DemonMike profile

Love the Urge helmets. Who's the go to for purchases in BC now. MEC was the old spot for these helmets.

Bar rise , hell yay. Totally different feel than . Just raising the stack height. I like some stem rise as well. Big fan of the Renthal FAT bar and a Apex stem combo.

I was considering one of these. But when I ordered my current bike in late 2020. They only offered the carbon model. And I was after a alloy frame.

I don,t have any trail rides on my Marin yet.Life has been in the way. Plus our new location is snow covered 5mths+ a yr.  But in a financial position with having to sell one. With what I have done with the Django. I could keep it and still have fun . If I don,t sell it . I may lighten it up and swap the air shock back in. Make it a lighter duty trail bike. Instead of a trail smasher LOL. We are an hr from Sunpeaks as well. I think the Marin would really rock up there. I have also never been there. So I need to get in shape again . Last real ride was Canada 2020. Then we moved and as mentioned life has been in the way.

I was never one to have to have the best of the best. I started on a 92 Giant ATX 660. But once the switch to full suspension happened . Going hardtail never crossed my mind again. Suspension I don't need Pro level . But Entry level does not work either. When I got back into riding in 2012. I started on craigslist specials. But beating up something already pretty beat. Sorta sucks the life from riding. As you can spend a fair amount of time and $$. Wrenching to keep it ridable. My current fleet is a 2017 Alloy frameset Django 29er, and a 2021 Marin XR Trail. Both are what I consider the bare minimum at this point. The Marin is all stock apart from a brake change to Codes R .And a SQlab saddle and some non lock on grips. I hope to log some decent rides on it this year. And from there I will look at any upgrades/changes. It's still on stock wheels . And I have been on hand builts with Spank rims and Tairan hubs. Or Spank and Hope hubs. For the last 7yrs. Some parts I spend the extra money. Other stuff I can cut corners if it works. Wheels I like a certain quality rim and hubs. Groupo's SLx for the rear , cassette as well. And shifter I always use a XT. Cranks , I had carbons and had them for years. But when the crapped the bed. I went with a Atlas with the bigger spindle. Pedals , I have had $200 ones , and currently have One-up plastics. And previously had Wha Whas in alloy and plastic. Suspension , My Django fork is full of Vorsprung tricks. I installed the upgrades. But I did it with a used 36 I bought from a buddy. Rear shock , when it was air. I had a Vorsprung body upgrade. For coil-over again bought used higher end and out of the box tunes.

He did 10 complete bikes , and had motor parts for 20. I have some of the linkage for the brakes. He brought in the original parts. We reproduced what we could . And Paul made what he could. We did most of the tube bending as well. And made lots of parts for the motors.

You see that board track bike beside Paul. I had the pleasure of meeting Paul thru that project. Machined dozens of parts for the motor and other bits and bobs he needed. Been out to his shop a few times. Even had a home cooked meal with him. An amazing craftsman of various trades he is. Does he still have the Peacock cage beside his shop?

Fast tire , ran one with a Shorty on my Django 29er.

I think I remember it now. White Ind was one of the hubs I remember. All my wheels in those days where XT hubs.

Just spent some more time reading and gawking. Not a bike park rider, but I have to say Tom's bike. That makes me want one so much more now LOL. Sunpeaks is just over an hour from our new place. Closest I have ever lived to a bike park. Sadly all the good trails are an hours drive as well. Looking forward to seeing what the future brings. I expect a full write on the secret bike project once it's done.

I have had good luck with the smaller Lezyne models. I,m pretty basic. I just used it for mileage data and such.No blue tooth either. I liked the fact it has it's own page for uploading. And you have the option to add it to strava if you choose.

https://ride.lezyne.com/collections/gps-devices-computers/products/macro-easy-gps

This is the newest version of what I have. I bought mine a couple years ago now. I never had issues logging data. Some spots you might want to turn it on a few minutes before. I had a couple spots it would need a minute to find a connection.

