ESHER-SHORE's posts

for 2010 in the UK we get:

Big Hit I (gloss candy apple red)

Big Hit I "Sam Hill" (red / black sam hill - looks really nasty)

Big II (raw Ti PAB)

Demo 8 II (red / black)

Demo 8 frame (red/black)

SX Trail II (black ano)

SX Trail I (white)

P2 Cromo (brown)

P1 Cromo (white with splatter graphics)

P1 AM (all mountain - like a Hardrock)

I've met alot of "famous" people in my 25+ years of riding bicycles, starting in BMX guys like Bob Haro and Mike Dominguez, Eddie Fiola and Ron Wilkinson

then mountain biking, the Kona Clump, Wade, Digger, Gully, Bender, Vanderham, Shaums March, Peaty, Warner, etc.

well, these guys were famous within the world of push bikes, but in the outside world, who would know them from adam?

this is one of my favourite photos because it reminds me of my first trip to CANADA, damn I was stoked to be on the mountain, and meeting great riders left, right and centre

I'm leading Bender, my buddy Rob B and Joe Schwartz down Garbanzo

met alot of industry people over the years too, its all good, everyone loves bikes here!!

I am picking up a 26T granny gear from UK manufacturer Middleburn to replace the stock 22T on my SLX crankset, which never feels right when torquing a steep, technical climb

the front derailleur is not dead in any sense, it perhaps need the right setup to get the most from it, and 22T is not doing it for me!

I got my 2010 dealer catalogue today, and the overall theme I get when I look through the entire range is "looks cheap", to some degree

they've gone for ALOT of white, and many of the bikes look very like "toys" somehow

the Demo 8 looks good, they've dropped the Big Hit III in the UK (our biggest seller!) and the P Bikes look good (we don't get that nasty red one pictured above)

also some pretty weird stuff in the Globe range with models featuring a welded-on rear panier rack and one with a front rack (like a butchers bike) and some fixie-style track bikes with flat bars

2 things to understand about Avid brakes

1. they come with the lever reach adjuster usually screwed all the way in - grab the appropriate allen key (good quality) and adjust the lever reach screw (its the piston rod), wind it out, don't worry about reach unless you have tiny hands as Avid's lever geometry is radically different to other brake manufacturers

a surprising thing about Juicy's is that once you wind the lever reach out, you get a substantial increase in piston effiency / power

2. Juicy 3 and some of the Juicy 5s come with "organic" pads, which feel very soft - the reason for this is that the 3 and some of the 5s were a cheaper brake aimed at more recreational users, and organic pads are marginally cheaper than sintered which helped make the brake more afffordable to OEM customers - if the brake has come from an OEM source to your retailer it may have organics fitted rather than sintered

swap the organics out for sinterered (metallic) and you will get a fierce brake!

3. any product mass-produced in 1000s of units will have quality control issues, and the cheaper the product, the lower the QC

probably half of the Juicy 3s I sold needed bleeding, less of the Juicy 5s needed bleeding and rarely any of the Juicy 7s needed bleeding

get them flushed / bled with DOT 5.1 (the Juicy 3 and older 5 / 7 usually has Dot 4) and with the sintered pads and lever reach you should have good brakes ;)

sorry i realised that's 3 things about Avid brakes, I can't count for sh*t but I can setup good brakes :)

I've ridden a number of different bikes on the Van. North Shore trails, and found on the more technical, slower trails that my Banshee Chaparral (with Totems) totally ruled and let me rip it up!

the worst bike I rode on the Shore was my Devinci Wilson, it was painful steering and wrestling that sledge through the tech (but it was awesome at Whistler, where the Chaparral was scary on A-Line, Freight Train and Dirt Merchant)

in addition to geometry, I'd say from my experience that the suspension plays a huge part in how the bike handles the steep, tech gnarlz with more progressive, firmer suspension with good rebound allowing more rider input and control

Apples and oranges. Your demo 9 is not even in the same league s the new demo 8.

