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Turner Burner RIP


Hugh
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1 hour ago, AustinBike said:

A demo ride beats a spreadsheet. Every goddamn time.

I agree to a certain point. A geo chart if correct can get you close to the geo of a previous bike that fit well. Unfortunately in the MTB world there are too many factors involved in sizing, head angle, seat angle, reach, stack, unlike with road bikes which are basically just TT and ST length .

I honestly couldn't tell you the last time I demo'd a bike. I bought my last three MTB's as frames sight unseen with no demo just comparing what I knew was the geo of the current bike against what I was looking to get . I have a pretty good idea of what will and what won't work for me as far as sizing and then I adjust from there as in stem, seat post set back, saddle length, width etc... 

A demo is great for someone getting into the sport for sure but as you progress farther into the sport and start to understand more about it I think we get analysis paralysis with all of the available choices. My opinion on demoing bikes is choose two or three that tick the boxes you're looking for and go with the one that feels best.

Like already mentioned in this post about the Ripmo, I rented a bike in Durango and had a choice between a Ripmo and a Ripley. The Ripmo in med was too cramped in the cockpit and the large was too stretched out and just didn't feel right to me so I went with the Ripley which was the closest fit to the bike that I was riding at the time which was a med Evil Following and it felt pretty much the same.

We also ned to keep in mind that what was hot shit 5-10 years ago is a dinosaur now. For instance try finding a current MTB with a front derailleur mount.

Edited by Chief
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My point is very specific to the Ripley I guess. In all of the analysis that I did, on paper the Ripley looked like the best bike. The only thing in the geometry was the STA, and how much of an impact could one little thing like STA matter when all else is right? Apparently a lot. I won't spend $5K+ on a bike if I have not ridden it. I learned my lesson. The only exception *might* be if I busted my Occam and I had to buy a new bike on risk without riding it, another in the same lineage is probably OK. But there was a difference between the 2019 I ended up with and the 2020 that I demo'd. Oddly enough STA was different between them.

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Steeper ST angle is better for climbing than a steeper HT angle. People complain about slack head angle causing the front wheel to lift and wander when climbing. A slack seat angle combined with a slack head angle will definitely cause the front wheel to wander. I understand what you're saying about the steep seat angle feeling wierd because it puts your body more over the bottom bracket but you do get used to it. Your Occam gets good feedback from people who have them, good choice.

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My druid currently has a nearly 78* STA with a 64* HTA. The seat tube angle felt odd at first, coming off a 75* bike but was used to it after a couple rides.

I like that the newer bikes place you in the center of the bike rather than hanging over the back, or in a OTB ready position up front. Blarf.

I have had to play with stem length a bit more than in the past and have gone from 35mm to 43mm on both my current bikes.

Edited by ATXZJ
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17 hours ago, Chief said:

I agree to a certain point. A geo chart if correct can get you close to the geo of a previous bike that fit well. Unfortunately in the MTB world there are too many factors involved in sizing, head angle, seat angle, reach, stack, unlike with road bikes which are basically just TT and ST length .

I honestly couldn't tell you the last time I demo'd a bike. I bought my last three MTB's as frames sight unseen with no demo just comparing what I knew was the geo of the current bike against what I was looking to get . I have a pretty good idea of what will and what won't work for me as far as sizing and then I adjust from there as in stem, seat post set back, saddle length, width etc... 

A demo is great for someone getting into the sport for sure but as you progress farther into the sport and start to understand more about it I think we get analysis paralysis with all of the available choices. My opinion on demoing bikes is choose two or three that tick the boxes you're looking for and go with the one that feels best.

Totally agree!  There are too many variables you just can't control for when demo'ing - whether it's bar width, number of headset spacers, grips, saddle, etc.  Any one of those, and others, can make or break a demo, which makes demos kinda arbitrary, imo.  I do think you can differentiate some between suspension types, but again, that's gonna be muted or amplified by those other factors.  The flip side is you can hardly go wrong with so many great bikes out there - you adapt to it and you adapt it to you as you dial fit.

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1 minute ago, ssorgs said:

 I do think you can differentiate some between suspension types, but again, that's gonna be muted or amplified by those other factors.  

This for sure.

The one thing you can get pretty close on a demo is sag and shock settings. I think most of us look at rear suspension layouts first when choosing a fame, and that is the one thing that's going to define the characteristic of a bike the most. I've only demo'd two bikes of the nearly 30 i've owned and that was when i was a total noob and had no clue of what to look for to begin with🤣

 

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22 hours ago, AustinBike said:

A demo ride beats a spreadsheet. Every goddamn time.

No doubt. That's why when I bought my SC 5010 in 2019, I made sure I demo'd it first. I put a Greenbelt and an RPR ride on it. I also made every effort to demo some of my runner up bikes, but I had less success securing them and ended up only doing a short demo on one of them, the Yeti SB5. But I like spreadsheets. And instead of trying to remember various points of various bikes, the spreadsheet allowed me to not constantly refer back to 2 score+ websites when I wanted to compare bikes. And it allowed me to absolutely rule out bikes that didn't come anywhere near my geo preferences. And it must have worked. The 5010 will break 16 thousand miles this week. 

