Product Reviews

Andrea

Brakes, Rings, and a future addition to the stable…

Just after Mohican, I ordered a shiny new Rotor Q-Ring for my singlespeed. Disclosure- like SRAM, Rotor is definitely NOT a sponsor. They gave me the “don’t call us, we’ll call you” business when I made a request last year. This was an EP (employee purchase) privilege from my place of employment (Outdoors, Inc.) who actually does sponsor me. Like I’ve said in the past- shop there, thank a sales associate for the company’s support of me. Your appreciation will be heard more than once, I promise.

I digress…
The Q-Ring sat around for a while because I was having brake issues with the R1s on the singlespeed. I still have a love/hate relationship with these brakes. The feel wonderful, but they’re terribly finicky. My rear one had a piston that would not retract all the way. It made noise during the entire race in Ohio, and I spent a good bit of time troubleshooting it when I had the chance back home. It ended up being something sticky in the master cylinder that was causing the issue. Three bleeds, some drilling, and lots of cursing later, I have a cotter pin as a pad bolt, and my brake is back to working fabulously.

With that fixed, I was finally motivated to install the Q-Ring. It’s a 34 tooth, but the diameter changes throughout the pedalstroke in order to minimize the time you spend in the “dead spot” of your stroke. No, it’s not like Biopace. Shimano Biopace was the opposite, and quite a bit more extreme. Also, no, it doesn’t require the use of a chain tensioner. There’s a definite “tight spot” in the chain, but I’ve seen normal round rings with more slack/tight than the Q-Ring.

 

I hooked it up with an 18t and rode it yesterday morning for the first time. Since I roll out to the trails on the road, the first thing I noticed is that it smooths out your “almost spun out” pedal stroke. If you’ve ridden SS on less than desirable SS courses, you know that you can spend a lot of time at that cadence. Other than a bit of added smoothness, I couldn’t tell a huge difference as far as heart rate or ease of climbing. Granted, it was an easy, flat ride. The real test will be racing this weekend with a little climbing & tech stuff to get through. Updates to follow.

In other news worth mentioning, Niner has released the Jet9 RDO (race-day optimized) carbon fiber full suspension hotness. I’m getting one. So, the Jet is officially back up for sale, though this time, it’s got Avid brakes with fancy gold hoses, as well as my nice, light set of Crest/Hope race wheels. I haven’t figured out a price yet, but it’ll be a “get it out of my garage” sort of thing for sure. I might even throw in some new 9-speed drivetrain parts to sweeten the deal. That’ll be its own post, though.

Andrea

A9C Shift-Mod Update

I almost forgot to mention…

Today I rode the Air 9 for about the 5th time since I modified the shift cable routing to include a liner through the FD side of the cable guide and a solid piece of housing though the frame. I must say, even though it’s NOT RECOMMENDED by the guys at Niner, my shifting is absolutely like butter now- fast, ultra-smooth, no half-shifts, dragging, or creaking. Here are a couple more photos to include the headbadge routing and the liner through the BB:

Andrea

Customer Service Win!

In a day and age when it’s easy for big companies monopolize the cyclist market while half-assing good customer service to weekend warriors and wannabes such as myself, it’s always refreshing to be reminded that there are still small companies that aren’t under rule of a guy with a business degree wearing a suit and sitting behind a giant mahogany desk. As fighters of the man behind the desk, they actually have to care about their customers- something I experienced last night that made me feel all warm & fuzzy inside (well, it could have been the Maredsous, but whatever).

As you may remember from my race report, I flatted early and found that the Awesome Strap Race that Dicky gave me after Southern Cross had somehow cut a hole in my spare tube. I don’t really fault the strap- if you ride off-road, stuff rattles and vibrates. No matter how you secure it to your bike or person, a tube can have a hole rubbed in it over time, and it’s my job to check for that. I fault myself.

However, last night, I got an email from the president of Backcountry Research. He apologized profusely for my problems and is going to send a Hitch strap out for me to try. Hell yes! Win on so many levels.

So, there you have it. Hurray for “Awesome” customer service.

Andrea

Squeal Out

Anyone who has ridden with me knows that I’m a full-fledged victim of Avid brake warble/howl/squeal/whateveryouwannacallit. Looking for solutions, I found this thread on MTBR, which led me to believe that the noise that Avid brakes make is somewhat akin to leg cramps in that there are a lot of theories with some anecdotal evidence, but no proven, specific reasons behind why it happens.

