TonyJ profile

AH, holly, the bain of my existence. 

Everybody should feel free to pull holly out (by the roots) whenever they find it in the forest. That would be a great help to any and all trail builders.

The real question is, when you ride, does it sound like somebody banging a bear bell inside a tin can?

If not, then it's not a proper Norco Shore......

As a vendor that sold them product over the years, then for the last 10 years did repairs for MEC, I can speak to the mismanagement of processes. Having them ship an $80 wholesale item back and forth across the country ($80 in shipping) for a $20 repair, makes no sense. Giving members warranty on items past the warranty period, that they could not verify was purchased from MEC, is well, just stupid.

As for the vendor dealings, they had no clue what they were doing in so many categories. They purchased from us, an item that does not work without a specific battery (only available from us), we told them that they only ordered enough batteries for 1/4 of the items, they said no, its fine, we know what we're doing. All they had to do was purchase the items as a prepacked set, but no, they were smarter than that somehow.

Most of the people I dealt with over the years, on the purchasing side, that were good at their jobs, left in the last 5 years (saw the writing on the wall). A bunch of the long term floor staff were culled about 3 or 4 years ago (they made too much money), but they were the staff that knew what they were doing.

In my opinion, MEC haven't been a Co-Op in about 15 years, probably longer if you look at their practices closely. They certainly weren't following their Mission Statement, when they started selling Bikes and Alpine Ski Gear, products readily available everywhere.

Cooper is right, if you don't have the patience to wait for a permit to come through, you will never have the follow through to maintain a trail that you have built.

Best choice for people like this, is to get involved with maintaining existing trails, either through your local trail advocacy group, or hook up with some builders. If you find the right group and work with them, then you might have the opportunity to help build a new trail, offer some input into the trail design..... 

There are very few new trails being built each season, so to think that you can just rock up thinking it's your turn, well, that would be delusional.

Thanks for the correction Mr Burgundy, didn't know the colour thing, but that makes total sense.

I've only seen an XT/resin once on a bike that a friend got, it was a while back. I can't be sure it was the correct spec part or not, I just remember thinking that it was total BS. The SLX is a super common one for sure.

Kenwood,

The white and yellow sidewall tires are still exactly what they say on the sidewall. So if the spec list is the same, the tires are the same.

Maxxis uses the different colours so they can tell where tires are going/coming from. It helps them control the grey market sale of OEM tires, which they sell for a lot less $ than aftermarket tires. OEM tires still appear on the grey market, but the manufacturer can figure out the source and control it better in the future.

As somebody else stated, tires are a consumable, so I am sort of indifferent to that spec (I will replace with my choice, as they probably wont spec my choice anyways).

The place I have a problem with spec is shifter/derailleur. Don't give me an XT derailleur with a Deore or SLX shifter, it should be the other way round, I've broken 2 or 3 shifters in my life, but replace the derailleur once a year. 

The other spec issue is brakes/rotors. Shimano resin only rotors with XT brakes, or even SLX, that just pisses me off. Again, don't down spec brakes Deore/SLX instead of XT, to put on better tires, give me the better brakes, I am going to wear the tires out anyways, so......

My 2 cents.

Ahhh, Woodlot Gold, I remember that 3 exit stunt all to well, and the epically long and high bridge/log ride (that was intimidating). 

Similar experience falling backwards/headfirst into the Ladies Only swamp at full depth (wasn't terraced in the old days, just deep and muddy beside the teeter), only thing that was dry were my feet, but I had to stand up, so..... Cold winter day, rode the rest of the ride soaked all the way down to my saturated skate shoes. I don't think I'll ever feel that cold again.

For inspiration, I offer words sung by the Specials;

"Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think"

Thanks Andrew, I enjoyed that.

I will give you that Cam.

I will add a caveat though. 

If your only issue is mtn biking, then you're either so rich that none of the other real issues affect you, or, you will no longer be able to afford to live on the North Shore. The developers and the council members they have pocketed will see to that. You think it is expensive now, wait until Mosaic (trail sponsor for NSMBA) mow down places like Emery in LV and put up smaller more expensive suites, with less rental options than they have now.

