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If I'm going full suspension, it's a Canyon Neuron or Polygon T8, but I need to research a bit more.
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Dec 4, 2023 01:03
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Setec_Astronomy posted:An "aggressive enough" hardtail is sufficient to ride essentially every trail on Earth. Full suspension buys you comfort and a margin for error, but MTB geometry and front suspension get you most of the way there. It will be night-and-day versus a gravel bike. Agree completely with this. The new aggressive hardtails with a 65ish degree head angle are slack enough to ride really anything downhill. You'll certainly be able to do so faster and more comfortable on a full suspension but it won't be like "dang, I can't ride trail x because I'm on this hardtail" It's a tough choice because you get so much better components on a $2000 hardtail versus a $2000 full suspension. All that said, my wife just got a Polygon Siskiu T8 and for the $1800 price tag, it's specd pretty incredibly for a full suspension.
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Dec 4, 2023 01:04
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When I was growing up, myself and 40 other u18 downhill racers got our cheeks clapped by a guy nobody knew on a planet-X hardtail with Jr. T's. I had forgotten all about this trauma until just now, thanks thread.
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Dec 4, 2023 01:09
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Rode 30 miles on the ebike until the battery died and then grabbed the hardtail to finish the day. 36 miles in total. Fantastic 63 degree December day in Bentonville.   
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Dec 4, 2023 01:26
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Setec_Astronomy posted:I do agree that if you've got the budget you should go full suspension. You'll be more comfortable and have a wider selection of trails more easily available to you. The only reason to go hardtail is better components for the dollar on the lower end of the price points. If you can afford to buy a full suspension bike with Deore, just do that. It'll be better.
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Dec 4, 2023 03:13
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Someone tell me what’s wrong with the Polygon DSE. Are the frames on the D series disasters waiting to happen?
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Dec 4, 2023 03:20
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abigserve posted:@VacaGrande; how the gently caress do you ride some of the features on Blue Tongue at stromlo? There's one which is like, straight up a rock after a tight left turn. There's no run up or anything! I think you're talking about the one just after the fire trail crossing... I don't get that one 100% of the time, it's hard!. I usually clean it if it's not the first singletrack of the day but I need to be in the right head space. Too often I'm hitting it with my HR through the roof coming straight off the steepest part of the fire trail climb (fire trails to there then Heartbreaker is a quick way to the top from the cafe). For me, I don't get it right if I don't get through the left turn lined up straight to roll into the first rock with my wheels straight-on. From memory, I then get the bike light on the front, weight a little back to get up the first rock, then shift my weight up and forward almost like a hop to get up the second smaller step. It helps to get a little momentum into it after you get through the turn so you don't stall. It's tricky because the two steps are almost perfectly spaced with the wheelbase of the bike. One thing I'd recommend is to practice on the Evolution climb for little step-ups like that, there's a section near the start with three lines up that you can work through. They go easier to harder from left to right if I remember correctly. The middle and the right lines are tricky in the same way that the section you're thinking of is, and it's an great spot to session.
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Dec 4, 2023 03:27
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gohuskies posted:The only reason to go hardtail is better components for the dollar on the lower end of the price points. If you can afford to buy a full suspension bike with Deore, just do that. It'll be better. There are plenty of places where you might not want to over bike imo. Unless you are specifically talking about the trails he is talking about.
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Dec 4, 2023 03:47
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Platystemon posted:Someone tell me what’s wrong with the Polygon DSE. Only have limited experience with the T8 but fit and finish seems good. I know they had some frame integrity issues a couple years ago but everything I've read seems to indicate the issues have been remedied. If you're looking for an entry full suspension XC bike, I wouldn't see a problem with picking one up. The D7 is well spec'd
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Dec 4, 2023 04:05
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abigserve posted:Imo, because I was in your situation just recently! I agree with this. Also if everyone on the trail he's seeing are using FS, I'd be inclined toward that as well.
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Dec 4, 2023 04:31
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VacaGrande posted:I think you're talking about the one just after the fire trail crossing... I don't get that one 100% of the time, it's hard!. I usually clean it if it's not the first singletrack of the day but I need to be in the right head space. Too often I'm hitting it with my HR through the roof coming straight off the steepest part of the fire trail climb (fire trails to there then Heartbreaker is a quick way to the top from the cafe). Definitely the biggest thing is the heart rate, you nailed it. I can picture in my head how to get up there but I can't make the body do it, it's usually too gassed by that point. Evolution is exactly where I've been practicing! I've done the middle line once so far and I almost made it but got tripped up by the last rock at the top.