Also found in that thread is this stuff: Squeal Out

I figured I’d give it a shot and sent the guy a private message asking for the free sample he was offering. Not long after, I got an envelope in the mail containing a Ziploc bag of gritty paste and (somewhat mis-spell/comma-ed)  instructions for application:

Against the advice of the instructions, I applied it to both brakes at the same time on my geared A9C. After that, Ryan and I went to Stanky Creek for an easy ride. Not a peep out of my brakes. Sweet! I’ll try it on the older, noisier Elixir CR brakes this morning on the SS and report back in a few weeks on the results and the long term effectiveness.

Andrea

Spa City- the Good and the Bad

Good things about my weekend:

-Racing hard. Really hard. The results with lap times aren’t up yet (order of finish results HERE), but other than the pedal thing, my lap times were very consistent. Lap #6 was one of my fastest. I’m usually not consistent… to the point of being notorious amongst my peers for blowing up early and death marching late.
-Mean-mugging Pua during the pre-race meeting. She’s so damn fast, I figured that it’s not often that someone looks at her like they’re about to rip her legs off. It’s a skill worth practicing, and I was bored, so I gave her the WWE staredown. I don’t know if she even noticed, and if she did, she was probably wondering wtf was wrong with that chick in the green… then she proceeded to lay into the trail like it had insulted her mom and was the fastest person all day to complete 6 laps.
-Training really damn hard. After thrashing myself for 6 hours, 11 minutes on Saturday, I found a motel room in south Hot Springs, ordered a pizza, and kicked my feet up. Sunday morning, I met up with Todd the Antique Gun Show and Frank (who was a top 10 finisher at SouthernX) to pre-ride the first (and likely hardest) part of the Ouachita Challenge course (~4 hours and close to 40 miles of riding). Everything hurt, and I was moving a little slow, but I still had a good time.

Bad things about my weekend:

-Equipment failures of my own doing- first, the chainring thing… I made it over that rock without incident during the entire race on Saturday. Also, the fact that I failed to bring spare anything- bike, wheels, pedals, etc. I chock it up to not being in the lap race/pit mindset. Just before I found someone to borrow from during the race, I was flipping my sh*t on myself big time.
-Equipment failures not of my own doing- the pedal thing sucked, obviously, but it was kind of a freak accident. Will I switch to another type of pedal? Not sure yet. I like my Crank Brothers. My bigger complaint is that I’m riding a component group that retails for >$2k. It really didn’t work like that this weekend. Unrelated to the chainring/rock thing (which I am confident is totally fixed at this point), on several occasions, it groaned and strained to shift to lower gears. I had another chainsuck incident on the Ouachita trail when I tried to shift small-large before a long descent. The result was chainsuck so bad that it yanked my front derailleur sideways into my rear tire. Then, this morning, I noticed that the x-loc on my XX fork lockout is not really working.
I can take care of this stuff- either through working on it myself or calling up SRAM and getting warranty replacement parts. It’s not often that I feel entitled to anything, but I feel as though if I’ve meticulously installed a really expensive component group onto my bike that it should work perfectly. If I didn’t mind occasional reliability issues, I’d pay half as much for cheaper parts.

I’m not 100% sure about what I’m going to do equipment-wise. It’s likely fixable with a couple of phone calls. That doesn’t mean it won’t be a giant PITA to fix it before Ouachita Challenge in a week and a half.

In other news, here are some race-day photos…

Andrea

Speaking of flipping…

Remember this post? Essentially, I told Pearl Izumi that their “buckle” droptail design (which, in fairness, is used by several other manufacturers) looked like it would not offer much convenience in comparison to their very awesome waistband type (which is not used by anyone else). The customer service person who was so quick to answer my initial questions about the shorts has ignored my request for an explanation as to what exactly they were trying to achieve with their buckle design.

There you have it- Pearl Izumi has, once again, given the middle finger to customer service.

I’ll wear the current shorts until they fall apart… which, in my experience with lower quality shorts, will be about May, if I’m lucky. By then, the Outdoors Inc team shorts should be in, and I will just deal with non-drop bibs. It’d still be nice, though, to have the “perfect” shorts. I have no idea if anyone in the business of bib-shorts making reads this blog, but if you’re willing to listen, these are my “demands”:

