velocipedestrian profile

I've been contemplating 'bar ins' the ones on my radar are called Togs, but I haven't bitten the bullet yet.

Intrigued, the only other thing making my spidey-sense tingle is the dropper lever.

Hiding behind the Explosif, a little Fox wears its head on backwards... 

I'm not this far along the saddle library reading list, but it does motivate me to track down a Koda.

Thanks for leading with the elephant AJ. I'm a long time clipper who wants all the grip.

Some of the features on these look good (strap, D30 ankle) but not sticky enough for me.

This. I've been noticing age is not kind to my crash recovery.

I think strength and mobility are (for me) super important. Shoulders and wrists have taken a hammering in the last year, and both have led to time off the bike.

Those doughnuts look amazing. And as the only non-drinker in the shops I worked in, I would have been stoked to see them appear of a Friday afternoon.

Instead I generally watched my co-workers drink cheap beer delivered in response to my last minute bodging. Oh well.

Yep, I'm about to bring my '04 5 Spot frame back into rotation, after finding a crack in my partners seatstay.

I've had those, and the pivots on my old 5 Spot are t40.

Your egg analogy is about right, the carbon is very thin and flares away from the cups.

4mm is a guesstimate (though I have plenty of trust in my eyeometer). Didn't remove the cups, just the fork and bearings for a peek. 

Heat? We had sleet yesterday!

So I went round and we had a look at the stock headset today. It's a normal looking zs, probably 44/56 unit, but there was one thing that gave me pause.

The contact surface between the carbon frame and alu cups can't be more than 4mm, then the frame widens away from the headset. I couldn't tell if it was just a press fit, or if there was a bond of some kind helping out, but that seems like a very shallow contact to me. The Works lower cup has ~13mm of surface ready to mate with the frame, should he be nervous with so little overlap?

Posted by: RAHrider

Posted by: velocipedestrian

They're notoriously tight the first time. Usually fine after that.

This comment makes me feel dirty, not sure why......

More lube.

They're notoriously tight the first time. Usually fine after that.

Ah, I've messed around with an old favourite pre-suspension frame. It's really hard to get a good balance, as soon as I fitted a suspension fork (or suspension corrected rigid) the BB got crazy high.

Shortest fork I could find + highest rise bar was the best compromise I could find.

That does look like a long way down from the saddle to the drops.

Took the new(kinda) rigid out in its new mullet mode today.

The ~18kg of passenger between me and the bars meant no hooning, and not much analysis, but so far it seems like it's gonna be a fun machine. 

Moxie Pipedream V1 'long'. Currently using a Surly Karate Monkey Steel fork. 29x2.5 DHF up front, 27x2.8 Rekon out back. 

Really looking forward to the different shenanigans I have planned. Glad it's fun rigid (for options) and pretty sure it'll be a blast with a 210 dropper and suspension fork.

Posted by: UFO

Posted by: tashi

I’ve been thinking about doing this with an XTR front shifter I have kicking around, just like the old days when dropper levers were universally terrible. 

Because I too love symmetry.

I have this setup on an old dropper, I love it. It was a slight pain to set up the cable, but really just have to deal with that once every few years.

The down side is most modern droppers fix the cable end the 'right' way now so this makes the hacked front shifter remotes a much less viable option.

It's trickier, but can be done with some shed bodging. Then once set up, as pointed out, only an issue when you want to swap something.

Very nice, Heinous. Extra points for the comfy seatpost.

Posted by: rnayel

Posted by: olaa

Wow! That is a great build!

Posted by: Ddean

Congrats rnayel, what a beauty frame!!!!

I’m looking forward to photos of it built

Thanks!

I'll post photos when it's built. Since it's the same colour at my Titan, I'm going to post a family pic too.

Hot. 

Going for significantly different builds? There's a lot of overlap between those (in my mind).

Thanks for the nudge you lot. Prompted me to look at Suntour again - new direct sale of a Durolux or Auron is similar $ to a used Lyrik round here. Won't be for a while, but good tip.

Posted by: RAHrider

Speaking of new FS bikes. What's the deal with many of the EWS riders riding one size smaller? The winner of the latest EWS is 190cm and rides a size large with a 460mm reach. He says that on the gnarly courses, the smaller bike is better. Aren't we all riding "the gnarly trails" all the time here?

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/video-a-closer-look-at-jack-moirs-canyon-strive-race-bike.html

Those Germans at Enduro covered this by testing a bunch of racers bikes vs recommended sizes of the same frames. 

Seemed to come down to the longer bike being more stable + forgiving, vs shorter being easier to move around. So far so obvious, but for us mortals on tough terrain longer is better. For pros with the skills and fitness, mobility can mean better line choice and seconds saved etc... Are we hitting peak reach?