Posted by: shoreboy

Posted by: Sethimus

Posted by: Mic

I am wondering, does anyone of you use a dirtjump saddle for trailbike duties? Am in the market for a new saddle and thought "Why not?" The padding on some of them, like the Chromag ones seems nice enough for a trail and pedally bike. 

Still, before I burn my money I thought I'd rather ask in here. 

Other options would be

get your sit bones measured and buy the right size sqlab saddle for your ass. problem solved.

In theory this works, but I found the SQlab saddles were still not comfortable for me even with the 'right' size. Its possible I was between sizes, but I never did find a comfortable setup with mine.

What one did you have? I have the 60X active. And never noticed discomfort. And I ride no chamie as well. I ride a saddle narrower as well. I tried wider with other brands. And my thigh's didn't agree . I did find it took a few rides to find the fore and aft position. But once I found that I felt I could stay seated longer as well.

Posted by: heathen

Posted by: FLATCH

You know, if you lost one of those bottles I would bet that you would have room for a couple of sandwiches.

I’ll be curious about your experience moving to 29. I’m about to make the same move and I’m still on the fence about it.

I am 5'6 or 5'8ish and ride aggressively. I have demoed many 29er one of my main beef is the rear tire hitting me in the ass. I am also not a huge fan of how they corner. My main bike is a 2021 Transition Scout bumped up to 160x150mm travel and it is about as perfect a bike as I could ask for. IMO for my height and riding style 27.5 is the size for me. For an XC bike I am not as worried about the rear tire hitting my bum as XC bikes are not meant for aggressive steep riding.

I,m just over 5'10" with a 32" inseam. I buzzed my nuts on my 26" all the time. It's part of riding , you do adjust your posture in time. A buddy of mine . He's your height he just got a 29er.And he's loving it .His last bike was a 27.5".

Posted by: FLATCH

You know, if you lost one of those bottles I would bet that you would have room for a couple of sandwiches.

I’ll be curious about your experience moving to 29. I’m about to make the same move and I’m still on the fence about it.

You won't regret it. There's a noticeable difference.

Posted by: T-mack

Posted by: rwalters

As the token NSMB.com machinist guy, it is my job to police all machine shop related content.

No I'M the token NSMB machinist guy! (Waiting for DemonMike to chime in lol)

Hahaha , Rossco as well LOL

Posted by: T-mack

Posted by: Vikb

Posted by: T-mack

I went to BCIT for my machining apprenticeship with the owners son. He rolled up every day with a DJ bike draped in Straitline stuff lol. Anyway when you have millions of dollars in CNC machines and can make tens of thousands on Aerospace jobs or tie up a machine for a few hundred on mtb stuff which would you choose.

Definitely. I worked in an aerospace composite company next door to SL and the other issue is that in order to meet aerospace quality standards everything you do is highly controlled so even if you want to do something that has lower standards you can't really flip a switch and do that so anything you make ends up being expensive to make. Now if that CNC was going to sit idle for 12hrs and you can crank out 60 sets of bike pedals that can make sense. OTOH it wouldn't make sense to put off an aerospace machining job to make a batch of bike pedals.

I did Aerospace for a while and it was a bit too crazy for my liking lol. Spend all day setting up a part just to bore a hole and call it a day. It was neat using a CMM though, I could see how some machinists would really enjoy that line of work.

It was like that with some of the jobbing work I did. 10hrs of set-up , and 1/2hr or machining. I missed that when I went to CNC . The fun part of CNC for me was reducing cycle times and playing with tooling .

I see bloody nipples after a day in that shirt LOL. Big fan of merino wool as well. And totally anti-shammy . Have not used one since the mid 90's. The right underwear and saddle help a lot!!

Posted by: SixZeroSixOne

I happened to walk into Cove Bikes for the first time in many years at the weekend...

Oh dear, how sad that places is now with a pretty poor selection of bikes on the floor...

