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I ran that on a claymore for a short time. Not enough traction front or rear. Would maybe use as an arizona setup where you're not cornering very hard. I won't run anything but ss compound up front now. And s rear.

The two rims taped together? A "lazy lace" -- swapping over existing hub & spokes to a new rim.

ethirteen has a 27.5" HD driver Sidekick rear wheel on sale for $360 USD. Don't know what that works out to in Canada after currency conversion, shipping, and possible tariffs. If you're hard on wheels it's also 32 spoke, which I like: https://www.ethirteen.com/products/grappler-sidekick-flux-aluminum-gr-r…

Great question. To your point, I think the cannibalism is worse than that, because instead of wanting multiple pedal bikes for different sorts of pedal days with granular differences between each model, one ebike is pretty much fine for everything. In the past, as a MTB pedaler, I would have loved to have at least three mountain bikes: a long travel enduro bike, a shorter travel trail bike, and maybe a hardtail or XC bike. Maybe more. If I wanted to give up on pedaling and get an ebike instead, I don't need two ebikes. For ebikers who want to...

and for everything electric it's just power, torque and battery talk. yawn.

The etiquette piece might be my single biggest grievance from the ebike crowd. I'm a big guy and climbing is not my strength, so I have PLENTY of experience with being passed on the uptrails by both regular and ebike riders. The ebike riders are exponentially worse at saying excuse me, on your left, or simply making some noise to let you know they're behind you. I've even seen groups of ebike riders talking and laughing about how fast they're cruising past other riders at the top of the climb. These aren't new riders. At the end of the day...

If the bars still turn smoothly then it isn't too tight - there needs to be tension in the bearings themselves to work properly, but there will be noticeable resistance if its too tight. Grease the bolt thread (and maybe under the head) and makes sure all the surfaces are clean and at least lightly greased so there isn't anything binding up and preventing the parts from being pulled together. Theres a lot of pieces in a headset which adds up to frcition as you tighten the bolt. You are unlikely to break anything by overtightening a normal headset (ignore...

Fair point

Charlie no

I haven't observed the same in NH, ME, and upstate NY. I see probably 80% analog bikes except for Wendsduro at Highland where there are more. I really wonder how regional this is, or if it's more dependent on the trail systems or days of the week people ride.

Seems like a lot of e-bike talk in here lately, can you move this to the e-bike thread?

My experience with the Conti rubbers is similar to @notanengineer ... even the Super Soft lasts longer than the useful life of the tire itself. At a certain point, the casing starts losing structure, and the knobs start cracking at the base well before they physically wear down. As his durometer testing showed, they layer a harder rubber over a softer core, which is the opposite of most other brands. In our abrasive dirt, the knob "shells" kind of get polished down and very slippery too, before they become physically worn down. IMO, their whole rubber lineup should be effectively...