Demo 9, Demo 8 and Demo 7 ride VERY differently - with the 8 and 7 being somewhat closer to each other than the 9, which is a completely different beast, especially in terms of suspension performance at higher speeds which is very noticeable on square edge bumps, and overall frame bulk (the Demo 9 was a beast like the Banshee Scream)

the Demo 7 with the travel chip removed from the shock gives 7.9" of rear bounce, and if pared with a Fox 40 or Boxxer and a sensible build, is a very capable DH racing machine

alot of people hate on MBA magazine (USA) but they've been testing and riding bikes for many years, including all the top USA exotica and said the Demo 7 with the setup mentioned above was the most capable DH rig they'd ever tested

of course the "new" 2010 Demo 8 is taking it a step even further in terms of geometry and suspension refinements

Most of the reason people don't shift is for fear of blowing the chain or simply there is not enough room between the up/down sections to execute a shift with the conventional system when you are busy keeping things from getting squirly on the brakes. With a front mech you need one maybe two revolutions of the cranks to make a clean shift? None of that needed with a Hammershmidt.

not shifting is generally poor riding technique (leaving the shift till too late), or lack of familiarity with a trail

I've ridden Hammerschmidt and did not enjoy the effect on the bike's suspension system (Marin bikes have had to create a new virtual pivot linkage for their Hammerschmit equipped bikes), or the feel of less efficiency . increased friction in the high gear (considering the system uses the granny gear as the base with overdrive for the high gear) compared to regular 3 x 9 or 2 x 9 with front derailleur driving the gear shifts

we have plenty of nasty technical trails on our little island and lots of filthy, wet, muddy riding condition to test any transmission system, and front derailleurs work out pretty darn well ;)

I don't know anyone that bitches about their front mech, but plenty that bitch about the rear mech - bent hangers, bent mechs, twisted chains, ruined rear wheel spokes, indexing issues, worn out cassettes, etc.

Personally, my next All Mountain bike won't be rolling without Hammerschmidt. That should be the death of the front der.

I constantly use the front derailleur on my All-Mtn (Devinci Hectik Ltd.) for technical climbs, and its lighter, considerably cheaper and lets me use the superior Shimano Hollowtech 2 cranksets, which Hammerschitznel does not

I'm a big fan of SRAM, Avid and Rockshox, but Truvativ generally blows…mainly in the crankset and bottom bracket dept.

Hammerschmidt is a solution to a problem that DOES not exist - there is no problem with 2 x 9 and a good dual ring chaindevice and Shimano XT front mech

if only SRAM / Truvativ had concentrated their mighty resources (chequebook) on the rear derailleur "problem" in mountain biking, then we'd have an awesome solution to a real world problem, but their business profits would take a big dive because we wouldn't be constantly trashing and buying new drivetrains ;)

my buddy Rob B made the mistake of putting an 03 Monster on his Big Hit and took a couple of nasty "diggers" until he got used to the very heavy weight (12lb?)

the first digger he took was riding off the end of a ladder drop and did not compensate for the increase in weight compared to his previous fork (Marz. Junior T) and nose dived into the ground, banged his head splitting a Fox MX helmet in the process, concussion and sore head to say the least…

think he eventually found a sucker to swap the Monster for a 66 fork and was way happier…

the 02 Monster was a different prospect though, lovely fork whenever I had the pleasure to ride one on a buddies bike

Syncros Mental Magnesium

stupid grippy, pretty tough for a mag. pedal, great internal durability (mix of bearings and bushings) and light too - 420gm pair

we use the Park jig in that picture in our workshop

just put the 20mm / Maxle through the front hub before loading the wheel into the jig, but make sure you sit the Maxle on the smaller diameter section on the driveside otherwise the wheel will sit crooked in the stand

the axle legs of the Park wheel jig are cut as a wedge shaped slot so you can put even bigger axles in there, I did a Specialized Futureshock E150 with its 25mm axle in our Park jig recently

virtual pivot (VPP, Maestro, etc.) are a variation of the FSR style four bar / horst pivot design - visually look different but mechanically work the same - but with the virtual pivot design allowing much more "tailoring" of the suspension to suit different frame applications than FSR which has its limits in terms of suspension variables, and is prone to pedal bob in the middle and big rings unless you go down the route of companies like Devinci and Ellsworth whose variants are more pedal friendly but perhaps display slight movement in the granny gear

if you look at Specialized FSR's relationship between frame horst pivot and rear wheel axle, its very different to Devinci and Ellsworth

UK dude who does the BMX events would be good

GROTBAGS

Paul Roberts is the sh*tniz when it comes to event presenting ;)