After many months of riding and not cleaning my bike, I cleaned it.

It was considerably lighter after such a treatment, which was great when we (me and the college people) went up to Gisburn Forest for a ride around...

Note the pictures below aren't mine, but show where we went quite well...







and, of course, here's a vid of someone else trying the black run.

hully gully (rollercoaster) gisburn 05-06-10 - YouTube

Some great riding there - if you're reading this, and happen...

Me again, here's some updated pictures of my bike...







I have only one question. Which smart-alec called a brake company "Hope"?!
Surely, DefiStop would be better?

First ride around was good, the fork needs a little fettling on the rebound/travel front (remote lockout is good though), plan to head up to the local woods and set it up there.

Cheers,
Chris

Many years ago, (when I was 11, now 17), I got a bike for my birthday/Christmas combined present, I got a mountain bike. It was good for what it was: V-brakes, 21 gears, front suspension etc.
So, I enjoyed the bike for about a year, then decided the forks weren't great, and that upgrading them would make everything much better. Now, knowing nothing about bike geometry, I fitted some longer forks. Lovely, I could go over all sorts, land jumps and the front wheel always stayed attached to the ground. Being young and adventurous, I started doing drops - onto concrete. Needless to say the wheels that came attached to a £150 bike didn't hold up particularly well.
So, a little re-speccing later, the bike got some new wheels. These were heavy duty jump wheels that are designed for grown men to jump off stuff. A 13 year old would be fine. Due to the different hubs, I also had to fit a new rear cassette, and all the deraileurs and shifters that come with.
Seeing they were disc...

Now then (does that make sense?).

Today, I played a small gig at a college (6th form) talent show. Maybe 100 people or so in the audience.

So, some background... I bought an old, faulty guitar amp off ebay. A resistor (1/2 watt one) had burned, as well as one of the output stage transistors. This had got hot enough to short one of the rails to the speaker output. This killed off the vintage Celestion driver in there. Lovely. Next up, the power supply was under-done. The mains transformer had been replaced before I'd got it (odd screws used to hold it in), and the old 2,200uF caps failed to meet half that value. The rectifier was a small chip, stood on the circuit board.

So, using a spare Eminence driver (modified Alpha 10 - felt dustcap, looser suspension), I fired it up, hoping there was some life in it. Life, there was. Lots of volts DC on the output, with a 100Hz buzz on top of that. Needless to say, I switched it off again.
Replaced...

Well, here we are again (unless, of course, you're here by mistake).

After much contemplation, I've decided that my subwoofer needs upgrading. Currently, it's a pair of MCM DVC woofers (you will probably have seen me going on and on about them), which, while good for the price, aren't that good compared to my Fostexes (which, now fully broken in, are fantastic). They're given ~100w between them, with a Linkwitz Transform to get them down low. Good for normal listening levels, but quickly run out of displacement below 40Hz at anything about normal listening levels.

So, a new bass system is in order. I've always wanted to try a Tapped Horn, so I've chosen a design originally intended for an Exodus 6.5" midbass, that's shown to work pretty well with the Tang Band 6.5" subwoofer... All the way down to 25Hz. Those will be fed by an amp1-b from 41Hz, with a +/-34V supply. Should be more than 100w per side. Ca suffice, especially for a bedroom system ...

Well, here we are again, dear reader.

Today I received my Fostex FE126eN drivers from Dave, who has been very helpful in the whole process.

I have the cabinets (small, folded Voigt pipe, herehere. Partially made, as I needed the drivers in-hand to measure the cut-out required for the partition. Anyway, when I got the wood cut (asking specifically for 15mm MDF), they gave me a pile of 18mm MDF, with all the correct cuts. This would've made assembly a nightmare, so I phoned them, explained what had happened, and they sent someone over with the 15mm cuts. Sorted.

I decided to use the 18mm thick baffles as a baffle, give the drivers a run-in. Even after not very long, they sound bloomin' lovely. Sure, the treble's a little forward, and the bass needs significant eq (as you'd expect). But yeah, vocals are things are awesome to listen to. These are just far better than anything I've ever owned.

So, with the drivers bedding in nicely,...

Well, this is a first. A blog.

Second day of college (6th form, etc), and all seems to be going well. The teacher seem reasonable enough, even though they do seem to like going back to basics. I expect that will change when the course is properly underway.

I'm taking AS level (A-level comes next year) Physics, Mathematics, Biology and Chemistry, with the intent to go into either a medical career, or to become an engineer of some kind (maybe work for B&W, Celestion or KEF........). Anyway.

What was I up to? Oh yes, changes that will undoubtedly take place. I really, sincerely hope that the teachers will stop telling everyone how much of a step up AS level is from GCSE, and actually do some teaching!! We were warned at the open evenings, in the introductory speech by the principal, by our secondary school teachers, even our parents, friends etc that have been through the experience.

Right. That's got that out of the way. Now...