Cheez1ts profile

It's too bad they couldn't figure out the asymmetrical frames. I agree that I like the demo aesthetics on the Enduro, but can you imagine if it was the last generation aesthetics on the new Enduro!

Nice write-up Trevor and photos Deniz!

I run the opposite set-up as you, air in the back, and coil in the front. After reading AJ's detailed review, I think the reason I like my coil fork so much is because I replaced my stock damper with an Avalanche Cartridge. I don't have a problem with mid-stroke support.

#Enduro

I think Nina Hoffmann is going to be tough to beat next year. I'm assuming she'll be on a team.

In one of the Vallnord videos, Rachel made a comment that Gee warned Rachel, and other competitors were warned by their teammates, of the spot in the track where Hoffmann went down. Hoffman didn't have any teammate to warn her.

Having a season of experience, maybe a teammate to chat lines with, and someone to take care of navigating the venues should make Hoffman unstoppable.

Regarding Vali, Finn Iles commented in his vlog that he put a lot of pressure on himself to do extremely well his first year out of juniors, and he changed his approach for this year. It will be interesting to see if Vali Höll will take a season to get into the groove.

Avalanche is great. Definitely feels like it’s a small operation still. They took the time to call me and explain their damper and the push conversion kit that I already had and double checked that I still wanted to go through with my Avalnche order with the hydraulic bottom out and the damping cardridge at all. Seems like the service hasn’t changed since my dad ordered the cartridge for his boxxer many moons ago. 

The industry hasn’t really been good for buying something nice and holding onto it forever recently. It’s not cheap to buy an Avalanche cartridge knowing that it will at best be shipped back to be modified to fit your next fork. Fortunately the boxxers didn’t change much from 26” to 27.5, but I’m 27.5 160mm pike for life on at least one bike in my stable now. 

At this point I’m of the mindset that I’m just going to run boxxers lowered to whatever height I need on any aggressive bike I own going forward. I had success lowering one, they don’t creak, they’re cheap used, I can still get a new, long straight 1 1/8 steertube for them, and I can get them in any wheelsize. What more could I ask for?

I have the hydraulic bottom out in my avalanche damper cartridge in my pike. Unfortunately I ordered the push coil conversion before the avalanche cartridge or I could have done away with any addition to the spring side entirely and just gotten a cheaper spring kit from the uk brand. 

The pike is perfect. 

I don’t have a hydraulic bottom out in the avalanche damper cartridge in my boxxer. I also don’t have anything but a spring in the spring side. I do wish I had the adjustability of the pike (or your fox) in the boxxer. I have the fork a bit overspring to compensate for the linearity, which means I had to overspring the back to keep the shape which isn’t ideal.

It’s hard to go from my super modern super long DH bike back to my super old and small dirt jumper. It’s fine on dirt jumps, but I’ve actually been riding it on trails occasionally and I usually do feel a bit of a funk the first day back on the DJ bike. I’ve always found it helpful to do my first ride back on a hardtail with another rider so I can chase someone and not focus so much on the fact that I’m going slower than I was the ride before on my full-sus.

Definitely just sessioning alone without any pressure helped me. 

I was too afraid of crabapple and all of the big jump lines for a long time, despite riding with people that rode them constantly. I’d always do a different trail when they were doing the big jump lines or roll the crabapple turns beside. 

Last year I hiked up alone and sessioned them until I was comfortable letting go of the brakes. I had no problem going into coastal cruise and flight deck and the new dirt merchant after that. 

I’m sure my technical riding would improve with a little solo “track walk” and session as well.

Great intro/preview Tim. I'm looking forward to the full-review.

I've become a bit of a Giant fanboy in the last couple years.

Hard to beat Fox or Rockshox to the punch. I’m pretty sure Fox, at some point, had a 20mm spacer in the 40s positive spring that you could move into the negative spring to run it at 180mm. And I think RockShox BoXXers were coming at 180mm on Enduro Evos at some point. 

My biggest issue with swapping brands is it gets harder to track down parts, like your firmer negative spring for example. Everything I’ve ever owned has been RockShox, for better or for worse, and now I have a treasure trove of parts to tune my forks with as a result of all of the coil conversions and damper upgrades and just general spare parts that have accumulated over the years. 35mm stanctions on everything is great.

Ride or Die still isn’t open. I was told construction is finished and they’ve filmed an edit on it, but don’t want to open the trail until the edit is released. 

There were only just enough folks there to fill one of their shuttle vehicles today. I was surprised it was so calm. If I did my lap fast enough I got right back on the truck at the bottom.

I didn’t get quite the same kick out of the trails as I did in the spring the last couple of years. Usually I feel like I could ride a hard tail there, but it was more dry and rough than I was expecting. Probably typical mid-August bike park conditions, I’d just never been in the summer and the whistler bike park has just spoiled me this season!

Didn’t see this very early, but I have a single-speed Specialized Demo with me, and an all-mountained Kona steely with a triple crown on it, so I can pretty much ride anything. 

I also have a 4-bike rack on my suv. 

I was going to head to CGP, but I’d rather explore some new trails via shuttle if you’re around Endur-bro!

I’ve pm’d you my number.

A change of plans has my ride day on the sunshine coast as Sunday now.

Since I'll already be there Saturday, CGP might not be such a bad plan. The last couple of times I was there I would have preferred to have been pedaling up in the shade though, and my big-bike itch is sufficiently scratched with WBP this time of year.

PM sent BigFoot.

There's generally guerilla tape, duct tape, or aluminum tape in the shop. It fit's any wheel size. And I can use it to fix most things. Red Green would have had to have gotten real creative if hardware stores only sold rim strips.

Also I run tubes.

Would anyone like to shuttle on the sunshine coast this weekend?

I have an SUV with a 4-bike North Shore Rack. I'll be riding solo.

I pedaled around the Roberts Creek area last weekend, and will likely do so again unless someone would like to shuttle it with me. I'm open to try other areas as well.

Even the fastest pros seem to struggle with it, check for tire marks in areas you don't really want a tire mark:

Posted by: Ddean

Well that video makes me feel better about missing that corner on Goats this year so far. I did it 100% of the time last year but total fail so far - something has changed. The entrance to it feels tougher due to a tighter exit - those new rocks are sketchy!!!

But if Pilgram finds it scary and sketchy maybe I should cut my losses!!!!!

I've been hacking it up this year too, but figured it was just because I was spending more time on the jump trails in fits this year. Usually by the end of the season I've lapped it enough times that I feel good again, so I'll report back if I get it good again or not this season.

I don't remember the whole trail being so wet in previous years either. It seems like it's going to be permanently muddy.

Posted by: thaaad

Holy fuck

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Bull Dozer:

"We don't necessarily want people who are coming up for a day, packing a bag with their lunch in it, and not really appreciating the mountain culture that we have." -Whistler Mayor (source)

I rode from opening to just about closing yesterday. It’s August and the trails are still that good that you can ride all day!

I also did TOTW (and pretty much every bike-park trail that’s on the EWS Enduro race list before they see tons of traffic). TOTW was earth-circus-y right before the ride dont slide turn off, which is a great addition!

It looks like Burns Bike Parts (https://www.instagram.com/p/BzdH3Z0H6WL/) will CNC custom crowns for the boxxer, dorado, Onyx DC, and 40. That would allow you to get anything you want with a 46mm offset.