Despite the horrendous weather we had a good MTB ride last night.
Dave, John, Myles and I were greeted by driving rain and 50 mph winds in the car park at Pendam but we soon set off along the track in our waterproof jackets and shorts ready for a ride around the MBR Killer Loop. Myles had just got back from the Alps so the weather was a bit of a shock to him, but it was to all of us as it’s been a while since we’d been out in typical Welsh conditions.
I was suffering with sore ribs after my windsurfing session earlier in the day. Breathing hurt, as did any form of bending, twisting or bumping over bumpy things – Maybe Mountain Biking wasn’t the best idea! The ride out to and along the Bont Goch descent went pretty much without incident, there was one point when Dave, John and i went around what we knew to be a particularly deep puddle whilst Myles ploughed through it at full speed created a huge wall of water and disappearing from sight. He just made it through the water which was up to the top of his forks.
Somehow the wind seemed to be in our faces the whole way around. When we set off it was SW which would have given us a helping hand up the big climb back up to Nant y Moch, but by the time we got there the wind had swung to the SE and seemed to be in our faces for much of the climb.
Myles and I had quite a battle going up the climb. I was on the limit and my ribs were killing me, but Myles was sat right behind me and sometimes alongside me. I could tell he was suffering with the pace too though so couldn’t ease up and had to keep pushing on. It was hard work but good as it kept us both working hard.
We met Andrew going the other way just over the top of the climb – (he was out for some secret training on his own!) but we might get him to join us soon. The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful, some good descents along the MX trails up towards Angler’s Retreat and then back up towards Sidewinder, along the trails to Syfyddrin and then up to Hippity Hop. I think my windsurf and turbo trainer session earlier in the day had taken it out of me a little though as I was feeling tired come the end. Mind you, Myles was as well so maybe it was the hard climb earlier in the ride.
It was a good ride though with a good group of people and once riding the weather wasn’t really a problem – It just goes to show, you’ve just got to get out there and do it.
I haven’t been out on my Mountain Bike much lately. Since the end of April I’d only been on a couple of short rides, totaling less than 20 miles, that’s a terrible 20 miles in almost 2 months. I though I’d put that right today and headed off into the hills for what would hopefully be quite a long ride.
I had plenty of food and water with me and the conditions looked good. I though I’d punish myself for not getting out on the bike much lately by starting off with the brutal hill behind Tre-Ddol. My bike was still creaking terribly but I actually rode up it without too much trouble. Obviously it wasn’t easy, my heart rate was up around its maximum and my legs were on fire but I made it without any thoughts of giving up. It is pretty steep!
The next test was the 5 mile climb up through Artists Valley. Again, this felt easier than usual. I found myself pushing a bigger gear than I normally would put able to keep spinning and all felt quite comfortable. I reached the top in fairly good shape and headed off down the MX trails, across to Nant y Moch and then onto the Conti Trail. Partway down the Bont Goch descent I headed off to the right and down towards the mines.
Test number three lay ahead with a long climb back to the top. At first I though I was going to suffer but once I got into it I again found myself pushing a bigger gear and climbing well. It was then back over the top, down Al’s Descent into Artists Valley before a few little climbs out of Artists Valley and the flat slog back home.
35 miles in total with just over 4,000 ft of climbing and a moving time of 3hrs 26 mins. Not bad for me and reassuring with the Isle of Man End2End looming in a few months.
The trouble with having a nice Mountain Bike is that it takes a lot of looking after. Not only that, but if you have nice components on it then when they wear out you want to replace them with bits and pieces that are at least equal if not better than the originals and that gets expensive.
Recently my Commencal Meta 5.5.1 has had its rear wheel rebuilt after I snapped 3 spokes, so I’m now thinking of getting a brand new wheel for it as well. The bottom bracket wore out so I replaced it with a nice shiny Chris King bottom bracket, the best money can buy apparently. I did a wiper seal maintenance on the forks and rear shock and replaced the bushes on the shock, but now there is some wear on the bearings within the suspension linkage so it’s in having a new bearing set fitted.
What’s more, the chain is pretty worn so needs replacing and no doubt that means at least one of the chainrings and possibly the cassette needs replacing too.
The welsh mud and grit and rain and various bits of forest all take their toll on our hi-tech full suspension Mountain Bikes. I’m sure they used to last longer than this!
