D_C_ profile

Mine is 2 years old and spins like the day I bought it.

The Allen key piston spacer trick works quite well, at least on 4-piston SRAM brakes. A friend did it on 2-piston Shimanos and one of the pistons extended a bit crooked and leaked fluid, so I guess a bit of care is needed.

It’s easy enough to push the pistons back in with a tire lever if you pull the Allen key out. I suppose the other pistons could over-extend when pushing one piston in, but it hasn’t happened to me yet.

I made the recent discovery that cleaning sticky pistons is often what is needed to solve spongy lever feel, rather than a bleed. In the past, I had bled brakes with little improvement to lever feel, and I suspect sticky pistons were the issue.

Another important tip is to balance the pistons when the pistons advance with pads and rotors in. If one piston is advancing too quickly, use a small flathead screwdriver to push the piston back in (with the wheel and pads installed) to allow the other pistons to catch up.

I’ve also stopped lubing pistons with brake fluid; there is too much risk of contaminating the pads. The pistons get lubricated by the fluid in the system. Repeating the process of extending pistons, cleaning then pushing them back in several times seems to do the trick.

I moved the parts from my Chromag hardtail to an alloy Devinci Django frame (120 mm travel) for the Nimby 50 but ultimately went back to the hardtail. Also owning a long-travel 29er, the Django was TOO capable and didn’t offer a different enough ride experience. I was hoping the Django would be a hardtail-like experience with slightly more compliance but it turned out to be beyond that - it was planted, suspension was active and I could charge rough sections, at the expense of efficiency and responsiveness.

Is the Spur that hardtail-like ride (snappy, efficient, direct handling) with a bit more compliance, or does it still overlap with your Altitude to a point where you’d rather have a hardtail as a second bike?

And a question to others - what other short travel 29er frames are good candidates for hardtails with some squish?

Was your OSX a 31.8 or a 35?

There’s a 29x2.4 DHR II Maxx Terra DD in the wild now! Grabbed one off the rack at Corsa a couple weeks ago.

The lifespan on XX1 Eagle and X01 Eagle chains is truly impressive. But keep in mind the roller dimensions are larger than other chains, so it won’t show wear properly with most chain checkers.

That coffee mug looks sick!

What happens if you get the silicone spray on your brakes? Is it an issue? Probably not the best.

From my experience, running a short offset fork requires a head angle about 1 degree slacker than with long offset to not feel like the front-centre is too short. We were all fine with 65 degree head angles on enduro bikes until the short offset fork thing happened.

How come DH bikes haven’t gone short offset with even slacker head angles?

Posted by: earleb

Posted by: D_C_

SRAM DUB BB92 Pressfit bb - I managed to grab one of the last ones in town, but plan b down the road is to use reducers in a 30 mm ID bb. It turns out the bearings in the DUB bb are 30 mm ID, so you could steal the plastic reducers from an old bb. https://nsmb.com/articles/aftermarket-bottom-brackets-dub-cranks/

An item to note on Sram and Enduro DUB bb's. They have both spec'd a custom bearing where the outer metal race is pressed into the frame. Regular 30mm bb's for BB92 are a tiny standard bearing pressed into a plastic shell, then the polymer shell is pressed into the frame so there is less space for the bearings. I think this distinction gets overlooked when people mention DUB and BB92.

So if you grab a regular 30mm bb for your BB92 and put the DUB inserts in you still get crappy tiny bearings.

I am pretty sure the SRAM bbs have bearings pressed into a cup, which is then pressed into the frame. In my experience, they hold up better than, say, a Race Face Cinch bb, but are still subject to similar thin bearings. The ultimate solution to the problem SRAM and others have created for themselves is, as you mentioned, something like the Enduro or Wheels Mfg bb, where the bearing outer race presses directly into the frame. But those are pricey and also hard to track down right now.

https://wheelsmfg.com/bottom-brackets/sram-dub/bb86-to-29mm-dub-flanged-dual-row-pressfit-86-92-abec-3-bottom-bracket.html

SRAM DUB BB92 Pressfit bb - I managed to grab one of the last ones in town, but plan b down the road is to use reducers in a 30 mm ID bb. It turns out the bearings in the DUB bb are 30 mm ID, so you could steal the plastic reducers from an old bb. https://nsmb.com/articles/aftermarket-bottom-brackets-dub-cranks/

Dude, this is your third thread essentially asking the same question. They're tires. Just buy some.