Sorry. End of rant, this is a mtn bike web-site after all, politics shouldn't be discussed here unless it is about access.

If you are riding in snow, go to flat pedals, my winter riding boots clump up with ice on the sole, making it very difficult to clip in and hard to clean when you are freezing your ass off.

Syncros,

Been on a big Cranberries musical kick for the last few months. Which ended up with me wondering, does the trail name had a reference to the song Salvation, by the Cranberries.

When I have the opportunity to name a trail, my refernces usually come back the music, the other thing that I have a passion for. I know other people reference family and/or loved ones.

Just a question that popped into my head while listening to Delores and the Cranberries.

That double teeter was on Oil Can, there was a ton of wood work on that trail, just like Upper. 

It was scary looking, but not hard to ride after the first try.

Good to see you're back out there.

Such a good trail you built and with just a little love it will be back to it's original full glory.

But it does look like you have something even bigger in mind.

The way that bike looks, it should never go near dirt or dust, way too sexy.

Somebody needs to start a thread for the watershed issue, I keep looking here to see if anything has been going on with CBC

Posted by: Brocklanders

Posted by: TonyJ

Posted by: Brocklanders

"The shop should eat the cost, IMO. The supplier won't warranty it and that's understandable."

I 100% disagree with this. The shop is at no fault and if they did the replacement of the parts without charging labor, they have done enough.

It's like blowing a relatively new car tire, then running your car into a wall. Do you go after the car manufacturer, NO, do you go after the dealer, NO. Neither were at fault for the manufacturing defect in the tire, so how are they responsible for anything.

Grambo, I'm interested to see the damage, post up the pictures of that.

The shop sold the bike, who's fault it is should be between the supplier and the shop. They sold the faulty equipment and now are brushing it off. I know how it all works but now they have a pissed off customer who who could very easily just say the name of the shop and that will damage their reputation. Not good business practice really. 

I had a binding pull out of a new pair of skis some years ago. The ski shop gave me a brand new pair right away. Who's fault was it? The ski manufacturer or the tech who mounted them?  Didn't matter, they replaced the skis no questions asked. Where do I buy my skis from, where am I getting new boots this season? That shop. They take care of their  customers, it's good business practice. In the end they win even if they lose a little here and there.

Now Grambo probably will never set foot in there again....Their loss. They could have replaced the frame at cost, repaired it, sold it as a cosmetic repair/demo. Lost very little, and kept a customer.

How do you know they sold faulty equipment. Certainly the frame wasn't faulty unless the BB/frame is crooked causing the chainring to break, then, like I said before, that would be Cervellos problem.

If your binding pulled out, that is either the fault of the tech (impropper installation), or your fault (putting extreme forces onto the ski/binding that it cannot withstand).

Again, do we even know if there is any real damage to the frame (other than consmetic)? No, we don't, the only ones that have seen the frame are Grambo, the shop and Cervello.

I guess what we can agree on is, Grambo and the shop both have the right to make the choice to deal with in whatever way they want. If Grambo doesn't want to shop there again, that is his choice, if the shop feels like they don't need to do anything more than replace the chainring, that is their choice. The chips will fall where they will.

That's why I asked him for the pictures of the frame earlier in the thread.

We are all commenting based on super limited/one sided information. 

As far as I am concerned, the frame manufacturer is not liable for anything, which makes the bike shop not liable for anything to do with the frame. That said, the frame manufacturer sucks, but that doesn't have anything to do with this transaction, just an oppinion based on direct information from retailers and consumers of their products.

Posted by: DangerousDave

Posted by: Silk

Double skinnies!  Can I ride it?!?

DD, you are so good, you could ride the invisible skinnie in between the 2 visible skinnies. 

KUDOS, love your vids man.

Wait, he has a consecutive skinnie teeters tied to together with rubber?  That's f'n amazing. 

That was the coolest attainable stunt that I never managed to ride, that and the swivel totter on Air Supply, even though I tried a bunch. The high stuff on those trails was way out of my league, but I always wanted/thought I could to do the tech moves.