Commencal Meta 5.5.1
Before I start I should point out that I’m an enthusiastic amateur so this is by no means a professional test or review. Also, this is my first full-suspension mountain bike so I’m not making comparisons to any other models here.
My previous mountain bike was a hardtail, a Specialized Rockhopper, so I will be making a few comparisons with this and telling you about the transition from hardtail to full-suspension.
It took me a while to decide which new mountain bike to get. As always, I was after the holy grail that doesn’t exist of a well-specced, light-weight, do it all machine that wasn’t far too expensive. Rather than repeat my decision making process here, you can read my blog-post about which full-suspension mountain bike to get. I had planned on having some fun testing as many different bikes as possible but in the end a bargain came along that was too good to miss so I ended up with a Commencal Meta 5.5.1
Specs-wise it was perfect, SRAM X-0 rear derailleur, SRAM x-9 shifters, Race Face cranks and BB, some nice finishing kit, Formula ORO K24 brakes and Fox TALAS forks. The rear tyre was a Maxxis Larsen TT which wasn’t much good in the mud and dampness of Wales so I changed that for a Continental Mountain King and went Ghetto Tubeless at the same time. The front tyre was a Maxxis High Roller which I have left. I will convert this to the Ghetto Tubless system soon as well.
5.5 inches of front and rear travel was perfect for the trail riding and longer XC rides that I do. The overall weight (quoted by Commencal at 27.9lbs) was OK. Although a little lighter would of course have been nice I’d probably have to sacrifice on build quality and durability a little to get this, or spend a lot more money. It certainly doesn’t feel heavy and it looks and feels as though it is built to last.
So, how does it ride? I’ve now had a few rides on it and love it. With the pro-pedal on there is no obvious pedal bob when climbing fire roads. Climbing however doesn’t feel quite as easy (if it was ever easy!) as on the hardtail. I think there are a number of possible reasons for this, the first and probably most significant is that the rear hub may be a little too tight and doesn’t spin as easily as it could do. This should be easy to adjust though and if I get time I shall tinker with it today. Secondly, the bike is slightly heavier than my hardtail. Thirdly, the geometry is a little more relaxed than on my hardtail. Although the TALAS forks allow me to adjust this to a certain extent, the shorter top tube does means that I am sat upright a little more than on the stretched out Rockhopper which issn’t quite such a good climbing position for me. I’m sure I’ll get used to it though.
Once onto single track or downhill though it is just so much better than my hardtail. On flowing singletrack I have much more control, espeically in the corners. I’m able to enter them quicker, maintain my speed and exit quicker, keeping my momentum going into the next section. In some places I found myself pedalling through sections that I would normally be braking over. I also don’t have to pick my line quite so carefully as rocks and rougher bits don’t phase the bike or me at all. It takes it all in its stride, inspiring confidence and it is surprising how quickly you adapt to this new found ability. I was soon taking lines I wouldn’t normally contemplate, hitting things harder and faster and getting more air and all with more poise and control.
This confidence carried through to bigger, more technical descents too. The bike feels in control and planted to the trail, allowing me to hit things with more speed and simply float over rocks and drops that would have previously had me reaching for the brakes and teetering over them.
The extra control was especially noticeable on fast, loose sections where I was particularly slow before and always felt ‘on the edge’! With the suspension of the Commencal Meta 5.5 and the more relaxed geometry providing more control I was able to go much faster over the loose ground, which in turn smoothed out the terrain even more and made it even easier. I’ve always known that speed is your friend in such circumstances, but you need some control in the first place in order to feel safe at speed. Once you have both it becomes easy.
All in all it seems to be just right and I can now see what all the fuss about full-suspension was for. It certainly makes the fun bits easier, faster and more exciting and the slight loss of climbing performance is barely noticeable when you finish the day with a big grin on your face. There may be slightly more maintenance than with a hardtail and it is a little more difficult to clean but the advantages on the trail more than make up for that. The only other issue is that the extra speed on the trail is going to mean that it is going to hurt more when it does all go wrong!
Readers of my diary entries on Forces-of-Nature will realise that I’ve been out mountain-biking quite a bit recently. I generally ride one night a week with a small group of other local mountain-bikers all of whom have tubeless set-ups and don’t seem to get any punctures. I didn’t think there was any need to ‘go tubeless’, afterall I don’t have that many punctures and they are easy to repair on the trail so I didn’t really see the advantages.
