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Most I've been able to put in mine is 32, after being on E for a while. I suspect I could drive on empty for some time before actually running out. but I'm not willing to find out just how far.

The key is to not be the slowest person in the group. In our trio, I wasn't the fastest, but I also was not the slowest. Thus, when we inevitably took breaks to wait for the last guy, it gave me a chance to recover a bit and catch my breath. Same principle as when being chased by a bear.

Well, it was a lot higher than Austin 😃 We started the 3 cross country rides at 7000 feet, and did 5-7 miles of climbing, followed by some fun descents. Each of those rides totaled about 2k of elevation gain, so I was gasping for air especially on the first day. However, it was more of a "get in the groove and grind" type climb - mostly smooth trail and constant grade. Not like around here where it's punchy and technical. Wasn't too bad by the 3rd day although my legs were about done. The lift assist day started above 11k for each run, but of course it's downhill so no suffering just pure fun.

I spent a few days in Ruidoso last week. Got a few rides in with one lift assist day at the ski resort. I did get some video on the GoPro, but haven't had a chance to even look at it yet. Here are a few pics. It was so nice to get out of the heat and into the mountains for a few days.

Congrats on the Tundra. I have a 2019. And yeah the mpg is bad, but it's a truck...if that were a concern i'd get a Prius or something. 38 gallon tank also keeps the trips to the gas station less frequent.

Yep you caught the bug alright. If you pull the trigger on a new frame, I'd be interested in hearing about it as it sounds like you and I are looking at similar models.

The nice thing about that 80 miles of SATN is that it is pretty varied, and leans more toward intermediate than advanced terrain. So you can put together easier or harder loops based on what you feel like riding that day. I can hit that network straight out of my front door, and will choose my course based on whether I want to maximize climbing, hit some of the rougher chunky terrain, or if I just want a leisurely spin.

Awesome. Walnut Creek is a great place to start. One of the few smooth flowy trails around Austin, not littered with rocks and ledges. There are a few challenging spots out there (Endo Valley comes to mind). If you find yourself on the south side of town Slaughter Creek Trail is an easy 5 mile loop and there are probably about 80 miles of trail on the South Austin Trail Network (SATN).

I now know more of what you're talking about. I stopped by the shop today and sat on the new Tallboy and the Yeti SB130. While I was on the Tallboy, I was talking with the salesman and he started laughing at me because I kept looking down watching the wheel flop over every time I let go of the bars. Both bikes are super nice.

Bummer dude. One nice thing about living in Texas - while the summers are a fucking beating, the riding is year-round.

Yeah it's crazy how much things have changed over the past few years. It will definitely take some getting used to for me. I've yet to spend any time on newer, slacker geo other than a quick ride around the parking lot on a friend's bike. Demo days are in my future.

Twice's question got me thinking. I stopped by a bike shop the other day to take a look at a bike that's been catching my eye lately. I really am trying to resist starting that hunt for a new bike, but I'm afraid it may have already started. Anyway, this bike was a brand new 2020 and had the latest geo and everything else. The bars were 800mm. And here I thought 740 sounded super wide but damn 800? I feel like that would create tree gates where they never existed for me before. I'll have to go do some demo rides at some point, but I'm curious what length bars you guys on more modern bikes are running. What did the bike come with and did you end up cutting the bars down? For around here, 800 seems way too wide as there are a number of tight twisty trails where I feel like that wouldn't play well.

I have never ridden with a dropper post, so I can't answer the question. Of course I'm still on my old school 2012 vintage Santa Cruz with 71 degree HTA, 685mm bars, and boner stem. A year or 2 ago while about to head down a long descent in New Mexico, I decided to lower my seatpost to simulate what having a dropper could do for me. Holy shit I felt uncomfortable and squirrelly. I didn't realize until then how much I use my seat for stabilization on descents...kind of keeping it between my thighs while standing. Sounds kinky I know. I'm also conditioned to get my ass behind the seat and put it just about on the back tire for really steep descents. I know whatever bike I get next will come with a dropper, but I guess I'll wait to really learn how to use one until then.

