kcy4130 profile

MegaMullet seems apropos as it's a santa cruz... err a juliana.

I like that you gave a rundown of the truck cause you knew we would ask.

Poor Niels, mentioning a creak you couldn't track down has just condemned you to reading a vast multitude of suggestions from everyone. Cause, of course we all think we're better mechanics (home or otherwise) than everyone else. Did you check the bb? Only joking.

Nice review btw, and nice photos Vik!

This design looks like it has the potential to be pretty economical to produce (especially mass produce overseas), fewer welds fewer parts. Hard to be sure though without knowing what machining on the shock interface is required post heat treat.

I hope it works out for him, I really do. Proprietary stuff is a hard sell at the best of times. Part of me wonders if he'd have more success if he just had the strut as a stand alone linear bearing with the rod end driving a normal off the shelf shock. Like yeti, except it'd be one rod on two inline bushings, sealed and greaseable. With the shock inline in a cutout in top tube. Or below the top tube/strut and parallel to it. It'd make the frame a bit more complex and spoil the clean lines/good looks somewhat, but it'd be a standard shock. Yeti is still in business, sorta proves that customers will accept sliders. But we're are a lot less accepting of a proprietary shock. Trust fork is the only recent example of a proprietary spring/damper from a new company that I can think of, but kinematics seemed to be the real issues with those. Trek's supercaliper and reactiv (spelling?) stuff doesn't count, cause trek is huge and established, definitely still going to be in business in 5 years.

The number of proprietary parts (that'd he'd have to stock for replacements) would be greatly reduced. And customers would be getting a fox or rockshox, a known entity, easier to be confident I can get it setup to my liking. There are several technical advantages to how he's done it though, not to mention it looks better.

Edit: And yeah, it looks so good! Cool to hear it rides well too.

Is any company open and honest about their warranty/breakage rate? I'm actually asking, I can't think of any company that makes it public. Though, breakage rates might tell us just as much about the typical demographic that buys said bike as it does about the strength/weakness of a particular bike.

They could be the same size. Which might be fine: I'd have to reverse engineer it to know, but that'd be a whole lot like the work I'm being paid to do and should be doing, hehe. But again, Wolftooth seem to have their poop in a group engineering wise, so I'd be surprised if it wasn't fine. And yeah, a hex is way more convenient than looking for that one long thin wall socket that you had to buy specially!

There's a good reason most pedals use a nut (and externally threaded axle) instead of a shcs aside from machining ease. A solid shaft is stronger than a shaft with a drill/tapped hole in it. Wolftooth products generally seem to be well engineered, and I'd assume these pedals are too. Might be thinner cartridge bearings (i.e. larger id for same od) to keep shaft larger. But without looking at dimensions that's just speculation on my part. Would explain why they use three bearing instead of the more common two.

It's more that it's purely cosmetic. If the head tube needed to be in a cnc mill in that orientation for a functional reason and they added engraving as a bonus it'd be one thing. But that's not the case, they made a fixture and added machining only for the engraving. It just rubs my function over form, utilitarian soul the wrong way.

I find that machined headtube badge to be slightly ostentatious. But maybe it's just me.

The tap/flip/slip! I never had it dialed, but when I occasionally did get it perfect I felt like a total bad ass. I removed the toe clips after a few weeks I think, was mostly not using them. I was 12, it was my first mountain bike, and first bike that had a front brake, so naturally I spent lots of time doing endos or stoppies on lawns to seeing how high I could get the rear tire without going over, and often going over learning the graceful bail, hence no toe clips. Good times.

Whistle is a good idea. If you ride with a backpack you can buy a chest strap snap buckle with a whistle integrated so it's always easy to reach (I'm guessing it might be more of a rape whistle for women, but a whistle is a whistle). I bought a used pack that has one. But be warned, I had to put electrical tape over the whistle openings it to prevent it from making an annoying hiss when the wind was just right.

I could have sworn this was a mountain bike forum not equestrian forum. I'm confused, why would it matter with bikes? In case anyone is wondering, with horses you always mount/dismount from the left side. Doing so from the right can spook the horse because they're not used to it.

An elaborate or gawdy head badge (on a production bike) is like a joke about hipsters: it divides the room into people who think it's hilarious and hipsters who are mad at you for telling it. A head badge will delight some and embarrass others, sorta a risk as a manufacturer to go to elaborate. 

Also, Major: that decal looks great!

Posted by: Ziggy

... I wish there was more science and less expensive trial and error we all end up going through.

Not sure about the science helping, science is always experiment based. And fit is pretty heavily individual and preference based anyhow. I've heard of some shops in places with loads of bikers having trial parts or try before you buy kind of deal on components like saddles and bars. Especially for parts that break the norm like super high rise bars or greater backswept bars for example. I mean I'm curious about both but not willing to spend new prices just to satisfy my curiosity on what's even money a waste. Being able to rent some for a few days would be awesome. I wish rental/trial programs for fitment parts were more common to make the trial/error less expensive.

Sounds like it might be ripe for some entrepreneur to devise some practical countermeasures to battery fires. Not just ebikes but elec cars too. Maybe some sort of neutralizing chemical built into batteries that's released if a certain temp is reached? It'd make batteries heavier tho. Or some sort of battery specific fire extinguisher? I'm an ME, so my knowledge of battery architecture/chemistry is practically nonexistent so can't even imagine the problems faced. There could be a lot of money to be made.

