dave_f profile

I wonder why they would include an aluminum crown race with this headset? I swapped out the aluminum one that came with my CC 110 for the steel CC 70 one, put the aluminum one on the gravel bike. There's a definite step worn into an aluminum crown race after a season on the MTB.

I thought the e-bike with derailleur thing was a stopgap till companies get around to integrating a gearbox in the motor housing. At that point there could be a real suspension performance advantage, a single-speed chain and sprocket with perfect chainline would last longer than linkglide, and any slight loss in efficiency would be a non-issue. Sadly, given the amount of investment that went into this, it looks like derailleurs and cassettes are going to be with us for a long time.

I think my dentist is more into sponsoring ice hockey. I can understand his reasoning.

DMR vaults on the MTB, shoe size is an average 42-43.

There is a lot to like about these, looks like they will have a long service life between rebuilds. Sadly they've decided to place them really close to the cranks, I'd probably end up with a lot of interference between cranks and shoes. Maybe they will offer a longer axle version in the future?

I was all set to convert my rear MTB hubs/dropouts over from TA 10x135 to 12x142, had all the parts lined up and envisioned the 12x142 being put out to pasture with a gravel type frame at some future date.

Then I saw that Cannondale had released an amazing new concept they called "speed release" where the axle remains in the hub and you just undo it a bit and slide it out of their proprietary dropouts to remove the wheel from the frame.

I had images in my head of the times I've been on the side of some dank and muddy spot being eaten alive by Mosquitos trying to fix a flat, in the future with a 12mm axle in my teeth to keep it getting covered with crud. I thought about it a bit and stuck with TA10.

I have one setup with 6 of 9 cogs running on a hope pro trials hub (short steel freehub, wide bracing angle), zee derailleur, and SRAM XO 9-speed shifter. The cable is spaced out around 6mm at the derailleur.

Keep your 9 speed shifter, people are paying premium prices as it seems the higher end Shimano 9-speed shifters are no longer available. Or if you don't need it yourself, find someone who needs one and will give it a good home.

Thanks for the reply, maybe it has to do with the difference in speeds and use. Looking for the formula for flop, I find flop=trail*sin(ha)*cos(ha) where ha is head angle. So the forks with short offset (the Enduro bikes) should have "floppier" steering if the head angle is the same.

It's interesting that the Enduro forks being run with similar head angles (Fox 38) are offered with 37/44 and 44/51 offsets, but the downhill forks are 48 and 52. Why do Enduro bikes need more trail than downhill bikes?

Yeah, that's what I thought as well. "This bike? Oh, I've had this bike for ages, it's not new. Don't you remember?"

On another subject, try getting on a lift this winter with an old asym snowboard. All the kids too young to know what it is will be in awe.

These were on the dirt bike which gets used for jumps, pumptrack, and skills practice. Not much mud, water, or rock strikes. Maybe most pedals don't live long enough to fail from metal fatigue.

The F20s look to be a durable choice, it would be nice if they had a concave version.

I was recently cleaning up a pair of pedals when I noticed the platform on one was broken. At first, I figured it must have been due to some abuse like hitting a rock or other solid object. Upon inspecting the same spot on both sides of both pedals, I realized that all of the other three similar locations had formed hairline cracks, and the failure is probably due to metal fatigue. These are about 7 years old, so I guess I got enough life out of them, but I'm curious if anyone has had/seen a similar failure? In the future I guess I'll be looking for similar spots that might be prone to fatigue damage when looking at platform pedals.

A simple way to measure reach is to stand the bike in a door frame. Place one of the edges in the vertical middle of the BB (crank), and measure from that edge horizontally to the middle of the top of the headtube (if that's the way the mfgr. specifies it).

I am still running a 135 Chris King rear hub with the 10mm bolts on each side. I use a long handle 8mm allen to tighten them down. The bearings run directly on the one piece axle. I went so far as to make a set of dropouts so I could keep running it with my current frame (Banshee). I think it's the stiffest setup I have, other than maybe the 14mm threaded one piece steel axle on the rear BMX hubs. I do swap it out for a 10mm thru axle wheel for light duty if I don't want to carry the 8mm allen.

I torque the Kabolt 15mm axle on the fork I use for DJ to 17 nm. If you look at the Fox 15mm QR axle, it actually has a 5mm rod that stretches like a classic QR.

For 20mm axles I'm a fan of designs with a thru axle like the CK (one piece axle) or OS DT 240 (end caps thread onto the axle). A lot of them have the inside bearing races running directly on the fork axle, depending on the fork design the bearings can spin the races on the axle or rattle around, especially with variation in axle diameter.