AustinBike

I can probably get $150-200 on eBay but I'd rather sell it local. $100 takes it. 7-7/8" with a 2" stroke.

A day at Lakeway probably gives you more technical climbing, this is sustained climbing, which is impressive. We did 1400' yesterday on the GB. Constant short ups are a lot harder than a long sustained climb.

The last time I was in a photo shoot I embarrassed everyone. Luckily I am out of town. But I put it on my site for you. Good luck.

Actually, not to get all legal on you (I am not a lawyer), but that page spells it out pretty clearly. No motorized vehicles. And then it spells out, specifically, the exceptions. None of which represents one wheels. You are not a Segway and you are definitely not an ADA appliance. This is why I go back to my original statement: You need to get a city of Austin or PARD statement that one wheels are allowed. Otherwise you are interpreting a rule to your benefit. Trust me, there are plenty of places that bikes are not allowed (must we rehash the name Forest Ridge) and we are not allowed to simply say "well, by our interpretation..." Instead of running on your interpretation, please take the time to get the opinion of the city, the folks that make the rules. At that point, you'll be on much firmer ground and be able to show that, yes, you are allowed. Otherwise, it comes off as "yeah, I read the rules, but the way that I interpret them...." All of this can be resolved by the people that make the rules, none of this can be resolved here because we don't make the rules. If you are angling to get the biking community on your side to help change the rules, again, I say engage with the Austin Ridgeriders as they have already established channels with the city. Also, I neglected to say earlier that the mountain unicycle guys are very familiar to the mountain biking community, we see them as "brothers on wheels" and are pretty amazed at the things that they can do. Quite frankly, watching them do things that I cannot is humbling, but they also do it without an engine, it is all individual skills. That, sadly, is where our groups part ways; you won't find us very excited about e-bikes either, for that reason. But we should all be enjoying our parks. Get in touch with the city and PARD and get this all sorted out. It's better to be legally recognized and ride without worry than be defensive every time you encounter someone that questions whether you should be there.

I agree with Antonio that we should be looking at the city code as this is a city park. Signage says “no motorized vehicles” so it if somehow a one wheel is not considered a motorized vehicle then it is incumbent on the OW community to get this clarified by the city. Until then, the motor rule seems to be pretty straightforward. This is similar to what happened with skiing and snowboarding. When snowboarding first started there were arguments about rules. Then they were comprehended in rules, specifically, and everyone got along.

You suffer from the same thing that we bikers suffer from - there are some in our midst that create problems for everyone and give all of us a bad name. When i have encountered one wheels they have almost universally had difficulty navigating in the same space as a bike. So both of us ended up dismounted-not optimal. Also, if there is a lack of clarity about what is or is not allowed in parks, I would focus on getting clarity from the city, not us (we don’t own the park, even though sometimes we act like it.) We have an advocacy group, the Austin Ridgeriders and I would recommend you guys getting one as well. And maybe engage with ours to help smooth things out. And yeah, I’ve come across ahole one wheelers just like I’ve come across ahole bikers.

spider mountain

Yeah, the designers used to always say “well it looked right on our monitors” 😉

Actually, there is a very explicit rule: no motorized vehicles. If the parks are going to open up to them, there needs to be a “rules of engagement” for them. Right now bikes have to yield to pedestrians (and dogs). If one wheels are allowed then I would say they need to yield to bikes. Every engagement I have had has been awkward, they had little ability to react to riders and end up causing both to stop. This makes no sense, almost impossible for a bike and a one wheel to pass each other on UCD of the trail because it is too narrow for them to maintain control (but 2 bikes pass each other all day long.) There was a definite lack of maneuverability on every encounter. We just need some common sense way to all take advantage of the same trails.

No, he copied HTML text and when it pasted in the font was set to #FFFFFF which is white. If you highlight his text you can actually read it. Not surprising that a non-designer like Sloan would make this newbie error 😝

All of this happens because we have people digging and people advocating. It builds a community and then these things spring up because there is evidence that if they build it people will come. Public facing things like ARR, Freeride 512, RPR, RHR, Brushy Creek, etc all signal to potential developers that money can be made here. To quote a great song, “nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd”

IN!!!!!

