KuЯdt

I did the full Back 40 loop about a year and a half ago. It’s pretty xc, with a few bonus side trails or loops you can do. There’s a good amount of cumulative climbing. The Little Sugar system across the highway is similar, but with more jump lines, tech sections, and has the Huntley Gravity Zone as well. It felt to me like Little Sugar has more climbing too.

yeah parts are still hard to come by. I mangled both a derailleur and a rotor in Bentonville about a month ago. The only 12sp derailleur in town and at all of Phat Tire's shops in the region was an XTR for $270. Nope. Online all I could find were a couple Deore's and a single SLX. So I got the SLX and also got the SLX shifter since my XT one had been having issues. I actually like the SLX shifter better.

If you got the pistons out some, best to open up the system via the bleed kit cup wd mentioned above then you can get them back in easily. You need one anyway as a lever bleed is super quick and easy with it, and most of the time it's all you need to do. Link to kit Also you need the shimano mineral oil As for the derailleur, did you disengage the clutch?

yeah the run up to that is a bit janky and pretty blind. Also, I often do a ride-by before I hit it because a couple of times there have been some big rocks sitting right in the middle of the landing.

awesome stuff, fellas. i'm liking the teamwork on these videos, it's always cool to get multiple perspectives of a ride. I also like the view of that expansive landscape and how you can really see the trail way up ahead.

good stuff. that looks like a fun ride, I need to get out there one of these days. Mom videos forthcoming? (that didn't sound quite right...)

I have both of these. got the Skyline to replace a regular camelbak but it wasn't quite what I was looking for. It seemed pretty big. After I got the evoc I just couldn't really go back to something with shoulder straps. It's the closest I could get to the free feeling of not having a pack at all. The skyline only gets used on really long days in the summer, but most of the time the evoc with its 1.5L bladder and another bottle on the bike is enough for me. I'm kind of opposite from y'all in that I prefer the bladder to putting bottles in the pack pockets. A good hack is to use a retractible badge reel (the kind you attach a security card to for office access) to keep the hose from getting pulled away too easily if that is an issue.

Yep it's super dry out there. Unfortunately I think we're heading into a 2011-type summer.

BCGB today. I wanted to make a quick edit to see how much faster the new laptop is vs my old windows box. yeah it was quite the improvement...it rendered the video in 2 minutes, what would have taken 20+ on the old one.

As a sort of follow-on to Twice's experience with the Ripley and expectations vs actual riding, I had a Revel Ranger this past weekend. Got 3 rides in on it, and it really surprised me. Based on its geo and the 115/120 travel, I expected kind of a boring twitchy XC bike, but it wasn't that at all. The climbing was great which I anticipated, but was also really good on the downs and in chunk. Actually excelled at climbing chunky tech sections. I had a ton of fun on it, and even though I didn't take it on any really hardcore terrain, it handled everything I threw at it with aplomb. I think a lot of that is due to the CBF suspension platform which I'd read good things about, and now I understand why. It just goes to show that it's hard to judge bikes on their numbers alone, and you need to ride them to get a true feel.

^^ what they said. however, if you do carry tire levers with you (and I usually do in my hip pack) then you can get a set of these which double as quick link pliers. If you don't want to wear a pack, you can get a frame strap and squeeze a number of things into it (tube + co2 canister/inflator+ levers, multitool + bacon cartridge, or just a taco). I do that a lot of times on rides where I'm only bringing one water bottle and no pack.

Congrats on the new bike, Twice. Sounds like you're gonna really dig it. As for storage options, this needs to be you:

I can only speak to my own experience, and I haven't ridden Rockshox in many years. But I didn't get along with the 34 and fit4 damper on my Occam. If I tried to make it a bit more plush, I'd end up bottoming it out on bigger hits. It would be too harsh if I tuned it for big hits. I started playing with volume spacers, but then went to angelfire and that was it for me. It was just overwhelmed there, which I suppose is to be expected for a 34 in a bike park. After that I wanted to upgrade, and was going to get a Lyrik or a Pike just to switch things up. But all I could get at the time was a 36 so that's what I went with. That fork has been great, and has the fit4. The Grip2 damper is the best they offer, and I think has a better rep than the fit4. But my 36 has a fit4 and i have no complaints. About a month ago a buddy and I switched bikes for a ride out at Pedernales Falls. he had the 34 with Grip2 damper, and I thought it felt great. better than my old 34. I believe the Grip and Grip2 damper may actually have been developed my Marzocchi, which Fox now owns.

Yep I have an Occam. There are 2 or 3 AL versions of that bike. Right now I guess you do have to go with what you can get, as the supply chain is still kind of jacked up. But I see shops getting more and more bikes in. The owner of the shop where I saw the Ripley AF's told me that Ibis would just randomly send them and he would have no idea they were even showing up.

yeah the Tallboy does seem to be better if you're a more aggressive rider and hitting rough/steep descents. But the AF version of the Ripley has a HTA half a degree slacker than the carbon version, so maybe a tad bit better on the downs. It really is a surprisingly good value. Both are great bikes.