aerius
-
Posts
2,832 -
Joined
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Posts posted by aerius
-
-
Me - barring the third week in a row of bat invasions on a Wednesday night (did I just curse myself of what)...
Get some Ozzy Osbourne posters and scarecrows, that should keep the bats away.
-
So the weekend was pretty fun. Met up with some random people on facebook and went for a ride on the trails. The less experienced riders had a bit of a rough time on some of the muddy spots & tree roots, but we all stuck it out, finished the ride, and cracked open the beers at the end.
-
SRAM has gone seriously downhill from the Sachs/Sedis days. I had a bunch of Sachs chains from just before SRAM bought them out, they would usually last about 1200km before wearing out. My stash ran out a couple years ago and I ended up buying some SRAM chains, they only lasted 700km or so before they were toast and that was in good weather too. Then I went to KMC since they also have a quick connect link, they go about 1000-1100km before they fail the ruler test. For $15 I can't complain. I haven't used a Shimano chain in ages but as I recall they lasted about as long as the old Sachs chains.
-
2000 miles on a chain is a lot, most of the roadies I know max out at around 1500. For mountain bikes it's even worse, I'm happy if I can get 800 miles out of a chain before it wears out, and in bad weather I've toasted a chain in under 300 miles. MEC sells chains for $15-20 so I just buy a stack of them and change them out regularly, it's a hell of a lot cheaper than replacing chain rings and cassettes.
-
Since everyone else is giving updates, here's how it's going for me:
1) Commit on corners better, I need to trust the tires more and just lean the bike way the fuck over. I couldn't do this consistently this year and lost too much speed from being a wuss.
Definitely succeeded here, but I kinda cheated a bit. I bought bigger more aggressive tires for my bike, the new tires stick to the ground at pretty absurd speeds & lean angles so I now have complete confidence to just commit and rip the corners hard & fast.
2) Take a trip to Quebec and spend a week riding the world cup DH course and other trails at Mont Sainte Anne.
Doesn't look like it's happening, damnit.
3) Get more airtime on jumps & drops. Do bigger jumps and drops.
Making progress. I'm definitely more comfortable getting airtime but I haven't really stepped it up yet. I'm far more consistent in getting a good launch & landing off jumps & drops but I'm not going all that much bigger. I need to spend more time sessioning jumps at the bike parks.
And a new goal: Don't put myself in the hospital. I've had way too many close calls this year from riding over my limits.
-
The Aliante is not going to work out. It's almost exactly like the Vitesse, which is fine for short rides. I'd ridden it enough this past week to be raw, so not happening. I switched up to the Terry Butterfly again, which felt much better. I'd like to find the identical saddle with a little less padding. The search continues........
Read through the article, then break out the measuring tape on the saddles that work for you. You should find that they have certain things in common, and from there you can figure out what a new saddle will need to have to be comfortable for you.
Using myself as an example, I've found that any saddle with a significant curve simply will not work, and that narrow saddles are also a pain in the ass. Since I now know what to look for, it makes saddle shopping a lot easier, though there's still some trial & error involved.
-
Traffic lights are still out in some places and we're supposed to have some rolling blackouts so that hydro crews can do a proper fix of the grid. We got off pretty lightly my area since we're on higher ground, the lower areas in town got slammed. There were places where houses had water flowing in through the doors & windows and cars got washed off bridges in the southern part of the city. We set the single day rainfall record yesterday, beating the previous record which was set when Hurricane Hazel went through Toronto in 1954.
I did a ride around my part of town today to check out the damage, there's still traffic lights out and areas without power. Lots of trees down everywhere and several pedestrian bridges had their guardrails taken out by giant logs & trees which got uprooted and carried downstream by the current. A local golf course also has a ton of new water hazards and it's missing at least one hole. Didn't get anywhere on the bike trails since they're either blocked by fallen trees, flooded, covered in a layer of silt & mud, or simply gone. Mountain biking on my local trails is probably a write-off for the summer, it's going to take a while to clear out the mess and rebuild everything.
-
This was my street yesterday evening. Let's just say there's not going to be any riding for a while.
Oh yeah, and it's forecast to rain some more.
-
Totally fucking mindblowing
-
^ Roads. There is a reason they built them originally, and still do to this day.
Hope that helps
Road riding just doesn't do it for me, it's about as fun as running on a treadmill or riding a stationary bike. Lots of other people love it and I can see why they love it, but it ain't for me. I'll do it if I absolutely have to, but I'd rather rollerblade, run, or workout in the gym. There's a reason I have 4 (soon to be 5) mountain bikes and zero road bikes.
-
It's getting goddamn depressing, the endless rain we've been getting has turned all the trails into giant swamps & mud bogs, and oh yeah, it's gonna rain again tomorrow. My bikes haven't been on the trails in weeks. If this keeps up I'm going to take up kayaking or something like that.
-
A short clip from today's ride at Fort Rock.
Look sweet! Nice technical sections and yet there's still lots of possible line choices through the rocks and tricky parts, it's something I don't see very often.
-
If you're headed over to Montreal, you need to get your ass to Bromont for some serious downhill riding. It's less than hour east of Montreal and has the best developed DH trail system in Canada outside of BC. They used to host world cup DH races there until about 4 years ago when the UCI got pissy and reshuffled the venues.
