bear

*(Ride LIke A Bear - looking for fun, diligent paced, essentially no drop but not beginner pace either ... but not like a cat 1/2 racer ... and always with social time after) Ok, whitewash the rocks, line up the goatheads, get those cactus spines in line, and by all that's holy keep the cedar trees in check .. Bear's coming to visit and weather permitting there will be a big bite taken out of the smorgasboard of your trails. Itinerary is not fixed but i'm going to try to stay a day or two ahead and post up here in case anyone wants to join in (well, and show me the new stuff of course). Sun 6th: Nando's Choice; 2 other special guests coming from PA (probably) Mon 7th: AM event TBD; PM event Bear & 1xPA person ... where? Tue 8th: AM "social diligent" locus TBD; PM Nando's Choice Wed 9th: TBD excessiveness Thur 10th: : AM "social diligent" locus TBD; PM Nando's Choice Fri 11th: TBD excessiveness Sat 12th: Nando's Choice Sun 13th: AM event TBD There will be mandatory visits to a few of my old haunts ... BCGB & CP of course. There will be days with morning- and afternoon/evening sessions. There is the potential for super-epic rides. There may even be r**d rides. There's a few in the audience with priority access to influencing my direction ... you know who you are ... for the rest, love to see your thoughts. Areas of interest in no particular order and potential combinations include BCGB, CP, 360, Walnut, St Ed's, Thumper, LGT, Lakeway, (I hear about another L word has trail), Suburban Ninja, Muleshoe, Pace Bend, Further out stuff includes Spider Mtn, Reveille Peak, Rocky Hill, Flat Rock. What should be axed? what should be considered? Looking forward hugely to see old friends, make new ones, and recharge my mojo-battery. Keep the rubber side down.

I "get" the the Next SL marketing says "ride everywhere North Shore" but if someone has a regular diet of drops over 2" and concerns about critical failure / reliability why wouldn't you get a DH focused part? Sure, it's heavier, but that's better than failure? My riding has certainly changed a lot over the years, and ATX surely gave me more a twist toward technical than I had before, one of those lessons was that even a relatively low-crazy guy like me can damage a 'trail' oriented part. I had issues with both Shimano XT and FSA cranks trail-targeted at different points that ended up with putting Diabalous cranks on the bike, which never ever let me down. Those are still running on the bike they're on, in fact (serving irregular duty on a Titus SuperMoto built out as a DH bike, in NE PA, with a friend of mine). When I got crazy and went carbon crank on my current trail bike I went for the SixC Cinch style ... sure they're not the lightest but I have much more confidence in their long term reliability. They also came in the 165mm length I wanted. Had to swap spindles though for my 73mm BB. I should lay in more spindle options, right now I have lengths for 73 and 83 BSA BB.

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

@jessica ... nice, would be interested in the lasagna recipe. We have one that is zucchini bases we are pretty happy with but options are good. Fwiw, I speculate I'm somewhere on scale between John & Cody ... I'd never say I'm close to Cody's level (never have been) but I've done many fasting mtb rides between '18 and today and have nil problems. I don't usually carry snacks for myself at all anymore. I've had buff trail 25m rides with 10mph avg (fast for me!), 6 hour rides in the Western NC mountains, all kinds of stuff in between. Been debating trying some racing just to see where I am these days (and to socialize more). I'll admit I wouldn't mind losing a few more # but am very stable where i'm at so not highly motivated for that. I also admit that post ride I'm not real steuct about off-keto crap... cider, snack, whatever ... but I try to avoid any habit of crap because I feel it's the regular/chronic intake that causes the real harm.

i admit to it being a couple years, but i found Ledges nowhere as rough on the bike as ATX - has Ledges been changed dramatically in 2 yrs ? Then again i've 10 years of NE PA trails in between and those make ATX trails look like buff dirt.

I'm frustrated that way too as I prefer neither windows or macos ... but there's just not enough market share that most of these hardware companies can support the one offs. I've gotten a windows virtual machine working under Linux and that helps in some cases, but not always. It would be great ifnthwse devices supported updates via only mobile phone, that's like the best-least denominator now. But, for the size of the updates that pretty much requires wifi-direct connections, bluetooth just isn't fast enough. Garmin has been doing a lot more of these phone based updates to devices, but more are needed. Heck, my Fenix watch got and update from the phone that resulted in my watch updating the firmware in my bike's wheel sensor. What a crazy jenga-stack that is!

I'm think you need to PM me beta so I could try to just be coincidentally colocated, by sheer coincidence.

I think Cinch is the combined designation of ring mount and BB/spindle interface. Seems like they made DUB really similar but i've not worked with a DUB crankset so i'm not sure. FWIW I never had a big issue with the shimano style pinch-bolts, and they certainly are easier in some ways, but I think I like the single-bolt things a teeny bit more - as long as they're mounted correctly and to spec to do seem fine. I've had a couple shimano style hollow-tech type cranksets that didn't work out long term, fewer issues with single-bolt systems - but i'm just one statistical sample point. :^)

How much problem has been seen with the RF Cinch? That came on my RIP9 in 2016 and has been trouble free ... I use torque wrench to spec, preload to no slop but not excessively snug, and I think I have had to change bearings once or twice only.

