ATXZJ

FlexY-stay ti bike. I can dig. 

How's the weight?

Even funnier that its a real sign😆

Speaking of Belgians, Quebec is still killing it. Each of these can be had for under $5usd 😎

3 hours ago, Chief said:

+/-16'

Is that 16ft all at once?

😁

On 9/23/2022 at 3:15 PM, mtb_jeremy said:

Still haven't heard more about this, but trail looks nice so far.

That looks very promising. Wonder what the elevation top to bottom is?

Le Massif de Charlevoix DH park. Mighty St. Lawrence River in the background. Views are surreal here. Blue flow trails are next level fun and a great place to learn how to rail berms and hit jumps for beginners and intermediate riders alike.  Double black is a death wish trail at the moment and had me puckered more than once. Most of the single black trails required pedaling so I took a pass on those😁.

Sometimes it's just cheaper/easier to buy a cassette than replacing hub body.

43 minutes ago, TAF said:

Didn't they just have some world cup action up that way? Pretty sure I saw a selfie of Emily Batty after a nasty looking spill.

Yes the world cup was early August. There's a whole network of XC/Enduro trails on the South, South East side of the mountain. IMHO, there's way more pedal options than DH. The XC is no joke here. 

Gravity is way more fun though😁

Did the Enduro climb up Mont Sainte Anne. Pretty tired but the fall scenery was amazing. Looking forward to the next couple of weeks.

Cool to see these guys have made it all the way up to Quebec City😎

1 hour ago, bear said:

IMO people really need to keep the paper-thin tires to the XC races, but maybe i'm biased by past tire trauma.

Guy at the LBS in Bentonville said the shale is a boom for their tire sales. 

6 minutes ago, Cafeend said:

And yea, Back 40 and TV and Little Sugar are ridable in normal rain. Those trails shed water like RainX

Lots of shale up there. Not PNW, but much better than the peanut butter in Austin when its wet.  

On 8/13/2022 at 2:15 PM, AntonioGG said:

Who’s this?

 

After spending time away, can confirm. So much truth to this😆

12 minutes ago, WLemke said:

Figured I would add to this thread instead of starting a new one. I'm heading up to Bentonville this Friday for a little solo trip while my wife is away on a girl's trip. I don't really want to drive anywhere to go ride once I'm in town so my goal is to keep all of my rides based out of my AirBnB which is near the north trails. With that in mind, what do y'all think of this itinerary? Anything I'm missing? Any hidden gems I should make note to check out?

My plan is as follows:

Friday: Getting in around 3pm so I'll do some light pedaling around the north Bentonville trails just to get a feel for the area. I don't really have a route in mind but would like to put in about 10 miles. Any must do trails that would serve as a great welcome to the area?

Saturday: This will be my big XC ride. I'll be doing the back 40 and tunnel vision back to back. Here is the route I created for my Garmin.

Sunday: Hoping to get a little more technical riding in on my last day, maybe about 40 miles total. I was planning on heading into Coler Preserve in the AM. From there, I would head back into town and hit up Slaughter Pen again. After lunch, I'm thinking I'll cycle west over to hand cut hollow before heading back to my AirBnB. I don't have a specific route in mind and looking at all these riding areas, not really sure if I should even attempt to create a specific route. I may just wing it and go with the flow. No pun intended.

Think that's a pretty solid plan. Back 40+ is a great way to spend a day, and hitting coler first thing the following day is smart. We did coler after a trip to kessler and our legs were already blown out, so we only got two laps down before hanging in the towel. Slaughter is a great way to finish off since you can easily pick & choose what you want to ride and bail whenever you want.

Have a good one!

On 7/22/2022 at 12:40 PM, Kobra Kai MTB Guy said:

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I went into Peddler’s and they made it sound like the Bronson and Hightower would be difficult to get. After further review, the Bronson seemed a little big for around here as well. Long story short, Cycle Progression had a T2 SB130 in stock, and I went with that:

 

 

My feedback is mostly positive. Really, I’ve been quite blown away. The lack of bob when pedaling is very nice, and this bike takes big hits VERY well. I hit the 4-5 ft B-line drop to flat at the end of City and it felt super smooth. I was hoping you guys could help me out with the couple issues I’ve had:

 

1.  I was told this would be the case, but the anti-squat makes technical climbs more difficult than expected on a 29er. I just feel like it’s much harder to keep traction. 
 

