100Tours

Careful Johan - The religion industry has ways of dealing with people like you

This is an invitation to be sold something built entirely of unobtanium.

Never seen that before. I ride standard Maxxis tyres with a tubeless conversion and they last until the last knob falls off or I run the sidewall up against a cheesegrater. Do you have a history of sleepwalking? and biting stuff?

Based on no science at all except for my own riding, here's my 2c worth: Have used XT and SRAM clusters over the years. There was no difference in shifting performance, both were very nice and lasted a long time. I like the ones with the aluminium carrier because you don't risk damaging your freewheel hub (I have observed that the chainrings on the LX-style clusters protrude on the inside, and may bite into/scar lightweight aluminium freewheel bodies). The XTR clusters do feature a number of titanium chainrings (I think). I've always considered them too expensive and never tried them. Different story on chains however. I find the SRAM chains perform better - don't know why, for me they just do. I have broken shimano chains, but not yet broken an SRAM chain (and I did use the correct shimano pins). I prefer the SRAM cross riveted chain (which has a 250kg rated breaking strain as opposed to Shimano and other SRAM chains with 200kg breaking strain), but the normal SRAM also does a great job. I have used perhaps 10 or 12 chains whether SRAM or Shimano over the last 5 years. GotThatInCarbon2009-05-03 10:07:49

Inspiration - an old Rossin catalogue, complete with Italian models http://bulgier.net/pics/bike/Catalogs/rossin/

yup that's the one. should work fine. I used to ride SRAM Rocket trigger shifters with a Shimano XT rapid rise deraileur and they do a great job. Anything in the SRAM X-series requires an SRAM deraileur however (it uses a 1:2 actuation ratio - which basically means it moves the cable twice as far for each shift while Shimano equipment uses 1:1 actuation).

Is the derailleur straight? get someone with a hanger alignment guage to check it for you. Skew hangers are hard to see and very hard to diagnose. google Park Tool DAG-1 if you want to know what it looks like.

A for Chemistry, E for Physics..

Just swap out the UST tyres for the regular folding bead version. You can run these with rim strips no problem, and you'll save 100g per tyre.

A friend of mine rides past a group of schoolkid spectators on day 6 of the epic, says the one girl of perhaps 9 to her younger sister as they go past: "Typical, die vettes gooi nooit sweets nie."

Shimano have introduced their 'wave' technology (adapted from their cable brakes) to their disks. The disc will not / isn't designed to have the same on/off behaviour as other brands, so the first part of the movement will feel soft, however when you do tighten up they will hold you very nicely. Advantages are less drag on the disc, better modulation, finer control, etc. The displacement of the pads accelerates as you move through the stroke of the lever so that braking forces go up as you reach the white knuckle stage.

The advice I had for my first Epic was 100% Tea Tree Oil. it's antiseptic, dries fast, and cleans up just about anything in a day or two.

any shimnao shifter should work just fine.