What's the weather like in Doug's neighborhood?

Friday, June 15, 2007

Stoke

Not much for stoke at the end of the week here. My Ventana is in a box heading back to the factory for an attitude adjustment. Hopefully it can be straightened out without too much hassle. I did throw some of them new shiny parts on and give them a couple of short thrashings prior to breaking the x-5 down to the frame.

The 10mm thru axle is cool.

Between that and the centerlock rotor I have dropped the rear brake noise. Not sure if it is placebo or what, but the centerlock rotors are grabbing harder than my IS rotors did. They also have the added benefit that they are centered on the hub so they aren't constantly running out as the wheel spins. Maybe next week I can get bug Mike to order up a DT RWS thru axle.

MMM. Stiff, light, and tool-less. Excelent...


Also got my 5in rockers for the 2in stroke Roco. They are a bit smaller and lighter. I am somewhat concerned about the fact that the shock mounting hardware is downsized to 6mm on the 75mm thru bolt instead of 8mm. Reason being is that I bent the 8mm one. Maybe I can just run a higher grade alloy steel bolt to help instead of the stainless one that ventana sends with the kit.

They showed up just in time to see the X-5 go into a box.

Well what a load of crap. The most expensive chi-chi fork and now custom frame that I have ever owned have both gone in for warranty in their first 6 months of life. Ever wonder if all of the advances in bicycle technology are getting us anything other than lighter wallets??? That's it I am going to have to go back to a rigid single speed. I am already getting fed up with the complexity of my suspension. Reading through the tech documents on the last couple of forks I have owned it seems to me that the possibility to miss a step during re-assembly outweighs the benefit of learning to work on the particular fork. I miss the open bath marzocchi days. You know, back when forks didn't have 10 o-ring seals in their damping cartridge and you could tune your fork without having to be an expert on damper design. Back in the day it was a shimmed compression damper and you could adjust rebound, oil height, and oil weight. That was it. And it just worked. Now I have 5 knobs to turn externally, but can't get my fork to perform as I want. Gotta love these "advances". Rant off...

Riding? Got in a Fremont Older loop and a HC loop earlier in the week. Good to get back in the saddle after a couple weeks off. Just a couple of 1-1.5 hour rides. I need to get some more saddle time in for endurance. Maybe this weekend.

Friday, June 8, 2007

Friday update

As most can tell I am doing a lot of stuff other than riding right now. Hopefully that will change shortly.

Thursday shop ride was a bust. I showed up to find Mike was already out riding. I decide to wing a solo ride only to find that my liners are missing. So I decided to call it a day and go work on my bikes and hang out with Austin (I owed him some garage time with dad). Oh well, we had a good time despite not riding.

New parts are always fun. My Saint wheelset showed up yesterday. Man are these things tanks (2530g to be exact). They weigh as much as my tubeless 823 wheels. Guess they are destined to be my heavy duty wheels. But they were only $135 for front/rear/derailleur so I can't complain too much. Construction of the Saint hubs and derailleur are nice. I will probably match them up with a mid weight 2.2-2.3 tire set and call it good for now.

More cool stuff...
Got my Ultimate Professional Clamp for my park stand this week. Now I can work on my bike again without having to move the gravity dropper every time.

Hell yeah, that will do much better. Now I have 2 clamps on my stand so I can go pro or swap parts from bike to bike without having one of the bikes on the floor.

Even more cool stuff...
Roco R Air shock just showed up today. Should drop over a pound off of the ventana without sacrificing much if anything in terms of ride quality. Time will have to tell on that statement, but quite a few are singing the praises of this shock already. Since it has no platform it should be more plush than the current fox offerings (sorry stu). Also no air valve interference with the rockers, so I will be able to get things adjusted easily. At 350g it sits right in the middle of the rp23 and dhx air for weight, so it isn't a light weight xc shock.

The uncool stuff. Well, I had noticed some odd cable rub marks by my front derailleur cable. Odd in that the cable is stationary so I should get minimal rub. I threw some tape on the spot a month ago and carried on. I noticed that the tape had been torn up pretty good but didn't think anything of it. Well, yesterday I had the rear of the bike apart and I noticed that the seat stay yoke on the frame is the culprit. Dang, that ain't good. So I got into it to find that the front triangle on my frame is slightly out of whack. Not bent, but the main pivot is shifted slightly to one side (maybe .040-.060"). I don't think this would normally be an issue, but in my case the custom sizing put a weld right in the arc path for the rocker. So it rubs in the last .5" of travel. Not bad, but not good. Will have to wait and see what the big guy at ventana has to say about this.


This weekend's events??
I dunno, but I'll be damned if I don't brush off the cobwebs and get out for a ride at some point. Anyone want to hit up a demo loop or something fun?