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2 minutes ago, Teamsloan said:

 


I hate snap rings, especially when they’re for a brake lever.


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100%

Spent most of my 20s dealing with snap rings in auto applications. Nothing was as bad as that lever.....what a whore

Edited by ATXZJ
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6 minutes ago, rockshins said:

Nicely done, those are the fabled non servo wave levers, right?

Thanks. As i recall, yes non-servo on the race models.  He had the 9020s and they suffered from the floating bite point and shimano warrantied them with the 9000s.

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16 hours ago, crazyt said:

merlin is by far the best place to get drivetrains/brakes.

Yes, got a steal on XT brakes a year or so ago. Their shipping used to be ~$8 to the US. Now it is more like $18 for gloves, and when you throw a second pair in the shipping cost goes up. Makes sense in this covid world where every business is challenged. The dynamics have changed.

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1 hour ago, AntonioGG said:

Those XTRs are crazy light.  It's a little bit shocking when you hold them.  I thought my Hope RaceX2 were light.  It seems to me that the lightest combo would be SRAM shifters, XTR M9000 brake levers, and hope brake disks.

I hadn't thought about it until I held both sets in my hands. Wow!

My buddy had no business with those on his bike. Hell, I wouldn't run them on mine either........

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My friend just got his hands on a Ripmo AF. He brought it over to my place wanting me to give it an inspection to make sure everything was built correctly. In my head I’m thinking, “dude. I think a bike shop knows how to set up a bike”, but I said “sure, I’ll look it over”. So I run though all the basics and sure enough everything seems good to go. On a whim I dropped the post and when I went to raise it back up the dropper lever had absolutely no resistance and the post wouldn’t rise. Weird.

Well I take the post out of the frame and the post was no longer connected to cable. Super weird. The bike came with a KS dropper which uses a little cylindrical cable clamp to actuate the dropper.

https://www.worldwidecyclery.com/products/ks-lev-dx-int-272-cable-clamp?variant=16886165897338&gclid=CjwKCAiAzNj9BRBDEiwAPsL0d9usxUx3yqNZJuXXsXw7zpLwcNqaRxTHKUQUtZ3e8b7GsI2HzF167hoC9KYQAvD_BwE

I notice that the cable clamp is no where to be seen. Ah crap. Maybe it’s in the frame? I pick the bike up and turn it upside down to see if I can shake it out. Nothing. I can’t even hear anything rattling in the frame. It was then that I had an “ah-ha” moment. The cable clamp was never installed.
5fec093a11eaefd9ea3c258d2c5ae9f3.jpg

The bike shop used the cable end to actuate the dropper. I’m no master mechanic but this seems really sloppy to me. KS provides the correct cable clamp with their droppers. Why the heck would you not use it? Anyways, I happened to have a spare KS cable clamp so I installed it and now all is right with the world.

It always amazes me when a bike shop does something like this. Maybe I’m reaching a bit but this could potentially be dangerous. Let’s say someone is about to hit a drop. Right as they approach the point of no return they try to drop the post. Nothing happens because the cable is disconnected. The rider is now heading over the edge with their post at full height, potentially bucking them OTB.


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I am generally anti-technology on bikes, but the one thing that does seem to make sense to me is the remote control dropper. I have a friend (really bike smart) and she swears by hers. With all of the routing issues it seems like this would be a no-brainer. I am still cheap so I will wait for that technology to come down in price, but when it does I will be all over it.

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8 hours ago, WLemke said:

My friend just got his hands on a Ripmo AF. He brought it over to my place wanting me to give it an inspection to make sure everything was built correctly. In my head I’m thinking, “dude. I think a bike shop knows how to set up a bike”, but I said “sure, I’ll look it over”. 

Thw Bike Shop business model is pretty broken, for a lot of reasons, so I'm not surprised. 

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10 hours ago, WLemke said:

I notice that the cable clamp is no where to be seen. Ah crap. Maybe it’s in the frame? I pick the bike up and turn it upside down to see if I can shake it out. Nothing. I can’t even hear anything rattling in the frame. It was then that I had an “ah-ha” moment. The cable clamp was never installed.


The bike shop used the cable end to actuate the dropper. I’m no master mechanic but this seems really sloppy to me. KS provides the correct cable clamp with their droppers. Why the heck would you not use it? Anyways, I happened to have a spare KS cable clamp so I installed it and now all is right with the world.

