Mountain Bike Update

[John Weber]

Ok guys, I just completed my front end updates, as per your responses to an earlier post and some Fathers Day gifts. My old steering set-up was long and low, thin grips, non-padded gloves, and resulted in numbness in my hands, early carpal tunnel according to my wife (family doc). So I tried to make some changes. Basically a new steering setup started with a new Koski shorter stem with more rise, new Titec downhill riser bar with 1.5” of rise and sweeps both back and up, and followed up with some nicely padded Ritchey grips and new Louis Garneau Biogel Air gloves. I had bar ends on my old bike and may reinstall, but I wanted to see how I liked the new setup without bar ends first. So far so good, I’ve only had a few short rides, but already a good improvement. The gloves are excellent and feel great as do the grips. I may also play a little more with my seat to see if I can fine tune the setup a bit. Overall a good investment and hopefully will help log some more miles this year. Just thought I’d post a little follow up.

Thanks for your help – John

http://www.weberwoodworking.com/picss04/mtbikeupgrade.jpg

[Bill Karow]

John -

Glad you like the new setup. Now how about some full side shots of the bike? Looks like a nice hardtail. I also agree with the choice of sturdy downhill bars over flimsier ultralight stuff. Bars and stem are two areas I don't try and save weight. (Catastophic bar failure = cosmetic reconstructive surgery...)

I've got a late 90s Trek Y-22 dual suspension, and a custom hardtail that's reputedly underway for late summer delivery - you know how those craftsmen can procrastinate :) Unfortunately, the Trek is a cream colored carbon Y-frame, and MAN does it get filthy. It shows every speck of mud!

Do you do much road riding?

[Ed Falis]

Looking good, John. Glad you were able to feel a difference right away - good sign.

- Ed

[John Weber]

Bill,

Here ya go...

I remember the “Y” bikes; they were the hottest things around. I took great pride in beating a guy on a red Y-22 in my one and only race. Crème would be a tough color, I also remember they had a Y-“5-0” in ocean blue with wave graphics. WOW! A custom hardtail, who, what, where… did you go with titanium, carbon, etc… I have a buddy that just spent more then some people make in a year on a killer carbon road bike. I had another mt. bike, but sold it a couple years ago so I do all my riding on the Trek. Although most is not singletrack, or even mountain biking. I have a set of smooth fat tires, and we hit the rail trails and other “paved” trails as a family. When we lived in Tennessee, I would bike a fair bit, but moving to Indiana, getting married, buying a house, kids, and woodworking really eat into biking – mostly moving to Indiana (very flat compared to Tennessee).

It’s a Trek 970 Cromoly Frame set with a Rock Shox Judy SL. I took delivery in early 1995. The shox was upgraded a couple years ago. Not the hottest thing around but it been a great bike. It’s a XT/LX package with a 24 speed Grip Shift X-Ray shifter. Upgrades include a Serfas full Kevlar seat, currently running IRC tires, Shimano clipless petals, and the fork and new front end. I also upgrade to v-brakes when I got the Judy (they are awesome compared to the old canti’s, but maybe I’ll looks at disk sometime – just too cool), add some Avid brake levers and that’s it. It’s a 19-1/2” frame and fits me well, but probably weighs a ton by today’s standards. I also typically sport a Burley trailer, or trail-a-bike with the kids, so speed in rarely the plan. I hope to give it a real trail test this week.

Thanks – John

http://www.weberwoodworking.com/picss04/trek970.jpg

[Bill Karow]

I prefer steel, personally, to the aluminum that's being used so much today. My feeling is that steel is a better ride, and using the new steel alloys (Foco, etc) you pay almost no weight premium for a frame that won't suddenly fail when it's reached its fatigue limits like aluminum can.

My custom is an Anvil (www.anvilbikes.com (http://www.anvilbikes.com/)), and it's being made of a selection of the new steel tubes. What's really amazing is how reasonable his frame prices are, nowhere near as expensive as you'd think. Given my bulk (6'3", 210 pounds) we opted for an oversized downtube that's laterally ovalized at the bottom bracket, and vertically ovalized at the head tube. It'll probably have SRAM (Gripshift) X-0 drivetrain, not sure about cranks yet but probably Race Face or Truvativ since they're both better values than current Shimano pricing. Oversized chain and seat stays, curved to balance heel clearance for my size 14's with room for muddy tires. Fox shock for sure. Mud clearance for 2.5" tires.

I'm going with hydraulic disk brakes, and probably internal brake line routing. Anvil's got some photos in his gallery of that kind of setup. Wheels haven't been built yet, but I tend towards mid-line sealed bearing hubs and sturdier rims. The mud on some of our trails is still almost up to the hubs, so I feel less guilty about spending less time on maintenance on mid-line hubs than I would neglecting Chris Kings.

I hope to have the new bike available for a planned late summer mountain bike group trip to Salida, CO. There's a great trail there, Monarch Crest, that starts at 11,300 feet and climbs up to maybe 12,500 before ending up down in Salida. And there's apparently also another Monarch Summit area trail that's even more technically demanding. I won't make the mistake of two years ago - we did a road ride first, then Monarch Crest two days later. The road ride was from near Littleton, CO over a few passes (High Grade Road and Squaw Pass, for any locals) to the summit of Mt. Evans (14,260 feet) and back. 140 miles of rather extreme pain, all the while knowing you had 35 miles of singletrack coming up! This year it's *only* mountain biking :)

I tend to push woodworking aside when biking's available (heresy, I know). Luckily, in Maine there's plenty of time for woodworking when the snow's piling up!

Please feel free to PM any time about biking. I'll holler when I finally get the new bike.