-Quality construction. Don’t use the thinnest spandex, and use strong thread to hold it together. Ibex is a champion of this. Hincapie also comes to mind. Thin spandex sucks. My first experience with poor-quality fabric was back in 2008 (racing with Kenda) when Verge went cheap, and lots of chicks in the pro/elite ranks were left showing off their under-shorts tattoos because the fabric was so thin. It caused a big stink amongst women’s teams that most of the general racing public didn’t hear about because, well, if you don’t have anything nice to say about a sponsor, then don’t say anything at all.
-Chamois that isn’t a diaper. Yes, women are different than men. No, that doesn’t mean that the fabric used in my chamois should be measured in square feet and the thickness of my chamois in inches.
-Droptail. Steal Pearl Izumi’s waistband design.
-Fit. Most athletically-built women complain about not being able to find shorts/jeans that fit their thighs without going up a size, leaving the remainder of the garment too large. Take this into account when making your women’s shorts. 8-inch inseam, generous leg-holes, snug around the waist, and snug-fitting suspenders.
-Price. I don’t mind paying a little more for good quality, but don’t put the “hey these are euro and cool” markup on your product like Assos and others do. I’m not paying $300 for a pair of shorts. Ever. It’s spandex. No matter how much quality you put into the construction, no matter how many panels it’s made out of, consumers realize that the cost to make the shorts is probably somewhere in the range of $.50 per pair (including the daily handful of rice you give to the kid in the sweatshop that’s running the sewing machine). Don’t insult me with a %9000 markup.
-Offer them as a custom-sublimated product.

Takers? Somehow, I doubt it. I think that with most clothing manufacturers, women’s bib shorts are somewhat of an afterthought.

Andrea

Air 9 Carbon Version 2.0

Here are the photos… unfortunately, the trails are soaked here, so I just rode it through the Shelby Farms dog park and on the surrounding gravel/pavement. Once I have a rear brake and opportunities to really ride, the brake lines and steertube will get trimmed up:

Andrea

Air 9 Carbon- The Fix

The question burning in everyone’s minds right now (or not) is “How did you make the fork work?!”

It was a bit of an all-day process that involved phone calls to several places. The SRAM rep (who didn’t fully understand that an integrated headset doesn’t have a change-able stack height) had told me to try Cane Creek and Chris King for a solution since they offered bottom bearing sets in various stack heights. I figured it’d be worth a shot to call around anyways and see what type of ideas the techs at those companies might have…

First, I called Cane Creek. They never answered my voicemail.

Next, I tried Chris King. They aren’t all that hot on integrated headsets, but they do make various thicknesses of 1 1/8″ crown races, so I was hoping maybe they had something in a 1.5″ that could help me out. They were interested in my problem, but still no dice.

After that was FSA. They don’t make any sort of fat crown race, but I thought that since they made the headset that they might be able to help. The tech there was really interested in the whole plight of the small-frame 29er vs. tapered headtubes vs. tapered steertubes. We discussed the various manufacturer’s headtube lengths that I’d posted earlier, and he took down my contact information so that he could call me after he talked to the company engineers.

In the meantime, I had Tim, the mechanic from PB&COtwenty12, trying to hunt down the specs on the Willow Koerber Superfly crown race spacer.

It looked as if the build was indefinitely stalled.

Then, I checked my email and saw a comment on my “conundrum” post from Eric (the Niner tech I’d talked to previously) asking me to call back. When I finally got in touch with him, he told me that some shops had made everything work by filing off the vertical portion of the compression ring that was unable to seat into the top bearing due to the extended fork taper. I didn’t take a “before” photo, but it looked like this (photo is upside down from how it fits into the top bearing):

So, I took to the bench grinder and had at it. Once that part was decimated, I filed off the sharp edges and tried it out. Once I snugged the cap & stem down, the fork was snug in the headtube. Woohoo!!! I packed all of my parts up and headed home to prep for a morning bike build in the living room.

A few observations about the A9C/XX build:

-The internal cable routing is tough. I generally have a knack for internal routing, and I have to say, I cussed at it a couple of times.

-I don’t have a rear brake yet. They’re backordered. Without that, the bike weighs 21 pounds, 1oz. This is barely a pound more than the SS. Chock it up to different saddles, a lighter BB insert, carbon bars, lighter wheels (Crest rims vs. 355s), and lighter tires on the geared bike. I’ll post the final weight once the brake gets here.

Here’s a photo of the ground down compression ring. I’ll put photos of the bike in a different post so I can just make a gallery:

And a teaser:

Andrea

A fork conundrum

I finally have the parts together to build the geared A9C. Woohoo!

So, yesterday, I started working on it.

Step one- reduce travel of my 120mm, tapered steertube, maxle lite Reba to 80 mm. Done.

Step two- assemble front end of bike. Snag. The compression ring that should fit between the top headset bearing and the steertube won’t push down all the way because the end of the taper of the steertube is inside the bearing. Fail.

Apparently, by using a 100mm-long taper, SRAM has given the proverbial middle finger to those of us who ride a small or medium 29er frame:

Niner Air 9 Carbon Small: 100mm
Trek Superfly Small: 103mm
Santa Cruz Tallboy Medium AND Large: 99mm
Giant Anthem Small and Medium: 104mm
Giant XtC Small: 89mm, Med/Large: 99cm
Felt Nine Small (not tapered, but just for example): 100mm

I could go on, but I’m not in the mood to spend my morning looking at geo charts for every 29er on the market.

