TristanC profile

I was thinking about rituals this morning when I got up early to work out. I'm training for an ultra endurance race this fall, but in a sense I've been training for ultra racing continuously since I got into it a couple years ago. The thought that popped into my head was, "When do I get to stop training?" and my answer was, "I guess I don't, this is my life now." 

I'm not sure it's true - am I really going to keep getting up early and picking up heavy things and setting them back down again for the next 50 years? Maybe!

I've had some hard rides. I've had some miserable rides. I've had rides that ended in injury and weeks of recovery. But I've never had a ride that was worse than not going for a ride.

About a year and a half ago, I moved from the US to Germany for work. I remember being really frustrated as I piled up my stuff to pack and bring with me. It felt like there was so much of it and I had the impulse to drop everything and move overseas with only a carry-on full of clothes and figure it out later. Actually moving was anxiety-inducing from arriving at the airport to my new landlord finally leaving me in the apartment.

When I was able to put my bike together the next day and go for a ride, though, all that stress evaporated. Bikes make me feel good. I'm glad my brain works that way.

I'm in the midst of ordering a custom frame, and I've found myself agonizing over things like STA now. I think it's going to end up at 73°, because that hasn't let me down in the past and the bike is already ridiculously long without moving the rider even further forwards. And I am a pedal masher, not a spinner.

I checked the geometry of my current bike, though, and found that the STA is 70° (overforking a 73° nominal). I've been riding it for months and didn't die, and my knees didn't explode. I have tried 165mm cranks too, and they made my knees hurt (on top of the knee, which is a new one) so I swapped back to 175mm and they felt better. Maybe I'm just in that sweet spot of 73° STA, 175mm cranks.

You must be much better at fender installs than I am, last time was a solid two hours plus a trip to the hardware store!

I'm temporarily living and working in Schweinfurt, Germany. I can see the SRAM building from my office window. I've gone on some rides with folks who work there, and I asked them if they think working in the bike industry is worth it. They've all said yes, they love it, they get to think about bikes all day and work next to people who also like thinking about bikes all day.

I'm a mechanical engineer in an automotive-adjacent field, and have a fairly low-stress job that I leave at work every day, and then I go home and get to ride or work on my bike. I think that's what will always stop me from jumping from automotive to bikes - bikes are a fun hobby for me, and I use them to decompress. If I had to think about them every day, I don't know if I would like them anymore.

Also, $30 for a fender install is a flaming bargain, that's at least a two-beer job for me.

*3mm hex head bolts made of soft cheese. I swapped mine for ones with a 4mm hex after an adventure with a screw extractor, but it's silly I have to do that on a $100 stem.

"“Youth” here refers to anything that happened more than three years ago, give or take."

Oof, I feel that. I've barely crested the ancient age of 30 and I cringe when I think about what kind of person I was five years ago, let alone ten or fifteen. I guess that's personal growth.

In the same vein, I'm pretty sure I'm a dickhead who doesn't know what he's doing 95% of the time, but being aware of that is worth something, right?

> I don't go for the servo-motor noise even if sometimes it makes me laugh thinking about the Knights Who Say Ni.

I ride gravel with a couple folks who have robot derailleurs and they make a subtle high pitched noise all the time, as far as I can tell. Drives me crazy. It's similar to the noise CRT TVs make if they're on but have no signal input.

Maybe it's just head trauma, no one else can hear it.

The urgency makes you ride faster.

Posted by: fartymarty

I get why Stooge don't do 44mm HTs (due to aesthetic reasons and maybe purity) but it would be cool to stick a bouncy fork on the front of a Stooge.

Tristan - there is a ton of overlap but all very different uses - could you get the same uses out of a Scambler with wheel / bar swaps?

I've also thought my Scrambler plus a squishy fork would be cool. Maybe in a couple years it'll get some head tube surgery.

I could absolutely cover the whole range with the Scrambler, in fact I am right now! I'm temporarily living in Germany (home is MN in the USA), and only brought two bikes with me - the Scrambler and my Otso Warakin gravel bike. The Warakin and I got run over by a car and now I am using the Scrambler for everything, with one wheelset. It's a decent allround commuter/gravel bike/ATB/trail bike. I already have the Troll and fat bike at home, and I'm going to build up the Rambler with parts salvaged off my gravel bike. I like having options.

If I didn't love my Scrambler, I'd be mighty tempted by the Dirt Tracker. I'm using the n=1 Scrambler as a do-it-all with 29x2.25s right now, but I think, when I move home this fall, it will get bigger rubber and a more ATB role in my stable:

• Surly Troll commuter

• Stooge Rambler 27.5x2.6 drop-bar + gears

• Stooge Scrambler 29xbigger singlespeed ATB

• Waltworks fatbike hardtail for trail/heavy duty adventure

There's a lot of overlap between those four, and I went back and forth a lot about preordering a Rambler after my previous gravel bike died by car, but I think they'll all see good action.

