New England B.S. Thread

Thanks--I was leaning slightly toward the Giant because of who sells them around here.

 

Yup - that's how I ended up with a Giant road bike.

I will say one thing to look at - headset and bottom brackets. My Giant roadbike had a tapered headtube and steering tube, which was proprietary. So I needed a new fork, problem is Giant, Trek, Specialized, etc all have a slightly different setup! Which meant I had to get a Giant fork. Which this was the first time I dealt with road bike major repairs before, so it was really new to me, especially coming from the BMX world where everyone uses the same sizes....for everything. You have a little bit of a difference in bottom brackets - spanish or mid (euro for race, American for cheap end or racing too, sure, but the most common is mid with a few Spanish outliers ). Road bikes - there are tons of bottom brackets, tons of head tubes, tons of steerer tubes, etc etc etc. Blew my mind.

I say that as an afterthough because I THINK in the hardtails you were looking at, they still use a standardized steerer tube.

 

Anyone selling tacoma stuff right now? Lots of the stuff I've been interested in has been on the west coast lately

 

Anyone taken a firearms self defense/readiness course did you like it?

 

I took the basic firearms course for MA to get my LTC. It was okay, all pretty basic. Place I took it, Massachusetts Firearms School, though does offer more specialized courses more geared to specific scenarios. But I haven't done any of those

 

On the list of things to do. I did a small, overview one that was good but it wasn't real in depth. Prompted me to want to do more but haven't signed up for any others yet.

We did have a group come to our office and go through self defense / active shooter education that I thought was really good. They also showed us how much of what they were saying could be applied to your home as well although their scenerios/education was based on someone in the building as an active shooter and no one else in the work place having a fire arm and what to do.

 

Yes, a couple of them, and yes.
If you're looking at taking one, find one that has a low student-to-teacher ratio. Unless you're talking about the extremely basic basics you'll get a LOT more out of a class with 1-3 students per instructor than one with 20.
Edit- I'd also recommend spending some time in the range first, a couple times a week for a couple of weeks. You won't get your full money's worth if you're not comfortable/familiar with your gun & how it shoots.

 

Cool thanks thats what I’m looking for I’m pretty comfortable with my firearms at the range but never have practiced live fires on the move or under duress.

 

That's where I was going to say to start.

It really depends on what you want though. Do you want to take a course with a well known traveling trainer or do you want to work with a local LEO expert who you can take classes regularly with? Or do you want to travel to Gunsite or something similar? It all depends on your time and budget. I am lucky that we have some top-notch trainers in Maine, but I can't stress enough that shooting is a diminishing skill and you need to take reps to maintain proficiency.

 

I took mine from a company called Fox in Vassalboro, but it was a number of years ago now (almost 10? I may want to think about a refresher soon, actually...) I've also heard good things about New England Defensive Training in Minot from a few people but haven't attended myself.

Not sure about in your area, though.

 

I've seen some people do pushups and/or jumping jacks to simulate elevated heart rate while standing still to get use to it

 

What's your Pew Pew of choice for such a class?

 

Clearly, the best choice is something belt-fed.

 

Only thing I notice about the Giant is it has less gear spread than the Trek, if the front sprocket is only two speeds like it appears to be. Looks like it has nice ratios for climbing, though, so I'd just be missing out on gears for higher speeds. I don't think I care, I am usually not going very fast and definitely not for prolonged periods of time.

 

3 by is more than enough. 2 By is enough, I'm even bringing my MTB and my future gravel bike to 1 by. I have a 3 by on my hard tail now, zero desire to keep it

 

Makes sense. If I recall, my old Giant Boulder is 3x7 and I almost never used 2nd in the front--either 1st or 3rd.

 

Clearly the choice is a mini-gun fired from the hip Predator style.

 

As I said, most of my bikes aren't exactly 'top of the line' and, as a result, most won't stay in the middle gear up front anyways. I think my Schwinn will stay in the middle gear, both of my mountain bikes hop the middle gear up front though. I've played with the derailleur plenty of times, the gear changer just moves it too far between clicks.

 

Mech adjustment - there's a lot of stuff on this on youtube, and it's a royal PITA. You can do it pretty easy once you do it a thousand times, but the first few times it's a mess.

 

Yep, watched the youtube videos, tried it plenty of times not worth the effort to gain access to a gear I really don't need/use to begin with. The main issue though I feel is just cheap and/or worn parts. I still tinker with them, I'll get there eventually.