mack_turtle

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.

I bought a tiny Crockpot at a thrift store for $1 and some blocks of candle wax at HEB for a few bucks. Clean the chain in a sealed jar of degreaser, blow dry with and air compressor, then drop it in the melted wax. Install chain on bike and spin the drivetrain a few times. Not sure what this will do to a derailer, as I don't own a bike with a derailer. The chain comes out stiff but after it works loose on the bike and the excess was falls off, it's smooth and stays for a long time.

On of these days, the SATN witch some of us have met is going to be on the headlines for something like this.

On that note, Tommy Ketterhagen's killer is going away. https://www.flobikes.com/articles/6449156-davison-sentenced-to-10-years-in-ketterhagen-death

What kind of rear derailer do you have?

Florida is a place where you can do anything if you're driving a truck or slinging a gun.

If you want to be proactive about it, tell the editor of Gear Patrol how you feel. As someone who writes stuff like this, I know that SEO research says that a beginner mountain bike for $3000 is not what people are Googling.

I'll never get over the image of old fart McGoo deep-throating one of his company's plastic axle pegs.

Looks quite a bit long. I have a reliable formula for sizing those loops at home.