Tjaardbreeuwer profile

Bontrager has released a new XR 3, basics a RockRazor, Slaughter etc concept: side knobs from Xr4, center from XR 2. Right know only in XR casing and 29x2.4 and 27.5x2.8, but with such disparate sizes and their commitment to the 29+ sizes, I bet more sizes will follow. Hopefully also a SE casing. I really want a 29x2.6 for my bike.

For now, the XR3 27.5x2.8 will be great option for local XC rides on my wife’s 27.5 plus bike: fast, Light and plenty grippy.

Edit:

They DO make cassettes with smaller range. Just hadn’t heard of them before, and didn’t see them on the website, because the are called a different model than the wide range ones.

They make 9-34, 9-39 and 9-42 in 11 speed, Xd freewheel., called the XCX plus cassettes.

Anyone running a Park/DH wheel or bike, this can be a very interesting option: light weight(less unsprung mass is great) and 10% smaller COGGS means you can run 10% smaller chainring for more ground clearance. Especially if you are running a 27.5 wheel, with its lower gear inches, your chainring can start to get awful close to the rocks on the modern low BB bikes.

It’s especially  nice if, like me you swap a different  wheel and tire into your trail/enduro bike for the park. In one quick and easy wheel swap you get a taller gearing with a grippier, tougher, tire for the park, and back to a lighter faster rolling tire and lower/wider gearing for the trail rides.

https://bythehive.com/products/xcx-plus-11-speed-cassette

Their first generation dropper had 50mm of adjustment, it’s to bad to see that drop down to 20mm Maximum now. I thought the first gen would be a great option for growing kids or people upgrading to newer bikes with shorter seat tubes. 

20mm is still useful for maxing out the seatpost, but no longer is very helpful for changing riders/frames

Do you find the the JFW fairly true to size? I ask because you mention wearing different socks.

Yeah, cheapish and very easy upgrade, new pads in brakes:

It was Enduro-MTB:

"Don’t forget aftermarket pads too: in our tests fitting the Trickstuff Power+ brake pads to the SRAM Code R resulted in a 20% improvement in average braking torque, and an average of 18% improvement in deceleration times. Plus, they were quieter"

https://enduro-mtb.com/en/best-mtb-disc-brake-can-buy/

I’d say the title of this article should be somehting like “upgrade your new(to you) bike”. It doesn’t seem to talk much about maintainance per se.

Still, a great article! And the missing upgrade, high end cables and housing, and checking the routing to avoid sharp bends, best back for your buck shifting upgrade.

For upgrading brake pads, check out the Trickstuff Power pads. Can’t remember which German bike magazine did a test, but the significantly raised braking power over the stock SRAM Guide pads.

For my fellow long legged riders who want steeper seat tubes than we have available, try using your seat post:

On Reverb posts, you can flip the plate that holds the saddle rails, around, so it’s offset to the front instead of to the rear, gives about 1.5 cm more forward position.

Many other posts use a similar design.

Or use a post with an offset  head, and install it “backwards”

Also note the stack height difference. The XXL Megatower has about 26mm higher stack, so if you set your bars at the same height, the effective reach on the Evolink 140 would be about 525mm, still a lot longer than the Megatower, but less so than it might appear at first glance.

And yes, as long as you can get your saddle where you want it(offset seatposts) toptube length is a useless number.

I agree with both @John Harris and reception does seem remarkably lukewarm. And indeed, longer term and familiar trails offer a much more usefull review. But it sounds like NSMB is waiting to get one to ride locally?

Bike magazine did ride it for a month on their local trails.

I also wonder if the views might be more positive when testers have some more time to ply with set up, for example, I don’t think anyone rode the bike in the long chainstay settting in NZ. And more time comparing coil vs air would also be useful. At the. Dry least, it would give us more info.

@Robnow,

As was mentioned in the interview article, stack matters too. When you say you are looking for a reach around 500mm, at what stack is that? The Mega is quit tall, so you might find the effective reach of the XL is similar to the the reach of many bikes with a listed reach around 500.

The relationship is about 0.4, so a bike with listed reach of 500 mm and stack of ~620mm would fit/handle identically to the MegaT in XL once you added 25mm of spacers.