got a new xc bike 3/31/2009
Google sites is probably one of the most buggy things ever. Thinking of going back to iWeb on my macbook. Which is really sad cause I like google a lot. The saddest thing is, I can't even use google sites in google Chrome browser because it is so buggy.
Think they need to get some stuff sorted out before they publish things to the public...
Anyway, I picked up a used Specialized Stumpjumper FSR Expert (that's a mouthful).
It is my purpose built XC/trail bike and I am going to be putting some good miles on it. First true full suspension XC bike, so far so good, just have a lot of suspension tuning to do!
Here are the pics!
rocking a TBC BottleRocket now! 2/24/2009
So I am now rocking a full suspension bike. It is AWESOME. I am ALMOST done with it. All that is left is changing the fork internals to a U-Turn so I have lower travel and adjustment. After that it will be rocking. I may change the rear shock size to lower the travel a little as I don't think my riding really permits all the travel.
Sadly to afford this beauty I had to sell almost all of my other bikes. I sold the slingshot below and the vagrant. Both for a loss, the Vagrant I really lost money on. I also sold my Trek Soho S but did not lose too much on it, just the cost of accessories.
I am looking forward to picking up an XC bike down the road as I really have nothing to pedal along singletrack trails anymore. I am thinking a used Transition Covert would fit the bill, I just don't have the money with the wedding coming up.
I am now down to two bikes. This beautiful BottleRocket and my Terrible One BMX bike, which I just put some new parts on. I replaced the brake lines and rear tire/tube. The tires and tubes have lasted over 5 years (unprecidented) but the rear tire needed to go. The T1 is absolutely awesome, 100% solid, you can bunny hop and all you can hear is the tires, I will try to get pics up later.
Here are the pics of it:
I am rocking it as a single speed. I really hate gears and even a full suspension bike is no exception. This thing is just a freeride monster waiting for a trip to Snowshoe, West Virginia. I can't wait to take it to there and Boyne Highlands with Jose when I am back in Michigan.
Below is the Yess ETR-D, it's new from them and is awesome. I have it installed improperly above but figured it out later and corrected it. Above it was clunking on the chainstay and I realized I needed to tension it and create angle for it to work properly.
finished up the vagrant 12/8/2008
Well here are some photo's. All I did was clean up the driveline by removing the chain guide and adding a stronger chain.
Sadly enough I have both of them up for sale. Asking 1350 for the vagrant and 1100 for the slingshot.
Vagrant comes with Maxxis Minion Downhill 2.5 inch tires along with everything that is currently on it. I'll also throw in another seat and an X9 rear derailleur and shifter.
For the slingshot I'll throw in a couple front rings, X9 front and rear derailleur and shifter plus an extra 29er tire and tubes.
revamped the slingshot! 9/30/2008
I am in love with single speed! The bike I purchased below, the trek soho S I wasn't sure about. I thought I would want the gears. After commuting 14 miles round trip a few times I realized how much I like the simplicity of a single speed, and how I honestly don't need all those gears!
So my bike list from oldest to newest:
Terrible One BMX (1 gear)
Jamis Komodo 2.0 (9 gears down from 18, and now the official ride of Casey (my girlfriend))
Transition Vagrant (1 gear down from 9, conversion kit w/ tensioner)
Slingshot (1 gear down from 27, new hub chain ring and chain 32x18 with half link, no tensioner, vertical dropouts (magic gear))
Trek Soho S (1 gear, average 16 MPH 7 miles to work in 25 minutes)
Well here's the good stuff!!
FROM:
new bike in the stable! 7/16/2008
Well I sold a laptop and bought another bike, this time it is a real commuting bike, not a mountain bike with road tires on it :).
I decided to go with a Trek, they seem to be pretty big dogs in the bicycling biz these days so I figured I would give them a shot.
After extensive research I came home with a really nice slingshot, threw road tires on it and had felt bad for the old bird every time I saw her with the treads on it, also felt bad every time I thought about going to burchfield or any other single track.
Knowing that bike needs dirt to be happy, and I need to be on dirt to be happy on it I decided to buck up and spend the doh and get a road bike.
Simplicity was always my goal, single speed wasn't. I was quite sold on a Trek Soho 4.0. It is a lot like the one I have but with disc brakes and an internal shifting 8 speed Shimano hub.
At a retail of 1100 bucks it was going to be an expensive hit, I had looked at a few other bikes such as the Kona Paddy Wagon, and the SE Bikes Lager, which were both right in the price range, the Kona being a little on the higher side, but compared to the Soho 4.0 they were both a steal.
I road a lager and wasn't too excited by it. It had a lot of high end parts upgrades and didn't seem to make me too excited to be on a bike. The Paddy Wagon I could have rode as I knew of a shop in A2 that had one in stock, but with comparable bikes being around 150 bucks less expensive I was never quite sold on the Kona.
