1990's Mountain Bike Thread (aka the gravel bike thread)

Update on my Chinese Factory Direct experiment...

I'm now about 2 months into my Factory Direct experiment - a company called LightCarbon. This Frame, fork headset, bar/stem and seatpost cost me about $550 USD. I also picked up a set of carbon hoops for $100USD each. The only new parts I needed were spokes and a front hub. The build is fully mechanical, including brakes :( . The wheelset is pretty sweet with blue king hubs and CX ray spokes. The bottle cages are carbon, also direct from China, and were only 8$ each.

I have about 1000km on the bike at this point. I built the bike up myself and everything went together flawlessly. No issues with alignment etc. No creaks coming from the bb despite a good combination of rain and dust. I was worried about the fully internal cable routing but the shifting has been perfect. There is a bit of extra drag in the brakes but that has improved as the housing has bedded in. Most importantly, nothing has broken - no cracks or failures. The ride is OK. It is a bit of a weird mixture of stiff and flexy. The rear end and pedalling efficiency are good. The steering is super flexy - I would describe it as noodlely. The bars and fork are fairly stiff. At first the flex in the steering axis of the frame was pretty unnerving but now that I'm used to it I don't mind it. It actually mutes cornering trail chatter but I definitely wouldn't be loading this bike down for a long tour.

Would I buy this bike again - no. Would I buy Chinese direct again - maybe (we will see how well this stuff lasts). I am actually thinking about a custom Marino for my next frame.

Awesome or terrible?

https://bikerumor.com/the-pros-closet-the-radavist-mosaic-limited-bike-build/

There's a certain nostalgia to it but generally just too hipster for me...

Awesome. 

but... There's a certain price tag that's just too dentist for me.....

Posted by: MaxRockatansky

Awesome. 

but... There's a certain price tag that's just too dentist for me.....

Yeah - that Mosaic is gorgeous.  But I can't get past the price tag on any of these bikes anymore.

well thats the price of titanium but it doesnt look very titanium-ish you would have to splain to people why you paid 9k doens't  do anything for me

9k US$....  wow.  Hipsters will be all over it then complain about the cost of living while sipping on their $5 cup of latte

^^ Glass Houses.

The N Van MTBer version of that showing up to Seymour dumpsters with 15K$ Santa Cruz and complaining about 8$ IPA.

Bike prices across the board are stupid.

consider > 20K bikes are the best of the best

a Pinerello Dogma compared to say 3 or 400 K exotic cars

in comparison to the canuck tire special for a few hun

the figure add up

Gravel bikes...a while ago I didn't really understand the point. Now I am one. Picked it up used and fairly cheap to see if it was something I'd stick to The older I get the harder it is to keep my fitness up so I figured some nice long rides would help. I'm only one ride in but I didn't hate it. 

I recently told my wife I should dial back the mtbing  and venture into something like gravel because at my age and mediocre at best skill I could really screw myself up.  Well this weekend I had a beauty and am waiting for xrays results on more than one appendage.  Needless to say I'll be off the bike for a while.  So I am once again pondering gravel road exploration, bike packing and tamer single track via a steel monster cross bike or rigid steel mtb instead of messing myself up further.  Sigh.

Sorry to hear about your injuries. I hope the xrays are reassuring and you heal fast. My wife broke her wrist at the end of March and has been back on the gravel bike since June. Her first mtb is tomorrow. The gravel biking has been amazing. We often spend whole days just tooling around, earing and taking pictures. We love making our way to deep cove as part of our trip to get honeys. There are so many gravel paths to connect different part of the city while avoiding traffic.

Posted by: BC_Nuggets

I recently told my wife I should dial back the mtbing  and venture into something like gravel because at my age and mediocre at best skill I could really screw myself up.  Well this weekend I had a beauty and am waiting for xrays results on more than one appendage.  Needless to say I'll be off the bike for a while.  So I am once again pondering gravel road exploration, bike packing and tamer single track via a steel monster cross bike or rigid steel mtb instead of messing myself up further.  Sigh.

I feel the same way at the ripe old age of 29. Smashed my knee into a rock at the end of January and it took five months to get back to normal... five months of riding I'll never get back. I have a gravel bike, but I'm building up a rigid steel drop bar monster cross bike/ATB for more exploration/adventure riding. "Hey, where does this snowmobile trail go? Dunno, but I'm gonna find out."

Posted by: TristanC

"Hey, where does this snowmobile trail go? Dunno, but I'm gonna find out."

That pretty much describes most of my east coast XC riding in the early 90s on a Norco Kokanee.

I think I may be becoming a hipster.  Or maybe I've been one for a while now.  Is it normal to drool over Crust bikes with low trail geometry, front racks, Carradice bags?  They look sexy as hell to me and fun.

Maybe it's because I'm injured and not riding my mind is swirling into new and interesting realms.  Maybe I am Morgan Taylor.