Mountain Bikes!

keep tubes handy or buy some stans... seems like all the ones around here have flats in a short time mostly ridden on the beach. The LBS by me stocks replacement tubes... at $34 each.

 

Your local to hershey? Small world.

 

Mechanicsburg

 

You guys will prolly laugh at this... But my wife and I decided to try and ride in the snow yesterday. lmao.. we have been so damn bored over the holiday break..

We decided to load up, toss a bunch of layers on and see if we could get into Ft. Custer. Made it to the trail head, saw a bunch of fat tire bike dudes rolling out. So, we decided to give it a shot. We have 27.5+ tire hardtails. So I played with our air in the parking lot to see if could find a pressure that would work. I ended up putting both bikes at about 12psi and off we went.

It was actually a blast! lol I had no idea you could ride bikes in the winter. lmao. I crashed pretty hard basically right off the get go, but because of the snow it didn't even bother me.. About 2 miles in my wife got a flat on the front. We walked back to my truck, I fixed the flat (had a leak at her valve stem) and we just started all over. We actually caught up with a and passed a few of the fat tire bikes.

anyway.. it was a good time, and we are definitely going to do it some more.

 

Riding the snow is awesome. I love how quiet it is on the trail. It's gets a little sketchy when it's all packed in with a layer layer ice. When it's fresh, it's some of the most fun you can have on a bicycle.

 

In FL we get to ride the beach which can be miserable or not depending on the tide. Even a 90rpm granny gear crawl is on the inside of fun. I rode everyday over the 2 wk christmas & NY break.
Thats what its all about...FUN

 

The Park Tool one is solid and adjustable/"rotatable". Have it mounted to my work bench.

 

Good boots, gloves, wool socks - and layers up top.

Laugh, but this brush kit is super handy:
https://www.parktool.com/product/bike-cleaning-brush-set-bcb-4-2

The one brush gets the frame (avoid scratches), the other brush the wheels, and the cone one gets down inside the rear wheel, along the frame that's a PITA to get to. The last brush cleans the chain. I also have a toilet brush to get into the cassette and pulley wheels - works really well.

And as mentioned, stay away from the power washer. Keep it light pressure and be mindful around the bottom bracket and top stem, where water can get in and cause problems down the road. Less is more when it comes to washing bikes I've found. Compressed air is nice way to dry them off too.

 

I’ve always been a trainer guy in the winter, but after moving to CO the winters are much milder than what I had in the Midwest. I’ve been considering a fat bike lately as we are pretty far from the ski towns. The Salsa Beargrease looks sick.

 

www.fatbikechallenge.com

Just started here in Michigan.

 

I don't have a fat tire bike, but watching the folks who had them the other day, definitely makes me want one.

 

depending on where you are in Colorado, the fat bike might not get much use. Snow doesn’t tend to stick around much at the lower altitudes.

That said, the Beargrease would be high on my list

 

I’m just north of the Springs, and yeah I think you’re probably right. We get some snowfall but doesn’t hang around much.

I think I’m going to try and hit up the flat track this Friday. It’s going to be in the 50s. Never thought I’d live somewhere where January riding was feasible.

 

It's probably the most fun bike I ride. They're light enough now that they are basically all-season bikes. Although in the summer and on certain trails, I'd want a fork on the front ideally.

 

Getting that fatty tire bike has motivated me to take my couple decades old (I think circa 1999'ish) aluminum framed Pacific and make a project out of it by throwing some budget upgrades at it to make it a little more modern'ish. Probably a waste of money but I think I can get it all knocked out for a few hundy and its more of the fun and experience of tinkering than actually making it any better than something new. The model was called the YX9000 and it actually came with RST downhill forks and an RST coil shock on it (though they were bottom of the barrel useless in real world usage). I can find literally no documentation at all anywhere online about this model. There's a bit of stuff about some of the lower models under it.

Thinking I'll try and find some air forks and shock, convert it to a 1x (it's a 3x8 right now), convert it to front and rear discs and update the headset/stem/bars/controls. Should be a fun little project I hope, lol.

Looks a bit similar to this....a YX8500

 

Well you're right, that would be a massive waste of money haha!

 

haha we were just discussing the "ram" horns the other day and how many times we've gotten pitched off because of them grabbing a small tree or branch

 

Man I miss my bar ends so much... I used them all the time on climbs.

 

I'll mail these ones to you if you miss them that much.....

 

My separated shoulder came from a bar end. On the street riding around, it came loose on the bar as I was standing up pedalling with all my weight forward and threw me over the bars haha. Fuck those things!