Is that just a sign of the times or has Cove really gone downhill 😳

I stopped in 5 to 6 yrs back. Was dumbfounded, nothing like they once where. Chaz was still there , was nice to chat with him again.

Posted by: Vikb

That Raaw looks great. I have a soft spot for metal bikes.

Yarp me too!!! I want a sweet moly framed one next. I love the gearbox bike the guy at REEB built. The fella at NSB did a killer job as well.

Posted by: Vandy

Posted by: DemonMike

Did you get evacuated? I know of people who have in that region. I have only been here for a year next month. Have yet to ride, been over a year for me now.

Yeah, family was out. I had to stick around for work, finally got to head down to the Fraser Valley the past couple days. I hope you're doing well because I see the Sparks fire is creeping in on Barriere.

...

On to the bike!

I spent a few hours at Thornhill doing laps for a bit of a proper shakedown on the flowy jump lines. I wanted a bike to hopefully suit the smoother faster trails you tend to find in the Kamloops area, and I think this will do nicely.

Still no weight. Next time I'm in Kamloops I'll see if some bike shop will let me break their scale.

Pros:

• Climbs way better than I imagined it would. For what it's worth, I'm definitely of the seated and spinning school than the stand and mash. The front stays planted with minimal hunching over the bar. I actually had to consciously think about not leaning forward so much because its a bit of an automatic response. The rear suspension is reasonably calm, able to maintain traction, and responsive to unweighting to hop the rear wheel over things. It motored over some big nasty roots that I thought I would stall out on without much fuss. Basically I felt like I could relax more when climbing and chug my way up.
• Anti-squat feels quite balanced. I was kinda worried about "the numbers," but as usual, it's more than just the numbers. I didn't feel like my feet were getting excessively jostled despite me riding in my Chuck Taylors... I was stopping to check out the jumps before hitting them the first time like a good boy, and I felt there was a good amount of support when you hammer out a few pedal strokes to get up to speed. No excessive mush or bobbing to be had.
• Good support to push against in corners and off the lips of jumps.
• I think its the extra stack, but I didn't find the long chainstays made it difficult to get on the back wheel.
• Rear traction feels great. I didn't feel the back end skipping around in turns or under braking. Most of the trails back home were torched in the fire but there are a lot more fast flat corners I'll be checking out whenever we get back in there.
• Confidence-inspiring. From time to tim I think we can all end up fighting the "lean back!" lizard brain response. I felt like I could really ride the front wheel and hit the turns pretty damn hard. Dare I say I slapped a couple berms.
• This bike wants to go FAST.

Cons:

• Takes a fair bit of effort if you want to kick the back end loose. It will do it, you just gotta really mean it. This bike is much more about business than goofin'.
• I can see the desire for speed writing cheques that the amount of suspension can't quite cash if you aren't paying attention in the rough.
• Frame protection was peeling off out of the box. Privateer had another set in the mail before they even replied to my inquiry, so we'll see if I can fix it up.
• I noticed a bit of chain noise as well. I think this has more to do with the fact the clutch on my GX derailleur is punched than anything inherent in the frame design. The actual coverage of the included chainstay/seatstay protection seems good, although it could probably be thicker material.

Future changes? I want to move away from the disposable SRAM clutches and everyone talks about 12-spd Shimano like it's the second coming of the baby Jesus. Unfortunately I doubt I can find a microspline freehub for my SRAM-branded hubs. I'm probably going to drop the coin on a new wheelset next year and move to microspline so I can throw an SLX 12-speed drivetrain at it.

I probably could have gone for a more conventional brand, but I wanted Alloy, and I didn't feel like spending $6,000+ to get the good suspension bits on a new bike. It's still the honeymoon phase, but I think I got what I was looking for. Also I now have so many pirate-themed options for naming my bike, possibly the best part.

No evacuation notice for us. We are 20+KM east of the town. And I thought I recognized that road. Used to live minutes away from Thornhill. Some of my buddies build several of the trails there.