It'd be kinda nice if nsmb had up/down votes in the forums. While catching up on a thread it makes it easier to spot and ignore trolls.

Short vs long chainstays being better/worse for climbing is directly dependent on rider height. Tall rider means higher center of gravity, hence more weight on rear for a given upslope than a shorter rider would have. So for tall riders looping out while seated is usually the concern, whereas shorter riders lack of traction is the issue. Obviously that's a bit simplified, but you get the idea. Another thing to consider is how much a rider (while climbing) can shift weight forward vs rearward in or out of the saddle. From a typical neutral seated riding position (arms slightly bent) one can straighten arms to move overall cg very slightly rearward, or by bending arms more and putting your face close to the bars the overall cg is moved forward. Xc pros can do this very well of course, but I find it uncomfortable for more than a minutes or two. Everyone's neutral position is different but I'd say nearly everyone can shift weight forward more than rearward. If out of the saddle, you can put your chest or almost stomach to the bars and shift your cg dramatically forward. While out of the saddle, dropper down you can shift cg rearward, but not really in a way where you'd be able to pedal strongly.

The point I'm trying to make is that while climbing seated or standing a rider has more ability to shift weight forward than rearward. And thus for climbing traction it's better to have chainstays too short than too long. For climbing comfort longer chainstays means less need for the uncomfortable hunch forward to avoid loopout, at the expense of traction in some situations. Like anything bike geo/fit it's about balancing tradeoffs.

It is nice that more frames are varying chainstay length by size. Not that many hardtails vary tho.

~15 years ago I was of the opinion that below a certain price mechanical disc brakes like the BB7 was a much better option than low end hydraulic brakes. Then entry level hydraulic brakes started to be decent. Have we gone full circle? I have BB7 on my dj and an old hardtail and find them just fine. If hand strength is sufficient you can get decent stopping power out of them.

Posted by: Kenny

Posted by: kcy4130

It might be that you'd benefit from sliding the seat all the way forward on the rails. Let me explain, if we ignore sta and ones legs and only look at the upper body, then a shorter distance from seat to bars will allow you to sit more upright, i.e. spine closer to vertical and less sloped forward.

On the surface this seems right but I've not found this helps as much as I'd have hoped.

The reason is that your legs play a role in keeping you upright. Imagine a recumbent bike where your pedals/bottom bracket are way out in front of you. This is like an extreme version of a slack seat tube angle. Because you're basically laying back you aren't going to have any weight on your hands regardless of there the bars are, because your legs are in front of you, you're inherently leaned back. 

Now incrementally imagine the recumbent bike morphing with the bottom bracket travelling rearwards towards you. It will progressively tip you forward and your legs are less and less able to actually support your torso.

Imagine you get to the other extreme where the bottom bracket is behind you (seat tube angle greater than 90 degrees). At that point the opposite of the recumbent is true, no matter your bar positioning, your weight will be on your hands.

The steeper seat tubes get the closer bikes get to this latter scenario. Putting your feet further "behind" you increases pressure in most cases even if it shortens the cockpit.

Shortest stem and tallest stack you can handle help but again might compromise other riding.

This is why personally I just don't like steep seat tube angles for *trail* bikes that see a variety of terrain. Give me a seat like a Koda with a comfortable climbing nose to I can scooch forward if I need to and effectively steepen things a couple degrees in the rare case I truly need it, and a 74-75 degree STA. For Enduro bikes where the priority is steep up steep down, and sit and spin climbing, and more travel and therefore more rear suspension sag when climbing, bring on the steep seat tube angles.

My opinion is the bike industry sometimes latches on to something "cool" and just carpet bombs their entire product range with the feature, regardless of if it's actually appropriate for the different use cases.

Crap, I wrote less instead of more. edited now. Yeah, I was trying to explain that side of it too. Which effect will be have a larger impact on hand weight totally depends on the individual and specific bike/body geo. But a quick experiment is the easiest way to find out. 

And I agree about carpet bombing (great phrasing btw) trends. When it comes to bikes (and lots of other stuff where marketing is involved) there's a lot of the fallacy of "if some is good, then more is better" going around.

Have you got other bikes in the fleet? An old bike that's more comfortable on flat ground? A good reality check is to simply measure seat to grips. Center to center and compare. Looking at effective tt length is not exactly the same as stem, seat rail position backsweep, stack etc affect it.

It might be that you'd benefit from sliding the seat all the way forward on the rails. Let me explain, if we ignore sta and ones legs and only look at the upper body, then a shorter distance from seat to bars will allow you to sit more upright, i.e. spine closer to vertical and less sloped forward. This means the cg of your torso moves back slightly, hence more weight on seat, less on hands. Now, if we put legs and sta back in then a steeper sta will reduce a riders ability to hold up the torso with back/butt muscles with the feet as fulcrum, hence less weight on hands. Which of these conflicting things will be the dominant factor depends on specifics. If you are indeed on too long of a bike then sliding forward could help. Or I could be completely wrong, but hey, it's free and easy to try.

Edit: This means the cg of your torso moves back slightly, hence more weight on seat, less on hands. Now, if we put legs and sta back in then a steeper sta will reduce a riders ability to hold up the torso with back/butt muscles with the feet as fulcrum, hence more weight on hands.