Speeder1 profile

Good info. No plans to put this LG stuff on my any of my mtb's, but man it looks perfect for my Kona Minute cargo/town rig with a luna cycle bbshd mid drive motor on it.

Great review. The comparison between this and the Enduro is fascinating. I have not ridden the Enduro. I've put some good miles in a demo S Works Stevo and I agree with what most others seem to think, it is a fantastic all arounder. I found it very easy to get comfortable on at speed and really a fun bike. I was also very impressed with how well it climbs.

The 6k usd RS build is a pretty good deal compared to some other brands. A few weeks ago the Expert build was on sale for a short time for under 5k. That was a really good deal. The sale didn't last long!

Really cool!

The Element looks awesome! Just picked up a Top Fuel with the Fox 34 at 130 up front. Put a DHF 2.5 exo up front. I agree it won't smash trail like a big bike, nor is that its intention, but it corners very very well. The slack geo and short travel on this class of bike brings to mind a 29er slalom bike. The bike gets through the tight turns really well and is super fun to ride in that terrian.

Cam, have you ridden this bike? How does it compare to the SB150, which, to me, gets better the harder I ride it. 

Nice write up, Mr. Tolnai. Your description of this bike reminds me of an e36 BMW M3 I had the pleasure of owning for a while. It was harsh around town and in traffic, which is most of the driving that one does living in a metropolitan area. It came alive when driven in spite and with purpose, however, and its design and execution were then greatly appreciated.

Fun to read! 

Crazy money!! 

Sounds like a beast of a bike that they did a good job on if gnarly riding and/or enduro racing is your regular routine.

If you lived in Santa Cruz, SpecialED was a local brand. Same with Santa Cruz and Ibis. And Bontrager before they sold out. We was ridin' locdog! 

Maybe like a Banshee if ya live on the shore?

Chiming in. 

2013. Another Bike Shop in Santa Cruz, CA, gets the Specialized E29 in. Chris, the owner, rides a L and so do most of the dudes I was riding with. He starts sending us out on his personal S Works E29. It was amazing how much faster people could go on that bike! We all pretty much went from 26 straight to 29 cuz of the E29 and a smart shop owner who is also a nice guy and fast rider himself. 

Being a tire nerd, I was on a mission to find the holy grail for the E29 and the rowdy riding we were doing. I landed on the WTB Vigilante 29 x 2.35 tough casing/fast rubber front and rear. A high profile, large volume (for a 2.35), meaty, 1100gm tire with an aramid bead insert that had a stiff sidewall that was not only very flat resistant but also supportive enough to run relatively low psi on a 22 or 23mm ID rim. They had a lot more volume than the Maxxis 2.35 tires available at the same time. 

I rode the Vig for years. Then Maxxis came out with the WT, rims got wider, and the Vig became outdated. 

The E29 was the real story though. It was one of the first, or maybe the first, long travel 29 bikes that you could really smash on that still handled well enough to rip corners.  That bike was way ahead of its time. A massive step forward compared to the Ibis Mojo HD I waa riding in 2013. A whole bunch of us skipped 27.5 all together in the name of speed and not getting dropped by your homies on Sunday morning and the E29 was what took us there. 

Tires are perhaps my favorite piece of the MTB equipment puzzle. There is always a trade off between weight, rolling resistance, volume, tread compound, casing construction, rim width, tire width... such a fun puzzle and a relatively easy way to massively change how your bike rides.

Got my first MIPS helmet recently after a digger put a big dent in my old one which was a few seasons old. I got the same model, same size, last gen Specialized Tactic 3, except the new one is MIPS'd. Pleasantly affordable and chosen because it fit me better than any of the other brands and models I tried. 

I noticed no difference in fit or feel. Until I clocked my head pretty hard on a low hanging tree branch on a techy section of trail. Hard enough to snap my head back, send me to ground, and give me a stiff neck for the rest of the day. In this case I think I noticed that MIPS helping. It was the kind of glacing blow off the top of the helmet that seems like it might be decreased with a little rotational give and it sure felt like the lid moved a little more that usual while still absorbing the shock. Thankfully I'm fine. I'm also now a MIPS believer. If I couldn't find a good fitting helmet that had MIPS, however, I'd buy whatever fit well and forget about it. 

Yea, I went back and removed that branch with a folding saw. 

I love riding bikes. Even in the cold ass CO winter.

Fun read. 

For decades whenever anyone asked me any question about drivetrain recs, I said you only need to know 3 letters, XTR. But I am getting old, and that was a while back. 

Having been on Eagle for years, I am astounded by the life of the XO chain, cassette, and shifter. The derailleurs get hammered after a while and oval frotn rings seem to hasten the wear on the parallelogram pivots and clutch. So I now just buy a GX rear derailleur every season or season and a half, pair that with a fresh Shimano SP41 cable and housing, and the setup seems to shift perfectly again. This is my third season on the cassette! I thought for sure it wouldn't last this season, but it keeps on shifting well. There is visable wear on the big alum 50t, but less so elsewhere and it doesn't seem to affect performance. 

I looked hard at the new XTR 12 speed when it came out. I wanted it. But I couldn't find sufficient fault with the XO Eagle stuff as it just keeps working well. Weight does matter to me as I ride a lot of high country terrain (10-13000' elevation) and the XO stuff is pretty light compared to XT and very close to XTR. 

Can anyone report in on the lifespan of XT or XTR? Can you get 2-3 seasons out of a cassette, for example?