Badass bikes that aren't yours

Come on, man, it is to balance out the orange housing up front.

Magura calipers are amazing one-piece quality even at the low end, and Shimano’s servowave in the levers makes them ridiculously good, I have that setup on my slingshot now after snapping one of the carbon Magura levers.

I’ve almost done the cantilever version a couple times — mullet brakes without having to use a mechanical disc!

The closest I came was on my cripplebike hybrid using the Shimano Mountain STI “bitchslap” levers. I was going to hook both hydro levers to a single front Magura (use the caliper bleed port for the other lever) and have the right shifting actuate a rear V-brake so I could do both with my right hand.

I really like the look of magura lever though. Are the mt4/mt5 level good? A set can be had for around $100 from euroland.

Magura wet rim brakes are fucking awesome and should have been widely adopted ages ago.

From what I recall, Magura sells a metric shit-tonne of them to nude beach goers for trekking bikes.

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And rip the ratchet out of the right MTB shake to accomplish that? This is the most nutso/kinda amazing thing I’ve ever heard.

…y’know, one of those old levers could be a sweet dropper actuator!

Similarly, I’ve seen the cable mountain dual-control levers used for Polo bike brakes. Actual brake cable to one caliper, shift cable to the other caliper. One handed braking but individual control over each caliper.

I have a bike-normie friend who commutes every single day on Magura rimwreckers and he hasn’t serviced or bled that shit in like five years. I am always amazed that he not yet just totally destroyed the rim.

I’ve done this and it really doesn’t work well.

the leverage ratio of the rear brake needs to be right

my roommate Julian is a top-level international player, and uses the thumb lever of a 9s rapidfire to pull a Paul Touring canti with a sky-high link wire and a brake booster

Garth who coined the “bitchslap lever” thing switched to a hydraulic proportioning valve he machined, one lever actuating both calipers at different rates within the same stroke — basically just a Y fitting with three different hole sizes

though almost nobody else still uses a rear brake for Bike Polo

Gimme some bad ass basket bike inspo. I’m looking for a rigid mtb or other decent flatbar bike with supreme basket skills for some slow stoned ambling about in the woods.

TAF and badass

https://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/bik/d/lippy-tandem-56-52cm/6705683425.html

Crumbst Clydesdale

Before it was my xtracycle, and now big pink cargo, this was my fave all rounder.

I’m a big guy and 6ft so finding a really nice mtb in my size is a fools errand, but in my experience anything with a level top tube from the late 80s into the 90s will be perfect with some 26x2 slicks, fenders, and whatever racks and baskets you want to go with. Long stem, wide swept bars, thumb shifters, v-brakes, and theres really nothing to complain about besides weight.

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I love that bike, as well as the dead enders @jimmythefly built.

I know I should go grab another Stumper or something and I’d be totally happy, but a small part of me wants to get a little bit modern with wet dicks and 2018 tires and what not.

/shrug

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Well, I feel kinda dirty posting my own bike here.

Wet dicks, 1x, 26" tubeless, scrap metal rack with a wald zip tied to it, flat pedals, 29er pokes to get the head angle below 70°. Bought the frameset from a tarcker but then I got high and forgot who.

Next up is a dyno and maybe some fenders for winter.

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Yes

I forgot to say, there’s lots of late 90s and early 2000s hardtails out there with disc tabs designed around 80-100mm pokes that would be perfect with cheap 29er rigid pokes. IIRC I got mine from trashbar for around $50.

Still lovin these old mtbs

I had fun overhauling an old Trek for a coworker a couple years ago. Did it up with a basket, fenders, v-brakes, big apples, basically new everything for ~$200, it was sweet sweet sweet. She crashed it and broke her elbows like 2 weeks later and I think it’s been mothballed since then.

Anyway I want to do that again but maybe for me? Not sure where that fits in with my current bikes but I still want one. Main problem is that the nice ones on CL here are all over $100 but probably need like $200 in parts to make me happy and for that money I could probably get something more modern