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Ongoing / unresolved "me problem": I like my brake levers' bite point to feel the same left/right. Of course, my left arm is weaker than my right due to being right handed, so the right lever always feels easier than left. I tend to progressively wind out my right brake levers' contact point, since that makes the bite point feel sharper. Over time, the measured bite distance discrepancy builds up - the other day I measured my right's to be a full 1cm further out than the left. Then my OCD for making things matchy-matchy kicks in, so I reset...

My experience with the South Korea World Cup. I thought driving was easy, especially with the blue and pink lines on the road at interchanges and the Naver nav app worked well. The food was pretty good and had one Korean BBQ that was outstanding. Definitely get a bed in your room which I did and heard from others that didn't that is was not good. Did see the ominous black trashcan in the restrooms which by the clogged nature of the toilet (not plural) at the finish line, no one else did. No other restrooms at the finish line...

Damn, this is RAD. Full Honda DH team vibes from back in the day. Here's a first taste of what Antidote Solutions is bringing to the downhill racing table now, and we will have more info including the technical details to reveal at the Loudenvielle World Cup. Fun times ahead! First team news release: https://www.vitalmtb.com/news/press-release/antidote-solutions-enters-w….

Highland disagrees Uphill Access | Highland Mountain Bike Park

This matters. Worked with a guy who was how you say Very Proud of His Excellent Mech Skills. Watched him struggle with a front derailleur for over a half hour before he asked me to take a look at it. Cable was on the wrong side of the pinch bolt. Not even 2 minutes to correct his installation error. That right there is why I spent extra time reading up and watching vids of Sram and Shimano's newer style front d's when they came out. A good mech knows they don't know everything, terra incognita means you study the map...

I removed one of the brake caliper post mount bolts on the weekend and failed to catch one of the cone washers before it bounced across the tiles and down a ducted heating vent. Pro tip: close the vents before working on your bike. Or put some mesh backing on them.

I just swapped in a pair of stupid-cheap new Code RSC's for an extraordinary well-used pair (to the point where I was having a hard time reviving one of the lever bearings, and replacing those things is a PITA - at least with the bearing tools I have). TIps from you and Jono seemed to make a difference on install. Eventual removal will tell the full tale. To the extent I was under-tightening the barb and barrel nut, I'm going to look at the positive. Been doing almost all of my own wrenching for a couple of decades, and I...

Dammit. One on me today. Why is my 12sp XT shifting like garbage on the dirt? Totally helps when you put the 2nd position cog in the right orientation. Lesson: if you need glasses/readers, wear em when aligning your cogs. It really helps to connect the goddamn (alignment) dots on the cogs....

There was a run of sram xx brakes in about 2010 with the super light lever bodies that were known to occasionally shatter when tightening. They had a composite filament kind of structure, and were so expensive they weren’t common. I recall having a major discussion with the sram team rep when two did it on a weekend before a race and both athlete’s bikes had front ends covered in DOT fluid.

Here's a new one from this past weekend - catching up on maintenance doing a brake bleed. Need to clean the pads off so I go to my shelf of flammable /aerosol cans in my garage. Brain is on autopilot, I thought I grabbed the brake cleaner and sprayed a set of pads was confused by the smell. Turns out I grabbed penetrating oil.

“Why do these new grips feel like crap?” weeks pass “Why does my right grip have a big L on the end? … Oohhhhh” I also found myself the other day mistaking the ft-lb scale on my new torque wrench for the Nm scale so now I’m wondering what bolts on my bike are fighting for their lives rn.

Double upvote.

One thing missing here is the fact that with the proliferation of composite know how, there are more people around able to safely repair a wider range of issues. Rather than pretending we are recycling carbon bikes I’d love to see more frames designed in ways that facilitate repair. Repair is verifiable in a way that recycling is not, it is cost effective for everyone concerned, and it is as close as you’ll get to good for the environment. It probably flows on to other design decisions to ensure repair is viable (like bearing placement, etc etc), but designing bikes...

There is a little predicament in the Persian Gulf that that means the hunger for recycled plastic has skyrocketed. Ironically, the moron-in-chief is going to make electric cars, recycling and efficiency a lot more economically attractive in the land of freedumb.

Might be one in the minority here, but I always like having a bit narrower field of view for videos like this. Having the nearly 180 degree vertical fov and extreme fish eye affect because of it is off putting to me, and part of the reason I hate 360 degree cameras being used for pov shots. Great riding and love the follow cam for the stage though!

Ask them WTF were they thinking building out that Auburn spot having the team build this bike then recall everyone to MH, saying they have no money then charging 7k for a frame. The pricing seems like a miss but maybe they're trying to recoup. I suspect that they were told to build something as high end as possible. I also suspect they lost some key people to their relocation scheme. Trippin over dollars to pick up pennies. How did it feel to be taken down by a run of the mill crab bike. Echo questions on chainstay/stack Find out...

Will we see a new Enduro?

I kind of state the following in my opinion on the Dominions. I really don't think a light dead stroke matters as much as some people think. Since we don't spend most of our time in the dead stroke area but rather the bite point. The bite point tends to lead to brake fatigue in my experience and you can get just as much fatigue on a Dominion as any other brake. This is why a GR4 interests me...a lot.

Re: "Will we see any of the mega brands move to Avinox mid-term?" I agree that these price cuts are a direct consequence of Avinox eating everybody's lunch. But I don't think we'll see big brands starting to use Avinox, for compliance reasons. The one thing that draws consumers towards Avinox (- high power output) is basically also the reason why the big brands don't use them. If other electric motor OEMs like Bosch or Brose wanted to make, say, a 4.000 watt motor in an e-bike form factor, they absolutely could. I'm told there's nothing holding them back from...