mack_turtle

And they wonder why people are skeptical about their motives!

I rode SATN once when things we're dry but still damp enough for me to wash out at low speed and bruise myself up badly. I wait until the dirt is OK + another day most of the time. I went on a little hike on BCGB on Sunday and saw two mountain bikers. One had a dork disc and reflectors on his bike and probably didn't know any better. The other was clearly a seasoned rider who knew what he was in for. Aside from a few low, sloppy spots, the dirt was just dry enough to ride without doing damage, so I didn't get grumpy. The rocks and roots, however, we're slick enough under my Stealth-soled trail runners that I would not have enjoyed riding it.

out of the thousands of QR skewers I have touched over the years, I have never seen a nut on one. could be some old school kludge or just a mistake someone made while installing it. I'd just remove it.

I've been working on my bunnhop skills. how does this look for progress? https://www.instagram.com/p/BpPRKAKh4Au

Also, learn how to pump. Find a flat area and see if you can do a "lap" without pedalling. This skill pays out big of the trail. Getting over the terrain is partially about pedaling, but largely about how effectively you "surf" the terrain by moving your center of gravity in a parabola over every bump. Notice that Lee's head almost doesn't move at all. On that topic: https://www.cyclinghacks.com/mountain-bike-skills-coaching/

Think like a BMX street rider and go urban riding. Drop loading docks, bomb stairs, hop parking lot gaps, carve banks. Austin itself is a BMX street riding Haven, in case you didn't know.

Sorry, I was out and about when I read that and assumed it was some sort of fitting system. suffice it to say I am leery of fitting systems. Imagej looks like a useful tool for other things though.

My issue with most bike fitting systems like that is that they seem to give you a great position for sitting and pedaling. If you want an efficient position to crank out miles on a flat roads, that's fine. It does nothing for how the bike fits under you when you stand up. I find that a perfectly comfortable position to sit and spin the cranks is a compromised, even dangerous, position when you go to wrangle the bike on a trail.

that's probably more effective than all the mathematical crap I just told you to do. but if you wanted a way to verify your suspicions about how the bikes compare, it could not hurt.

Are you comparing the handlebar height relative to the saddle or the BB? The first is important as it relates to seated peddaling comfort, but the latter is essential as it pertains to standing and wrangling the bike. If one bike has a lower BB drop (relative to the axles, not the ground), then the handlebars might be the same height. try this- stand your bike up in a corner as straight as you can get it. it will be hard to get those to be accurate, but try to get it as close as possible. measure from the floor to the grip, then from the floor to the center of the BB. subtract the BB height from the grip height. that's your effective stack height. now measure from the wall behind your bike to the grip. then measure from the wall to the center of the BB. subtract the smaller distance from the longer- that's your effective reach. now do that on your other bike. are they really that much different? easier method: just measure from your BB to the midpoint between your grips. that's what Lee McCormack would call your RAD- Rider area distance. it's the hypotenuse of the triangle formed by your effective reach and effective stack. if that distance from your feet to your hands is radically different, you will have two very different-fitting bikes. depending on the way that centers you on each bike (where your center of gravity is relative to the tire contact patches), that will determine how your bike handles. fit versus handling- two different but connected things. this is a helpful tool to compare two different bikes and equalize the fit- http://bikegeo.net/

Front- center: draw a vertical line through the BB. To horizontal distance from that line to the front axle is the front-center. The distance from that line to the rear axle is the rear-center. If take any bike design and increase the fork length, offset, or reach, you get a longer front-center. The author is saying that head tube angle and fork offset at not that big of a deal, but the longer front-center that results is.

It's highly likely that the slack STA on Verdone's latest bike was chosen to negate the offset placement of the seat tube in front of the BB. If he put a conventional 74 degree angle or a steep 77, the saddle would end up waaaay forward. I'll bet that if you measured the angle from the BB to the top of that post, it would seem closer to normal. With a custom frame, you know where you want the saddle to end up and can plan accordingly.

then there's this- http://www.peterverdone.com/i-dont-make-bicycles-i-make-weapons-systems/ ! PVD is reportedly 5'10" but the reach on his frame is 75mm longer than a medium Honzo, which is already long. it's more than 10 cm longer than most of the bikes I have ever ridden. I wonder if the radically short stem and handlebar sweep make up for that or if it's really that much longer. I asked him that but he never responded.

I always wonder if these longer bikes actually make the reach longer, or if the short stems, wide bars (which result in more backward sweep at the ends), slack-er head tube angles all result in a fit that is about the same as a previous bike fit with a short TT/ long stem. if so, that makes sense because riders are not getting taller or suddenly getting longer arms. but if the effective reach is actually getting longer, at what point are you just making the bike "too big"? and if the bike is "too big" are we making up for that with ginormous tires and fretting over suspension settings to make up for the increased skill needed to pilot a freight train of a bike? (that will be the topic of a future blog entry, stay tuned!) If I were to ride a current Kona or Guerrilla Gravity model, I would have to shoehorn my 5'9" self onto a small frame to be able to wrangle the bike the way I like to. Iperhaps I prefer a somewhat compact fit because my brain learned to wrangle a bike from riding BMX. I rode a borrowed medium Honzo (which has an extremely long reach) on some trails in Indianapolis a few weeks ago. (yes, Indy has at least one park with "hills" and a fun, challenging trail system.) it was set up with a 120 mm fork, I think, and a super short back end. however, it has some weird, narrow "alt bars" and a huge stack of spacers under a 70mm or so stem. it felt like a beach cruiser that was comfy, but definitely not confident in the turns and felt dead in the air. I don't think I got a fair chance to really critique it because the cockpit was set up so weird.

yeah, if I were to ride my bike to work (20 miles each way), that would be the most terrifying part of my route. the amount of time it would take me to do that is the main thing holding me back, but the mysterious lack of bike infrastructure makes me have second thoughts about doing it at all.

