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Shit just got real.

New to mountain biking as well and I appreciate all the responses and information provided. Thanks! Have been riding around the streets to get an understanding of my bike but look forward to getting out on the trails soon.

It’s a minor difference. But as long as the cables and housing are good and everything is performing as designed, the shifter has a bigger impact on the shift quality and feel. The way it “clicks” through the shifts is determined by the shifter not the derailer. Also, at least with SRAM when you bump up from GX to XO, you get adjustable lever positioning. The difference between levels of derailers usually just comes down to weight. The features are the same. And the price difference is greater. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Gotta practice those offhand drills.

From RF: "For the large majority of Race Face cranks a special puller tool is not required. The mid-high end spectrum of Race Face cranks (Cinch, EXI, and older X-Type interfaces) use a self-extracting puller cap system that allows for the removal of the drive side crank with only an 8mm Hex key wrench. For some of the mid to lower end EXI cranks (Evolve, Aeffect, Chester, Ride, and Respond) a standard crank puller tool for Spindled cranks like the Park CCP-44 is required for crank removal." ...just in case you don't trust Seth. 😉

Learning my way around the BCGB, and unmentionable trails, was always best handled for me by attending an AB led "no drop" ride. There were both audio and visual components. I agree that managing any kind of tech to help with trail navigation will always cut into the riding experience. This is balanced with the fact that I won't fly down unknown trails either, so the impact is reduced. In lieu of having a guide along, the phone apps for trails are still better than riding around guessing which way to go and hoping to get it right. When I ride someplace new I'll keep my phone in a front pocket of my shorts and whup it out as needed. It only takes seconds, particularly if I've planned my route and just need to glance at it to verify the location or the turn. When it is a long ride I'll carry a booster battery pack to top up the phone if needed, but I've never had to so far.

It's only natural any injury related thread is going to transition to a butt cleansing discussion

I have to disagree. Most of my bikes road and MTB have been ground up builds with quality new parts at 30-50% savings. I built a Look 555 carbon bike with full Campagnolo Chorus including Campagnolo wheels for $2700, same bike purchased from a bike shop spec'd the same way would have been almost 6k. I built my Evil following from ground up full new XT 11s drivetrain DVO Diamond fork DT Swiss wheels for about $3700, same build from evil or Fanatic was 6k. If you don't need to have the latest newest build components you can find some good deals by waiting for the new versions of components to be launched and purchase the previous version at a deep discount letting you build the bike you want at a good price.

Blasphemy. Why do you hate Sheldon Brown?! 😢

After multiple arm and shoulder surgeries I learned to become wipebidextrous

I live in the middle of SATN. I know my way around it pretty well at this point, although I don't know the names of every segment.The network is very difficult to navigate due to its patchwork format, so riders new to the area will need a guide present or spend a lot of time staring at maps to get the most out of it. A physical guide is not always available and, from personal experience, guiding someone whose skills don’t match mine (either they are too fast or too slow) through the trails can be frustrating. Turn-by-turn navigation on a GPS unit has been pretty useless in the wood, but it might be improving. I have a relatively low-tech solution I’d like to try to help riders navigate the area for the first time: record audio of myself narrating the trail as I ride it, edit it down into sections, and share it like a podcast. A rider could download it and listen to me jabber at them about upcoming intersections, tricky sections, where to bail out if necessary, etc. It would be like one of those audio tour guides that you pick up at a museum. Most headphones have controls built into the unit, so a rider could pause the recording easily if I they fall behind my narrative and need to catch up. Before I try such a thing, what legal and pragmatic concerns should I consider? I’ll have to get the following sorted out: Sound quality- I have my phone, a headset with a built-in speaker, and a standalone digital voice recorder as well. I’ll have to experiment with sound quality, but my main concern would be mitigating wind noise. Maybe rig the recorder to my chest and put a fuzzy wind-cancelling ball on the mic? Legal- I don’t want to be held responsible if someone gets lost, injured, or stumbles into a private property while using my guide. I would err on the side of caution when it comes to guiding people through grey area trails, which is a lot of this system- trails that connect greenbelts that the neighbors use openly to walk their dogs and ride bikes, but most is not recognized by the city. User experience- I want to ride at a slow enough pace that even slow riders can keep up and set it up so they can pause it if they don’t make it to the next landmark when I do in the recording. This will mostly be a matter of my skill as a narrator. I would also break the tour into segments, maybe 5 or 10 mile loops that riders can download individually and string together any way they choose. My hope is just that a few people will find this useful, and I’ll have fun doing it. No expectations that I’ll make money or change the world with this. If it is successful, maybe other people will make their own audio trail tours and make them better than mine.