-
First offroad ride of the year from a couple weeks ago.
I'm the one wearing shorts on a green hardtail.
-
I'm going to have Vince from Tune Cycles do the build, and despite all the ShimaNO folks lurking everywhere, I'm going with Dura Ace 9000.
I think Dura-Ace is the right choice for your bike. Shimano parts aren't as light as SRAM but their smoothness & quietness is more in keeping with the character of your bike. To me, Dura-Ace just feels nicer and more polished than SRAM Red, and it has a more classic old school look whereas Red has a high-tech and rather gaudy look.
And also, congrats on your weight loss, good luck on your continued recovery, and congrats again on your new bike!
-
i need to learn this pedals/shoes thing. whats the one to get for someone who is afraid of having feet attached?
The pedals you have are just fine. Ride them for a couple months while you get used to your new bike and get the suspension and everything else dialed in. At the end of that time, think about what you like or don't like about the pedals (and everything else) and what you need for your bike to do what you want. Swapping parts on a bike which you've barely ridden around the block is just throwing money away.
-
Decided that I wanted more braking power on my bike. Stuffed a set of Shimano Saints on the front.
Quad ceramic piston caliper with radiator finned brake pads.
Totally overkill, but as they say, you don't know what's enough until you know what's too much.
-
just put it on the scale, it's 31.8lb with the pedals, water bottle holder, and empty bag
Dude, those are riser bars, not mustache bars. When viewed from the front, the straight outer half of the bar should be level or slope slightly upwards, and the brake levers & shifters should slope downwards by 30-45 degrees when viewed from the side.
Couple pictures for reference
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-iivXavJa8q4/TPqQNzYrfPI/AAAAAAAACa8/qG7nryLXIrk/s800/IMG_0791.jpg
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-dxRKSll5tTI/Tt7e0T392mI/AAAAAAAADCQ/ugUcEsgFnr8/s800/IMG_2345.jpg
-
Any sugestions for some tought road tires. The current ones are what came with the bike and have really thin side walls and I would like something that can stand a little abuse if ned be.
See if you can find some Specialized Armadillo tires somewhere. They're heavy, they don't have the greatest ride by any means, but they're seriously tough. The shop I used to work for sold a ton of them to commuters and we rarely ever saw a flat on one of them. Continental Gatorskins work too but the sidewalls on them aren't as tough, they are lighter and ride nicer though so that's the tradeoff between them.
-
Just be aware that Superflys are notorious for cracking apart at the chainstays. Trek has allegedly fixed this issue for 2013, but they've been saying that since 2008 if not earlier. Trek will take care of you if the frame cracks apart, but that's something I'd rather not deal with in the first place.
-
Just curious, did anyone turn their door into a beer fridge?
-
We got about 10 inches dumped on us, with about 12-18" in the snowdrifts. It was fairly light fluffy stuff so shoveling it wasn't all that bad except for the end of the driveway where the snowplows piled up a massive ridge of compacted icy snow.
-
So I will remembered Rule #5 (HTFU) and went out riding with a teammate for 40 miles where the temperature never rose over 36 degrees. Was a great ride though.
And don't forget to calculate your Jens Factor number.
The Jens Factor has become a competition among some of our local riders, they try to see who can get the most rides in the worst conditions.
-
Great time but 27 miles is a long time to be on a trail, especially with a 10 pound pack on my back. Definitely need a different seat and a shorter stem for these longer rides
Cripes! I haven't seen a stem that long since the late 90's. Definitely shorten that sucker up, the only bikes with stems that long these days are pro XC race bikes or bikes ridden by guys who are 6'5". Most modern mountain bikes work best with a stem in the 60-90mm range, my personal bike for instance has an 80mm stem. You might also want to consider a setback seatpost, I notice that your seat is pretty far back on the rails and a setback post will give you more room to play around with reach and stem lengths to find a good position and balance point on your bike.
Mike I was under the impression that mtb people prefer short stems for twisty trails because they steer faster. I guess you just mean that the technical stuff doesn't involve as much endurance.
Got word that my dropper seat post is at the store. Very interested to try it out sometime when it gets warmer. I also got word that to get a remote lockout installed on my fork would cost like $450 which is probably not a sensible investment considering how little I ride mountain.
There's actually a couple reasons for short stems, handlebars have gotten a lot wider in the past dozen years and toptubes are a bit longer as well. Wider bars give you a more stable base on the bike along with more leverage to crank out power when standing on steep climbs. Wider bars will slow down the steering and bring your body more forward on the bike so stems got shorter to balance it out.
Dropper posts are pretty darn useful, only thing is you need to stay on top of the maintenance or else they get crunchy and develop play real fast. I'm lazy and hate working on my bike so I don't have one. As for remote lockouts, what fork do you have and how the fuck does a remote lockout kit cost $450? I have a Manitou Minute Pro and the kit for my fork costs about $40 and takes 15 minutes to install.
The Official Head-Case Photography Thread.
in Miscellaneous
Posted
That's the mayor of my city. Nothing can make that pig look good, well, nothing short of making him into bacon.