I Finally Went and Did It.

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Thanks. My last bike was a hardtail with 26" wheels I handbuilt. Mavic doublewall rims, 14 ga. stainless spokes and brass nipples. I rode those wheels for 15 years, had the rear trued twice and finally broke two spokes on my last ride on it.
When I bought the Stumpjumper, I noticed the spoke nipples are aluminum. I thought to myself "I'll be swapping those out".
Well, the rear suspension must coushin the blow, because they seem to be holding up just fine. This is my first full suspension bike, so I'm still getting used to it, but unwanted flex seems to be non existant.
I'm 260 pounds and this bike is very surefooted. I even removed a tire and tried to twist the rim to check it torsionally. Seems like good stuff.
 
260 eh, well that is a good test for a bike rim. I'm 220 so I'm no XC hill climbing rocket anymore either but I like to pass on the downhills if I can. My spokes are 14g stainless as well but I do have the weird shimano rear hub where the spokes slip in. They always snap at the bend so maybe the hub doesn't seat them well.
I have sun ditch witch rim brake rims so I only worry about flat spotting and it hasn't happened yet. I'm sure the disc brake rims now can be made as strong and lighter than my old rims.
Do you find that the fork springs are stiff enough? I'm running a dual crown jr T now with a 1" spacer in the spring stack to stiffen it up but really I should cut a few coils out for my weight.
Ian
 
The fork on my bike is a Rockshox Reba. It's an air fork with air rebound also. It's my first air fork, the one I rode before was an Answer Manitou EFC, an elastomer fork.
With the Reba, I just pump it up according to the chart for my weight and go riding. The stiffness has an adjustment on the top of the right leg. I just set it for full firm and backed it off until it felt right.
 
That's a nice fork too! The dual air system most have something to do with getting 120mm of travel out of an air fork. I have an old marz Z4 air fork on my true XC bike. Only 80mm of travel but I like how its so easy to adjust the air pressure and how it ramps up to avoid harsh bottoming. I've thought about using the air top caps on my jr t but I still have to do some more research if it would work or not.
What kind of terrain do you ride mostly? I mostly do tighter single track with the emphasis on fun twisty downhill sections these days. I avoid trails that burn elevation wastefully, I can go 35 mph on the road and would rather do 10-15mph carving turns and berms all the way down.
Ian
 
Well, as you can probably imagine, on Long Island we're elevation limited. I do still have a very nice selection of technical singletrack with plenty of up and down. One place I frequent has ten and a half miles of loops ranging from easy to black diamond. Cross country singletrack is my favorite. I'm kinda big for real tight stuff, but I go where the ride leads.

I do travel upstate whenever possible and this christmas, I'm bringing the bike to Florida and trying Alafia State Park in Tampa. I think it has something like twenty miles of assorted levels of trails.

You must have some awesome stuff where you live. I'm jealous.
 
Originally Posted By: NYEngineer
Well, as you can probably imagine, on Long Island we're elevation limited. I do still have a very nice selection of technical singletrack with plenty of up and down. One place I frequent has ten and a half miles of loops ranging from easy to black diamond. Cross country singletrack is my favorite. I'm kinda big for real tight stuff, but I go where the ride leads.


I've been away from LI about 15 yrs now, but do people still ride the Greenbelt? I used to live in Farmingdale and work in Huntington, I rode the whole length from Massapequa to Cold Spring harbor a number of times. the CSH section was basically unrideable, but the mid section was technical and fast.
 
Absolutely. I love the Greenbelt. If I could do all my rides there, I would, but the other guys I ride with like the loops as well. The Cold Spring Harbor part has been closed for years now. A really good ride for me starts at Bethpage Park, up the Greenbelt to Stillwell Woods and back to Bethpage. That ends up being about 16 miles of singletrack.

You could have almost commuted on it.
 
I did a few times, actually. I just hated the road portion to the shop. I was able to get in the woods literally down at the end of my block, it would link up to the section parallel to the parkway.
that was a LONG time ago, back before suspension, and steel was real. I don't think there could have been a better bike for that than my Fat City I had back then. good stuff.
 
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