Yeah, and if anyone wants to tag along, it would probably be next Monday

Put in a travel requisition with AustinBike headquarters for an exploratory trip, hopefully it will get signed off by corporate so that I can get it on site before I leave the country.

Just need it to be dry for Tuesday 😉

My MK3’s have been great. Watching this thread tells me: 1. All of this is highly dependent on situation 2. Budget is a prime consideration 3. Warranty is critical and important to know up front 4. Important considerations should be given to both the costs and benefits of each choice. There is no one good answer. I am cheap and am fine with the AL trade offs. Most importantly, the weight savings is so minimal to me. But for some, especially if you race, it could be an advantage. everyone is different

That is not the one I would be worried about...

I used to bring my singlespeed into my office on tuesdays rather than leave it on my car. Someone would always say cool bike, what does that cost and then shit a brick when I tell them the price (they lived in the world of $150 cheap bikes). If anyone ever gave me shit about rolling the bike through the office, I’d casually ask them what their company insurance covers for thefts in their parking lot. That always stopped the security guards at dell when they got huffy about me bringing the bike into the building. Also works with hotel security guards.

I am out of state but just looked at the radar to see the rain back home. My gut says that walnut is gonna get hit. If it does get rain, stay off of it for ~48 hours and let it dry out. Based on the fact that it got a ton of rain last week, it will not do as well this week if it is hit again.

Thanks, now I remember why I had you on ignore. This is not Walmart's business model.

Walmart is big with beginners. Walmart is selling $2-6K carbon bikes. As always, you are disconnected to reality. Do you have any idea how long it takes to nurture a buyer from the $150 Walmart bike to a $3K carbon bike. They have neither the time nor the patience - the circles of the Venn diagram do not cross.

Marks is actually good because while there are creek crossings, they are all basically armored with rocks. There was one I stopped and jumped over but for the rest of them they were rideable.

Rode Walnut this morning. 95% good to go. Stay off Windy Loop for another day or so. Mark's Art has water in the creek crossings but the rest is dry. Hero dirt everywhere else.

I know a bit about how they do business. They can only bring the price down in one of three ways: 1. Better supply chain. That can shave ~3-10% off the price 2. Labor reductions (by offshoring) 3. Material reductions (i.e. cheaper grade materials) I'm not complaining, that is their business model. If they cannot maintain a sizable advantage through those 3, they will not get into the business. For instance, they could go after the PC business except that has a better supply chain (no on #1), all of the labor is already offshore and materials are not commodities in their eyes, so they would not be able to shrink the costs and still make money. Things like BBQ grills are prime candidates because there is a labor and materials reduction that they can grab, then use their supply chain to drive the extra profit off the top. They will be very hard pressed to bring down the cost on high end bikes because those demand quality components (ie. Shimano, SRAM, DT Swiss), labor is not a sizable part of the BOM and the sales channel is not big box retail, buyers dropping $3K+ need a higher touch. The sweet spot for Walmart is a manufactured commodity product with little brand recognition. Think grills, camp chairs, plastic bins, etc.

I mostly rode the greenbelt and city park back then. I am not a big air guy and always take the easier line. I am not the guy that should be breaking frames. Broke a Gary Fisher twice (cheaper bike), broke the Hammerhead (after 4 years of regular pounding), then I broke a Knolly 3 times (design flaw). Since that time I had a Sant Cruz Blur (still running the the Austin circles) and a Niner RIP 9 (bought used, now ~8+ years old.) From roughly 2002 - 2008 or so it seemed like every week someone broke a frame. Few riders I knew escaped without a crack somewhere. The industry probably grew up too quick and pushed the envelope. I'm sure the warranty costs from that time period taught them all some expensive lessons. Those that were able to ride it out financially ended up building burlier bikes and those that could not went under. That is why today you don't see the failures. Another contributing factor used to be that bikes were $1500-3000 back then. If you spent $3K you were really splurging. These days it is difficult to find a new bike under $3K. Maybe our tastes have changed, but I think there was a general recognition that if you are going to be riding hard and want your bike to last, make the investment upfront. I only have one friend these days that regularly breaks his frame, and I bet Salsa hates him.