2.  Similar to the above, every little bump in the trail is more noticeable than on the diamondback, while the bigger hits feel quite smooth. As a result, it performs quite well at City, but not as well on Double Down.  The videos I watched did warn against this, but I wasn’t sure if there was a way I could tweak the suspension to fix this. 

Forgot to mention the cascade link. They make one for the yeti that will help with the small bump compliance and ledge issues associated with this platform. I just installed one on my druid and it made a noticeable difference on compliance, even on a high pivot. Did take some fiddling with shock psi and settings to get it dialed, but well worth it. Downside is it'll slack your yeti out slightly and is a little pricey. If you install, do it on the DL and hold onto your old link in case of a warranty issue.

https://cascadecomponents.bike/collections/yeti-linkages

14 hours ago, June Bug said:

I get the appeal NOW, but winter is long, dark and cold.  

Summer home only. We looked all over for states with resorts/lift bike parks and couldn't come close to price of ownership in the USA as we can here. 

16 hours ago, AustinBike said:

So is SoCal. The places we are looking are loaded with tons of trails and tons of gravel opportunities. The fact that it is 72F most of the year is not a bad thing either.

My mom lived in Newport Beach and there was some great stuff down by Laguna. Also a place where a lot of people are riding e-bikes.

2 hours ago, Barry said:

Maybe you ought to move to North Cali, Washington state, or PNW then? Sounds absolutely like your preference. Nothing but gravel roads up, and singletrack down. 

For sure! Looked closely in those areas but they each have their drawbacks that we'd prefer to avoid after our time in austin. Right now, our goal is to purchase a place here in quebec before the end of september and get out by christmas. Good thing is the area we're looking in is 20 minutes from two lift serviced bike parks. For the states, looking like western virginia with a layover in fayettevile ar might be in our future. Roanoke is 2-4hrs from multiple bike parks so we can get our fix regardless of where we are. Will probably buy a DH bike way before an e-bike.

Will also confess that riding Sentiers du Moulin bike park had me wanting an ebike so i could get more laps in. 

56 minutes ago, AntonioGG said:

 The attraction toward lift parks or eMTB to ride up and enjoy the ride down with the assist of gravity. 

The attraction towards lift parks is pretty strong for me. At this point, climbing is at best a necessary evil so we can bomb down the hill. 

After returning to the mountains, fire roads are my preferred climbing method🤣

2 hours ago, mack_turtle said:

I really enjoy Mike Ferrentino's writing in general, but this is pretty spot-on

Mike is an awesome dude. He was a big reason I started buying SC bikes back in the day when he was their marketing stooge.  

Got to ride a levoSL at elevation in Telluride and walked away with a completely different attitude about e-bikes. The 240w motor was perfect amount of assist, even on the low assist setting. The bike totally helped me get up some steep trails that i would have given up on miles earlier. Maybe there's a happy medium to land access where regulatory bodies could limit the motor/wattage by creating another class(?) Make the nomenclature obvious for rangers etc.  Nobody is hauling ass up hills with a 240w bike, at least not for long. Once at the top, I can go just as fast down the hill, if not faster on a traditional bike. To me, downhill doesn't seem to be the issue.

Lets be honest, most mountain bikers with the coin to drop, are in their 40-50s+. Myself included. We're going to age out of the sport whether by choice, or natural circumstances at some point. If an e-bike will keep me riding challenging trails with the younger groups when I'm in my 60s, so be it. 

https://www.specialized.com/us/en/turbo-levo-sl

https://formative.jmir.org/2019/3/e13643

Going into mountain mode, swapping out the stock link on the druid for a cascade one. It'll give me another 12mm of travel boosting it to 142. Also makes the platform a bit more progressive which should be really nice. Will probably stretch the fork to 150mm once i finish repairing the CSU.