Heinous profile

One of the greatest lahar stories never told was how Cam Cole's world championship winning run on one was nearly derailed by a puncture on the start line. If you ever worked on one, you'll know that swapping a wheel was not fast. Matt Keen, the head NZ DH mechanic at that worlds (2006) noticed a slow puncture in Cam's wheel while Cam was on the rollers at the top of course, minutes from start.

No fuss at all, Matt managed to get the wheel out, a new tube in and have it ready to win a Rainbow Jersey in just a few minutes. It was legendary wrenching of the highest order.

The Topeak is rotatable for left or right hand. I'm a lefty myself.

I've worked with a range of pro race teams on road, mtb, cx. Road it's not something people worry about a lot outside of TT's (and most pumps get more accurate at higher pressure).

For CX (easily the most picky athletes, as they should be on low volume tyres atop carbon rims) there's a split of accu-gage's and digital gauges (Topeak DS is my go to), with some wrenches simply relying on the digital read of their handheld compressors/pumps. Mtb seems similar. As I mentioned above, the digital gauge's ability to rotate between PSI and BAR is handy on teams where athletes come from different parts of the world so have different measures.

Dropping and other loss of calibration is an issue if you're race wrenching or travelling a lot. For that reason I've stuck with digital (Topeak Digital D2). The fact they're a little lighter is useful too - excess baggage is a pain in the arse.

The other feature I like with the D2 is it switches between PSI/BAR. Depending on the athletes I work with they can be very specific and I've never been able to consistently convert BAR in my head on the fly.

My Capra (previous model) split along the top tube where it met the top of the seat tube, right in the top mid-line of the tube. I feel that had more to do with YT's appalling QC than anything else, given the 2 warranties I got after also failed catastrophically in weird places.

Would you be game to more directly compare it to your daily, the 5.5?

I’m surprised we’ve never seen a beefed up Aspen, those things are way better than they should be. There’s apparently one in the works, but probably still light XC casing.

How would it compare to the Minion SS?

Ah yes, toasted.

I’m curious if they tried two large adjustable wrenches tightened to grab the rim/bead wall and simply pull it out. This is my usual go to and much more accurate than a hammer.

The nude shock integrates something like a reservoir in to the can. I don’t like it, but it makes sense

It’s weird how we can spend a small fortune on bikes lots of shop employees could never afford even at staff price, but expect them to give us the same service and expertise as $500/h professionals.

That’s a big part of why shops are having to change, and it works at the high end, and maybe the big low end stuff, but the mid range has such little margin it’s no wonder shops are falling over and manufacturers are just cutting them out altogether.

YT’s model seems to sandwich their distributors. I dealt with the oceania one after snapping three cf capra’s and their were friendly, but ultimately perpetuated the same flaws - even supplying a replacement that YT knew had a defect which snapped catastrophically and painfully on its first ride. The Capra rode amazingly but at that point I lost all faith and immediately got something else.

I came off Saints (at one point runnning xtr xc levers) that were awesome for years, to some of the XT 4 pots. It’s hard to tell much difference, except price.

The TRP’s are tempting mostly because they run a shimano bleed port and pads.

After dealing with so many different and catastrophic sram brake issues over the years I’m willing to risk a ‘wandering bite point’ - though I have yet to experience it on any bikes.

I had nothing but problems with GX. There's so much play in the main derailleur bolt that when you combine it with a narrow-wide 50t it gets snagged constantly. SRAM warrantied mine immediately and replaced the main derailleur bolt with the XX1 version that is much better.

It continued to be really inconsistent, especially in mud, where the derailleur was prone to throwing the chain off jockey wheels.

That, combined with the fact that setting up the B-tension is a two person job as you need both the wee guide tool and the suspension sagged, was enough for me to ditch it.

I'm now running a shimano set up with the SunRace 11-50t and it's been great. There's the slightest hesitation moving to a harder gear from the 42, but it's improved a lot with some riding (KMC chain).