Jump to content

aerius

High Rollers
  • Posts

    2,832
  • Joined

Everything posted by aerius

  1. If advanced aliens saw what we're doing they'd be far more likely to drop a planet killer asteroid on us.
  2. Damnit. I hope my LCD-XC doesn't die anytime soon.
  3. Grab a conversion BB for either Shimano or SRAM cranks. https://wheelsmfg.com/bottom-brackets.html?cat=900 I know Shimano has some Tiagra, Ultegra, and Dura-Ace cranks in stock in their North American warehouses. SRAM should have some stuff too, but I can only check their Canadian distributors and not the US ones.
  4. Apparently, the RS range is getting the hemp treatment. RS1 and RS2 are now going to use wood & hemp housings.
  5. Full face helmet for bike parks and other primarily downhill trail systems which are served by chairlifts or lift shuttles, open face helmets for almost everything else.
  6. Personally I find studded tires aren't worth it unless the trails in your area ice up badly from repeated freeze/thaw cycles. Regular tires have plenty of grip on fresh snow or even hard packed snow, it's not until the trails turn into a sheet of ice that studs come in handy. On the other hand, all it takes is a patch of ice in the wrong spot to put you in a world of pain.
  7. Using a King 1000/6000 combo stone for sharpening. If I really ding up the edge I'll rough it out first on some 180 or 400 grit sandpaper stuck on a piece of plexiglass. I've had the Ruike for a bit over 2 years and so far I'm really happy with it. It beats out the old Kershaw/Ken Onion Vapor as the best beater knife I've ever owned.
  8. The Ruike P801 is my beater knife of choice. It's cheap enough that I don't care about hacking the edge into things I probably shouldn't and dinging the crap out of it, yet the performance is still good enough that it holds its own against knives that are 3-4 times the price. The only thing I'd change is the ball bearing blade pivot, they're unsealed bearings so they get gunked up easily, I'd rather have cheap & cheery bushings since they're more resistant to crud. Also takes a surprisingly fine edge, out of all my stainless steel knives only the Benchmade 581 sharpens to a finer edge.
  9. For Benchmade and pretty much every other manufacturer, stay away from M390 steel and its equivalents in 20CV and 204p. The heat treats are very inconsistent and in the vast majority of cases you just end up with a knife that costs twice as much and performs exactly the same as 154CM. The Benchmade 581 which I own and the Spyderco Paramilitary 2 are about the only production M390 knives that perform well, but even then there's enough variation in the heat treats that some of them are only holding their edges half as long as expected. I can't recommend buying one given the chances of getting a lemon. As for Benchmade in general, I have more of the knives than anything else since I like their design, but their value is kinda lacking. They're prettier and fit my hands better, but in terms of performance or build quality they're barely any better than the Kershaws and Spydercos I own which are about 2/3 the price at most. The only Benchmades I have which feel like premium products are the 750, 690, and 581.
  10. Took me a couple years to track one down in my size, but it's sure worth the wait.
  11. Figured I'd drop by and see what's up. Been doing lots of riding and not much computer time these days. No hospital trips this year so it was a success.
  12. My new bike saved me from several hospital trips this year so it's definitely a success. Smashes out downhill runs better than anything short of a dedicated downhill bike, and it's still light enough that goofing around on my local trails is still fun.
  13. Decided it was time for me to join the 21st century so I bought myself a carbon full suspension bike with carbon/aluminum wheels. I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up in the hospital by the end of the year, this bike just begs to be ridden at ludicrous speed on every downhill.
  14. Neko Mulally. 4th place at the downhill world championships in Hafjell. With NO CHAIN!
  15. Yup, have a KS Supernatural on my bike and have ridden a bunch of other droppers. How useful it is depends on the type of trails you ride and your riding style. If there's lots of steep technical trails or trail sections, a dropper post is worth its weight in gold. If you like to ride aggressively and want to get the damn seat out of the way when charging downhill, get a dropper post. If the trails are fairly tame and you never feel like the seat is in the way when riding tougher sections, there's no real point to having a dropper post, it's just extra weight and one more thing to go wrong and put your bike in the shop.
  16. It's "safer" in the sense that you won't go as fast so falls & crashes will generally do less damage. But you may end up taking more falls since a hardtail isn't as forgiving of mistakes as a full suspension bike, and things that you currently get away with on a full suspension bike may get you splatted on a hardtail. Best way of riding safely is improving your skills while knowing where your limits are at a given time. Mastering Mountain Bike Skills is a great resource for leaning new techniques and improving your skill base
  17. Doing bar tape is easier than it looks as long as you have the other side for reference. Watch a few videos on youtube, pay attention to how the bar tape fits on the bars when you take it off, and you should have no problem putting the new ones on. It may take a good 20-30 minutes to do your first set and the figure-8 crossover at the hoods can be a bit tricky to line up, but overall it's not that hard and it's a good skill to have.
  18. Lapierre Spicy 727, with the fancy electronically controlled rear suspension. It is really freakin' cool, it adjusts the settings of the shock in real time based on feedback from various sensors on the bike, and it works seamlessly. I tried to fool it by doing all kinds of things like manualling the front wheel over roots to see if the rear wheel would stay locked out on a climb (it didn't), pedaling in mid-air after going off a drop, doing gratuitous wheelies, and every time the suspension knew where to set the rear shock for best performance. You don't notice how well it works until you turn off the electronics and put it on a manual setting, then it's like "man, what happened?" It still rides well but doesn't have that extra zip and the bike bobs more and is slower. Wheelie pic
  19. Polarized lenses can help on wet roads, it keeps the road surface from turning into a giant blinding mirror when the sun is in front of you. It also helps on busy roads, keeps car windows from acting like mirrors and blinding you. If you're not going to see much of either then polarized lenses won't really make a difference, but if you ride in the above conditions a fair bit they're worth it.
  20. Looks like UPS is doing this to all your parcels. I'm not entirely sure going with FedEx would help...
  21. Going by the colours they look like 2013s. Manufacturers will start clearing them out in the fall, and over the winter & spring they'll have some mega blowouts on previous year bikes. If dealers have the cash & space they'll buy'em up and sell them to their customers for a good discount. It's mostly hockey for me right now but I try and get out for a ride every week or 2 to spin out my legs a bit. Last week wasn't bad, this week was a hike-a-bike session.
  22. Hey now, at least I didn't replace all the tubes with transistors like Mr. Pimm here. But check it out, no capacitors in the signal path!
  23. Or you could measure the capacitors... http://diyaudioprojects.com/mirror/members.aol.com/sbench102/caps.html Signal path capacitors don't really matter to me once I get to the $5-$8 point since I'm not using high-end super resolving headphones. As for power supply caps, going to oil filled motor run caps was a significant upgrade, even on my push-pull amp. So was getting rid of cathode bypass caps & resistors and replacing them with LEDs. I took both steps around 10 years ago and never looked back.
  24. aerius

    Guitar-Case

    Clearly, the solution is a guitar that can tune itself.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.