olddbrider

What's crazy is that someone is asking $700 more for that ancient Diamondback than for a kick-ass 4-wheeler WITH a snow plow attachment!

Tip, any chance you could post the pics here? I saw some pictures while they were building the trail, but it would be cool to see what the finished product looks like.

What about squeezing one off mid-air?

When you say "maintain my cranksets", what exactly are you referring to? There's really not much to maintain on a crankset, so I'm thinking you may actually be talking about your bottom bracket (the bearings that are attached to your frame). While bottom brackets do wear out, it's still pretty uncommon to have to be servicing or replacing them more than once a year (at most) unless you are putting tons of miles on your bike or riding in extremely wet conditions. These days, it's more common to replace a bottom bracket rather than servicing them. The bearings are usually sealed, so they aren't really made to be cleaned and re-greased. As for the crank arm coming loose, you might try putting a little blue loctite on the fixing bolt. On older, square-tapered bottom brackets a loose crank arm could result in rounded out corners of the hole in the crankarm. Once that happened, you'd never really be able to keep the crank arm from moving and eventually loosening up. With the spline interface on most modern cranksets (including the RF Aeffect), that's not going to happen. If you tighten the fixing bolt all the way (I know you referenced torque settings, but my experience with cranks is that you tighten the fixing bolt until it stops), is there any side to side play in the crankarms? If so, you might have an issue with spacers which would mean the fixing bolt isn't able to snug up against the crankarm properly. As I said earlier, if the crankarm is snug with no play after tightening the bolt, I'd try a little blue loctite to see if that holds everything in place.

After parking at the main lot, would it be best to ride up the road past the maintenance building and then try to find the bottom of the return trail? It also looks like you could ride some of the existing trail and hop across the service road somewhere past the maintenance building. I can't imagine they would want people riding back up the main park road. Right?

From what I recall from the map that someone posted, the trailhead is near where the road takes a sharp left turn just after the guard shack.

Is it just the one new flow trail out there? I know there was a master plan with multiple trails in that area, but I wasn't sure what actually ended up being built.

I feel like the weight front/back issue largely boils down to whether we're talking about a bermed or flat corner. As several folks have said, I can't see how unweighting your front wheel could be good on a flat turn. Yes, you can lean the bike rather than turning the bars to a degree, but beyond a certain point you are going to need your front wheel making contact with the ground to turn. On a bermed turn, you can definitely put more weight on the back tire because you've got the berm helping you to make the turn. Plus it helps when you are trying to schralp...

I had the e13 post on my previous bike and while I liked the way it performed, I did have to send one back to them because it developed way too much side to side play. I tried all the things they suggested, but they finally just sent me a replacement post. Customer service was great. As stated above, having 3 or 4 stops rather than infinite adjustment is a bit strange at first, but I got used to it very quickly. I also loved the way the e13 post snapped up to full height. I haven't seen a hydraulic dropper that pops up that quickly. Since it's an all-mechanical design, it's supposedly much easier to work on and maintain. That's a smokin' deal for $135 if you can handle the 170mm length.

No, they sell the kit with 10wt for some reason. I actually talked to a guy from PUSH one day out at Spider Mtn. and asked his why they sold the kit with a different wt oil than what was recommended by the manufacturer. He didn't really have a good answer, but basically said he thought you could use 10wt and not notice much of a difference. The conversation didn't give me much confidence, but not long after that I sold the bike so I didn't end up following through with my plans to service the lowers.

Clearly, that's what any "rationable" person calls them...

It's so weird to see those sprinkler heads pretty deep into the woods back there. I guess maybe the apartment complex thought there was going to be grass back there at some point?

I was a pretty late to the dropper post game (got my first one about 2 years ago) and before I got it, I said all of the things you are saying. To be honest, when I first got it I still wasn't convinced. But after giving it enough time to really get used to it, I can't envision riding without it. Could I still ride everything I want to ride without one? Yeah, probably. But I seem to be gravitating (no pun intended) more and more toward the type of riding that really benefits from having a dropper. I couldn't imagine riding the Church jumps/drops or Spider Mtn. without one. Well, at least not without a lot of stops to raise and lower my seatpost manually, which doesn't sound very steezy.

I don't understand how he seems to take a break every hour for cookies or cake and still stays thin. Jerk...

We were out there last Wednesday and putting a little water on the berms made a big difference. It's not just good for the features, it makes it more fun to ride! Some education would be good though, for sure.

Is there a work day today for the new trail at the Church trails?

I'm certainly no expert (in fact yesterday was the first time I've ever hit the big drop there), but I think your form looks pretty good. It doesn't look like you're trying to bunny-hop off the end, you are shifting your weight back a bit just as the front wheel goes off the lip, and you seem to be matching your wheels to the landing. The one thing I noticed is that you seem like you are shifting your weight forward more on the bigger drop, which is leading to more of a front wheel heavy landing and resulting in that head snap. Of course, some of the harshness at that spot (especially as you get bigger in size) is that the landing is relatively flat, especially if you get deeper into the transition. All in all, I'd say just keep practicing.

There definitely needs to be another feature in that area called Slim Jim.

That's true. I should have said "with a standard socket set" or something like that.

I'm not sure I've ever used a torque wrench when tightening cranks. I've just gone with "tight as hell". I have the Park deflection torque wrenches and the big one only goes up to 70nm. Maybe newer cranksets are more finicky about torque... I'm typically more concerned with over-torque-ing things with very low specs. Somebody else can chime in, but I feel like 54nm is probably pretty close to as tight as you can get it.

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like there are only a few places on a bike that would ever require more than 20 nm of torque (a few suspension bolts, maybe). 20nm is the highest on the torque specs for my bike. I'd see if you can return the torque wrench you bought and get one that's better suited for bikes. Most of the stuff is going to be in the 5-10nm range. Something that maxes out at 25 or 30 nm would be sufficient.

Anybody have advice on whether it'll be dry enough to ride out there later this afternoon? I know we had 10-15 minutes of rain yesterday afternoon at my house, but it sounds like the showers were pretty spotty...

Me and a buddy are thinking about heading out there Saturday morning but I'm wondering about riding conditions out there. I know the soil is pretty sandy there so theoretically it should dry out quickly but I thought I'd see if anyone had first-hand experience.

I guess it's not such a touchy subject after all... go for it!

Is there a new virus (CHICOM-19) or was that some kind of weird auto-correct glitch? Anyway, Fade to Black seems a bit higher than "intermediate", but I like the idea... Sucks that you won't get to head up north this Summer, but Canada's loss is our gain!