I’ve had great luck buying nearly new roof rack parts from FB Marketplace. Folks either aren’t as tall or as strong as they thought they were when they made the purchase.
The black one is out of stock. But that’s good because I looked on the counterfeit goods marketplace and found this for $10
There’s also a nice variety of downtube rubber!
Dithering strong on the research end on a future Mtb. My plan is to thin the bike herd and get myself a modern full suspension. My primary riding style is cross country, but not in the racing sense. I like to spend 4-8 hours on the bike in the backcountry exploring single track and abandoned roads. I never have enjoyed less than 100mm of travel on the front end, and the newer batch of ‘downcountry’ bikes are really grabbing my attention. I like that they are light, slack, and most endearing is that they can carry 2 water bottles. Seems like most are 130/120 suspension wise, but my concern is that most 160/150 bikes these days pedal pretty damn good. I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot with going lower travel, but I also don’t do any jumping at all, and have a rowdy hard tail to abuse for my 1-2 park days a year.
#1 currently on my want list is the Rocky Mountain Element, #2 is the Kona Hei Hei, #3 is the Transition Spur but it only holds one bottle.
Also struggling with buying carbon, even though I really want to get fast and efficient on this one.
Riding SoCal mountains and deserts, so water portage is a big pro for me as a big thirsty boy.
Revel ranger
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Hopefully soon I can give you an opinion on 160/140 vs 120/120.
I thought I might want to ride my Transition all over, but that’s actually a laughable idea. Now Transition makes very downhill oriented bikes but still.
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I dont know how rocky or steep the terrain you are riding is, but i feel that’s the deciding factor between downcountry and a true trail bike. For me, CO is too rocky for low travel, so if you haul ass into some bumpy stuff, your suspension will just get eaten up even if your tires never leave the ground.
The rocky mountain element looks pretty solid geometry-wise. I love kona as a brand, but their geometry always seems a bit dated to me. The spur I also have heard lots of good things about. I’ve never had a bike that portages 2 bottles though. I carry a 2nd on my hip pack - or a hydration hip pack for long days.
From a sustainability perspective, I hate carbon, but I can’t really go back after riding it. It might just be that it sounds quieter, but that translates into a whole feeling as far as the bike not seeming so rattly over small bumps. I also can’t get like any alloy full suspension onto a roof rack with my puny arms, so that’s another selling point for me personally.
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Had a very wet ride yesterday, sending it on loamers with invisible wet roots and bouncing into muddy piles of duff.
On the way up I caught a group of riders who looked fit and fast, but then dropped them and climbed over the top of the mountain (an extra 30+ minutes of climbing for me total) they said they were doing a descent off the side that I new would put them on the same exit trail as me eventually. I ended up coming back around and catching them on the last descent. I dont think of myself as fast but I caught them V easily on the descent, they didnt seem to be going slow, they new how to ride, but I dropped them in 2 corners in wet conditions when I felt like I was holding way back… I try not to be a competitive person or have an ego about this stuff but it did feel good.
Also, last weekend in Vedder was SICK AS FUCK and @frank_doktor is going to have it in his back yard and should 100% race the BC enduro series instead of the CDC dirt cup.
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The sustainability side is what really irks me, but it rides so good. I used to joke about my carbon road bike being a ‘cheater bike’, and finally realized I actually want that for my mtb endeavors. I don’t think I’m hitting anything on the super chonky side, since I’m doing it all on a 140 hardtail these days. That’s why I feel a bigger travel will just have me overbiked for everything.
Seems like 120/130 will be a good fit then. I’ve had a 130/140 bike and it still worked great and climbed very well (though I suspect I just really like DW link suspension for climbing).
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I rode the RM Instinct a week ago. Its a pretty awesome bike, I haven’t ridden a ton of socal mtb trails but from what I know I think it could be a good fit. It climbed well although I didn’t get to do anything super techy. Compared to the 150/160 Sight I’m used to it was more playful and took a lot less motivation to leave the ground.
from what you’re saying here, I don’t think you’d be that stoked on pedaling around a 160 bike all day, but I think the bikes in the 130/140 trail categories would give you all of it.
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Maybe a banshee prime 150/135 or the phantom 130/115. I really liked the phantom for short travel but hella capable bike. Just sold it to @Roundalab_yellow who needs Midwest bike and I went DH and now stumpy evo I haven’t posted because I purchased it two days before driving to Bellingham.
Hopefully will sell enduro be to down to two full squish bikes and dj I finally get to ride on the gazillion pump tracks we will have in town vs 0 in state college.
Giant Trance/Trance X is a very good platform as well if you can find one a couple years old used.
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I also loved my trance 29.
Couldn’t jive with spur in xl maybe just too big or low stack. But that was a rad bike if geo like reach works for you.
Looks like work is going to set me up with some face time with Brandon Semenuk around the New England Forest Rally this year. I’ll have the chance to interview him! I have some thoughts about wondering what he feels about the “with age comes cage” adage of professional xtremers moving to automotive endeavors and I also wonder what the money is like in rallying versus in pro mtb’ing.
I was curious if tarck had any questions for the guy, or if there’s anything I should know about him. I watched the 100 seconds videos from way back when they all came out and knew the name but I haven’t followed the guy all too closely in the past few years.
(Also this seems like this is the right thread for this but I’m happy to move it elsewhere if the mods think.)
ask him if he wipes sitting down or standing up, or if he has a technique that he wasnt willing to share…until now.
he is canadian so I believe he would politely answer
The runs of his that I’ve watched have always been technical and incredibly dialed. People would joke that he was a robot, with how precise his runs were. The jump to rally makes sense in that regard.
I could see his career moving towards more gymkhana type driving.
Yeah, Semenuk also is always incredibly boring in interviews because he is completely emotionless, hence the robot comments.
His riding is unmatched. I mean, only a few people just get so bored of winning that they have to take up another high caliber sport for fun. That’s how he ended up doing slopestyle too IIRC, got quickly tired of racing (too easy), so moved to slopestyle, won everything, then picked up rallying.
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Did he ever ride camouflaged or otherwise de-logo’d components due to sponsor agreements? What made him choose to ride non-sponsored parts, outright performance or more familiarity/comfort?
Ever use parts that were awesome to race but commercially unviable and so never offered to the public?
When he or other riders have “Signature” components on the market how much input did he really have, or was it more like “sure I’ll sign my name on that in exchange for some $”
Anything that bikes/bike racing does really well that he’s hoping to bring to rally or translate into his current team/drive/car?
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