trumpstinyhands profile

Commuting with a dropper around 2014 was a revelation. No more tip toe action while waiting at traffic lights, or putting a foot on the kerb. I'm a little surprised that these haven't been pushed a little harder by the industry. More useful than having 35 batteries on your bike....

Greetings old chap. Not sure about that last sentence, but with regards to phone calls, yes you have to call Shimano to explain the situation and then they give you are Return Authorization number. IME this takes about 5 minutes as Shimano erred on the side of just sending a new motor rather than fannying about trying to work out the exact motor issue. The pain in the ass is having to call them back to calibrate the new motor to the bike once installed which take a bit more time.

But yes I agree with the take home about being aware of the potential expense with buying these bikes. I wish the industry was more transparent about all these issues.

Anyway, I'm off to walk the lurcher and shoot some peasants / pheasants. Tally ho!

$400 to replace a Shimano motor? Blimey. Please tell me there was $250 of diagnosing time including swapping out all the wiring, charging port etc etc before they figured out what was wrong? It doesn't take 4+ hours to swap one of those out. It's been a while, but IIRC it's six bolts, three electrical connectors that just push on, chainring, cranks and x amount of plastic shit designed to make the assembly look nice.

Funnily enough I just purchased one of those Broped Specific Sram X01 shifters for my new normal MTB. I find quick multiple taps are just as effective as one long throw and can adjust the position of the lower lever so I don't have to bend my thumb 120 degrees back to reach it :D . Even on my AXS equipped bike I do quick taps.

Great article.

Re. tire recycling in Squamish - IIRC the Landfill takes tires and recycles them.

Finding who takes DOT 4 / 5.1 is tiresome. Company A will say that Company B will take it. So you call Company B and they say Company A does.... Sigh....

Yes, I have the PCS 10 at home but prefer the Feedback ones that I've used. IIRC they are also more stable.

Ummmm.....I don't know if I should comment on bike building again but..... :D

Did you pull the seatpost out, carbon prep the top of the seat tube AND grease the bottom of the post? The bottom of the seatpost rubbing against the inside of the seat tube under pedaling loads is a common source of creaking, and easily missed as not obvious. Most people just carbon prep or grease the top of the seat tube. But long travel droppers sit far down the seat tube and you'll see wear marks on the bottom of the post if not greased.

Just a polite suggestion in case this hadn't been done ;)

A few thoughts re. the assembly process. For my sins I've built probably thousands of bikes over the years, and I often see comments regarding how fast the bike can be built. For example I recently built a YT 'something' and another website claimed that they built a YT 'something' in 12 minutes. I built this one properly and it took me over three hours. There was so much wrong with the factory assembly that wouldn't necessarily be spotted by someone eager to build the bike ASAP (I won't bore you with the long list.....). 

Velofix state that it'll take about an hour and charge you $150 for the privilege according to the link above. Will they pull all the linkage pivots to ensure that they are greased properly, threadlocked and torqued to spec to stop seized hardware or creaking after a few rides? Remove the fork and properly grease the headset? Remove the cranks and check that the BB is tightened properly (and at the same time find out that the Sram crank bolt has been tightened to 300Nm at the factory....)? Will the cables / hoses be cut to length and brakes bled as needed? Or is the bike also going to trap rabbits? How about spoke tension....that's often out of whack and can lead to taco'd wheels after a few rides.

Sorry for the ramble, but this sort of stuff always gets missed in the review processes of every publication. Just a blind assumption that the bike is built well from the factory, which can result in headaches and expense for the customer during ownership. A 30 minute build is potentially going to result in hours of extra maintenance time in the future. 

FWIW, I've not worked on a GG. Maybe it's perfect out of the box!

/Grumpy middle aged Service Manager who's tired of fixing everyone's shitty builds :D

Yep, that was the other one that I remember but I don't know when SR become Suntour or what the connection was.

I also have vague recollection of a bike in Mountain Bike Action that had a quick release seat tube!! The whole thing pivoted on the BB. I think the idea was that you move the seat tube forward for climbing / back for descending. This would also angle the saddle in the same way as the Aenomaly. I can't believe it never caught on ha ha.

Ha ha, yeah just after I posted this I started wondering if you could do this on an X-Fusion HiLo type clamp. Might just need to strap an enduro-mallet to the top tube in order to free up the mechanism once the QR is released :D

I'm mainly going to add that don't discount 29ers (or mullet) because of floppy steering. I've had / have four fairly recent 29ers (including my current mullet), and only my Norco Sight had floppy / oversteer type handling. People seem to like them so I'm not saying that they are bad bikes..... My current bikes have nice neutral steering even though they are all sub 64 degree head angles and 170+mm forks. One mullet FS and one 29er hardtail. You can't pin floppy steering on one aspect.

I'd try and ride a few bikes if possible.

I'd get rid of the Forbidden as they are so trendy. High pivots have been around forever but people are acting like it's sick new technology. Kinda minor but....I found having to lube my chain every ride to keep the idler quiet on my recent high pivot bike pretty annoying. On the plus side, resale value is probably good! 

Deleting one Cache seems like a no-brainer. 

Which leaves killing off either the Titan or Chilcotin (for me) as they are too similar. Depends if you like the look of the Knolly or not!

I kinda wish I still had this. Riding Entrails to Room With A View in Squamish was entertaining. 

FWIW I heard about the sale on 17th November so could have been on before then. It wasn't a short lived sale.

Posted by: Endurimil

Posted by: trumpstinyhands

I guess all three of these fit the bill!

That Arcturian colour reminds me of the Rasta paint scheme GT had on the Peace 9r in 2008-2009.

It's based on the Klein 'Backfire' paint job that I first saw on the Klein Pinnacle circa 1989, and was my dream bike back then. If I bought one now, it'd just hang on the wall so I paid extra $$$ for Chris DeKerf to custom paint the frame once Mike Truelove had welded it.  It always looks a bit dull in photos but is pretty fluorescent in real life ha ha.

Posted by: allride.now

Posted by: trumpstinyhands

I guess all three of these fit the bill!

Cool classic Ted. That Arcturian is awesome though. Can we get some mean slab riding action shots once spring is back?

Thanks! I'll see what I can do ha ha.

I guess all three of these fit the bill!

Yeah I did pick that figure out of the sky a little, but I do pretty well live in them, including trail building, at work etc so they never last all that long. To cut a long story short, I only have two pairs lined up that are new. The rest have seen plenty of use and one pair were used when I got them. I did forget about my Five Ten slippers so maybe I'm good for 4 years ;)

Playing Devils Advocate (as I own six pairs of Five Ten shoes (!) so am set for the next 3 years, and I don't work for a business that sells Five Ten but....), I'd be pissed if I owned a business selling Five Ten. Not only will their faces get rubbed in the dirt by people going into the store to try shoes on for size and then not buying, they'll also have the issue of Adidas selling current product at significantly less than the dealers paid for the same product through distributor channels. 

I see a future where the only face-to-face retail businesses will be farmers markets where you can purchase 'artisan' carrots.

I love the Slingshot and the story behind it. To use a UK expression, very 'Triggers Broom'!