I, for one, would much prefer to use a dropper design that works this way. use the fixed cable anchor on the bottom of the post and adjust the slack at the handlebar end. getting the tension on the cable just right is a hassle when you have to do it on the bottom of the post. my seatpost is set up this way too because the lever only works well with the cable end at the handlebar. I could put a little cbolt-on anchor at the handlebar as well, but that leave an annoying little nub right there. I might be in the market for a different dropper lever just for this reason.

so I understand why any mechanic might want to set it up that way on their own bike or at the customer's request. however, that's not how it was designed and a bike from the shop really ought to be done 100% by the book. there are some BIG egos in bike shops with mechanics who think they know better than the manufacturer and "don't need a torque wrench because I do it by feel." so none of this surprises me. it would certainly be helpful to let the shop know about the issue though.

Edited by mack_turtle
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9 hours ago, WLemke said:

The bike shop used the cable end to actuate the dropper.

I've seen the end-piece called an "anchor" or a "terminal." I'll call it an anchor here. And I'll call the other side the "cut end."

I'm not sure why this dropper wasn't actuating, but having the anchor on the post side is my preference. Like, by a lot. Of course this depends on how the cut cable end attaches to the lever. This is because the clamped-on cut cable end, whether by the barrel nut or some other method, is prone to eventual fraying, breaking and failing irrespective of the care taken with install. If this happens in side the frame at the post side, then you don't know it until it has sudden failure. And it'll happen during your second lap of the DragonSlayer or while in Thumper on the EB, of course. But cable anchors do not fail so far as I can tell. And if it the cut cable end end is attached at the lever you can actually monitor the cable for damage. 

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2 minutes ago, Barry said:

I've seen the end-piece called an "anchor" or a "terminal." I'll call it an anchor here. And I'll call the other side the "cut end."

I'm not sure why this dropper wasn't actuating, but having the anchor on the post side is my preference. Like, by a lot. Of course this depends on how the cut cable end attaches to the lever. This is because the clamped-on cut cable end, whether by the barrel nut or some other method, is prone to eventual fraying, breaking and failing irrespective of the care taken with install. If this happens in side the frame at the post side, then you don't know it until it has sudden failure. And it'll happen during your second lap of the DragonSlayer or while in Thumper on the EB, of course. But cable anchors do not fail so far as I can tell. And if it the cut cable end end is attached at the lever you can actually monitor the cable for damage. 

Agreed. Wolftooth (my choice) does this.

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I'm not so sure this was a mistake on the part of whoever assembled this bike. Older dropper posts often attached the cut end of the cable with a pinch bolt at the bottom of the post and attached the cable to the lever with the head of the cable. As mack_turtle mentioned, this made it difficult to get proper tension on the cable (without the use of a barrel adjuster at the lever) and made it more likely to have a failure due to the pinch bolt/cable connection failing for some reason. Most newer posts attach the cable to the post using the cable head and then have a pinch bolt at the lever for the cut end of the cable. It's WAY easier to get the cable tension correct with this setup.

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The dropper post on my Ripmo AF had the same issue as I was rolling out from the parking lot for my first ride a few weeks ago.  The clamp that attaches to the bottom of the post was nowhere to be found.  The bike is awesome, but here are the list of build issues I had to address in the first few days (in addition to the dropper post cable not having the clamp): loose headset, loose thru-axle bolt for the rear wheel, loose mounting for the rear derailleur, snapped dropper cable (maybe due to overtightened bolt at the lever), and incorrectly adjusted set screw for the derailleur.   

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If you want to ride a bike hard and expect great performance and durability you've gotta DIY.  There's really no way around it, unless you find that one unicorn mechanic who does a great job AND does all the work himself AND you don't mind putting his kids through college.

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20 minutes ago, mack_turtle said:

you can't blame Ibis for poor builds coming out of bike shops. I count three Ibis dealers in the area.

May be it was not clear, but I am not blaming Ibis.  In fact, I would look to Ibis first for my next bike based on how much I like this one.  The issue was clearly with the bike shop.  I was mostly just venting, and perhaps sharing the experience as a reminder to check over even new bikes before riding.

Edited by loop_out
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