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Rebuilt my Santa Cruz Blur... lighter cranks, bar/stem, Pike 120, 9 speed drivetrain (28t front ring, DH 7speed short cage derailleur modified to shift 9 cogs, 10-42 cassette with 42t cut off and derailleur only shifts 10-32 range).
26.5 lbs with good tires and tools on it. This bike RIPS.
I am not sure about anyone else, but all I really want to do for fun is mountain bike these days. I can easily justify spending money on my mountain bike before either my road bike or my miata. To that end, I built a Santa Cruz Bronson V2, photo of it at the top of the Whole Enchilada a couple weeks ago. Came in at just under 30 lbs. Since this photo I have added a 35mm stem and a Fabric Scoop.
Speaking of road bikes, my old Madone 7 is being warrantied by Trek and they are offering credit towards the price of a new bike or an Emonda SLR frameset. Emilio, how are you choosing to order your new Madone SLR disc? Is it a frameset or a complete bike? Have you ordered it already? The bike looks amazing.
I am not really excited with the build choices or the stock paint colors, and the seatpost/stem/handlebar combo they offer on the 58cm really won't work. How integrated parts that total $1k are not configurable or exchangeable for all bikes when ordering, is beyond my comprehension. Project One is an automatic $500 upcharge just to configure with stock paint. The product managers for the Madone really aren't identifying me as their target customer, but then again, they have always kind of missed the market.
Was going to order the Madone 9 Disc as a frameset, then Cervelo released the S5 Disc I have been hoping for the last few years.
I loved my old gen 1 S5, and the S3 Disc I'm riding now. I'll order the S5 Disc as a frameset and swap my current Dura Ace Di2 and parts over. Same colorway as this press photo, graphite/gray/white.
Agreed that Project One's inability to allow parts customization was dumb.
I bead blasted/polished a spare set of wheels and spokes (by spare, I mean a set I bought off ebay for the powertap hub) and threw on a $30 gossamer crankset. $8.50 on new nipples too because I went down to the brass on most of them when blasting the black off. Only gained a pound over the carbon cranks and wheels. I may throw the steel fork back on.
'wheelbuilder.com' laced that back wheel wrong, so that got fixed too.
Been prepping for my trip to Masters World Cyclocross Championships in Mol, Belgium at the end of the month. No one wants to hear about prep though, just pictures of success if I'm able to achieve it.
There for a week so I'll get a chance to ride a few famous roads; Koppenberg, Mur De Huy, maybe La Redoute.
Two weeks later Cyclocross nationals in Lousiville, KY. Hoping to repeat as champion again.
Rekon 29X2.6 just fits. Need this for more float on the snow. Had a fat bike but our trails get packed down so fast after a snow fall by all the locals that you can almost use a road bike out there. Rather keep the budget for a single off road bicycle.
Trying a 45North Nicotine studded since it measures **** to **** at 64mm in the front. Will replace a Nokian 2.1 Extreme 296 studded that's quite narrow and heavy. All rubber is mostly ok, studded front just in case is a bit more confidence inspiring.
Been prepping for my trip to Masters World Cyclocross Championships in Mol, Belgium at the end of the month. No one wants to hear about prep though, just pictures of success if I'm able to achieve it.
There for a week so I'll get a chance to ride a few famous roads; Koppenberg, Mur De Huy, maybe La Redoute.
Two weeks later Cyclocross nationals in Lousiville, KY. Hoping to repeat as champion again.
What day do you race at nationals? I'm only an hour away, so I'm going to try and make it down for as much as I can.
Dude, thanks for posting. So awesome that you went over there to compete. I'm gonna put this on while I ride the trainer tonight. Amazing effort.
Originally Posted by dcamp2
Video hotness...
That video is so dope. Obviously, I can't ride quite that well, but I'd love to be able to have terrain like that with actual loam. The socal blow out struggle is real.
I've been on a bike maintenance and tuning spree lately. I'm making another effort to make my pike rc a bit more tolerable. After doing the ACS3 the fork was about 180% better, but still sorta meh. I am never able to get lsc/hsc damping in the sweet spot on this thing and I have no desire for the full lockout that the stock shim stack provides.
I used restakor to model the stock shim stacks for the compression damper and I made a version of the rct3 stack that had less preload (moved the ring shim up). My hunch is that the midvalve (and associated spring) has a lot to do with what is going on here, so without being able to re-spec that spring, i'm sorta bandaiding this thing, but anything is better then how this thing is from the factory. Obviously I don't have the ability to change the piston so again, i'm messing with parts of a whole system that don't like to be messed with a piece at a time and with no dyno, i'm pissing into the wind. There is an interesting amount of impact that the rebound tune has on the compression damping as well. I may buy a new rebound shaft and compression bypass shaft and drill the bypass ports out so that I get better flow in bypass and then have a bit more room to play with the stack. Fun stuff.
