Vikb profile

I'm with you on long bikes. At first I enjoyed the cockpit room, but then I started having serious elbow issues. Going to narrower bars and a smaller cockpit are the two things that have helped the most so far. 

Obviously this is a YMMV issue and not a one size fits all criticism.

Did you find anything else that helped your elbow issues?

I'm sticking to 31.8mm for stems/bars. Lots of options and I can see no benefit to the larger diameter for own needs.

I've been dealing with an annoying RSI/ergonomic injury for the last year+. I'm glad there are all sorts of oddball touch point products available. Most people don't need them and can ignore them, but when you need something different to keep you on the bike it's great that companies are designing and making out of the box products that offer something different than the mainstream.

I've mostly been experimenting with bar shape and position relative to the saddle, but I can see how Fasst Flexx bars or Rev Grips could be a game changer for someone with elbow/hand issues.

I've got a setup my body seems to be reasonably happy with now, but having turned 50 and wanting to continue to ride hard on challenging trails for a long time to come I'm not fooling myself into thinking this will be the last time I'll be poking around at the margins of the MTB industry looking for a solution to a health problem!

It's great you can swap out the link, but there are other orange accents on the new Fug/Warden frames as well. I just figure make the raw frames raw/black and then go nuts with the colour pallet on the rest. Just my opinion I realize. 

My 2017 purchases raw Endo frame looks good and has never had any special attention. Maybe it's not "mint", but I think it looks as good as any 3yr old MTB that gets ridden regularly through coastal BC winters.

The last generation Knolly raw frames were just raw with no clear coat over top. I thought the current raw frames were the same.

I agree that Knolly red link has got to go. They are really into red and orange this generation of frames. If you want a frame without any red or orange on it you have slim pickings or you have to swap out parts or strip the paint off your new frame.

I like the crow design and hope they'll have one raw/black frame option for each model for folks that are not into bright colours.

They aren't the ebikes of tomorrow they exist right now. Once motors are an accepted thing on hiking/mountain biking trails you'll see them in action. There is a huge pent up demand for more access to trails by folks that want to recreate with motors and folks that want to sell them more machines to ride. They just need a place to ride 'em and that's happening with ebikes.

If it had a built in speaker that activated with a thumb button and made e-bike noises so I could motor past people on the climbs I could get into the looks. ;)

Ugly is the new beautiful.

When I got a new bike last year I spec'd coil front/rear [MRP Ribbon + RS Super Deluxe Coil]. Last dual coil bike I had was back in '99 or so. I'm quite happy with the results. It does take a moment to get used to the different feel and learn how to setup the suspension after a long stretch with only air forks/shocks. 

After swapping the lighter then the heavier springs around my weight range into my shock I settled on the stiffer spring and the shock damper run wide open. The bike sits high in its travel and has a lot of support, but the spring still moves very easily off the top and I get great traction. 

My fork is running the lighter of the two springs for my weight and it's working well. That fork does have a bottom out control adjustment which is nice. I did get the next stiffer spring for my fork. I'm curious how that will feel. Might be too stiff, but I'll give it a go when I open up the fork for the next service.

I service my coil suspension the same amount as I do my air suspension, but it is nice to never have to break out the shock pump or have the spring rate set wrong for a ride.

The weight hit is something 1.5lbs. I notice it when I lift my bike off the rack, but on the trail it disappears from my mind immediately. My bike is setup on the burly side of things to tackle any trail I have the skills/balls to ride down. I could see myself building up a light short travel bike and wanting to have air suspension to keep the weight down.

It's great we have so many excellent suspension options these days.

Posted by: mtbman99

This is the issue with ebikes how do you stop these guys vs specific categories.

You aren't going to stop them. It's got pedals and so it's good to go.

Posted by: Kenny
With ebikes the only cap is technology. if ebikes are not a motorbike loophole currently, it's pretty tough to imagine they won't be in the future. It's the nature of capitalism and "progress" that makes this inevitable. That'scary.

Yes. That's the problem. We would never have been okay with gas motorcycles on MTB/hiking trails, but because there is an electric motor and a lower powered stock configuration as "get the foot in the door" product it now makes sense to mix motors and human powered recreation like that? The process of getting faster/more powerful e-motos on these trails is inevitable.

