Bicycles
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A few promised pictures of the new Nicolai build. The bike is an Ion 16 frame size large, with these new fangled 650b wheels. Frame was finished in anodised titanium grey colour, not particularly interesting but suitably Teutonic.
Thought I had better jump on the 650b bandwagon before I got left behind. Still love my 26" Yeti SB6c though. The Nicolai was bought for some lift accessed fun in the Alps this summer, it is a bombproof set up and gave me no cause for concern during a week of hard downhill riding.
The frame is quite long and stretched and is very stable at speed. Looking at the geometry of the bike it is not dissimilar from full on downhill rigs I used to ride a few years ago. It took a bit of getting used to as the front end is not as easy to lift as on my shorter top tube 26" bikes.
I had a mini mechanic helping me out with the build!! One eye on the bike and the other on where the components were being moved to and hidden. Hide and seek with your new build bike parts, two days away from your cycling holiday lost it's fun pretty quickly!
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Very nice build, glad to hear that it rode well for you. It is pretty crazy how the geometry of bikes has come along, and how well bikes that ride like dh rigs of a few years ago can climb. We are living in a great time for mountain biking. I'm currently in withdrawal from riding as I'm visiting family in Ontario for a few weeks, but I moved from fernie out to the coast before coming here, so I'm looking forward to my first winter riding season. My second last ride in fernie was a great heli biking trip with some good friends, and I was lucky enough to get the best possible leaving town picture I could imagine
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Daniel, some amazing pictures, the trails and scenery look stunning. Made a mental note to come check out your riding area. How long a run in terms of distance, vert dropped and time does a Heli run give you? Is it a full day out?
The trip to Morzine went well, we had dry weather for the days we were there. It had been a bad summer for the area in general and most of the stories coming back from Morzine were of very wet and washed out trails. We hit it just at the right time. Did not get any photos from the trip, too busy cramming the runs in to stop and take photos. Been to Morzine so many times now that stopping to take photos just does not figure into the days routine.
Maybe looking at Pila in Italy or Les Deux Alpes or Les Arc in France next year to try somewhere different with some more natural terrain as opposed to sculpted DH runs.
The chunky tyres are now off the Nicolai and some lighter weight rubber has gone back on to cope with the more XC biased UK routes. I get home in a couple of days time and have some plans to get out into North Wales to do some riding depending on how good or bad the weather forecast is.
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The new stead. This was a purchase a few years in the making, but I couldn't be happier with it.
Is that a Rivendell? if so which model? It looks great. Looks really comfy and versatile. Where are you located? I have a Soma San Marcos, which was designed by Grant Peterson and has Rivendell lugs and 2 top tubes. I love it.
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@Jeef it is, it's a Sam Hillborne, and I'm located in northern Michigan. The bike is comfy as hell and has been treating me great. It's a great commuter, and is just a pleasure to ride. Did a nice 30 miler on it the other day…
Congrats! Those bikes are so nice. Better get some fenders for the harsh Northern Michigan winters. I grew up in Kalamazoo, but moved to the SF Bay area recently. Definitely not going to miss commuting in snow 1/3 of each year.
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Got really lit on faster paced road rides late this summer and decided to get a dedicated road bike for the next season. The plan was to do research and build it up during winter but then my bike-shop-owner friend called me up and said that he had some Trek demo bikes up for grabs…
You know how these stories end.
Trek Émonda SL8 2015 with full Dura Ace. Amazing bike. 7 kgs stock (without pedals) so no need for upgrades. Well except for a nice carbon wheelset maybe. Rides so nice. Always thought SRAM made nicer gearing stuff for the road but jeez that Dura Ace is smooth. Two rides in and I'm hooked.It's gonna be a looooooong winter.
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Daniel, some amazing pictures, the trails and scenery look stunning. Made a mental note to come check out your riding area. How long a run in terms of distance, vert dropped and time does a Heli run give you? Is it a full day out?
That run was about 2200m of descent, some improvised with some fairly hairy sections and a few hike a bikes. It was about 4 hrs, there are faster routes down that would be closer to the 2-3 hr mark. If you were going to travel to bc to ride flying into vancouver and riding on the north shore / squamish / whistler and then doing a couple days of float plane access backcountry riding in the chilcotins would be best way to go. There are places to camp where they have everything including food for you, a bit nicer than carrying a massive pack. Let me know if you plan on coming over this way to ride eventually and I'll help you plan the bc trip of a lifetime, so long as you can give me some great advice for when I eventually make my way to the alps.
The new trek looks fantastic as well Jii, hopefully the wait through winter isn't too rough on you
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On the weekend I try and strictly use my bike for errands. I was at the post office this morning and an older gentleman came up to me and said wow that's impressive. How long did it take you to get here from New York City? I asked him what was he talking about. His response aren't you one of those messenger guys.
On a side note it was 18 deg F this morning. The post office and bagel shop round trip is 10 miles of hills, my lungs are on fire!
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Bern Brentwood
Giro - Ambient
SEXIHTYPEIIII
Mission Workshop - The Faroe
Mission Workshop - The Signal
Mission Workshop - VX Rummy
DZR - Concubine -
I apparently forgot to post about the trip me and my friend did in august. Took the ferry over to Stockholm and rode down to Oskarshamn (410 km in 36 hours, crazy) from where we took the ferry over to Gotland and spent almost a week riding around the island. We had an absolute blast, here's the link to my friends tumblr post with links to photos.
To sum it up, two days of performance-oriented touring cycling followed by five days of mainly eating, drinking and camping with some riding inbetween. Total distance for the week a little over 700 km.
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@Jii:
I'm going for the ZTR Alpha 340:s since I need the rims to manage 28c road tyre pressures. Got Novatec 411/412 hubs so should build up to about 1,5-1,6 kg for the wheelset without being crazy expensive. Will probably try road tubeless too. I'll keep the current wheelset for crappy condition riding.
Excuse me for a necropost, found this thread via Google
Where did you get those Novatecs and how are they spinning along?
They're seriously light as far as cheap disc MTB-spaced hubs go, I wonder how much offroad abuse they can take (small bearings, though, judging by photos)
Needless to say that I'm crazy jealous of your amazing biking trips.
