All Things Bikes and Tacos! (...and every vehicle imaginable)

I mean, throw on 11 more gears out back and you have yourself a nice setup!

 

Take all my money. All of it.

 

Finally...after 5.5 weeks...New bike day!
I had too much going on today to really do anything with it. I hope to put it through it's paces on Friday and Saturday.

2022 Giant Trance X 29 1 - Panther colorway

 

If I'm understanding the question...

I wouldn't take a tire off to fix a bent rim if it's holding air. However, if you're swapping the tire then it's definitely worth spending a few minutes to straighten out the dent before mounting the new tire.

 

Is it as straight forward of trying to bend the rim back into line?

 

Thinking about another MTB road trip this year to the Appalachians (Asheville, Knoxville, Chattanooga) and then possibly over to Bentonville. I know Asheville and Knoxville have tons of offerings in terms of trails. Any other areas I should be looking at? Guessing there's decent camping around all these areas?

 

Yes, just use a pair of pliers. You can use cut up inner tube material in the plier jaws if you wanted to protect the finish of the rim. Just be aware that bending aluminum back and forth will make that area weaker over time.

 

@guitarjamman I have pliers with flat jaws if you want to use them, no teeth and a wider contact area. They're more made to grip flat stock. Let me know if you want to borrow them for this delicate operation.

 

Highest concentration of quality trails in the southeast are certainly East Tennessee/Western North Carolina. Yes plenty of camping in both areas. I'm not sure your timeline but Bentonville isn't necessarily close to either of these areas - about 8 hours - you may be disappointed at the extra driving/marginal gains. Did you already have some trail systems in mind?

 

Yeah Bentonville is more of "check off the list" destination but it may not happen this round. No trail systems exactly but I'm open to suggestions for that and decent camp spots (national forest-dispersed kind of places).

 

What are your favorite trail styles / skill level? I can list a few places you may enjoy

 

I currently have a Specialized Sirrus X 5.0 which is great for road riding and some light gravel trail riding but not useful going on the off-road trails. For reference I used to have a Stumpjumper but sold it in favor of the Sirrus X 5 because most of my riding near my house is road. Now I am wanting the option to ride some off road too.

So I started looking around at bikes. With current sales I was thinking about the Specialized Fuse 27.5 its currently on sale 1099 and could be upgraded later but after test riding the Fuse i wasn't blown away and don't really like the color options. I also road a Trek Roscoe 7 but really liked the Roscoe 8(blue). The Roscoe 8 is on sale now for just a tad over the cost of the 7 at 1999. However its quite a bit more than the Fuse.

Another option is a used 2019 Trek Fuel EX 5 with dropper in the asking 1500. Or I can just keep waiting hoping to score a used hard tail.

Just wondering if anyone had any strong opinions about these bikes?

 

Thanks for the replies!
https://www.bobcatbicycles.com/product-list/tires-tubes-1101/tires-1103/650b-1235/?rb_br=349
Just bought 2 fast track for 17.50!

 

On the way down stop in Harrisonburg Off i81. Should be on the way! Camp at stokesville and ride from the campground into the national forest. There is a trail that climbs up to one of the best trails in that area. I’m about to do 50 mile race there this weekend, according to ride with gps it will have less than a mile of pavement with maybe 10ish miles on fire roads.

you could also hit up massanutten western slope which is like 15ish minutes if I remember correctly. They also offer shuttling

 

I'd say low-level advanced skill. I love techy climbs and descents without getting too crazy as I might be solo. Maybe some good high speed flow trails to mix things up.

 

No strong opinions about any of those bikes, but I just bought a Commencal Meta HT frame to build up. You can get a complete build well under $2k, I believe the model with a dropper is like $1,500. Throwing another option at you!

 

After 2 days of riding and wondering why I was getting so much chain slap, I realized I forgot to turn my clutch back on. Add this to the list of things you're not used to doing when your main bike is now running Shimano.

 

Had a small chip/crack on my rear triangle. Sent a picture to Evil and they said it was just paint crack, but we’re more than willing to send a replacement triangle, free of charge (under warranty). Triangle arrived quickly. I got it changed out, and put it back together with some Huk-Tek bolts.

 

What are “Huk-Tec bolts”? Some kind of fancy name for some tougher bolts per Evil?