mack_turtle

The Big Honzo is aluminum and does not have sliders, so setting it up single speed would be sub-optimal. FWIW, the Honzo has a crazy-long reach for its size. Good if you're into that kind of thing, but at 5'9", a small Honzo with a stubby stem would still feel big to me for the way I like a bike to fit and handle.

Most modern hardtails can be set up 29 or B+. You can squeeze 29+ tires I to a Karate Monkey if you really want to. Singlespeed is a bonus if you're into that (which I am).

The main difference with the Stache is the super-short chainstays, compared to the Krampus. If you put the same length fork that the Stache has on a Krampus. The BB on the Krampus might be a tad higher and the reach about the same.

I've been riding for the past few months with a water bottle on the frame, a Back Bottle in my jersey pocket, and various ways to carry spare bits and phone. I settled on a REI Trail 2 waistpack for carrying spare bits and phone. This was fine for 2-3 hours in moderate heat, especially if I can find a water fountain on my route. on Sunday, it got quite hot and humid, so I went back to my Osprey Rapor 10 with the 3L bladder 2/3 full. man, that sucked! I really hate the weight and awkwardness of the backpack. I need to get a second water bottle on my bike to avoid that for most of my rides now, or try a lumbar pack that carries water. my frame has two places to mount a water bottle, but one is under the downtube where it's sure to get splattered with dog shit.

I do some of these "mixed terrain" rides around town on a cyclocross bike. they end up being more pavement than gravel because there's just not that much gravel in town. however, if you can find segments of relatively tame singletrack, you can string together some fun rides.

I had good luck with some non-tubeless DT Swiss X430 rims, 2-3 layers of 1" Gorilla tape, and WTB Cross Boss 35mm tires in their TCS flavor. I tried it with some other tires and it would not work, but the TCS design fits very tight on any rim. It was tight enough to seal without an air compressor and with a little sealant help. I/we failed to notice you have a 130mm spaced frame. It MIGHT be possible to fit a mtb spaced wheel in there if you play around with spacers on the axle and then correct the wheel dish. I refuse to ride anywhere off-road with tubes any more. Gravel races on CX sized tubeless tires is the way to go.

Narrow XC mtb rims and Panaracer Gravelkings. I have a CX bike with Stan's Arch EX rims and a 35/32mm GK combo. I run them at 35 psi or so and I am 160 pounds+. Works great on tarmac and singletrack. Not sure how well a ghetto setup will work as I have seen few of those blow off the rim. WTB tubeless tires have a really tight bead, so that might help.

I think that is a bit dated and depends on the situation. In some places, asking a downhill-headed rider to stop would be dangerous.

I have never had much interest in owning or riding a FS bike, but I ride a CX bike with tubeless Gravelking tires (32 rear, 35 front, no more room out back for something fatter) and it's a blast on loose surfaces. It sucks on chunky rocks though. Even going slow, you can feel your rim bottom out frequently, so I avoid anything chunky on it. A bit of SATN can be ridden this way. My fastest hill climbs are on this bike. It's also fun when the trails are too wet to ride, piecing together roads and gravel trails. I find the pizza cutter wheels, drop handlebar, and overall lightweight-ness of it to be more fun for long distance rides when fat tires feel like you're dragging cinder blocks around, but a skinny tire road bike limits you to tarmac only.

In the late 90s, the state of BMX in Austin was intense. A few of my friends went on a high school spring break road trip to Austin just to ride. One of them moved to Austin immediately after high school. I slept on his couch for a few weeks while I looked for an apartment in 2003 and every spare moment was spent rising around the city, often in the company of pro riders I previously only knew through magazines and videos. It was nuts. I know several BMX guys who moved here for that reason and a few of them were "over" Austin after a few years. Portland is a popular next stop.

I make a point to greet hikers as it might raise our reputation among them. If I encounter a dog, I say "what's up, dawg!" And that sometimes gets a laugh.

Courage Adams. I am somehow more intrigued by the technical street stuff.

I, for one, would like to welcome our neural network masters. (read what this is. they are coming for us!)

The Smuggler seems to have a pretty long reach, as goes the trend with modern bikes. If you want to ride the same trails in the same way on a hardtail, you may or may not want similar geometry. The Rockhopper is quite a bit shorter. If you think you'll adopt a different riding style or stick to different kinds of trails on the HT, you might choose differently. Personally, I like a shorter reach as it makes the bike easier to wrangle at low speed over chunky terrain. I bought my current frame based on a reach that would allow me to use a short stem but not feel like I am hanging on for dear life behind the bike. YMMV and all that. I am biased toward singlespeeding, so consider a bike that can easily accommodate a SS drivetrain with sliders or something. That would give you a very different experience and build some skill in maintaining momentum and line choice. I would avoid XD drivers if you want to go that direction, as those are difficult to use with a single cog. (Problem Solvers makes an adapter but it's not ideal.)

A few companies have screw-together BBs that fit in a press-fit she'll. Praxis, etc.

Edward Abbey is turning in his grave.

I was surprised to see they made a Reba with a 20mm axle. Thought it was a mistake. Carry on.

New or used? Budget? Gears, singlespeed?

15mm or 20mm axle?

On a related note, we used Rover to find a dog sitter for an afternoon while traveling. We use Air BnB all the time, but never used it to rent our house. IfI could build a stable of city bikes to rent to festival-goers, this would be worth a try

And we wonder why people don't respect the police in this country. Solution: organize a ride where dozens of cyclists show up with bells on their bikes and ring them CONSTANTLY for a whole ride. Suddenly, bells will be outlawed.

I have this BMX bike to pass along. This is really an adult-sized bike. Tall handlebar, chromoly frame, double-wall rims. Needs the following: Grips Brake cable and some housing Rim strips (Gorilla tape would do it) De-rusting (WD-40 and some aluminum foil works wonders) Maybe tires and tubes Hubs/ headset/ BB repacked If you're going to ride it hard, replace the cranks and pedals. I was going to clean it up and do the maintenance, but I don't think I am honestly going to make time to do so.

I would avoid the mess of a spray can of chain lube, especially with disc brakes. A small squeeze bottle to put a dot on each link works fine.

The grime and cake was building up terribly on my goat.

Appreciate the fact that it is not clear until this point that this thread is about bicycle chain maintenance and not... something about goats or something.