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?

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.

I ended up doing the mount myself with paper jigs. I’ve done several pairs of skis myself now and I don’t mind, but it’s probably a 2 hour process once you measure 8 times and drill once. I was thinking of paying a shop to do it but ended up not bothering.

It's also nice to be able to ask for an update on conditions, which is something TF doesn't allow for.

Posted by: Kenny

Maybe it's the section you mean, but bridal from the cardiac/applicator exit, west to where Blair range splits off would work.

I was actually thinking you climb that way. The descent would be the section of Bridle that goes east downhill from the 3-way Sticks and Stones/Bridle/Cardiac Bypass junction, near the east exit of Salamander. I think the descent I’m talking about is the Pinkbike impossible climb.

Posted by: RAHrider

What about dales? It has a road climb - steep but efficient. Takes about 5 mins to go down and has fast and rough, couple of drops and a couple of square hits on rock rolls. If your suspension feels good on dales, it will feel good on everything!

Do you mean the lapping the powerline? That is a brutal climb! I agree Dale’s could be good, though, as could be the section of Baden that connects to that same point.

Posted by: syncro

Incline

What do you think is the best way to lap it? Just push up?

Posted by: thaaad

What about this section of Neds? I haven't ridden it in like 10 years so I don't remember what the very end is like but it looks like a short enough loop.

Yeah, I did that one recently. It's definitely rough enough but quite flat, hard to keep momentum. It would be easy to lap, though.

I thought about Floppy but in my mind, there aren’t enough continuous rough sections, which I feel are good for optimizing suspension. Ideally I’d like to replicate some of the faster sections on a trail like Lower Oil Can.

I am trying to think of a few easily lappable sections of trail on the Shore for doing repeat runs to set up suspension. The trail section should be short with an easy/quick climb or push, but long enough that I have time to feel the bike settings. It should be fast and rough enough that it actually tests the suspension, but not so steep and gnarly that I'm survival riding.

Here are some thoughts I had:

- Pile of Rocks

- Second half of Executioner (from climbing trail crossing to Dreamweaver)

- Bridle Path cardiac descent

- Lower C-Buster from R&R to Bridle

The Cardiac option is probably the most efficient of these for repeat laps.

Anything else that comes to mind?