kcy4130 profile

GET OFF MY LAWN YOU DIRTY HIPPIE!!! Only joking. I'm jealous, tbh. My younger brother goes backpacking (~60-70lbs pack) barefoot, in the rocky mountains, lots of little sharp pebbles over hardpack. Tho he cheats cause he only does about half the time barefoot. I'm jealous of him too.

They looks good too. Makes me want to hunt out similar old speakers and use as decor, maybe turn one into a little cabinet w/ hinged door.

Getting a new bike and not getting along with it is the worst. I've had that experience a few times. First I try a bunch of different settings, unsuccessfully. Then I go thru the phase of trying to convince myself the bike is just fine, it's all in my head, I paid a lot for that I'll just have to get used to it... Then I try a different bike or my old bike find it way better and am forced to acknowledge that I made a poor purchasing choice and move on.

How dare you remind everyone of the historical and continuing exploitation of Sherpas by using that Everest image! .... Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

Custer has become a symbol of hubris, of failing due to overconfidence and desire for glory. Here in the states anyhow, maybe Canadians have a different view. And overconfidence leading to a massive failure seems pretty relevant to mtb to me, most of my crashes in the early days were due to me landing a jump well or hitting a corner well and getting a big head. Like the titanic, it's not really about the tragedy of a ship sinking and loads of people dying, it's become an object lesson now. And for what it's worth, there was a great deal of heroism, glory and honor in the Battle of the Little Bighorn but it sure wasn't on the whites side.

A few years ago I switched from a 26 to 29 bike, it took a couple months and a few harsh crashes to recalibrate just how much more I could get away with. I hadn't had a significant crash for 5 years prior. I was very happy the only results were losing some elbow skin twice and a football sized bruise on my hip.

Higher skills allows one to go faster and bigger, but doesn't require it all the time. Higher skills can mean the difference between a save and a crash when the unexpected crops up. Like when a rock has moved and you have to quickly improvise a new line. Experienced riders, skilled or not, know the limit (approximately) so can more accurately judge how much risk they take. The limit of grip or one's own skill level or whatever. How often they crash is determined by how often and how close to the limit they wish to ride. You don't know exactly where the limit is till you cross it. Which is why wc downhiller crash because even tho they know with much more precision (than us normals) where the limit is, they try to stay so close to it for a whole run that even a tiny error can cause a crash. But I agree experienced and skilled riders (who aren't trying to push the limit) usually stop having frequent minor crashes and just have the rare big nasty crash.

The article by line (that's what the line below the headline on the home page is called, right?) is "What happens when German engineering takes on the budget brake segment?" Which Ryan may not have written. Semantics really, but these seem more mid range perhaps mid low to me.

Edit: Again it's all relative. I mean, if you include the likes of trickstuff, everything is budget.

It's all relative, but to be honest $189 doesn't seem very budget to me.

I'm in the same situation, nearest bike shop is an hour away. But it's just kids hardtails and hybrids kind of thing. Nearest real shop is 2.5 hours away. I don't mind it for bike and parts. But for cloths, helmets, etc it's annoying. I just buy when I travel so I can try on.

Anyways, another thing to consider if your aim is reliability is not buying a newly redesigned just released bike. Buy one that's in it's second year of production, that way you'll have more online/forum info and any major flaws in the design should have been found/changed by then.

Posted by: mammal

The friction shifter idea for chain retention is a good  one. I used to bias my 2x front shifter so it would just barely shift down, to emphasize retention.

Back in the 3x days, also pre clutch derailleurs, for descending I'd shift into the biggest front ring and ~mid cassette or even a bit cross chained. This would put the rear derailleur in it's most stretched out position, thereby the highest spring force meaning less chain slap, and it seemed like fewer dropped chains (but could have all been in my head, placebo effect). The derailleur was also tucked up fairly high and thus less damage prone. Things were a little different back then.

Posted by: nothingfuture

Re: No Boring Bikes- back in the earlier days of riding extra-janky technical singletrack (and long before 1x had found it's way to anything that wasn't a DH bike...) I used to run a 32/22 2x up front, and I used an XT thumbshifter to allow me to set the front derailleur just right for chain retention. Even then it got lots of looks ("What's wrong with RapidFire?" they'd ask), but god did it work well.

I'm old enough to have raced on friction downtube shifters- and while I've no urge to go back to those days, I'll say that getting a friction shift *just right* is a special sort of joy. It's a little like when you rev-match a downshift on a manual transmission and you bang-on get it.

That is such a good idea! Have 2x on my old 26 hardtail that I now just use as a flat bar gravel bike. And no how the front derailleur is adjusted it'll rub slightly at some point on the cassette. I should get a friction shifter for it.

Posted by: fartymarty

Andrew - I would give too much of a shit to the point of paranoia.

Have you tried beer while working on others bikes. It helps me give just the right amount of shits when working on my or a family members bike. 

But seriously, it's just bikes, few equipment failures result in significant casualties. It's not like repairing a rock climbing harness or something.

Maybe I should clarify. Having all frame pivots and hardware use the same size hex/torx is fine and good if it's done correctly. But if the torque callouts for stuff with the same size tool vary greatly then it wasn't designed very well imo.

One thing not mentioned regarding bolt torque without a torque wench is the type of tool being used. L hex or torx keys are good, as are the foldable hex/torx tools (I like bondhus gorilla grip ones). Give an inexperienced person a 2.5mm allen bit on a 3/8" square ratchet and watch them strip threads or break heads. Give them a 2.5mm L key and they'll be far more likely to get it right. The flex of the allen key lets you know that it's tight and shouldn't be tightened further. You don't get that size specific flex feedback with a ratchet and bits. The other side of this is that for frame hardware the designer should size tool interfaces to suit the required torque, not over/under. That's why it rankles me when a bike reviewer complains that not all the frame pivots and such can be removed with the same size hex key.

I think you some of you might be overestimating the danger. ebikes are not the only batteries that take abuse and are subjected to water damage. Battery powered tools in construction have a pretty rough life too. Using the battery end of a dewalt as a mallet, accidentally dropping tools, working in the rain are all common. So is putting them on the charger in the tool trailer overnight. There's a lot of battery tools out there and they've been around for decades. I worked construction in the summers from middle school thru college, my dad was a builder. Battery safety wasn't something that's talked about much or ever by contractors, not that they're a careful bunch. A quick and far from thorough google turned up fires, but not a lot of evidence that it is super common. That being said, I know nothing about battery internals, maybe lithium ion tool batteries are different in some relevant way to ebike batteries so perhaps the comparison is invalid.