Kenny profile

Cool, reminds me a little of the (sadly, no longer produced) swarf contour, which I'd consider one of the sexiest bikes around. 

Cool exercise! As another 40's rider who has a lot of love and nostalgia towards steel hard tails, I feel similarly torn on the Darco. I'm the target demographic but I'm not sure I like that. Haha. 

In the mismatched rifty photo, I can't help but notice there looks to be almost zero BB drop. That's one of the main things throwing the comparison out of whack imo. BB height on that thing looks sky high?

One of my favorite things about short travel bikes is that the bottom bracket height stays within a smaller window, dynamically vs statically, so it can be, on average, quite low, which personally I love even with its tradeoffs on the shore.

I can't get past the "ponch" that cover makes at the bottom of the downtube. 

It would look sweet without that. 

I assume it's necessary because the shock protrudes into that space when the suspension compresses.

I'd say the SE series casings are tougher than an exo+ (at least the original style) but maybe a little more light duty than a double down.

>  I'd be curious why you prefer it over the faster rolling DHF or DHR2 in the same compound. 

That's easy. 

For me, in 2.5wt the DHF has too big of a "dead zone" between the center knobs and cornering knobs. The 2.3 casing of 5 years ago was fine, but I don't think the DHF "scaled" well to wider casings. 

The assegai fixes that issue. 

I bought an SE6 a few months ago. I didn't love it but for winter I moved it out back with a maxxgrip assegai up front. 

It's a good combo for winter. Draggy, sure, but have you looked out the window recently? Draggy tires are not going to be a concern for me any time soon. :)

Agreed. 

I'm sure each subsequent version has been more "shore appropriate" since they keep getting longer, slacker, more... Mullety, but I feel like the 5010 probably hit the peak of its career in 2019ish, the very last iteration before they went lower link. 

I still think I'm bound to stumble upon one of those purple/lilac colored ones for sale cheap and I won't be able to resist. 

IMO to me that's an iconic Santa Cruz bike, like the turquoise Nomad V3 and pink Bronson V2. 

I know, I sound old.

The climb up Blackcomb  built this bike.

Cooper references the fact that when it comes to the Darco,  there's really not to many bikes you can really cross shop. 

With the 5010, it feels like more differences than similarities to me personally?

The design brief for the 5010 is agile trail bike, brief for the Darco is more like short travel gnar bruiser, and you can tell. 

They're almost 2 sizes different when it comes to reach numbers, 5010 a full degree steeper in head angle, mx, and 10mm more rear travel and 10mm less front. 

With an angle set in the 5010 and some unconventional sizing choices you could narrow the gap I suppose. 

An interesting comparison for me will be against the (yet unreleased) new transition smuggler. Transition push the board out further in terms of long and slack so I wouldn't be surprised if these are more similar.

Also Optic maybe, but still a size different on reach and a degree steeper.

As a north shore rider who had never ventured to Whistler, I was starting to think Chromag had taken their geo too far, STAs especially. 

Then a did a few climbs in Whistler and went "oh... that's why their bikes are like that."

The geo makes 100% sense for Whistler. It makes reasonable sense for the shore/squamish, depending on what you like to ride. As terrain gets mellower, the geo gets less useful (and chromag themselves specifically make a point of saying they build bikes for what they ride).

I've owned a couple chromags, last was a 2019 rootdown, just as the geo was becoming a little much for me personally.

So, I worry the geo is too extreme for me as despite mostly riding sea to sky I am more of a wanderer than a straight up, straight down sort of guy. 

That said I'm 5'11/180cm, chromag put me between an M/L and and L.

I'd be inclined to try an M. More seat post extension will effectively slacken the STA and lengthen the ETT. 

Still a 1250 wheelbase or so and more than 800mm of front center. Enough for me for pretty much anything I ride. 

I do love the idea of a "super hard tail".

Agreed. Mine was very marginal with a 550 (with rebound fully closed), with a 600 is was crazy fast.

