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

Eh idk did you look at the strava to see that? This section kinda drops off away so it would be hard to say that’s happened to the 3 leaders.

 

Yea I looked at the segment on Strava. One of the few things you can still do without a membership. I’ve ridden it several times. Go to the leaderboard and click on the top people and it will show you their route for that day. Those guys were doing road rides as you can tell by all their straight lines. Those top 3 guys don’t have anyone within 30 seconds of their time too.

 

Ahhh makes sense then. So the guys just behind at the 1:30ish mark are really the leaders.

 

I just use regular butter, one less thing to pack in the cooler when camping, plus spreads easier on toast the next morning.

 

Oh, well now I wish I wouldn’t have eaten that breakfast you offered when we went to Pisgah...

 

Even some of those are roadie rides. The fastest guys were competing in an enduro race.

 

Yeah the guy at 1:31 my buddy knows him and he races enduro. Says he’s nuts and that’s a legit time for him.

 

Yeah, I've been passed by that guy before. He is wicked fast. both uphill and down. Made me reconsider just for a split second what I'm doing on my bike. Then I remembered I'm just here to have fun and not win races.

 

All of those guys smashed all the KOMs on Monte Sano that year. They got maybe a practice run in or two and then demolished us mere mortals.

 

Haha facts. Insane. I’m not trying to be that at all I just thought it was crazy and eye opening when I thought I was just being nuts on the trail and then realize I was basically 80 year old man walking speed.

 

@jjones.yota is the pain from too much pressure or friction? If pressure the first thing you should do is check saddle nose position. For most it should be flat. If it's already flat try running it a bit nose down. If that doesn't work it's time for a new saddle. Chamois butter won't help if it's more of a pressure thing than just light friction.

 

Pressure for sure. Saddle is flat at all times, can try tilting down.

 

Yeah try that then look for a new one and consider one that has a bigger relief area than your current one.

 

I'll share this with the group so others may benefit. I recently purchased a new Transition Scout and on my last several rides I started noticing this weird popping noise. Today, I finally got pissed off and started trying to diagnose the issue. I could feel the knocking/clicking noise in my handlebars. I've had some movement issues in the past and those came from brakes and a loose or poorly greased headset (other bikes) so I went to those first. My headset was definitely lacking some grease from the shop assembly so I added some and reassembled, no joy. I even checked the internal cable routers and they were good. I could replicate the noise by mashing down hard on my handlebars so I thought maybe it was my grips or my brake levers so I loosened and removed all of those, still no luck. I took a closer look at my stem and I realized the problem. The clamp that secures the bars to my stem was tightened all the way down to the metal on the top two screws but on the bottom there was a gap. So I loosened those top bolts and then re-tightened in a proper crisscross pattern leaving a tiny gap between the clamp and the stem and it fixed the issue. All in all it took me about 20 minutes to find this issue and as a bonus I re-greased the head. I feel dumb for having let that go on for as long as I did because it could have been something more serious.

 

tldr

“I’ll share this with the group, I’m a dummy”

 

To be fair, it was the shop employee who assembled the bike that was a dummy. I'm only a dummy for taking too long to fix.

 

If its the ANVL Swage stem - there may be a reason the top was tightened all the way. It may be intended to clamp like top-lock style stems (Easton/RF). All the pics I found of it installed shows the top cinched up.

 

Damn why did you do this to me? I have to do some research now. lol

 

I cant find any real information on it. I've just had top lock stems in the past and it distracted me from work.

 

I think you are correct! Check out this picture, it says no gap on the inside of the stem on the left picture.