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Dec 4, 2023 04:43
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Pulled the trigger on the Polygon T8. Couldn't turn down the spec for the price. Quality control may be a gamble, but seems to have improved a lot over the last two years. Other negatives I've seen in reviews - heavy wheels, may not ship with advertised tires/cassette, brakes may need bleeding - are lesser concerns or things I can easily remedy. $1799 for the purple bike + $200 in free gear from their selection. I got some water bottles, pedals, lights, and some other nonsense. Now I just need some more space in my garage to keep it.
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Dec 4, 2023 08:31
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FogHelmut posted:Pulled the trigger on the Polygon T8. Couldn't turn down the spec for the price. Quality control may be a gamble, but seems to have improved a lot over the last two years. Other negatives I've seen in reviews - heavy wheels, may not ship with advertised tires/cassette, brakes may need bleeding - are lesser concerns or things I can easily remedy. Congrats. My wife just got the same bike. It did come with the Hans Dampf tires so hopefully yours does as well. The Fox suspension is really nice and the purple fleck paint is awesome.
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Dec 4, 2023 09:15
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spwrozek posted:There are plenty of places where you might not want to over bike imo. Unless you are specifically talking about the trails he is talking about. Yeah, I've been after a 130/120 bike in the 2-3k USD range. There's more available choice of bikes at 150/130 or 150/140, often with better discounts, and the mix of terrain I would see the most often just wouldn't benefit from 150. My gut is that the lower travel means that less sophisticated suspension design and lower quality spring/damper matter less with smaller overall travel, so you can get away with a shittier shock on the frame. Then again, I can tell the 70mm Suntour on my ebike sucks rear end, far worse than the 30mm I had on the Lefty Oliver, so maybe my theory is no good. Anyways, the one lineup I've seen that (currently) offers pretty good parity between downcountry and trail frames is Ibis with Ripmo AF: $2700 Deore / 160/150 Ripley AF: $2600 Deore / 130/130
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Dec 4, 2023 13:39
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Platystemon posted:Someone tell me what’s wrong with the Polygon DSE. On my first hardtail, I upgraded from a Suntour Raidon (like on the DSE) to a Fox Factory 34 with Fit4. Not the lowest end fork you could get on one side of the comparison, but certainly one of the highest end on the other side. It was absolutely like riding two different bikes. The Raidon had less available damping, so you were bouncing after every bump, and also less overall support, so after multiple bumps, the fork wouldn't rise back up enough, making you feel like you were steadily pitching forward more. In comparison, the Factory 34 had extremely noticeably precise articulation for each bump, and had very adjustable compression support. It took a lot of the work of trying to deal with shooting down a rocky patch from your hands and arms into the fork itself. If you never ride a high end fork, you won't know what you're missing. In the hardtail vs FS decision -- either you like or want to get used to controlling everything with your legs, or the terrain is just too wild for you to want to compensate with legs only. With low end suspension components, you just might not benefit from how the rear travels as much as you'd want.
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Dec 4, 2023 13:51
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kimbo305 posted:Yeah, I've been after a 130/120 bike in the 2-3k USD range. There's more available choice of bikes at 150/130 or 150/140, often with better discounts, and the mix of terrain I would see the most often just wouldn't benefit from 150. I have the Ripley AF and it's very good aside from the stock dropper which I had to replace immediately due to it making awful noises while pedaling. My wife's Ripley has no such issue, however. Might be worth stepping up to the SLX version that comes with a better dropper.
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Dec 4, 2023 16:21
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I don't think travel is directly correlated with quality:cost ratio, it's generally the same design with some small tweaks to achieve more travel and slightly longer stroke on the shock. A good design at 150 will pedal and descend better than a bad design at 120, and a bad shock will probably feel bad at either length. It's probably better to have a good linkage design than a good shock, I'd be surprised if a top of the line shock could overcome a bad regressive leverage linkage setup. Buying the right bike for your terrain applies at any price point though.
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Dec 4, 2023 20:43
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meowmeowmeowmeow posted:I don't think travel is directly correlated with quality:cost ratio, it's generally the same design with some small tweaks to achieve more travel and slightly longer stroke on the shock. I think a lot of lower travel bikes get put into an XC design bucket and do get different designs from the highel travel. Specialized is a good example of having a different design for pretty much every travel range, hell two different designs for the same range, different price point.
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Dec 4, 2023 22:26
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Hey everybody who rides at night. Tell me what helmet light you’re using and if you’re happy with it.
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Dec 6, 2023 11:42
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Platystemon posted:Hey everybody who rides at night. Outbound Hangover. Yes, the times I’ve used it as a helmet light. Now use it mostly on my commuter.
