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Going to the Alps next year but cant decide whether to take my bike 140mm stumpy elite or hire a 160mm O alpine. Cost wise theres about £80 in it, but the hastle factor and cost if anything brakes would neg that, i think. Plus it would be like an extended demo as the Alpine is the next bike on my list. Anyone hired out there or had similiar dilemma?
Break anything on the Alpine and you'll still be paying to fix it, so I'd take that out of your equation. Plus if you don't like the bar/stem/saddle/tyre/whatever setup on the hire bike you're stuck with it. Depending on the build (coil springs for example) you might not be able to set it up as you'd want it.
Better the devil you know (Kyle ref) imo
I went to Austria in August. My mate hired a Lapierre and took it over.
Hated it, but the 140mm bike was more than capable.
Other mate, rode his 140mm Stump without issue.
Other mate bust his rear hub, hired a Giant DH bike, hated it.
Crap tyres, brakes, shock mountings were FUBARD. And he went over the bars as the brakes were the wrong way round.
Take the Stumpy
Dual-ply tyres and crack on.
Cheers sort of confirming i need to stop being lazy about it and take the Stumpy i've taken 18 months to set up/upgrade to what i want!
Take what you know... 140mm is fine for the Alps with some dual ply tyres fitted.
On our last trip some of the guys hired the rest took their own bikes.. I personally felt much happier on my own bike especially when we had a massive fork failure on one of the hire bikes...
Recall anyone ?
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Next thread. What dual ply tyres for Alps?! 🙂
Take your own bike is my view.
and fit some big rotors.
ive got 203 front 180 rear, so should be man enough
Cardo: who was that with?
Take your own bike if you can. We find that people are rarely happy with the hire bikes, and that is despite hiring really nice, new bikes for people. Often people are unhappy with tyres, saddles, handlebars, grips, brakes etc not because they are bad but because they are different.
Of course if you are planning doing a type of riding you don't normally do and therefor don't have a bike for that's different.
P.s. never, never accept brakes that are the wrong way round. It's horrible when you hear stories of people being fobbed off with that. There are no brakes that you can't change round in less than ten minutes IME.
Cheers Doug.
When we went to A Quick Release I took my own Hemlock rather than hiring one of their almost as nice Hemlocks out there- just on the basis that I know my bike, I don't want to have to spend any time figuring out a new one on holiday.
Worth checking about breakages incidentally, some hirers may expect you to make good any damage, others have a bit of leeway.
P.s. never, never accept brakes that are the wrong way round. It's horrible when you hear stories of people being fobbed off with that. There are no brakes that you can't change round in less than ten minutes IME.
Agreed. That was a big deal when I did some work with Mountain Edge in Austria (who are a great operation that do it as a matter of course).
Just to throw the cat among the pigeons, if an Alpine is on your list why not hire one? Just take out your own saddle and grips (assuming they're lock-on).
Just buy the Alpine now, enjoy getting used to it (believe me, it won't take long) then take it to the Alps, where it'll easily outshine (and probably outlast) your Stumpy. Folk on here are missing the point a bit: it's not just about the travel - sure, 140mm is probably fine - it's about everything else that makes the Alpine such a mint choice. Slack, low, agile, trouble-free, great climber....
We all know where you're going with this. Buy an Alpine, bring it over.
take your stumpy unless you are planning to do huge drop offs etc.
200mm rotors or 185 if you are light.
Bleed the brakes well, get a spare mech hanger and a spare set of pads at least if you are a brake dragger, drop the saddle further down than you think, rotate the bars a bit to suit the low saddle, ride.
Dual ply tyres just minimise puncture risk which is easily fixed but, with only 5 days riding in a week and 6 or 7 hours a day, time is precious, do you really want to spend any of it with your bike upside down?
^^^ I've just spent a tidy sum get bike set up, ready for big stuff. The 140 travel isnt the issue as im quite light on the bike, dont smash into stuff. I have done several dh black runs on it no problems.
i could see myself getting an alpine frame before we go and transfering all the parts over. But on a spending hiatus. TBF the stumpy is a really capable bike, light and quick but doesnt ride through stuff as oppose to skittering over it. Might just be the way i ride(slowly)
But yes its a slow burner to the new bike.(hints to missus)
Creedy, all this stems from the fact you've been riding with both of your brothers too much. You have it in your head that one of them is far superior simply because he has a 160mm travel nomad, the other brother is on a 140mm norco and is still far superior to you simply because he has rad skillzzz and can shred gnar for fun (ie. faceplants a lot). Christ, one of the lads is going to be on a 130mm trance! Quit your bitching and get your forks sorted. You'll soon get your confidence on the stumpy back! 😀
Fond Regs,
Ekul
Ha HA HA. To be fair i thought andy would have waded in by now. ekul least i get to the bottom of runs with
1- my face body in one piece
2- my bike in one piece
3- no flat tyres.