Meanwhile, in Arkansas...

Naked's framebuilder notes on a prototype interesting perspectives here. good stuff to try to wrap your head around so you know why any aspect of a bike goods good or bad to you. could help you make an informed decision about your next bike purchase, tweaking your current bike, or if you have ambitions for a custom frame some day. I found the following bits of particular interest: Front-Centre is KING! This is the big revelation (along with steering axis below). I have always moved front-centre around as a resultant of bike fit, as I put most of my faith in handling characteristics of head angle and trail. No more! We have all been riding mountain bikes that are way to short in the front. I had always assumed that the slack head angles required to move the front wheel out would result in a chopper feel and too much wheel flop. I realize now that as long as the stem length is kept to a minimum, the whel flop virtually disappears. What is left is a very stable feeling bike that demands to pushed harder. A normal front-centre for us was in the 70cm range. Even a few years ago, it was not uncommon to be as low as 65cm. Now, I'm thinking 77-830 is the sweet spot, even in our tight twisty west coast trails. I think the biggest advantage is that you are now balanced on a much longer see-saw, so every bump is felt less and keeps you away from both tipping points a little longer (think: less likely to go over the bars). I thought tight climbs would suck, but this was also easier. The long resulting longer wheelbase obviously is far more stable through chunder. Cornering feels awkward at first. This is because positioning is identical to the bikes I have had for the last 10 years but the front wheel is 10cm further out in front so I have to get used to initiating a turn 10cm sooner. When done properly, you can really load the front wheel and carve hard without the feeling of jack-knife. This is also about steering axis. Head Angle This is basically unimportant. This obsession with this number has got to stop. It is all about where this lets you get the front wheel placed. This number changes drastically depending on how your fork is set up. On this bike, the head angle varies from about 64.8 to 71 depending on how much travel is used. One thing that can be said is that a hardtail should have a MUCH slacker starting head angle than an equivalent duty full-squish. On a hardtail the head angle is always steepening under compression, where as a full suspension can either steepen or slacken. In most cases a fully tends towards more rear compression and so tends to slacken more during use. I can see pushing head angle out to 61 degrees (unsagged) if needed on a hardtail, but no more than 65 degrees on a fully. After that, you are starting to get too much fork binding on all but the steepest descents. [yeah, about that. everyone fretting over "my bike has to have a ##-degree head tube angle" is likely benefiting from how that angle puts the front wheel further out, not necessarily how it steers. this is cool if your main goal is not going over the bars on a downhill. that might compromise other aspects of handling if not done carefully. not all of us ride down hills 100% of the time, so we need a compromise.] Steering Axis Needs to be as direct as possible. For most mountain bikes this means super short stems. It is not so much the short stem that is important but the resulting hand placement relative to the steering axis. A stem with a 32mm reach on a 780mm bar with normal sweep gets you pretty close to being in line with the steering axis of the front fork. being in front of the steering axis in the old days especially with shorter bars and long stems is what gave us the feeling of wheel flop and the horrible jack-knife scenarios. [I have not heard stem length discussed in this context before. interesting perspective. coincidentally, with a handlebar with 12 degreess of backsweep and a 50mm stem, my hands are about in line with the steering axis.] Lower bars The long front-centre gives you so much more stability and less chance of pitching over the bars, you no longer need to have a high hand position. I can see a real return to wide flat bars, with "riser" bar looking dated real fast. Slacker head angles helps lower the bars. It will be interesting to see what people do to keep bars low enough as the forks get longer and longer. [I am often surprised to see modern bikes long travel forks, a low BB, an upright stem, spacers, and a riser bar. if that works for you, especially if you're tall, go for it. I keep lowering my handlebar (measured relative to the bottom bracket) and it only gets better the lower it gets

I know you're probably joking, but FYI, waterways are also closed to watercraft throughout most of the region as well. They don't want to deal with anything like this again.

My only experience with droppers is a long attempt to revive a DNM dropper, which ended in defeat. I am sure all the good shops in town can deal with them. I've been out of the bike fixing business for a few years and I don't know if I would want to get back into it if I had to deal with e-bikes and finicky dropper posts.

thanks Yosmithy for making this work! of course I can't test this out much because of the rain (or perhaps the rain is because of my desire to test it out), but I now have a frame that was designed with a 17" chainstay length at 16.5". This does not allow me to use a tire much bigger than 29x2.25, but it's at least I can try riding with a low BB and short CSL until I dial it in. I even went out and bought some shiny new stainless bolts for it.

1+ on GG. I have not ridden one and I would be a terrible reviewer, but knowing someone who works for them and how well they design and build badass stuff, I would get one if I was in the market for something like that.

nevermind, that last one is part of the lake/river at the moment. Stevie Ray has his life jacket on, so it's about to get deeper. They are supposed to close Cesar Chavez at some point as well. Austin Pets Alive is close to the lake and is about to start evacuating animals. if you have space and time to foster an animal, now is the time to step up.

this crap weather will clear up ... some day. is your bike ready to ride? when did you last: service your fork or shock, bleed your brakes, replace brake pads, service frame linkage bits, inspect drivetrain wear, tension spokes/ true wheels, check/ replace bearings in hubs, bottom bracket, or headset? I am not certain, but there's a good chance that bike shop mechanics are bored and waiting for some work to come in. if you're not up to the task at home, give them something to do.

We'll never know. Perhaps they were #rogue_mud_riders.