The Mountain Bike Thread

[Salmo_g]

So here's to knowing nothing about MTB's - I rode one once before I moved to Ephrata which was 37 years ago. This past summer I rode a "cruiser" (one speed) while staying in LA (burn, burn). So for a 74 year old who keeps thinking a MTB might be fun but knows he's never going to be competing in the Ephrata Grand Fondo but would perhaps like to ride off road on trails (Beezley Hill here on the edge of town has a few dozen trails from far too steep to moderate), what would I look for? Why a "hart tail" (whatever the hell that is). ODI? Chester (wasn't he on Gunsmoke?)... @Josh - feel free to delete my thread. How often does a bike need a tune up? A friend of mine waited a couple months to get his tuned up............ huh. Jitenshaya-san: nope.

Buzzy,

Ya' don't need to spend a lot of $$ on a utilitarian mtb. Good derailleurs and shifters are expensive, but the lower end grades last quite a while. I know that Covid cause a bike shortage and increased the price of used, but the former rule of thumb was that a 2 year-old used bike could be had for 50 to 60% of new cost. So keep that in mind. If exercise is the goal, a motor is unnecessary. With a triple chain ring and 27 or more gears, in low gear I could climb a tree with my bike if not for falling off vertical pitches. Annual tune ups are a good idea, but you can do them yourself. I have a copy of Bicycling magazine's Complete Guide to Bicycle Maintenance and Repair that helped me expand my mechanical aptitude. Bicycling and swimming are probably the lowest impact (on the joints) activities a person can do and really build up aerobic capacity.

 

[krusty]

Buzzy,

Ya' don't need to spend a lot of $$ on a utilitarian mtb. Good derailleurs and shifters are expensive, but the lower end grades last quite a while. I know that Covid cause a bike shortage and increased the price of used, but the former rule of thumb was that a 2 year-old used bike could be had for 50 to 60% of new cost. So keep that in mind. If exercise is the goal, a motor is unnecessary. With a triple chain ring and 27 or more gears, in low gear I could climb a tree with my bike if not for falling off vertical pitches. Annual tune ups are a good idea, but you can do them yourself. I have a copy of Bicycling magazine's Complete Guide to Bicycle Maintenance and Repair that helped me expand my mechanical aptitude. Bicycling and swimming are probably the lowest impact (on the joints) activities a person can do and really build up aerobic capacity.

A lot of the finicky maintenance chores on older bikes like repacking hub, crank, and headset bearings have now been eliminated with sealed bearing sets. Nowadays about all you have to do is replace tires, worn chains/rear cogs/and front chain rings (after a lot of miles) are pretty easy (and not a big task if you go the shop route).

 

[Buzzy]

Buzzy,

Ya' don't need to spend a lot of $$ on a utilitarian mtb. Good derailleurs and shifters are expensive, but the lower end grades last quite a while. I know that Covid cause a bike shortage and increased the price of used, but the former rule of thumb was that a 2 year-old used bike could be had for 50 to 60% of new cost. So keep that in mind. If exercise is the goal, a motor is unnecessary. With a triple chain ring and 27 or more gears, in low gear I could climb a tree with my bike if not for falling off vertical pitches. Annual tune ups are a good idea, but you can do them yourself. I have a copy of Bicycling magazine's Complete Guide to Bicycle Maintenance and Repair that helped me expand my mechanical aptitude. Bicycling and swimming are probably the lowest impact (on the joints) activities a person can do and really build up aerobic capacity.

Thanks, Steve -
Used sounds good.

 

[skyriver]

I pulled the trigger on a conversion kit. I went with the Tongsheng TSDZ2 48V 500W mid-drive since it has torque sensing and I know I enjoy that much more than the cadence sensing of the Bafangs.
If you've ridden a nice ebike or emtb that adds power based on how hard (not just fast) you pedal, that's a torque sensing motor. Bosch and Shimano make the higher end ones.
The Tongsheng TSDZ2 is an affordable conversion kit that gets good marks, but has some issues just like the Bafang. They're both made in China and while they both have come a long ways they aren't Bosch or Shimano. I'm willing to take a chance.

I spent $355 on the motor that comes with everything you need except a battery. I spent $179 on a 48v 10Ah (200W-800W) Hailong Triangle battery that will fit nicely in my frame and only weighs just under 5 lbs. The motor weighs about 8.5 lbs. So under 15 lbs added and I've just lost 7 going low carb. Haha!
So we're a net +8 right now. I hope I can take that down to 0 by riding more.
The motor kit and battery (comes with a waterproof frame case) was just under $600 total after tax.
With the torque sensing, you don't need as big of a battery (10-14 lbs) as you would with a cadence sensing motor like the Bafang.

The motor showed up today and looks great. I cut off my welded ISCG mount (chainring or bash guard mount) so the motor can fit. Minimal scratches to the BB. If I ever remove the motor and want a bash guard I can just mount a ring style ISCG.

BB wrench is coming tomorrow so should have the motor mounted tomorrow or Wednesday. The battery is supposed to be here by Saturday.

I'll put up a review...hopefully, soon.

 

[eazy-e]

i found this used gary fisher a couple weeks ago, took it out on its first trip saturday. pretty solid bike even with all my crap strapped to it. hadnt seriously ridden a bike in nearly 25 years, forgot how much fun they can be.

 

[skyriver]

Battery came this morning so I finished up the build...at least for now. I have ordered a chainring adaptor and a 34T chainring. My stock chainring is 32T so the chain pretty short. The chaingring that came with the motor is 42T so I can't use 1st, 2nd or 3rd gear. I could just grab a longer chain, but like having the hill climbing power available with the 32 or 34.