I’m sure a few of you are saying “buyer beware,” and, to a degree, you’re right. However, if you were SRAM, would you really want to eliminate the ability to use your product in a healthy section of a continuously growing market? I mean, seriously, what were you thinking?

My options now are somewhat limited.

-I could return the fork and get a non-tapered steertube fork with a reducer. Lame. I hate how that looks, and I really, really don’t want to do it. I also may run in to issues with the fact that I’ve already opened the fork & installed the travel reducers.

-I could fabricate some sort of an under-crown spacer a la Willow Koerber.

-I could return the whole damn thing and EP a Fox fork. That would also involve purchase of a couple of new Hope converter kits to go to their 15mm standard of thru axle from the 20mm of RockShox. I’m not quite as familiar with Fox as I am with RockShox- do they even make a 15QR model with 80mm of travel and a tapered steertube (or the option to reduce travel on a longer travel model)?

Anyone else have ideas or suggestions? I’m going to talk to SRAM today to see what they have in mind. Updates to follow…

EDIT: just got off the phone with SRAM. Not much help there- the suggestion was to look for a bottom headset bearing/race that would give me a little extra stack height. The tech also confirmed my “middle finger to small 29er riders” and said that frame manufactures need to take their taper size into account when designing their frames.

Andrea

2010 Stuff that Sucked

This is actually a kinda hard list to make, because I generally have a good handle on what I like as far as equipment goes. However, disappointments do happen…

Sidi Shoes: Ok, this should really be last year, but it’s worth mentioning that the tread on SIDI shoes is much akin to plastic. Sure, they are high quality, rebuildable, etc, but if you ride on rocky stuff like Syllamo, then these shoes fail the hike-a-bike test. Unless you’re a baller who never walks (like Dicky), look elsewhere.

Quarq Powermeter: I hate to bash on a company with great customer service, but this thing has done nothing but bother me since I got it. The calibration is really sensitive to temperature, so any time you’re riding in a rapidly changing environment (spring/fall/trainer room), you have to stop and re-calibrate often. And yes, I tried the auto-cal feature in that situation, and it wasn’t effective. I sent it back twice (both times, the turnaround was SUPER fast- like I said… great customer service), and it seems to generally work OK now (outside of the aforementioned temp swings), but I just don’t feel like I can trust it like I did my SRM. This is confirmed by the computrainer that we just got. Its readings are always right on with Ryan’s SRM, but always 10-30 watts over what the Quarq readings are.

Hayes Brakes: I haven’t used these, but Ryan has a pair that came on his Felt 9Solo. The brake pads fall out when the wheel isn’t on the bike. Also, I’ve talked to a pro (who shall remain nameless) that had a major problem with Hers at one of the last big, humongous races of the year. Luckily, when you’re that much of a badass, you don’t have to rely on little things like brakes to still destroy everyone.

Giordana Shorts: I blew the seams out in 2 pair this season. Nothing like riding 72 miles of the Breck 100 with your inner thighs hanging out and rubbing your saddle.

VALIC Investment company: Yeah, it seems random, but it’s who was “in charge” of my retirement account from the University of Memphis. Apparently, once you get over a certain amount of money in your account, you can’t withdraw it to move it to another investment company. I’m trying to move my retirement funds to Vanguard. VALIC has some of my money invested in a Vanguard fund, but since it’s not a company that’s “approved” by U of M/VALIC, I can only get half of it. The remainder will be moved in small monthly installments so that VALIC can keep making money off if it. It’s a bunch of bureaucratic bullsh*t, and I let them know that the last time I talked to them, and I’m telling everyone I know… including the internets.

The iPad: Ryan is obsessed with it, and it probably gets handled by him more than I do.

Chamois Butt’r: It dissolves within half an hour of riding. Sure, it’s nice to be able to wash it out of a chamois, but let’s take a look at basic chemistry here- chamois butt’r (as well as a lot of other “chamois” products) is water soluble. Sweat is made out of water. When you ride, you sweat… hopefully you can figure out the rest.

Motobecane Bikes: Once again, I haven’t ridden one, but I’ve worked on them. Just a word of advice if you’re thinking about buying one- when you unbox one, there will be missing parts, parts that are incredible heavy/sketchy, wheels that aren’t true… you get the idea. Go to a bike shop and get a real bike that wasn’t assembled in a sweatshop.

Trek Madone: Too light for its own good. Scott and Cannondale can make super-light rides that are stiff and lively… what happened to the Madone?? After riding it and the BH back-to-back, I realized that it had no soul (even moreso than I).

This is all I can think of right now… I generally focus on the things I love, so trying to remember the ones I don’t is kinda difficult. I’ll keep adding, though.