My current N=1, double hardtail Stooge Scrambler ft. turnip pile:

And a WIP single/double hardtail from Waltworks, that I'll hopefully build up at the beginning of June:

I also have a triple hardtail (mountain unicycle) but it doesn't get as much use as it should, and it's on a different continent than me right now. I got to get some miles in on it when I move back.

Posted by: Vikb

Another year another thread about single, double and triple hardtails leaning against stuff. All the best to the NSMB weird bike crew for 2024. :-)

What's a triple hardtail? In my mind,

Single hardtail = hardtail

Double hardtail = rigid

Triple hardtail = trail running? Unicycle?

Posted by: Hepcat

Watched my buddy's cheap 25.4 Azonic bar droop on the left side eventually after years of hitting the same neighborhood 6' drop to flat, I'm assuming, like 10 million times. He continued riding that bent bar for years. Ah youth 

Hmm, have seen a few bars toasted from over torquing though.

That's the "severe user" that all reliability engineering designs towards!

At least for the kind of riding I do, I would worry much more about over torquing than human generated forces on the bars. I also do a lot of bolted joint calculations and the torque range between "joint is tight enough to hold the things together without slipping" and "strip the thread or crush the thing you are clamping" is pretty small. Please, please use torque wrenches, everyone!

I have never changed bars because of a concern about failure, but I am a chronic bar swapper, trying to find a perfect fit.

I'm also a mechanical engineer, and do a lot of work with aluminum fatigue. I can't guess about how aluminum handlebars are engineered, but aluminum does not have a fatigue limit, so it will eventually fail under very low cyclic loads (e.g. normal riding). That said - I would guess anyone designing bars is running FEA on them and has a life criteria (number of stress cycles to failure). Any reputable bars are also going to pass ISO 4210-5, which is the ISO spec for "bicycle steering equipment." Part of that standard is a fatigue life test on a bar, which is usually to 10 million stress cycles (unloaded -> loaded -> unloaded under the force generated by a "severe user").

Short story: yes, aluminum bars will eventually fail, but it will probably take a long time unless you are riding pro-level DH all day every day. If you want to be safe, replace them once a decade; 3 years seems very short given that there are a lot of older bars out there and they do not fail if you look at them wrong. If you damage the bar in a crash (visible gouges, which are stress risers and will decrease the fatigue life in that spot) or get hit by a car (forces much much higher than the bar is designed for) then I would replace them.

Posted by: fartymarty

Tristan - was it this one? https://restrap.com/blogs/news/the-restrap-solstice-century-challenge-2023 ?

Yep, that's the one. I added a personal challenge, I started at sunrise (8:11) and wanted to finish 100mi before sunset (16:17). Not a problem on a geared bike, but it turned out to be a significant challenge SS.

Posted by: Vikb

My buddy passed away in 2019. I was down at the LBS grabbing something and noticed his old Moxie was in for service. Great to see his old rig still getting used well and going strong.

I hope my steel bikes are still around in two or three decades. I might have to machine my own hubs for them, because we'll be six hub standards down the line, but they should take anything I throw at them.

Posted by: fartymarty

Update on the Cotic Klunker.  

We did a 30 mile XC ride today with 1100m of climbing.  Climbing - the front wanders a little but it's offset by the steeper STA which keeps the front down.  Downhill it's great except in chunk where you just have to hang on and try and stay loose.  We rode a couple of steep rooty sections and it was fine.

Overall the -2 headset is definitely a keeper and the rigid fork is fun and a good change to the bike.

I did a Solstice Century on my singlespeed Scrambler a week and a half ago - 100mi/162km with 5500ft/1700m climbing. My first century on a SS and it's a very different experience; much more leg strength, much less cardio. I cooked my legs pretty thoroughly, was racing to hit 100mi before the sun set and just barely made it up the last hill.

I'm about two and a half months into N = 1 with my SS Scrambler, still loving it. I have a Rambler frame on preorder but I won't build that up until I move back to North America next fall. I'm running 32-18 and that's great for the mix of fire roads, pavement, and janky singletrack around here. There are a couple hills that are a challenge to climb and I spin out at about 20mph, but it works for the majority of situations.

Posted by: nowthatsdoomage

Stache got its winter conversion to SS over Thanksgiving. Best part is that I can take the chain off without breaking the link to re-wax it.

Looks great! I've always been Stache-curious. Those chainstays look so short with 29+ tires.