I'm pretty damn happy with the install. I've only ridden up and down the street and in my neighborhood that literally means up and down. Living on a hill has it's perks, but also it's annoyances. I've only tried it in the 2 lowest settings (ECO & Tour) and wow. In the 2nd setting (Tour) it feels like I have bionic legs and instead of having to grab 3rd gear up my hill I can sail right up in 5th or 6th. Should be pretty fun. Riding tonight!!



I'm stoked my super tanker Zags water bottle still fits. The battery is pretty small since it's a torque sensing motor and will only be powering the display during downhills. It's a 48v 10aH 200-800W from Hailong. We'll see how many miles I can get each trip. I usually only ride 4-6 miles on my neighborhood trails, but with the assistance probably more like 10 now. I think it will have plenty left after that. Guess we'll find out.




E-mtb rider,
Stacy

 

[skyriver]

Did 6.5 miles tonight. It was fantastic. The left crank comes loose and creaks, which is a known thing. So Home Depot tomorrow to get some Loctite. Damn, I should have done this years ago! I was almost as giddy as hooking a steelhead. Well, not quite that, but it was really fun.

 

[mtskibum16]

My mountain biking update is in late June I had a pretty bad crash that resulted in a couple broken bones in my wrist and a couple broken bones in my face. I had wrist surgery and reconstructive face surgery on back to back days in early July. I now have titanium plates in both locations. Put quite the damper on my summer plans. My face is healing great and other than some minor nerve damage (that should heal with time) it's almost completely back to normal. The wrist is coming along pretty well. Just started PT and aside from it still being weak and a bit limited in range of motion my day-to-day life is pretty normal again. Likely no bike or beach fly fishing this season though.

Be careful out there. Mine was a pretty random and fluky crash with unlucky outcome. I'll be considering riding with a trail type full face in the future. Also maybe not worth pushing those old tires to use up every last mile of them.

 

[skyriver]

My mountain biking update is in late June I had a pretty bad crash that resulted in a couple broken bones in my wrist and a couple broken bones in my face. I had wrist surgery and reconstructive face surgery on back to back days in early July. I now have titanium plates in both locations. Put quite the damper on my summer plans. My face is healing great and other than some minor nerve damage (that should heal with time) it's almost completely back to normal. The wrist is coming along pretty well. Just started PT and aside from it still being week and a bit limited in range of motion my day-to-day life is pretty normal again. Likely no bike or beach fly fishing this season though.

Be careful out there. Mine was a pretty random and fluky crash with unlucky outcome. I'll be considering riding with a trail type full face in the future. Also maybe not worth pushing those old tires to use up every last mile of them.

Oh man. I hope you continue the good healing! Yeah, I haven't crashed hard on the mtb in a while. That's the only part of riding I don't like. Haha!

The fluke crashes are the worst man. My worst crash in my adult life was a fluke. Steep downhill on my KTM 300 compression coasting in 1st gear (1st mistake) and thought I had my left hand on the clutch, like always. Well, I was looking back up the hill to make sure my buddy had cleared the switch back corner (2nd mistake) on his KTM 300 that was too tall for him. Apparently this caused me to not really have a good cover on the clutch lever.
A damn overhanging branch poked my right glove on the top of my hand which made me whiskey throttle and launch & loop the bike. I remember seeing the underside of my bike while flying through the air thinking "Shit, this is gonna hurt." 1st gear compression right into full throttle is violent on a 300 2-smoker.

This pic is taken from where my bike landed. The top red circle is the stupid overhang that stabbed my glove and the lower red circle is the rock my left ass and hip landed on. I still have pain in that hip and it's been 15 years.



Hope you're able to fish and ride again soon!

 

[SurfnFish]

mid 80's, first gen rigid MTB, coming down Montara Mountain on the coast south of SF, missed my line so had to jump the deep rut I was trying to avoid...the handlebar stem snapped clean on the landing...frozen WTF moment holding onto handlebars only connected by the cables...off the trail and down the side through poison oak and rubble = scraped up mess with worse case of poison oak ever

 

[krusty]

Bummer.

My worst bicycle crash involved leaning into a fast curve one cold January morning. Black ice.

Woke up on the road, rear wheel still slowly spinning. Blood all over the place from severe facial lacerations, several broken ribs on my right side, and a concussion. My right shoulder still has problems from the incident which occurred nearly 40 years ago. Fuck it...it's the cost of minor adventure. Never was gonna be a GQ model anyway.

Years later I did a total endo on a rocky trail descending (hardtail Diamondback with primitive short travel elastomeric front shocks) into the Devil's Toenail next to the Spokane River. Scraped up quite a bit, but was gratified to receive considerable applause from some whitewater kayakers who had observed the mishap, and paddled over to see if I was alright.

The best MTB crashes occur on single track surrounded by soft forest duff ...had a few that looked spectacular but resulted in no injuries. I think USFS fire roads lull a lot of riders into a feeling of complacency and carelessness...

 

[krusty]

mid 80's, first gen rigid MTB, coming down Montara Mountain on the coast south of SF, missed my line so had to jump the deep rut I was trying to avoid...the handlebar stem snapped clean on the landing...frozen WTF moment holding onto handlebars only connected by the cables...off the trail and down the side through poison oak and rubble = scraped up mess with worse case of poison oak ever

GoPro helmet footage of your incident, had it been around during that era, would have been incredible! True Wiley Coyote situation!