Good point on time of year Andrew, as bike nerds I think we see any day of the year as a potential new bike day, where as with the general masses it's more seasonal than that. 

We're just coming into bike buying season for "normal" people.

The ones on my 38 have never made a sound, including chilcotins trips with pretty big swings in elevation, temperature, etc.

Damn the kuwaharas are awesome. Super nostalgic. 

And how sexy is this? Shitdamn.

Yeah seems slower than usual. I've had a frame up for about a month for what I think is a great price but no success yet. Selling stuff can be random though. Just takes one buyer.

You said it was odd people think 5% is high. 

Point is, it's not odd, it's perfectly understandable.

Posted by: syncro

Posted by: Stuminator

We bought in 1991 & were paying 11.75 %, I guess that wasn't too bad compared to the eighties. Terrible rate compared to now, though.

Yeah it's a bit odd how a lot of people think rates around 5% are high.

But house prices have increased exponentially relative to wages since then. 

I'd be happy to pay 12% on a 150k mortgage making half what I make now. 5% on a million is not so fun. 

The comparisons aren't quite apples and oranges.

CCA is part of it as well. I'm not that interested in digging down deep into it as everyone's situation is different. I really just thought it was funny syncro was essentially suggesting people make a home business for tax purposes, and qualifying it as "financial advice". Anyone who owns a business knows that just straight up not actually a thing. 

There's a million reasons why that's not a thing, and many reasons why for me personally it's not worth doing, and I actually have a reasonable amount of business revenue. You can't just start an Etsy business or something and start writing off housing costs, it just doesn't work that way. 

For one thing whatever revenue the business makes you're probably going to pull out as dividends anyways, which while treated preferentially, still incur personal tax. All those cool write-offs against your housing only reduce the corporate tax load of your fake home business, which you only made so it could get tax benefits. You need to write off against something. 

By the time you do all that dancing around you'd be ahead of the game to just pick up some extra hours of work somewhere. 

There's some financial advice - set a goal and work hard. Yeah I sound like a boomer but the brute force method does work. No different than losing weight. Hard work, discipline, and perseverance go a long way.

Claiming business tax deductions against housing costs for a home business has a lot of wierd implications, syncro is oversimplifying a little unfortunately. Definitely talk to a tax accountant before do that as there are a lot of ways you can fuck yourself.

Just as an example, if you claim business taxes against your house, you lose lose primary residence status on it and will incur capital gains when you go to sell it. That could be a pretty big whoopsie that means you either eat into your lifetime exemption or end up with a tax bill probably bigger than your write-offs were.

I run my own business with enough income that we've definitely looked into it, especially after doing a 300k reno that included my office space, but it is not worth it in my case. There are also weird insurance implications, etc. You can't just make an Etsy store selling walnut shell figurines or some shit and start writing off your mortgage. :)

Like most I've given up on trying to be dry, it's just not happening because exactly, I sweat anyways and no waterproof jacket will compensate for that. 

Once I accepted that wet is a given, I just don't want to be wet AND cold, dressing gets easier. 

In these current conditions around zero-5 degrees, a merino hoodie is perfect, possibly with a very light windbreaker over top, literally just cut some wind chill when descending but very light. 

If  it gets much warmer the Merino hoodie swaps for a merino jersey. Warmer still then merino see shirt. Warmer than that and the wind breaker is not needed. 

But basically with some layer combo of merino tee shirt, jersey, or hoodie, plus light windbreaker, I can accomodate for anything.

Posted by: fartymarty

Progress Retort - 10t cogs (and all associated) is 1000% marketing.  It enabled SRAM to spit out range numbers to justify 1x and their insanely expensive cassettes (and drivetrains).

I think nothing wrong with 10t, it's the 50+ that's crazy. Run a small chain ring for better ground clearance and 46t or even a little less is fine for a granny gear, and the rest of the cassette gets more useable.