For many people, they don't care who is choosing the compromise. And so, a custom build may not be all that important and will probably save them money if sticking to brand new retail priced parts. I like the freedom to choose, and I really like to tinker with stuff. So, that choice has more value to me. If carbon hoops are a no compromise issue for someone, then they can keep the Fox Factory fork and the Deore brakes. Funny thing is the Cane Creek is actually cheaper than the Fox Factory fork.

From Amazon for $619.99 ASUS VivoBook Thin and Lightweight FHD WideView Laptop, 8th Gen Intel Core i5-8250U, 8GB DDR4 RAM, 128GB SSD+1TB HDD, USB Type-C, NanoEdge, Fingerprint Reader, Windows 10 - F510UA-AH55 Let's break this down: ASUS - Brand. Not Great. Not Terrible. The 3.6 Roentgen of computer brands. VivoBook - The line of laptops this one falls in. Thin and Lightweight FHD WideView Laptop - It's a laptop. It's thin and lightweight. If you don't give shits about thin and lightweight too damn bad because they all are. 8th Gen Intel Core i5-8250U - It has a processor or the brain. It's 8th gen. 8 is better than 7. i5 means you aren't getting charged more for the i7. This used to mean something but not really anymore. Just stay away from i3. 8GB DDR4 RAM - This is the memory that is used when you run a program. Not having enough of this makes your computer slow. 90% of laptops can be upgraded by a nerd with a screwdriver and $40 to double the RAM to 16GB. 128GB SSD+1TB HDD - This is the memory that keeps your programs and files saved on your computer after you turn it off. Run out of this and no more cat meme GIFs. SSD is fast but expensive. HDD is slow but cheap. This computer has a little of each. Nerds can also upgrade this. USB Type-C - It connects to things. As does every laptop. NanoEdge - ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ NFI. Fingerprint Reader - It sends your fingerprints to the Chinese. Windows 10 - It sends your fingerprints to Microsoft.

I'll take you up on that. I need to get a computer that can handle it first. I tried to upload a 10 minutes cell phone video on ye olde lap top a while back and I thought it was going to catch fire while it tried to "process" the video for over eight hours.

I've followed someone at the SATN a few times but I could never repeat that same loop. However, I just went down there with plenty of fluids and food and explored, and now I can find my way around more or less. I have pretty good navigation sense if I look at a map before hand so that limits how many times I have to stop to look at my phone. I have a camera you can have with all the accessories you can have. It's GoPro knock-off. I don't know why I bought it (I also have an original Gopro which I never used).

You can get more bang for the buck buying off-lease. I just bought a 2015 27" iMac 5k Retina from gainsaver.com for home and it's awesome. I'd recommend a mid 2015 Macbook Pro but not the 2017 or 2018 (I hate my 2018 MBP, miss my mid 2015 MBP). I wouldn't get anything less than 16GB memory. For video and photo editing, I think you probably want dedicated graphics memory. For Windows brands, I can recommend Acer and do not recommend HP based on my experience.