However, after puncturing a couple of times whilst out with the others I did start feeling bad about making them wait around for me whilst I repaired the flat, so I have decided to give in to peer pressure (not something I do too often) and give it a go.
There are several ways to ‘go tubeless’. The first is to buy expensive specialist tubeless rims and tyres. I wasn’t going to go that far and as the tubeless rims and tyres are heavier and more expensive than their standard counterparts I couldn’t really see the advantages of such a system. The next option is to buy a conversion kit for normal rims and tyres, but there is also a third DIY option known as the ‘Ghetto Tubeless System’.
The way it works is you remove the inner-tube from your wheel. You then seal the rim using a strip of rubber to stop air leaking out through the spoke holes, put the tyre back on, put some latex sealant inside the tyre and then inflate it so that the tyre seals onto the rim. The latex sealant then fills any small gaps that might be present. Sounds simple, but reading reports online it can be difficult to get the tyre to seal onto the rim effectively. The main reason for this is that in order for the tyre beads to seal against the rim it needs to by pumped up to a certain pressure in order to push the tyre against the rim, but, as until the tyre is sealed it is difficult to get air into it. A catch 22 situation and most people end up having to use high pressure compressors or CO2 cartridges to get the air into the tyre quick enough… Notth I have at my disposal.
Still, at the weekend I gave it a go. Out came my inner-tube. I then stretched a small 20″ BMX tube over my MTB rim. This tube becomes the strip of rubber than seals the spoke holes in the rim, and its valve is the valve that will be used to pump the tyre up. Next I cut along its centre line so the the tube could fold out over the edges of the rim and then put my tyre back on trapping the now cut inner tube between the tyre bead and the rim. Before adding the sealant I tried pumping the tyre up just to see if I could get a seal. Surprisingly it pumped up straight away without any problems at all. So, in went the sealant, back on went the tyre and in went some air. After a bit of shaking to spread the sealant around I left it to let any small holes seal, and then trimmed the excess rubber away from the 20″ tube.
All seemed to be fine, but the tyre did loose some pressure overnight. Closer inspection showed that the side-walls of tyre were ever so slightly porous and tiny amounts of air was escaping through little pores all over the tyre.
Despite this I did the same to the rear wheel and yesterday had my first ride on the new system. All went well; no punctures, no flats and no issues with the tubeless system. Pressure was maintained throughout the ride as well. The front wheel now seems to hold pressure really well so I’d say that it was completely sealed. The rear one (which I did a day after) still looses a tiny bit of pressure over time, but I think it will seal up fully over the next day or so.
Lets hope they hold up!
Pros
- Lighter (but only just) as you only use a small strip of inner tube, but then have to add sealant)
- Less rolling resistance
- Fewer punctures – most punctures are pinch punctures where the inner tube is pinched as you go over a rock and a hole (or often two) form in the tube. As there is no tube this can’t happen. Also, any punctures from thorns nails etc. should be repaired by the remaining sealant in the tyre.
- Novelty factor
Cons
- A little more expensive than plain old tubes (you still need a new 20″ tube each time you remove the tyre and you need some sealant. However, with fewer punctures it could work out cheaper as I won’t be replacing tubes so often.
- Not so easy to change tyres of you want to ride different tyres for different conditions (not something I do anyway)
- Could be a little messy if I do get a proper flat whilst out riding as I would then have to revert to a tubed system and may get covered in latex sealant in the process
For me the jury is still out but I shall see how it goes over the next few rides.
Check out this You Tube video if you want to see how to do it yourself, and I’ll no doubt keep people up to date within this Ghetto Tubeless thread.
I knew it!… If I spent some money on some new toys something else would break requiring more expense.
I’ve been needing some new tyres for a while so I took the plunge and used my £5 voucher from Wiggle to buy some new Continental Mountain King tyres for my bike (a bargain at £15.99 each!). I’ve also been in ‘need’ of a new 5m sail and some other windsurfing equipment so I’ve order a 5m Gun Hammer, a new mast extension and some harness lines from Gun Sails and have arranged to send my broken booms back for replacement under warranty. Of course, with my ‘key rider’ discount and the usual good value from Gun these were bargains too.
I then went out for a ride on my mountain bike last night and returned needing a new spoke, a wheel re-alignment and some new brake pads… I shall take my bike in for repair tomorrow. Hopefully none of it will break the bank though and I’ll soon be back up and riding with a bike that feels like new and out windsurfing with some new kit… I like new toys!!
