Bicycles
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Nice bikes everyone! I'm a noob here, but a total bike nerd. Here are my two summer rides in an artsy pose. Outside on the cleaning bench is a Madone 6 with Zipp 404's. Inside is an All City Nature Boy single speed. I ride the steel bike almost daily, the carbon bike is reserved for frisky group rides.
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So far I'm loving my State bike. I have been riding it fixed since I got it. I haven't had any issues slowing the bike down. I have yet to figure out how to skid stop but haven't had any issues stopping. Not sure if it's poor technique or my legs aren't strong enough yet.
Long distance rides are tough so far the farthest I have gone is 25 miles. My ass is still sore. I am sure I will get used to it.
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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..