yeah grips are very much a personal preference. I have Ergons on two of my bikes and they are my go to. I have these on another bike and I like them and of course love the look: https://www.jensonusa.com/ODI-Vans-Lock-On-Grips-Checkered-Clamps-Black-With-Black-Checkered-Clamps?pt_source=googleads&pt_medium=cpc&pt_campaign=shopping_us&pt_keyword=&gclid=Cj0KCQjwqs3rBRCdARIsADe1pfSIrEf0SC5-d5Y115VZJ5BSKxJkbRZltj8NmClyqK71tLVFRBe_gS0aApnWEALw_wcB I don't ride that bike very often but it's kind of a nice change of pace for me when I do ride it. On another note, I rode yesterday with a friend of mine. He does a Sunday morning road ride out in Dripping Springs most weekends and he was telling me how he likes to mess with the roadies by riding up real close to them. He decided to demonstrate and moved over right next to me real fast, hooking my handlebar under his accidentally and sent me to the ground in a hurry. Smashed the shit out of my phone screen which I had in my pocket like a dumbass. So I get to go see about getting that repaired today.

Hell yes to this. I rode yesterday at 5:30 and it felt great. Ended up doing some exploring and found a couple new fun trails. Was planning to just go for a quick hour-long ride, but ended up closer to 2 hours. The humidity is supposed to come back this weekend though...boo.

I actually did have it mounted upside down. In fact - and you will probably be interested in this - I bought the newest version of the Chesty and used it for this ride. In the past, I had to rig up the camera in odd ways with multiple mounts on the old one to get it to a proper angle. But this one is better out out f the box. It also has a big pad behind where the camera is mounted which really helps cushion it and would likely help with the issues you described with the moto jersey etc. Oh and I spent a while looking for the setting on the Hero 7 to flip it upside down. Well it turns out this motherfucker rotates automatically like a smartphone. I'm digging it.

I went out to Reimers Ranch yesterday and figured I'd take the GoPro. It's this first time I've used the Hero 7 and its hypersmooth feature. I thought it did a pretty good job of smoothing out the bumpiness a bit without the full gimbal effect. I'll have to play around more with it, and try and figure out the best angle for the camera on the chest mount. I put together a quick vid with a few clips.

That's what she said. Core tool: I don't even remember when I got that but it must have some with some Stan's stuff I bought.

Me too. I've only ridden that trail once and I either rolled, b-lined, or cased the majority of it. Still had a blast. I think I could get better at it with repeated attempts as it's so purpose built that if you just ride at a good speed you'll land on the transitions smooth as butter. But I've never been too good when both wheels get too far off the ground. Plus, I'm getting old.

Good advice, thanks. I will be doing probably one day of lift assist, but at Ski Apache which is still nothing much more than a couple of trails with a few little jumps, wall rides, and skinny little bridges. Probably won't go full armor. I wish they would do more with that place. I did hear that they may build a lift assist park area up on Moon Mountain in Ruidoso, which would probably be similar in nature to Spider Mountain. There are a number of fun trails right in town though that are free other than the cost of riding to the top. This one is at Cedar Creek (not my vid):

I admittedly didn't spend too much time with it, but it seemed to just quit doing what I thought I had told it to do. I made a little vid where I rode for a bit on one setting, then another, and so on just to see how it behaved. It would be ok for a while and then all of a sudden it would move the camera all the way to the left and just stay there. Could totally be user error, but I was sick of fucking with it. It was the Rider-M gimbal. Maybe you will have better luck. I am going to take that Hero7 out this weekend if I can find my damn chest mount.

I know of that place but never been. A lot of the stuff there looks to be a bit above my pay grade from what I've seen. What do you use for camera setup? I have a GoPro that i used to make some vids with years ago (3+ Black i think) but I was never really that pleased with how they turned out. I used the chest mount, but they would still be pretty shaky. Then my wife got a gimbal for hers (she does some photo/vid stuff on the side) and I used that some but it was a pain in the ass to get working correctly. Now she has a GoPro 7 which has image stabilization built into the software. Haven't tried it yet and I'm sure it won't be near as good as a real gimbal, but I'm thinking of giving it a shot. I have a trip to New Mexico coming up next month and will hit a bunch of trails out there and it would be fun to get some of that on video.

Got a ride in today at high noon. It was hot but only 92 instead of the forecast 104. Think I'll keep doing that for the next few weeks for weekday rides.

$3 relay fixed the AC issue on wife's MDX. That put an end to the new car talk...for a while.

lol I knew that response was coming. I was too busy ogling to get a pic