I still do this but now it is a drop ride. Buyer beware 😉

wrong. you should just be using an 8mm Allen wrench to loosen the drive-side crank arm off and it uses a self extracting bolt to push itself off the crank spindle, just like all the other modern race face cranks// that 16mm Allen is only if youre removing/changing the crank spindle itself or the self extracting bolt that cap that has the 16mm Allen wrench hole needs to stay on while you are turning the 8mm crank bolt counter clockwise. the 8mm bolt pushes against the inside of that 16mm Allen cap to self extract the crank arm off the spindle

Shouldn't be an issue, the trails are pretty tame 😉

I took it off my bucket list

What I should have said was to put the money into a XTR shifter and get a SLX rear mech (or SRAM equivalent?), because you will feel the difference in performance in the shifter more than in the rear mech. The shop didn't give you bad advice per se as there is not a huge difference between XT and SLX, but there is a slight difference and an even bigger one moving up to XTR. Had 2 bikes with XTR derailers and SLX shifters stock, upgraded the shifters to XTR and it was a big difference, shifting was so much crisper. Then snapped off one of the XTR rear mechs on a rock and replaced it with SLX, could not tell the difference. IMHO invest in the high end shifter, you can feel it and it is less likely to get destroyed.

Had one of those. Fun bike for it's time

^ this Usually run XTR/X0 shifters with lesser derailleurs. IMHO, the rocks here are too grabby for $200+ derailleurs

I'd think the cassette has more impact on shifting crispness than the derraileur. (sorry, tried spelling derailer and doesn't feel right to me)

Never ceases to amaze me how topics just segue into the oddest diversions you dont see coming Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

Everything was too muddy today. Should be OK tomorrow for Crank and Drank, assuming no more rain.

Pop a couple of norcos, get out that credit card and get one of these. Literally saved my ass after I broke my thumb at Reveille Peak a few years ago.

When it rains, if I do an weekend urban ride it ends with beer. Hops and Grain, Lazarus and Zilker are all close. Blue Owl is as well, but I don't like sours.

Lately I’ve seen so many great takeoff deals on wheels. Everybody with the cash to blow wants to upgrade to carbon rims on top flight builds. There’s always brand new DT350’s and I9’s with decent Al rims for the price of the hubs or less on FB sales groups. I got my I9’s from a bro deal, but my low end GX drivetrain has been as good as XTR stuff I had 6-8 years ago. Frame that fits, suspension platform I like, good fork. Not going to blow the extra $1k+ for Eagle vs GX drivetrain or bling wheels. Especially if I can pick up better wheels later. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I wondered if they were the same thing. Only one I’ve seen was at the Frio Bat Cave. A couple of bats collided and hit the ground and it came flying out of the rocks above the cave and snagged a bat and scurried back away from the crowd. All the predators know when the buffet opens for business! Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Celis and Circle in that same stretch. Edit: and if you cross Burnet, Austin beerworks Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Home resting comfortably with loving wife, which is a reminder of what's truly important in life. Surgeon told her that the procedure went according to plan. Really got to think about the details with these things. The one question I had was how the hell am I going to be able to sit on a toilet? Surgeon said good call out and had the nurse arrange for my wife to pick up an apparatus that attaches to the toilet, raising the seat 4.5 inches with upright handles on the side. Haha can't wait to try it. Thanks all for the well wishes and good humor. A real must for getting through these things.

Super solid advice, XT/XTR shifter with a SLX derailer for instance, saves money and you'll feel the difference much more at the shifter than at the rear mech.

Hope your surgery was a total success today, old man! Make sure you get on here with some good drug induced post-surgery deep philosophical manifesto about mountain bike riding and tire choice...those area always the best 🙂 Take care, dude!

I had a pair of ringtails take up residence in my attic last year. They were tough to get rid of.

Never seen a cougar, although there are occasional sightings out here. Have seen a few bobcats over the years. The State Park has a wildlife viewing blind and I lucked out one night and got some pics and video of this one.

Dont worry. Still pedaling involved. We dont have mountains to descend. Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

Many people regret buying bikes with SRAM brakes. If that's the only holdup, remove and sell the SRAM brakes before you even ride the bike so you can sell them as "brand new" takeoffs and use the funds for some proper Shimano brakes.