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Dec 6, 2023 14:57
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Same. It's light, low profile, pretty bright, easy to turn on and adjust with a big button. goes from "adaptive" to high, med, low. I wish it was just slightly brighter but I suppose that would make it either heavier or lower the battery life. My lazer mtb helmets come with a gopro mount that straps on and is shaped to fit in a vent. Handlebar I've been kind of shopping still. Had a light and motion 1200 that was bright, had a great beam pattern with a wide spread and good light low and in front of the bike, but this year it stopped holding a charge. Rubber strap mount was kind of meh. Have a bontrager ion pro that claims to be 1300lm but it doesn't seem as bright, and is a narrower beam that doesn't do well at lighting up where you're going in a turn. It's also annoying to cycle through the flash modes to get to a different solid light mode. But it was free. Good hard mount with a thumb screw clamp that fits 35mm bars. I got a lezyne 1200 because we had it and it was pretty cheap, and that has a pretty good pattern that's wide and really uniform, but the downside of that is you don't have a center spot lighting up the road/trail farther ahead. Works pretty good night mtb riding with the hangover though. So now I'm trying the 1800 smart light which seems neat and pretty bright. Can use race mode which goes between low and high or program 1-4 modes to cycle through (the l&m and lezyne 1200 also have race modes). They also have pretty not great strap mounts but you can stick a gopro adapter on the bottom. What I probably should have done is bought the outbound trail or an exposure or something in the first place. I was really close this summer when some last year's exposure lights were on clearance at some distributors for actually reasonable prices. jamal fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Dec 7, 2023 |
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Dec 6, 2023 17:16
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NiteRider Lumina 900. It's my first light and I have nothing to compare it to, but it lights up the trail where I want to go so I like it. Mount goes on my helmet with a webbing strap, which means you have to put it where the vents are. And while it's never fallen off, it sometimes shifts around a little. It's easy to move between helmets though.
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Dec 6, 2023 18:52
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I have both Outbound Trail Evo and Hangover. I honestly don’t use the hangover very much because the Evo on my bars is like the sun. I only use the hangover on super twisty stuff where my bar light isn’t pointing where I need to look. Both are excellent.
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Dec 6, 2023 21:15
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Scrapez posted:Congrats. My wife just got the same bike. It did come with the Hans Dampf tires so hopefully yours does as well. The Fox suspension is really nice and the purple fleck paint is awesome. Mine just arrived, haven't assembled it yet, but it came with Vee Tire Flow Snap tires. It does have a Deore cassette though, I know some people said theirs came with a Suntour. If I don't like the tires, that's okay, because reviews say they don't last very long anyway. edit - They made the dropper post cable too short, need to replace it. Also the ferrule wasn't even crimped on the end, lol. Lever is very cheap. FogHelmut fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Dec 7, 2023 |
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Dec 7, 2023 19:52
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FogHelmut posted:Mine just arrived, haven't assembled it yet, but it came with Vee Tire Flow Snap tires. It does have a Deore cassette though, I know some people said theirs came with a Suntour. If I don't like the tires, that's okay, because reviews say they don't last very long anyway. Ive got those tires that came stock on a Marin rift zone, and ive been pleasantly surprised. They seemed like they were going to wear out super fast at first, but then they kinda just paused and seemed to last the second half of the season without wearing further. Mine have about 1100 miles on them, 90% dirt, and im guessing theyll last at least half of next season too. I was really pleased that the bike came with sufficiently aggressive tires.
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Dec 8, 2023 04:02
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FogHelmut posted:Mine just arrived, haven't assembled it yet, but it came with Vee Tire Flow Snap tires. It does have a Deore cassette though, I know some people said theirs came with a Suntour. If I don't like the tires, that's okay, because reviews say they don't last very long anyway. If you're looking to change tires right away and go tubeless, this is a great tire combo for cheap. Front: https://planetcyclery.com/maxxis-mi...CxoC09cQAvD_BwE Rear: https://planetcyclery.com/maxxis-minion-dhrii-29-x-2-40-tire-folding-dual-compound-exo-tubeless-ready-black-yellow And yes... The dropper lever is atrocious. Put a PNW Loam dropper lever in purple on the wife's bike.
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Dec 8, 2023 05:44
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Scrapez posted:If you're looking to change tires right away and go tubeless, this is a great tire combo for cheap. Are dropper levers like usable with any post? I still have the stock one on my Izzo and it's hot garbage.
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Dec 8, 2023 07:13
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oXDemosthenesXo posted:Are dropper levers like usable with any post? I still have the stock one on my Izzo and it's hot garbage. Decent aftermarket switches can be set up to use either end of the cable coming out from the post.