Related, rebuilding reverb's sucks. I've done the 100 hour service on these many times, but the 400 hour service is a bear.
It's real tough to get where you want to be in one (hunch based) rebuild.
at least you admit it... good luck
Originally Posted by EErockMiata
I used restakor to model the stock shim stacks for the compression damper and I made a version of the rct3 stack that had less preload (moved the ring shim up). My hunch is that the midvalve (and associated spring) has a lot to do with what is going on here, so without being able to re-spec that spring, i'm sorta bandaiding this thing, but anything is better then how this thing is from the factory. Obviously I don't have the ability to change the piston so again, i'm messing with parts of a whole system that don't like to be messed with a piece at a time and with no dyno, i'm pissing into the wind. There is an interesting amount of impact that the rebound tune has on the compression damping as well. I may buy a new rebound shaft and compression bypass shaft and drill the bypass ports out so that I get better flow in bypass and then have a bit more room to play with the stack. Fun stuff.
It's real tough to get where you want to be in one (hunch based) rebuild.
at least you admit it... good luck
If you have any educated guidance I'm all ears. The pike RC stack is garbage, the rct3 stack isn't much better but it's already 200% less stiff then the rc stack according to restakor. There is no way to provide the proper amount of HSC/LSC mix to use any of the adjuster without it feeling harsh. Even in wide open, the fork still has too much LSC damping but at least then, HSC is tolerable. Not something most people notice in general trail riding... but hammering braking bumps at mach chicken this fork is awful. Not trying to throw stones, but just about all of the forks out of RS save the new rc2 lyric have been terrible in this regard. Even the new RC2 charger 2 is mediocre at best for finding a sweet spot and the adjusters are basically a fools errand.
I've run RS products on the last few gens because they've been much more user serviceable. The new fox stuff I've ridden has been impressive, even the lowest end grip stuff. I realize that it's hard for a company like RS to tune for riders that can only hit 80% (at best) of the energy into the products that a pro rider/tester would put into the hardware but damn. I also get that the product has to match everything from 140-230lbs... but I don't really have anything nice to say about product if you have experience in high quality stuff as a consumer in the automotive or moto fields. Economics of scale and all that, I get it... but god damn.
I've never tried to retune one of those... I've always given feedback to fork engineers and moved on (gotten an RC2 damper a stuck that in the fork).
For every complaint we get about 'harsh compression' you'd get 5 if the lockout isn't stiff enough. OEM MTB products are always a compromise because of the huge variation in vehicle weight and speed (and people love lockouts).
How does one unclip so quickly/easily on a ride like that? Just time on the bike til it occurs unconsciously?
Yeah I'm guessing it's just practice practice practice. Also helps having SPD shoes with rubber on the bottoms (not roadie shoes) and pedals with some kind of platform so you can still pedal/corner even when unclipped.
Cyclocross dismounts are just practice. Normal two-sided XC pedals and MTB shoes.
A few details
- Learn to swing leg over, click out and land on the run without swerving. At first you over slow and swerve. Then gradually, you do it at full speed and don't swerve.
- Jump just high enough to land on the saddle. No higher or the bike bounces
- After obstacle, you accelerate hard for a few strides then remount. You don't remount while stationary.
- Downshift to gear you will need after obstacle. This, along with those few strides of acceleration make for max acceleration after obstacle.
- Dismount with left pedal down. This leave right pedal at top of stroke, This matters for remount.
- Spot pedal while in jumping onto seat. I land with my right foot on pedal at same time as I touch seat. So some of my stored kinetic energy drives pedal down.
- Standard technique is to cross right leg behind left leg when dismounting. This means no running for a moment while you bring the right leg around to continue running
- Advanced technique is to swing right leg between left leg and bike so first contact with ground is already running. More difficult and risky than standard technique but much faster.
I do this when the ground is smooth and speeds are high.
No brakes
Geared to cruise at 29-34mph
Fixed gear
20mm tires
Local velodrome is 46° banking, smooth wood. They warn you that if you go too slow you may simply slide down the banking, or hit your pedal on the banking and crash because you aren't leaning over enough.
Never ridden on a velodrome other than a half lap in the rain during a cross race in the 90's. They wont let anyone ride on the track unsupervised. You need to do classes and get certified just to be able do open training sessions.
They warn you many times, about moving up or down the track abruptly or without checking first. For indoor tracks, you run a full disc rear and sometimes a full disc in front.
Signed up for newb class in a few weeks. I have foolish dreams about actually being a competitive pursuit rider. That's a standing start 2k time trial.
2 and 1/2 minutes of pain. That effort duration has always been right in my wheelhouse. I guess we'll see where things shake out.
#srsbzns
10-14-2018, 12:28 PM
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