Then with the absence of availability of the Soho 4.0 I decided if I really wanted to I could spend a few hundred and make the single speed an 8 gear internally shifting bike. I don't think I will want to do that!
Now the reasoning for going with the bike. Well let's just say the bike matches my personality, that is 100% the reason why I bought it, not to mention it rides pretty well too :).
All black, internally routed brake cable, and pure simplicity through and through.
With a drop of one spacer on the fork to the bottom of the stem and a flip of the stem and rolling of the bars forward the bike is a great fit. I had the shop through a water bottle holster and a seat pack on it. I also have some crank brothers clipless pedals on order, and some standard tools in the pack.
The bike is a feather compared to EVERYTHING I have rode previously. I used to have one of the lightest freestyle BMX bikes out, I have a really light slingshot mountain bike, and a tank of a transition mountain bike, all are tanks compared to this thing. It is something like 16-18 pounds soaking wet and I can throw it around like nothing. The gear seems to be just right, and going up a hill the lack of weight makes cranking it quite easy.
It has a flip flop rear wheel so I could go fixie if I wanted to. I think I will save playing with that until later.
Just like most of the other Trek bikes this is littered with Bontrager accessories from Racelight rims to Crowbar 5 degree handlebars.
Surprisingly the only things that are cheap on the bike are the levers, brake pads, and the crummy pedals that were thrown on it to get the bike out of the door. The lack of major parts makes it hard to complain about what is actually attached.
The only riding issue I have ran into so far with it is pedal clearance on turns. If you take a turn sharp it is fairly easy to scrape the pedal, clip less may solve this, but this is fairly dangerous on a fixed gear bike, there are always sacrifices for the sake of geometry I guess, and knowing that I don't plan on riding fixed, this one doesn't really bother me.
The set up of the bike from On Two Wheels in Jackson was a little off for me but thank god everything was tight and tuned. They were nice about throwing parts on the bike before I left and making sure everything was tight.
The guys were knowledgeable and didn't try to sell me stuff I didn't need. I told them what I would be carrying around and they took me from a rear rack and panniers down to the seat bag, which is really a sign of good people who are appreciative of your business.
I had shopped around at a few shops. The Specialized shop in Okemos, Danny's I think it is, where I rode a similar bike but really didn't like it. It was rough and just not as smooth in general, could have been the rough parking lot though.
Like I said I rode the Lager, which just didn't leave me excited about the bike.
Before buying the Slingshot I test rode a Cannondale 29er with their lefty fork, for 1600 bucks it was O.K. quite pricey though especially for what I got the slingshot complete with better components.
Well so far more than satisfied with the Trek, the bike is just plain cool! And it is exactly what I expected, which is always a plus.
Well to prove the cool here is the obligatory picture, enjoy!
i'm engaged! 7/12/2008
Yeah.. I AM!
i'm famous! 7/1/2008
Well not quite. I was lucky enough to be featured on the Transition Bike Co. blog! Which is cool, because it is a pretty prominent free ride blog about a really awesome company. Obviously one that I really like.
With no further ado here is the lovely link! HERE!
If you are extremely lazy and don't like to click on links here is my feature! Too bad I'm not riding it and instead am stuck in the office.
Yeah, hard to read, but you get the picture. This is not the greatest site in the world!
Content:
07/01/08 (by Mike Metzger)
Mike's Dirt Jumpin' and Street Vagrant
I received an email from Mike Souders after he and I had been disusing the Vagrant as a DJ and Street bike. Looks like he finally got the SS kit on there and the bike looks great. As for how it rides here is what Mike had to say
"You weren’t lying Metz when you said the Vagrant is a sweet ride once the single speed kit is on. It’s like a completely different beast. I have literally had a grin from ear to ear since that kit was installed."
So for those of you who didn't know the Vagrant can do it all!
Mikes sweet Whip
parts update 6/30/08
Well I made a few changed and fouled a few things up :). Here is what is going on with my transition bike.
I measured the handlebars rise and it comes out at 50mm high, which is pretty tall. I had the bars have another 1.5 inches taken off them and some new purple grips installed to match the frame and purple bar ends. The grips I went with are the Animal Edwin DeLarosa grips with Animal bar ends. Pretty standard BMX grips.
The cool thing I did to it was have it converted to a single speed which I will post pictures of later. Needless to say, it is truly amazing! After getting the bike back I had a grin I couldn't wipe off my face for about 3 days. That thing is rock solid and just plain fun. I took it to the skate park a few subsequent times and man that thing loves to be in the air.
I plan on running the bike as a park and ride style bike. The seat is blasted to the bottom with the TBC dirt jump seat on it. It has the argyle 100mm travel forks, high rise bars, and only front and rear brakes.
I really can't wait to take this thing back up to Boyne Highlands and blast the downhill’s.
I have been toying with the idea of picking up a TBC Double frame which is a 3.5 inch travel version of the vagrant, but in all honesty I absolutely love the hard tail and don't really see any reason to go to full suspension.