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Dec 8, 2023 07:27
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oXDemosthenesXo posted:Are dropper levers like usable with any post? I still have the stock one on my Izzo and it's hot garbage. For the most part, yeah, any lever works with any post. There’s one thing to watch out for, which is that while on shifters, the shifter always gets the pre‐terminated end of the cable with the little cylinder and the derailleur get the crimp‐on ferrule, it’s common for dropper cables to be run backwards, with the post demanding the pre‐terminated end. Some levers (mostly bad ones) also want that end. The Loam isn’t one of them, though. It has a pinch bolt. If you do run into this problem with some other lever, there are barrels that attach to the cut end of the cable with grub screws to fix it, or you can use two cables and couple them somewhere in the middle with a “knarp”. And obviously you can’t use a cable lever for a hydraulic or radio dropper post. Platystemon fucked around with this message at 07:33 on Dec 8, 2023 |
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Dec 8, 2023 07:27
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I tuned the suspension based of Fox's charts, but it still seems soft. But I might just not be used to suspension in general so I could be wrong. The derailleur was adjusted correctly out of the box. Brakes are good. The included pedals are not terrible. Overall experience has been good aside from the dropper cable, but luckily I had some spare cables from a previous project and it was a quick fix. The lever set screw had destroyed the cable that came with it, so I couldn't simply adjust it. oXDemosthenesXo posted:Are dropper levers like usable with any post? I still have the stock one on my Izzo and it's hot garbage. I have the same question. PNW makes one size, but Wolftooth has two lever lengths that they say are for different brand posts.
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Dec 8, 2023 07:38
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Last month, Reddit had a question about dropper remotes for someone with limited dexterity. Someone pointed out the Yep Components Joystick, which I tough twas pretty neat. Pushing it off‐center in anyy direction activates the dropper.  I looking up what it was called for this post, I found that Wolf Tooth has since launched their own take on this concept. It can additionally be rotated out of parallel with the bars. https://i.imgur.com/ElFomVa.mp4 If I break both of my thumbs, maybe I’ll review one.
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Dec 8, 2023 11:47
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Platystemon posted:Last month, Reddit had a question about dropper remotes for someone with limited dexterity. I'm a dumb lung guy and not an engineer but I would think that you need to move that a lot more than you'd normally have to move a dropper lever to achieve actuation. The fulcrum is way smaller so you're really going to have to extend that lever without the help that you can get from mechanical advantage in a single-axis application.
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Dec 8, 2023 12:01
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right, but if you aren't able to use a conventional single-axis, and are able to use this, none of that matters
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Dec 8, 2023 12:43
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 They are both spec’d to have a maximum cable pull of eight millimetres, which yeah works out about right for pivoting around a point with the same radius as the handlebar by forty‐five degrees. Whether or not that’s a problem likely depends on the model of dropper post you have. With mine, I can and do use the barrel adjuster to take out the slack and then some, so that very little lever movement is required to open the valve. I do have a bigger fulcrum than those joysticks, but not that much bigger, and I’m not pivoting the lever by forty‐five degrees. fakeedit: Pinkbike comments mention that the “joystick” form was used by Crank Bros, Maverick, X-Fusionten and fifteen years ago. Some love them. Some hated them. Platystemon fucked around with this message at 13:07 on Dec 8, 2023 |
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Dec 8, 2023 13:04
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Cactus Ghost posted:right, but if you aren't able to use a conventional single-axis, and are able to use this, none of that matters right, but it's being talked about outside of that context
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Dec 8, 2023 14:23
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Is it? The first post about it was talking about people with limited dexterity
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Dec 8, 2023 14:26
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I have limited post reading dexterity
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Dec 8, 2023 14:53
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VelociBacon posted:I have limited post reading dexterity Same, OP.
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Dec 8, 2023 14:54
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FogHelmut posted:I have the same question. PNW makes one size, but Wolftooth has two lever lengths that they say are for different brand posts. Wolftooth have regular and light action, which is lever length. The light action has a longer lever. I don't think it has anything to do with post manufacturer. I've got a light action on my KS dropper and it works great. Regular guy mountain biking just did a video on the 360 lever https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zrRmIrJgTk. It's mostly installation but actuation throw doesn't look too different from a regular lever, other than you can push it in any direction . Here's where he's got it installed and starts showing the throw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zrRmIrJgTk&t=299s
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Dec 8, 2023 15:10
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MarxCarl posted:Wolftooth have regular and light action, which is lever length. The light action has a longer lever. I don't think it has anything to do with post manufacturer. I've got a light action on my KS dropper and it works great. That's what I would think too, but Amazon dot com posted:Which Lever Length?
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Dec 8, 2023 15:50
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