If riders/MTB companies don't care and think that's a good idea we can agree to disagree, but please don't come back in 5-10 years and act like they couldn't see this coming.

Posted by: Hepcat

Dismayed to discover during yesterdays ride that both the guys who ride e-bikes at my local (highly sensitive) trail have now pulled the cranks off. 🤢

Just throttle.

Nobody should be surprised. This idea that someone is going to inspect every electric moped/motorcycle to see if it meets some arbitrary authorized standard is fantasy. If you let motors on the trails you let anything even remotely resembling what's legal onto the trails. That's just our new reality. Pedaling is now optional. If pegs catch too much attention that same throttle equipped moped will get the pedals reinstalled just to get past any parking lot scrutiny and on the trails he can happy pin the throttle and shred.

Posted by: tungsten

Uh oh....

I just dusted off my GG Smash [metal frame] after riding my older MTB in the winter. I'm trying out a -1 deg headset this season which is similar to the front end geo of the new carbon Smash. Climbs great and descends like a champ. It's a nice all rounder with enough travel to tackle anything I have the courage to throw myself down without punishing me on big climbs and all day rides. We ordered up a carbon Smash for my GF so I'll get to see the new design. I have no plans to get rid of my metal bike or upgrade at this point. It just works too damn well and it's paid for!

For those who don't like the shock placement I have to disagree. Not on aesthetic grounds, but because I can get a waterbottle above the shock and then a decent sized frame bag below the shock so I can ride packless and still help fix other people's broken down rigs on the trail. My frame has a 2nd bottle mount under the DT so I can skip the pack on 99% of my rides which I love.

You mean bikes I would buy if they held two water bottles and a frame bag! I'm not going backwards on H20 and tool storage onboard the bike. :)

I'm 200lbs ready to ride and I have only noticed stiffness issues with some carbon wheels and some 35mm carbon bars. Both of which can degrade the ride quality by transmitting more vibration than less stiff alternatives. As far as cranks go I have over 5yrs on Next SLs with no issues and just got a set of Next R's at the start of this summer. The cranks and RF's BBs have worked well for me both threaded and PF varieties. 

I just got a Boost bike and can't tell any difference from my 100/142 bikes that I can trace back to the wider hubs.

I'm shopping for a hardtail at the moment and I am doing my best to find one with a pleasant amount of flex for my weight/power and avoid an overly stiff frame.

The MTB industries constant marketing spew about more and more and more stiffness is stupid. You don't want the stiffest bike possible. You want the various components of your bike to be appropriately stiff for your needs. That gets too complicated to discuss in an advertisement sound bite so we are left with "MOAR STIFFERER THAN EVER!" ;)

I've run the 2.4" Conti Trail King as a winter tire the last 6-7 years on Van Isle. Great traction. Rolls fast.

I had been wanting a 29er for a few years. I demo'd a bunch of bikes and remained intrigued, but never managed to settle on a wagon wheeler that checked all my boxes. So I bought a couple 275ers and rode those. Fast forward 5yrs and I stumbled across Guerrilla Gravity bikes. They look great. Have all the features I wanted and my 29er stoke was high so I pulled the trigger.

A couple blog posts about the build and why I picked the Smash:

https://vikapprovedblog.wordpress.com/2018/01/05/guerilla-gravity-smash-29er/

https://vikapprovedblog.wordpress.com/2018/02/09/guerrilla-gravity-smash-build/

3 months in I'm really happy I made the choice. This bike was fun from the first pedal stroke [unlike my 29er demos] and has exceeded all my expectations. I knew it would be a great a descender, but the climbing capabilities of the Smash are a nice surprise. I'm glad I took a chance on GG and finally got a big wheeler. It's been a blast to ride.

I'm working on a review, but I have been feeling lazy. I'll post a link here when I get 'er done. :)

Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/vikapproved/sets/72157691878835305

Posted by: PSY

for you guys that use waist packs...do they ever move around a lot while going through chunder and stuff?

Our rides all seem to start with big climbs so the fanny bag is no issue for that and I will empty the water in the fanny pack first so usually when I am headed down and things get zesty the fanny bag is empty or nearly so and I don't even know I have it on.

Posted by: PSY
thanks for sharing this - good tip on the soft bottle. definitely gonna try this setup out
what's inside the timbuk2?

I carry my phone in there...mostly to take photos with.