I always felt CP or Thumper would cook you faster, but maybe something with more air? How is Lakeway at worst peak heat?

I actually just put a mandatory 4-5 clise-out meeting Fridays for all my direct reports. Then I skyped then to tell them I'd never be there unless there's and ongoing Incident. Considering repeating for M-Th

"back in the day" ... in the '00s when I lived in ATX and worked in the pixel mines most ppl I worked with got in to the office between 10-11am so I went for ~2 hr GB or CP rides most mornings. Stupid humid, yes, for the warmer times but beat the crap out of not riding. Was quite challenging sometimes considering at the time I rode with double-lensed eyeglasses (RX + sunglass shield) so fogging was a problem. *&*&*^^&^&^ job now has 8am "huddles" and "crap" often kicks up at 3:30-4pm ... why, again, did I go for promotion last summer? Must have been hypnotized.

Fwiw, if you don't have and want some RDU local info or riding time shoot me a pm or email. Usually free weekends and with a bit of planning can make more time. Good luck in your journeys.

Focus on western half of NC ... Raleigh area getting lots of Big Tech inflow and all that means. And while the riding is decent around Raleigh it's better around Charlotte . I'm no expert on the mountain towns like Boone though, only barely explored at all. Stupid pandemic hit right after we got relocated here so kind of hamstrung that way.

Yeah, same initial reason, but I've given up on that altogether , even use a more miles and fragrance free soap and shampoo now, no complaints. Not like the old stuff held up against real sweat situations before anyway. Would have had to bodily dip me in it to get full coverage of where my sweating originates.

Me too, my Big Sweat is just nasty, doesn't matter how well I'm balancing electrolyte input. Also makes it really hard to truly clean my backpack after it's absorbed a month or so of rides. Yuck.

nobody mentioned using dry chain-lube on the pedals while breaking in new cleats or pedals for clipless; can help a lot with SPD and SPD-like; Doesn't seem needed for Crank Bros or Time though IMO ... but then both of those wear out cleats quickly, IMO.

i think my "road trip kit" is like 30# between the toolbox and two plastic boxes of "trip savers" that include bike specific parts, likely failure parts, and some other stuff that's just better to have instead of needing to "get to the shop before closing" ... like when someone notices their brake pads are cooked after a day at Klondike or TWE run. Prefer to spend my trip money on food, drink, and friends vs overpriced repl parts and waste time. On the up side these parts serve as my back repl parts for when something wears out normally ... use it and order replacement immediately. Reminds me I need to order a repl BB for my bike since I just cycled one out.

i've only had it about 9 months and only needed it a bit but have a Lezyne Super SV23 which so far i'm happy with. Seems like the tools MAY be a bit longer than what you but doubt it's by much. The whole folding tool thing doesn't give a lot of room for situations like you have, but it does have the 8mm you're asking about and the quality is good. Ask me again about rust-resistance next Sept, but seems likely okay. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B087W68V71/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I've had good results with Wolf Tooth WT-1 (currently on 6 month trial vs Boeshield T-9, my go-to zipper lube).

i'm with you AB, switched to Osprey a year ago and the pack is Just Better than that other brand product. I've also taken to a hip pack for short adventures, nominally under 2 hr jaunts that I only need a water bottle for ... i don't even bother with bladder in the pack ... i leave the space for the crap I want there (tools n parts) and keep the weight under control so it doesn't drop to my knees on a bad landing. 😛

No Pole bike for you.

@mack_turtle - what he said about center of gravity between wheels - i've been telling people for years and still believe that the neutral position should be with CoG centered between wheel contact patches. So, up/down-hill, turning, whatever, gives the rider the most easy control on keeping that center based upon the dynamic conditions. There's a LOT of tolerance for moving off that when conditions are "easy" but if you have dynamic situations with lots of change then being stuck biased in one direction or the other leads to loss of control (or, rider panic and increased heart rate and blood pressure). @June Bug - yes, we're stlll in Raleigh, probably for at least 2+ more years, ask me again in '23 who knows what will be going on. There's reasons and stuff and Adulting to be done between now and then. And a lot of Western NC mountain biking to be done too ... and some Arkansas riding ... and if I can at least 1 more trip to ATX ... been too long already.

JB, for what you're talking about in my opinion it's a lot more about the physiological relationship between seated position and the crankset - however that comes together from the combination of saddle, saddle mount, seat tube angle & length, crank length, distance from saddle to h-bars, etc. etc., in comparison to the rider's physiology. To me that grinding along climbing is more akin to needing good pedalling position like a well fitted road bike so that the muscle effort is well balanced in the legs and torso, the upper body is in a neutral and supported position, which includes balanced front wheel pressure. So, that 1.8d difference in seat tube is more likely accommodated by the fore-aft position of the saddle .. or just a well fitting bike. Probably not a really helpful response, even with a lot of words.

I built up the previous gen this year and have on my FS bike, good stuff. That S model is funky looking to me, for some reason I like the aesthetics of the smooth profile more. there's an argument for compliance though, if that's what you're after.