Really in MI there isn't much reason I don't think to need that much travel. I guess maybe in the UP, hopefully North Carolina poses more of an obstacle my hard tail has trouble getting past :).
As for the slingshot I managed to get caught in a torrential downpour and thus rusted the chain, as a temporary fix I WD-40'd it and managed to get over spray into my rear brakes (Avid Juicy 7's). The rear brakes are shot even after blasting with brake clean. I am going to do what another MMBA forum member said and replace the pads and bake the rotor in the oven. Then I should be good to go.
new hobby!
Holy crap I think I’m in love! I used to be a huge two wheeled Tuesday fan. Whether it was BMX bikes, or motorcycles, I was into it.
I raced dirt bikes for a little while but that just wasn't for me, I ended up riding as more of a hobby and just never really stayed that interested in it.
Then I moved on to the world of BMX thanks to my friends nick, nelson, José, and Luke. This was it, I felt at home in doing this stuff, and progression was fun, though painful at times (over 30 stitches in my face, anywhere else I never went to the hospital to have looked at).
I was all over this sport until I was away from home for a while and just outgrew it. I stopped riding regularly then eventually at all. Anytime I got on the bike to tool around it felt like an awkward kid’s bike to me.
There was a natural progression I missed out on until José bought a nice hard tail mountain bike. I knew that was my ticket to get back on two manually powered wheels so I dove in 650 bucks and rode home on my new Jamis komodo 1.0 which I quickly painted black!
I had never been a fan of bike shops but I didn't want to tool around in the mail order/bike maintenance and upgrading that I did in my BMX days. I made an impulse buy in the Jamis. Owning that bike made me remember to not buy completes, and riding that bike assured me that any investment I made in a more expensive bike would be worth it.
Thus a little over a year later I dove into the multi-thousand dollar world of bikes and ordered up from the fix bike shop in Denver a transition bike company vagrant hard tail.
I went with purple!
It was a gamble that paid off as it looks amazing. I have since littered it with BMX stickers and what not but the beautiful purple paint still shines through... and the performance? Everything I expected from a 2000 dollar mountain bike. Components are top notch and the bike is a tank.
Specifically I went with this set up:
Component Description
Chain guide: TBC Single Ring Guide
Stem: Truvativ Holzfeller 1.125/1.5 40mm
Handlebar: Truvativ Hussefelt 31.8 x 680 x 50
Headset: FSA Orbit Z1.5r / FSA Orbit xtreme Pro 1.5
Cranks: Truvativ Hussefelt 170mm 1.0BG 34t
Bottom Bracket: Truvativ Howitzer Team 73mm
Front Brake: Avid Juicy 7 8"
Rear Brake: Avid Juicy 7 6"
Tire - Front: Maxxis Minion 26x2.5 Wire
Tire - Rear: Maxxis Minion 26x2.5 Wire
Tubes: Maxxis Welterweight
Pedals: King Meat Tenderizers, Sealed
Seatpost: Truvativ XR DC x 350mm
Saddle: TBC Park n' Ride dj
Grips: ODI Cross Trainer X
Cassette: SRAM PG950 11-32
Wheelset: TBC - Revolution 36 Black
Rear Shifter: None as of now
Rear Derailler: Single Speed with 16 tooth rear 34 front (X9 and shifters in garage)
Chain: KMC z9000
It is the transition bikes single ring free ride build. I had a rock shocks argyle 318 coil fork installed as I want this bike to be a low travel jumper/skinny bike. At first I wanted it to be a do everything bike but realized that really isn't the case when it comes to mountain biking.
There is more to mountain biking than meets the eye to a BMXer. Yeah you can stick to the BMX style only and do urban assault riding, and dirt jumps, but the sport as a whole has much more to offer and I am just skimming the surface!
One of the things I found is that peddling single track is not only healthy but it is quite fun on the right bike. On the TBC I dreaded just peddling through routes as the seat was low and the bike just chugged, it wasn't really meant for that, though it could be set up for that.
Looking for a commuting bike to use when I move to North Carolina I picked up a slingshot farm boy 29er from Jim at Holt pro cycle. This bike had similar components as to my TBC but was made to blast through single track. And that it does.
If there is one bike that has the perfect name it is the slingshot, that son of a gun just flies when you hit the pedals hard, it rolls over everything, and is just an enjoyable machine to ride!
Here is the set up on that bike:
Parts Picture:
08 18 frame and parts
Reba sl dual air fork
American Classic sealed headset
x9 shifters and derailleur’s
xt hubs velocity blunt rims
FSA carbon bars and seat post
FSA stem
Avid juicy 7 brakes
Truvativ Stylo cranks
I paid 1100 bucks for it, it is a '08 frame and has <10 hours on it according to Jim who I believe. This thing was mint and well worth over 2k, I send him pm's every day telling him that he is crazy for getting rid of it!