Bicycles
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Making the most of the 17hrs of sunlight we got for the summer solstice yesterday
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Thanks aetas. It helps to have a contributing photographer to singletrack as a riding partner
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Daniel
lovely pictures, has inspired me to get out on the bike when I get home after my current work hitch.
The pictures remind me of some of the European Alpine riding that is on offer. Great scenery and trails plus lift access if you are lucky / lazy. I hear very good things about the Fernie trails, this is where your pictures have been taken right??
Hoping to head to the Alps myself in August. Got a new bike incoming so it would be rude not to go and give it a decent test. Nicolai Ion 650b bike on order.
Well the industry would have to change the standard wheelsize every few years so I just had to get a new frame,…...........fork,................and wheels!
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Hey dd, thanks and glad to hear they make you want to get on your bike. The photos are indeed in fernie, on a trail called project 9. There are a lot of great trails here, mostly of the buff and fast variety, with very long descents after gruelling climbs. There is so much good riding all over BC. I love Fernie, but Nelson, Squamish and Cumberland house my favourite trails.
I've never ridden over in Europe but I can't wait to do so one day. Enjoy the new bike, it is annoying that wheel size standards have changed, but the benefits of 650b are real. I'm now more annoyed with so many slack, low bb 29er options becoming available, that descend like a dream. If only I could have a full stable of bikes.
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Did an overnighter to a national park a few weeks ago, here's a friend's blog post with lots of pics: http://www.packgofind.com/pineridge
I had to take the cyclocross bike since I needed to carry shelter, food and water with me. The trails were quite easy and relatively flat so the full sus rig would have been too much. A rigid 29er or an adventure bike would have been perfect
It was manageable with the cx bike, only had to push a few times.This last weekend was midsummer eve so I decided to go camping for two nights (in friends backyards ;)).
Testing out my new tent, going bike touring to Sweden and Gotland in august for a week. Worked like a charm even though it got really cold at night (3 degrees centigrade, proper finnish summer ey?). Luckily I had my down sleeping bag and down jacket with me. Going to get a front rack for the pannier bags to get the weight down for a more stable ride. Target weight for stuff including bags and the tent for a weeks tour is 7,5-8 kg.
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Nice work Jii! Photos were great and it looks and sounds like a really nice route.
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Some quality trailtime yesterday.
Recent upgrades to the bike:
-140 mm Formula Thirty-Five fork. This thing is A-MA-ZING. So plush and finally the Rumblefish came to life. Slacker angles ftw!
-Switched to a 1*10 setup. These narrow-wide-chainrings are the bomb! Easily the biggest thing since Stan's NoTubes for me personally. -
I have the wolf tooth narrow wide and it still surprises me every time I rattle through a bunch of chunder and it's still there. Only time I've lost it in two years was pedalling hard through a really rough section of trail in the 11t. I'm really interested in trying out oneup's new shimano cage modifier. With 32 up front and 42 in the back my derailleur looks pretty ridiculous with how far the b limit is dialled in. Still shifts quite nice though, it's an xtr trigger though, so it will overcome most things.
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Yep, still amazed that you can actually do just about anything without the chain dropping off - hasn't happened to me yet even though I ran a clutchless rear derailleur until about a month ago when it mysteriously disintegrated when caressed by a rock
Chain guides were good way back in my freeriding days and bombproof but the weight and drag and noise aaargh.On my regular trails I don't need anything bigger than a 36 in the rear, but going to Lapland in august where there are bigger hills and no lifts so we'll see if that will change
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Running 1 x 11, SRAM XX1 on the Yeti at the moment and love it. One of the best bits of kit I have upgraded too in quite a few years.
As you guys have already pointed out, the combination of narrow wide chain ring and clutch mech is pretty solid. I have not dropped the chain yet and have ridden some pretty testing stuff.
I attended the Enduro World Series round II in Scotland a few weeks back and 1 x set ups were everywhere. Some of the racers and mechanics I talked to were using very simple and light chain devices but this was mainly to prevent the chain coming off in the event of a big crash.
I rode all 8 of the special timed stages and never had an issue with dropping the chain.
I have just ordered another full XX1 groupset to go onto the new Nicolai build.
