Bicycles?

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Archer
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Re: Bicycles?

Post by Archer »

Yeah took me a second to realize the no pic ... spacing.

Good looking bikes though.

I'm still at the point of needing to bleed my brakes from the last time I had my Kona Dawg Deluxe out.
I HATE bleeding brakes on a bicycle. Hydraulic brakes are ok but when it's time to do adjustments and bleeding it makes me wish I'd swapped them out to BB7s a while back. They are Hayes Carbon Strokers and OEM with the bike. When they are working right and in tune they are great but working on them is an exercise in fiddle factor. Get them right on the stand and then put my fat rear end on it and they'll be rubbing sure as certain.
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Re: Bicycles?

Post by GasGuzzler »

Ah, bikes are like guns. You should see the rig I came up with to mate the Tioga disc to the Redline cranks.
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Re: Bicycles?

Post by P89DC »

Archer wrote:...When they are working right and in tune they are great but working on them is an exercise in fiddle factor. Get them right on the stand and then put my fat rear end on it and they'll be rubbing sure as certain.
I'd upgrade to low-end Shimano. No fiddling and cheaper than BB7s. All the other hydros just suck.
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Re: Bicycles?

Post by GasGuzzler »

My latest project is a build to raffle away to raise funds for the local county youth baseball league for which I sit on the Board of Directors.

You can see our website (for which I am the maintainer) here ---> Boys Baseball of Cooke County

Since I am now doing PR/IT/social media for the league it's pretty easy for me to get sponsors involved. (I really bit off more than can easily chew having to learn Facebook and all). Check us out on Facebook @BoysBaseball.

Anyway you can see the news story I wrote and published to the site if you click the "read more" on the preview of the article about the bike. In the meantime here are some pictures of my first ever "New School" build. I'd done 4-5 "Old School" and two "mid-school" builds up the this point.

If you wanna know the differences just ask and I'll keep typing. Meanwhile...here are some pics.

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Re: Bicycles?

Post by Ranch Dog »

Very nice!
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Re: Bicycles?

Post by Archer »

P89DC wrote:
Archer wrote:...When they are working right and in tune they are great but working on them is an exercise in fiddle factor. Get them right on the stand and then put my fat rear end on it and they'll be rubbing sure as certain.
I'd upgrade to low-end Shimano. No fiddling and cheaper than BB7s. All the other hydros just suck.
I have the BB7s on my Gary Fisher Big Sur and they are EXCELLENT although I'm told if I swap out the roundagon rotors for G2s they'll rival hydros. They ran me something like $35 per axel for the brakes but
I had to swap out the rims/wheels as the Bontrager wheels that came on it were not disc hubs and the front was radially laced spokes.

Looks like the Shimano Deore Discs are now hydraulics and the M454s are history. In fact unless I'm looking at it wrong Universal Cycles and Jenson are only selling the hydro Shimano discs for mountain bikes. At least one of the 'cheap' versions looks like 'pre bled' hydros the other MIGHT be mechanical but it isn't totally clear from the description.
You can still get Hayes MX mechs for about ~$40 per axel. The Rondagon Avids are ~$67 w/o levers.

I just picked up the newer Hayes bleed kit. They can make it look real easy on youtube but I'd rather do a car's brakes any day of the week.
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Re: Bicycles?

Post by GasGuzzler »

At my height and weight I can't see hydraulic brakes having any advantage. I haven't taken the time to post pictures of it yet but I built another new school BMX (to keep) after the Sunday (built to raffle) shown above and its Odyssey EvoII brake and double/double cable will lock the wheel while seated and riding on pavement.
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Re: Bicycles?

Post by Archer »

It's all relative:



The first 3:35 or so looks like the meadows section.
After that you get to the plunge.
The full ride is ~26 miles, ending around 2500' elevation. The last six miles or so is around 5K foot of decent.



Honestly, I'd just about bet there's edited out crash footage.
I'm so far out of practice that I'd have to work back up to this but I've done this trail at least 4 years.
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Re: Bicycles?

Post by Ranch Dog »

I see something regularly given my location that I've meant to mention. I see caravans of pickups hauling beater bicycles to Mexico every day of the week. The bikes are layered twice the height of the top of the bed to the top of the cab, so it is a load of them.

Just like the caravans of beater cars. In the case of the later, one car that is operational will be towing two that aren't. It is a common site to see the three cars linked together sitting on the side of the road as the tow car has given up. These are always real beaters. Late one night, I was coming home from Houston on US59, and I passed a threesome pushing another threesome where the tow car had given out. That is one way to get it done, and I admired the determination and mindset.
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Re: Bicycles?

Post by GasGuzzler »

^^^ Yep...I'm on the north end (Texas wise) of the south bound caravan - right on the main thoroughfare I35. See the junk cars trains all the time but not the bikes yet.
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