hoods and just rest a finger on the levers plus they work well in wet conditions:

It's not a stupid question, I have the official Microsoft stereo headset which uses the Microsoft headset adapter and then the headset itself so I think it should be the same as any other headset - you can have all chat and all game audio through the headset or you can choose to have the chat only through the headset and the game audio through the TV. John

I have no plans to currently replace my vehicle and even if I was, there's no way to realistically check the size of the vehicle without loading it up. The capacity figures don't come from the reviewers, they come from the manufacturers. John

I don't know what you mean, reviewers rate the soft roaders as being practical with a decent capacity but then they're only comparing them within the class and not against estates. John

I've checked other sites and they're consistent with the numbers both for the Outlander/Mazda6/Octavia and for other vehicles in similar ranges, the 4x4's all have fairly small capacities and the estates all fairly large. I assume they're all getting the figures from a central source, one did mention that the Outlander was measured 'to the window line' but I can't find a definition of that, it did make me wonder if the way they were calculating space somehow disadvantaged the 4x4's which is what prompted me to start this topic. I've never owned any of these vehicles myself nor loaded bikes onto them (bike friends tend to use vans) so I don't know if it's the case the numbers are hugely misleading or they are more limited in their capacity. John

But that isn't the case here - the Outlander actually has a larger boot than the Mazda which is the opposite of what I'd expect and the Outlander has a similar sized passenger area yet when the seats are folded, somehow there's much less space. I could understand it if the Outlander has a minimal, cramped passenger area but the reviewer notes how spacious it is. I do also appreciate that it's not a foolproof way to measure things as the Mazda feels a little cramped compared to the mk 2 Octavia I had despite the Mazda having a slight advantage on paper (I assume due to the slightly boxier rear on the Octavia) but the difference in capacity for the Outlander vs Mazda6 is huge. John

That can't be the case here though as the Outlander has a bigger boot than the Mazda6 (most of the bulk from the AWD is going to be in the boot and the Outlander actually has a smaller fuel tank), given the passenger compartments are a similar size I can't see how when you put the seats down the Mazda gains 1232 litres of space while the Outlander gains just 431 litres despite having a spacious passenger area. John

I'm possibly missing something here so thought it worth asking, I've occasionally toyed with the idea of a soft roader type vehicle to make it easier to get bikes inside the car as the estates don't have much height particularly the Mazda. However, the stated sizes of boots seems odd with the soft roader having almost half the capacity of the estate - for example the Mitsubishi Outlander: http://www.parkers.co.uk/mitsubishi/outlander/features-safety-and-equipment/ And the Mazda: http://www.parkers.co.uk/mazda/6/estate-2008/review/features-safety-and-equipment/ I could understand the Mitsubishi having a smaller boot because it has a four wheel drive system that the Mazda lacks but the Outlander has a slightly larger boot, looking at the pictures of the seats down the Outlander doesn't seem to fold quite as flat as the Mazda but still it seems a huge difference in capacity: http://images.parkers.bauercdn.com/pagefiles/193352/boot-load-space/1752x1168/outlander_phev_140716(59).jpg?mode=max&quality=90&scale=down http://images.parkers.bauercdn.com/pagefiles/202916/boot-load-space/1752x1168/mazda-6-estate-110810-(20).jpg?mode=max&quality=90&scale=down John

Ha, I was thinking that Ghost bike looked familiar! John