Anyway hows the knee bro. I'm to old to shred anymore(ever)
It's getting there, still a fair bit of fluid in it but the movements coming back. Just need to make sure I keep on top of my rehab and get the muscle built up around it again - Amazed at how much muscle has wasted away in 2 weeks of not moving it much!
When you back up t'North?
Don't know fella. Trying to keep the traveling down. not til after xmas. Just keep the rehab up and we'll organise a trip out to some gnar place when your back on the bike!
I was going to sugest something but there is no need now - the lads been TOLD! 
PS I went to the Alps with a hardtail and some old Marzocchis and an archane mix of disc and v-brakes. You'll be fine on any bike with chunky tyres and a dash of MTFU
stumpy, service, DP tyres, big brakes, ride, enjoy, be amazed at the steepness and scale of everything, get back to UK, be disillusioned for a while..it's just not the Alps, man up, get back to normal routine.
HTH.
@Bamboo... The fork failure was with The White Room, they were brill about it, arranged a cab to collect the bike and we used one of the guides bikes (Iona) to finish the day. You can't ask for a better service than that.
The forks had a defect and couldn't have been foreseen by the guys and gals at WR and thankfully no one was hurt.
to be fair to myself i dont have a problem with maning tfu. Just had some fork probs(service coming soon.
It wasnt that i didn't think the stumpy would be capable as it eats all i can throw at it. It was more the faff of taking a bike over as oppose to just picking one up there.
Cardo i take it that was one of their Alpine fleet that the fork failed on. Tey do seem a great bunch out there and cant wait to meet up with them.
@Cardo - I thought I recognised the bike; I had that very bike when I was with The White Room, in fact I think I was the first person to ride it - a great bike. I'm not surprised by the great service, I thought the whole set up was brilliant, and Iona in particular was very good (she put up with my crap riding for a week!). I agree that you can't predict something like that happening, it isn't the kind of failure you see every day. It must have given you a fright though! 🙂
I agree with Ekul. Me and my Nomad is awesumz!!!!
Seriously, take yours and then there will be no excuses about bike or kit not being right.
Oh wait a minute........... 😆
You know thats only every other ride!! You working sunday? cant remember what you said.
Working for a change.
balls Sunday looks like a decent day aswell! Playin rugby tomorrow so thats out! Hopefully the broken rib is healed properly!
We all know where you're going with this. Buy an Alpine, bring it over.
+1
😉
Is it a full uplift holiday you're going for? If so, I advise you buy a used DH bike for the trip, and sell it on again once you get home.
I did the Alps with my trek remedy this year and it was horrible. Braking bumps and really rocky compressions and berms toss a shorter travel bike around a lot more, to the point where I simply didn't enjoy the riding aspect of things (plus the shocks didn't seem very plush either but the bike's gone now thankfully).
You can get a good useable DH bike for 800 quid if you take your time choosing. Then even if you lose £100 of that when you sell it back on (and I reckon you'd probably want to keep it anyway) that's not bad to give you a real feel for what the trails over there are like.
cardo - Member
The fork failure was with The White Room, they were brill about it, arranged a cab to collect the bike and we used one of the guides bikes (Iona) to finish the day.
.
I think Stevo has secretly filled Ionas frame with concrete! I nearly put my back out trying to lift her Spicy over a fallen tree....... 😉
Buy THAT Alpine ^, bring it over! 😉
Sorry again about that Cardo, we were a tad wee bit upset about it ourselves! Wasn't a big surprise to us when the Fox recall was announced. We had a 100% failure rate on the forks on our rental bikes!
Stevo!
Mailed you earlier. Are you still ok holding those dates for next July? Leave should be authorised next week.
Cheers
Andy
andy - all good for next year, emailing you right now!
Top man. Can't wait 🙂