It’s an interesting question. I suspect it comes down to the lack of community-founded and maintained networks on public land in Quebec. As a result, most of the good riding is provided by owners of large tenures of land (e.g. ski hill operators), who follow more a resort model, similar to a ski operation. In BC, there are so many high-quality public trails available that there is little money to be made by charging for that same experience.

The flip situation exists with Nordic skiing in BC, where a scarcity of suitable terrain at elevations with snow means that we have to pay to XC ski. In contrast, Quebec, with its landscape of flat or rolling snowy terrain, has lots of opportunities for XC skiing that does not involve paying by use.

I also have a recent experience with an unhelmeted asshat on an e-bike being a d-bag, blowing through a crowd of people.

But... this thread sounds a lot like walkers/hikers bitching about mountain bikers. I am cognizant of the trap of making associations with an easily-identifiable group. Like any group, there is a certain portion who are dicks. But I have no doubt that the majority of e-bikers are reasonable people.

Posted by: RAHrider

I had the unfortunate experience of chasing after two very fit xc riders on xc bikes with low profile light weight tires on 33km and a 1000m of elevation xc trails using my 150/150 enduro bike with dh casing tires. It sucked. It has me rethinking my tire selection though. I usually prioritize for my worst case decent. I'm thinking about moving towards better rolling resistance with an aggressor rear. Any suggestions on something (not a minion) that is a good complement to an aggressor for the front in terms of decent sidewall, reasonable traction with low rolling resistance?

The DHR II is usually about 100 g lighter for its size and casing than an equivalent DHF or Assegai. I think it’s a good choice for an aggressive BC XC front tire, particularly in 2.3 if you want to save some weight. I raced the Nimby on a DHR II 2.3 front/Ikon 2.35 rear.

In Maxxis, after Minions, Aggressor and Dissector are the next step faster in rolling resistance. But I don’t find a Minion-like front tire with a faster rolling rear to be too bad to lug around.

I briefly tried a 2.4 DHR II as a front tire and my impression was that it inspired a touch less confidence when tipped over in corners than a DHF. I am also a fan of the Assegai, which is more forgiving than the DHF due to the intermediate knobs, though it rolls a bit slower.

The Dissector is appealing, but the reading I’ve done on it suggests the side knobs become undercut relatively quickly. So I think you could go with an Aggressor in the dry or on mellower terrain in the wet, or a DHR II 3C on steeper wet terrain.

Why not the 2.5 Aggressor in back? 2.4...2.5... same thing.

Posted by: earleb

Posted by: LoamtoHome

No way to get rid of marbles unless you sift the dirt 

Sifting is un-rated. Time consuming but makes for a more durable surface. There is a drop on Pangor where the landing dirt was sifted way back in like 2011 on a Muddbunnies trail day that was very very durable. 

Thinking a bit about it now, heavy braking zones would benefit from using sifted gold in it's initial build, I think it would save future repair time further down the line.

In addition to getting the marbles out of the trail surface, the sifting likely helps with successful compaction as well. On gold trails, good compaction probably helps a lot with avoiding a loose surface.

A lot of the marbles probably also get deposited onto the trail surface by flowing water, so good drainage would help with that.

I actually ran 1x9 with a narrow-wide ring and no clutch, no chainguide for a while on a hardtail, and it performed reasonably well with not that many dropped chains. You could try something like that as a first option.

Posted by: XXX_er

An important question might be is the shop you are going to give the 50$ to any good ?

Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m under the impression that mounting skis with a proper jig setup, as a shop would have, is really not rocket science. It requires a moderate attention to detail, but the jig makes things pretty easy.

I’ve mounted at least 10 pairs of skis over the years using the paper jigs you linked (I have Sollyfit plates on some skis, so I couldn’t even get a shop to mount those if I wanted to). I have ended up with the odd set of holes being slightly crooked, in spite of my best efforts to be careful. In contrast, I have never had a shop mess up a mount - though I know it does happen from time to time.