Confessions from the fuckwits

leitch

Feelin' a bit rrranty
Big weekend of maintenance for me.
Bike developed a creak, like a cracking sound, in the last week. Thought I’d get to it this weekend.
Yesterday’s ride resulted in the second snapped dropper cable for the year, so replaced that and serviced the post while it was out so I could get a little local spin in before pulling all the pivots apart to find the creak.
Started at the main pivot, clean and regrease bearings all round, looking for the noisy one. Didn’t take long to find this mess…
Looks like a Rocky Mountain linkage? I found the main pivot needed constant cleaning on my Instinct, seemed like strangely small bearings and they'd just get caked in shit and hold heaps of moisture no matter what you did.
 

cammas

Seamstress
I'm looking at gravel bikes again send help
I swore when my mate brought one I wasn’t getting one, but sure enough when I needed something for commuting it fitted the bill perfectly. I can cruise along at a comfortable pace, deal with different terrains with ease and it’s comfortable but lately I’ve been thinking about doing some of the gravel roads around my place with it.

It’s a slippery slope so be careful ;)
 

PJO

in me vL comy
So lucky I live where I do. Gravel bikes don't make sense around here, the fire trails either point up or down and not much in between. I can see that they would work well in flat country.
 

leitch

Feelin' a bit rrranty
Never ever have I seen a happy gravel rider.
Eh, I mean it's different to pootling around on a $25k e-bike talking about whether 5DEV cranks or eewings are better, for sure.

But it has all the good things about road riding, with the nice "being in the bush" elements of MTB and distinctly fewer fuckwits in Rangers and Range Rovers trying to kill you. And yes, if you ride one on single track, there's a whole other under-biking element that comes into play and can make flat dull singletrack suddenly a lot harder, aha.
 

sane

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Looks like a Rocky Mountain linkage? I found the main pivot needed constant cleaning on my Instinct, seemed like strangely small bearings and they'd just get caked in shit and hold heaps of moisture no matter what you did.
Yeah exactly. Teeny tiny bearings are so cute but do go bang apparently. Better keep a closer eye on them
 

kten

understands stuff moorey doesn't
Eh, I mean it's different to pootling around on a $25k e-bike talking about whether 5DEV cranks or eewings are better, for sure.

But it has all the good things about road riding, with the nice "being in the bush" elements of MTB and distinctly fewer fuckwits in Rangers and Range Rovers trying to kill you. And yes, if you ride one on single track, there's a whole other under-biking element that comes into play and can make flat dull singletrack suddenly a lot harder, aha.
Judging from your response and the referral to ebikes and cranks (my previous posts) etc I have hit a nerve. I honestly DGAF what you ride. I do think gravel riding is ridiculous and the look that seems to go with it is not something I personally would get into but you do you.
Remember..
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beeb

Dr. Beebenson, PhD HA, ST, Offset (hons)
I don't mind a bit of gravelling. It's friggen ludicrous how quick a lightweight bike can go and how hard a gear you can push uphill compared to a dual-susp MTB (local climb is pushing pretty hard on the "enduro" bike when riding in a 30t chainring and 45t granny, same climb on the 'gravel' bike was 36t chainring 32t granny - and slightly easier... o_O). But anytime I try and ride any single track on a downward gradient (downhill should not be mixed into the same sentence as a gravel bike...) or roads with heavy corrugations it makes my (plated) collarbone ache very quickly. It's fun to just spin away some km's on it on the smooth stuff though. Maybe a gravel bike with one of those 40mm travel forks could be fun in a smooth climb/green trail single-track descent scenario, but I honestly would (will be) just build a short travel trail bike in a lightweight spec for that type of riding.
 
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ozzybmx

taking a shit with my boobs out
I love BMX but judging by the frames for sale on here, they would be quite uncomfortable for those on XL bikes.
Not a RB giant but a regular rAdelaide giant sold me this Marino frame around 10yrs ago, he got it made up to use as 29" BMX because of his XXL-ness.

I only bought it because it came with a Pro Components XCR 29er carbon fork and they were like rockin' horse poo. F & F, stem, BB and crank was $200 IIRC.

Ends up it built up into a bike that has done a load of random caravan trips, been a lender to MTB-less mates and done the pub run a few times.

Still got this bike too.

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