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22 hours ago, Chief said:

I bought my last three MTB's as frames sight unseen with no demo just comparing what I knew was the geo of the current bike against what I was looking to get .

Indeed. I did get an opportunity to demo my SC 5010 in 2019. But later I bought my gravel bike just based on geo #s, and I recently put a deposit on a Ti hardtail just based on the geo #s. I do occasionally tool around on a buddy's bike that doesn't match my preferences. Almost invariably I tell them it's a nice bike...I don't like it, but it's a nice bike. 

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On 6/12/2022 at 2:07 PM, AustinBike said:

A demo ride beats a spreadsheet. Every goddamn time.

good luck finding a demo ride for any bike I'd want to own. (hardtail, no silly derailers, preferably without a sissy fork.)

I'm currently considering a frame that is not tiny and has something steeper than the current 71.5° STA that I have now, but I have no frame of reference to know if I'm going to like it enough to put down $1000-2000 for such a thing.

Edited by mack_turtle
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6 minutes ago, mack_turtle said:

good luck finding a demo ride for any bike I'd want to own. (hardtail, no silly derailers, preferably without a sissy fork.)

I'm currently considering a frame that is not tiny and has something steeper than the current 71.5° STA that I have now, but I have no frame of reference to know if I'm going to like it enough to put down $1000-2000 for such a thing.

not a dig in the least, but i can't even imagine demoing a hardtail.

 

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1 hour ago, mack_turtle said:

 (hardtail, no silly derailers, preferably without a sissy fork.)

 

Good luck with that when you get fifty plus years old.

Although I guess my gravel bike hits two of those requirements😆

Edited by Chief
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1 hour ago, Chief said:

Good luck with that when you get fifty plus years old.

Although I guess my gravel bike hits two of those requirements😆

I've got at least another decade in these bones, in that case. might as well enjoy it while I can, because I can't keep up with the cost of maintaining a bouncy bike.
I know several 50+ riders on rigid bikes who can ride circles around me in Barton Creek.

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10 minutes ago, ATXZJ said:

I'll never understand the draw of shingle speed misery. Particularly rigid. But hey, you guys have a higher fitness level and pain tolerance than me.  Carry on😎

 

It is the perfect second bike. I don't understand those that have only SS, but having an SS as a second bike is great.

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13 minutes ago, ATXZJ said:

I'll never understand the draw of shingle speed misery. Particularly rigid. But hey, you guys have a higher fitness level and pain tolerance than me.  Carry on😎

 

First, thanks for posting the video links. I've gone down a rabbit hole.

My gravel bike is SS. There is a simplicity to it. Less to maintain, less to think about when riding.

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38 minutes ago, AustinBike said:

It is the perfect second bike. I don't understand those that have only SS, but having an SS as a second bike is great.

$$

My approach: i feel beeter spending my money first on a reliable bike that isn't a plastic Rube Goldberg mess of bearings and tiny bones that will be unserviceable in three years.

Spend some time riding one gear and you'll find you can hang with people who have all the advantages that money can buy without spending your own.

Edited by mack_turtle
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20 minutes ago, mack_turtle said:

$$

My approach: i feel beeter spending my money first on a reliable bike that isn't a plastic Rube Goldberg mess of bearings and tiny bones that will be unserviceable in three years.

Spend some time riding one gear and you'll find you can hang with people who have all the advantages that money can buy without spending your own.

Fair point. I rode my buddies single speed niner for a couple of weeks and I've never come so close to throwing up on a ride. That includes some full blown hangover rides with @Chief.

He rode that god damned thing UP Captain Ahab in Moab while anyone that likes fun was going down. Freaking beast.

However, the first time I took him down a lift assist DH park, he broke his leg within the first 10 minutes.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 6/13/2022 at 7:06 PM, Hugh said:

First, thanks for posting the video links. I've gone down a rabbit hole.

My gravel bike is SS. There is a simplicity to it. Less to maintain, less to think about when riding.

Ditto.  Original steel MTB converted to Drop-bar SS.  Fun as heck.  Done plenty of 50+ milers to downtown and up the S Walnut trail as well as RTTR Suburban/Wilco/Everything in between - always fun and sporty.  Feels good to give up the gears and suspension for some sport.

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Just now coming back to this thread a month later. I demo’d the Ripmo after looking at geometry and a fair amount of reading reviews. It’s my first 29 and while I had demo’d many others, this was the first of the newer generation 29ers (long low and slack) that I had ridden.

I took it straight to the hill of life trailhead and sent it all the way down. With half of a goofy grin on my face and half a look of terror at how fast I had just shredded that chunky descent. But I wasn’t completely sold until I pointed it back up and climbed to Ed’s bowl/Taint/HOL alternate. Riding around the driveway before the demo did feel a bit weird with the steep seat tube, but out on the trail it all came together. Now I ride to Walnut on it for a lap and I’m completely adapted to the geo. 
 

Then I went to Outerbike and Adam Miller let me take out his personal Rascal as long as I agreed to wash it (it was the rainiest, coldest Outerbike they’ve had I think). I loved that bike. I still love my Ripmo, but it’s a close second. 

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