XX1 and dropper posts in my opinion are two of the best MTB innovations since the SPD pedal came out all those years ago.
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Daniel
also running the Wolftooth narrow wide chainring. I picked up the direct mount version that goes straight onto the XX1 GXP crank, no spider required. Makes for a really clean set up.
Gone a bit mad with the Spec for the new build Nicolai. I have ordered a Titanium direct mount narrow wide chainring from Italian company "Carbon-Ti". Pricey but the bike is going to be a tasty build.
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Nice one dd, that looks like a thing of beauty. I love the direct mount, glad to see that it is starting to trickle down through raceface's lineup. With the emergence of 1x think it'll become the standard pretty soon
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A few shots of the Yeti with the XX1. Jared Graves just rode one to the "EWS round III" race win, not bad for an old fashioned 26" wheel bike
Very pleased with the bike, light 28lbs fully built, not bad for a 160mm travel "do it all" rig.
So far nothing has broken on it. I suspect this summers Alpine visit will be the acid test for whether it is tough enough.
The Yeti SB bikes do require quite a bit of extra maintenance over other suspension designs. I hear that a new beefed up version of the Switch suspension platform is about to be released and it addresses the maintenance issues of the original version. Looking forward to seeing these new designs when they get released.
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Nice Yeti! Which Nicolai are you getting?
I was actually e-shopping around for a dropper post but still haven't gotten one. All seemed to be either shit or too expensive, or had to be sent abroad for service, so I basically gave up. I also need a long post (minimum 410 mm) so in the end the only viable alternatives were the Reverb (cheap but unreliable according to friends, importer (a friend also) and the internet) or the Thomson Dropper (love Thomson but sending it abroad for a service way too much of a hassle). Don't even know if I really need one, my trails are relatively flat and the steepest parts are manouvreable with the seat in it's current position anyway..
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The reverb is nice in that you could have a 420mm post and you can do all repairs yourself if you have some technical skills and are willing to buy the tools. I wouldn't necessarily call them unreliable, but they have a seal lifetime similar to that of a fork. The only difference is that a forks performance drop is less noticeable than the literal drop the reverb develops when the seals need replacing. Most people just ignore their forks until they have a major issue, as opposed to the oil change every 40hr and seal change every 80 that they deserve.
Also, seconded on the great build on that yeti dd
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Thanks for the kind words on the Yeti build.
Just finishing a work trip and heading home to pick up some King / Enve wheels for the Yeti, should make a nice upgrade. Running Enve's on my Jones bike and they made a noticeable difference, light, stiff and the bike feels like it accelerates much faster.
I think the Reverb gets a bit of a bad press because it has sold so many units. The MTB forums are where anyone with an axe to grind goes to tell their story. There are a heap of very happy reverb owners who don't post on the forums as they are happy with the product. I include myself in this, my Reverb was picked up second hand and has been reliable. I love the fact that it can be adjusted to any height you choose rather than pre-defined heights.
The new Nicolai is an Ion 16 in a 650b wheel size ( seemed daft speccing anything else due to the seemingly inevitable move to this wheel size ). Going onto the bike is the following kit, Avalanche cartridge Pike fork, Cane Creek DB climb switch shock ( custom Nicolai base tune ), Enve AM rims on I9 hubs, XX1, Renthal bar stem, Formula RO brakes, King Inset headset and Bottom Bracket, and Reverb stealth post.
New colours for the Ion build are "safe" rather than colourful. Went with a complete Titanium grey anodised finish with white graphic. Should receive the frame early August and then straight to Alps with it! Happy Days!
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I finally finished cleaning up and fixing up my bike as the very last step in a multi-year restoration in which I removed every last bolt and nut to completely clean, adjust, oil, repack bearings, etc…
So now its show off time!
This bike is such a pleasure to ride, everything on it is jewelry quality, hand painted decals showing some well-loved evo, wheels just keeps spinning with almost zero resistance, it absolutely glides with amazing road feel.
It’s funny I took my bike into a local bike shop that has 20k+ bikes to have the rear derailleur adjusted and just about everyone there (Including the owner) had to complement and take a look at mine…
