Jotegir profile

I'm reminded of the gentleman who died last year from exposure after crashing on his local trails in the California mountains behind his house - S&R didn't wanna do a night search so they left him out there. No jacket, summer day, home trails. Not to say that he wasn't too concussed to put on a jacket had he brought one, but it may have helped even the odds.Never a bad idea to have a bit more stuff. It could literally save your life.

You're right that the brakes and cranks do leave something to be desired, but neither of those things you mentioned would push me to get a 50 (which only has a ONE better brake). Pulling a page out of your book, last year or so I sold a giant man with a previous generation growler running the same or similar enough brakes a set of SLX RT76 rotors and E01S pads. The idea was that they'd be a solid upgrade, and he'd need the better rotors if he wanted to upgrade the brakes in the future anyway (because we both know its a cardinal sin to pair RT-66's with high end brakes). He was pretty happy and never ended up upgrading the whole brake line (and for perspective - he also owned a sweet Transition with some high end stoppers too). I'd go there first here as well.

You're right about grenading the crank/bb of the 40 though. Might happen even faster down on the coast where you are. I think it probably would last up here for at least a decent amount of time unless the rider was super heavy/aggressive off the bat.

I agree, I'd rather run 10 speed deore even with the much smaller range myself and there's certainly another few things I'd change about the bike. However, I don't think the things I'd change would run up to the 700 CAD difference and I'd probably be happier with the few swaps on the 40 myself.  TBH I wouldn't be overly happy with the NX/GX mix the 50 comes with either.

I know it's not really the target market so it might not be fair, but I think you wouldn't have too much trouble finding someone willing to trade their brand new or like new deore or SRAM 11 speed (which I also prefer to most eagle) setup for your brand new SX eagle, and with the help of youtube I think almost anyone could make that change over if they had the time.

I was going to recommend the growler too! That Growler 40 is a stupid-good bike, to the point that if you're willing to maintain the front fork I don't think people should shell out for the 50. Get some touch points instead and have at it.

I think Vista outdoors actually bought MIPS outright and licenses it to others. Practically speaking it seems to cost somewhere between 20 and 30 bucks per helmet retail.

Meant to compete with Wavecel, the Forefront 2, and other similarly expensive helmets these days. I'd complain that gating safety behind high prices is shitty when it's already hard enough to get some people in a helmet that isn't gross and old (or at all?) but Giro also makes the Fixture Mips, which is one of the best bang for your buck helmets out there right now.

OK, so it's exclusive to Vista Outdoors then. I'd have thought it would be weird for them to allow one of their brands to use it and not the other. 

PS - that black/purple is the single best colour of anything in this article. Too bad it's not real.

I dunno, If I'm spending close to that amount of cash on a hub I think I'll pull a Clapton and go riding with the King.

Muttering-under-breath-on-heckler guy was probably Cam! Haha.

I absolutely adore the ideas that come out of e13. Their cassettes are fantastic and I loved everything about the old remote remote. Cassette that threads in to itself to add extra range? Genius! Fully mechanical dropper post? Brilliant! The design, the ergonomics.... except the low quality metal used. 

I've been through two that have just been shredded during routine rebuilds. The first one I thought maybe I'd been a bit ham-fisted (despite a couple years of wrenching under my belt), so I used a torque wrench on the second. Nope! Also stripped.

The seatpost mast also loosened off on the older version of the post as well. I loved the idea of the fully mechanical post, but my saddle ended up being able to spin a full 360 degrees.

It's too bad because I really like what e13 does generally. They have really good ideas hindered by cheaper metals. Personally, I'll have a hard time giving them another shot in the dropper post/lever department. I'll stick to the cassettes for now.