Mountain Bike

[rich67]

I have a Specialized Camber Comp 29er. Great bike, very plush ride. Kind of heavy though; compare the weight to the Salsa before you buy. But the Specialized looks great, rides nice, and climbs like a billy goat.

[Iceaxe]

So my new Salsa bike came today. I put the ATAC pedals from my Diamondback on it for now and rode around in the snow a little. The suspension has a lot of adjustment so it might take a bit to get that dialed into what I like. So far I'm really happy with it, but time will tell. Thanks to everyone that helped me out.

I picked the Salsa over the Specilized in the end because the best deal I could get on both bikes the Salsa was just more bang for the buck.

[neilether]

Very nice. First item of business; put some stans's sealant in those tires and ditch the tubes and go tubeless.

[Iceaxe]

Funny... I was just going to ask about going tubeless... So if I understand things correctly. To go tubeless I have to swap out the valves and install sealeant. I believe the rims are already taped on the new bike? How do I tell for sure?

[neilether]

Funny... I was just going to ask about going tubeless... So if I understand things correctly. To go tubeless I have to swap out the valves and install sealeant. I believe the rims are already taped on the new bike? How do I tell for sure?

Luckily those rims are Stans rims, so they should be ready to go. Just get the valve stems, put on one side of the tire, pour in some stans sealant, then put on the other bead. It'll help tremendously if you have an air compressor to fully seat the bead. It can work with just a floor pump, but is difficult and doesn't work all the time.

After you get the bead to lock into place (pump it up to the max stated on the tire sidewall) let it sit at high pressure for a while. You may hear some rather loud pops as the beads locks into place, this is normal.

Now you have to make sure the sealant fills up all the pores in the tires. Hold the wheel vertically and shake vigorously back and forth. Rotate the wheel 20 degrees or so and repeat until you have gone all the way around the tire. This will slosh the sealant up on the sidewalls of the tires. Then just lay the tire horizontally over a bucket or something so it is level. Wait a couple hours. Repeat the sloshing/rotating process and then lay it on its other side for a couple hours. Hopefully the following day the tires are still full of air.

Sounds more annoying than it really is. Pretty simple.

[neilether]

How do I tell for sure?

Once you have one of the tires off, you should see some bright yellow tape in the middle of the rim bed. If it is there, you are golden.

[Sombeech]

I just dunno about tubeless. Every time Mark fiddles with his tires it turns out to be a huge pain in the ass. And if there's a flat on the trail, he's walking the rest of the way.

[neilether]

I just dunno about tubeless. Every time Mark fiddles with his tires it turns out to be a huge pain in the ass.

He's doing something wrong then, or perhaps his particular setup isn't very amenable to tubeless. My group used to have flat after flat when in Moab or St. George. This past spring we had 1 flat in 3 days of hard riding amongst 12 of us. There were 3 people in the group with tubes, one of them got the flat. Tubeless isn't flawless, but it is certainly a huge improvement in my opinion over running tubes. You can run way lower tire pressure without risking pinch flats, and if you run through a patch of goatheads, you can just watch the sealant bubbles doing their job and keep on rolling.

The rims in question above are Stan's rims so they are designed to be run tubeless without any special gimmicry and I can vouch for their efficacy.

And if there's a flat on the trail, he's walking the rest of the way.

Why?!? If you do manage to get a flat on your tubeless set up (I have once in the last 3 years), just throw a tube in and you are back rolling in no time. Same thing you would do if you had a flat with a tube anyway.

[nelsonccc]

Deciding whether or not to run tubeless depends on what kind of pressures you want to run. If you're like me and you always run highish tube pressures then there is no real advantage to tubeless. I never get flats, but its mostly due to the fact that I run like 40 psi. If you want real low pressures then tubeless makes sense but there is very little weight savings. And when I ran ghetto tubeless I had all sorts of issues with burping and boogers and I didn't really feel it was worth it.

[neilether]

Deciding whether or not to run tubeless depends on what kind of pressures you want to run. If you're like me and you always run highish tube pressures then there is no real advantage to tubeless. I never get flats, but its mostly due to the fact that I run like 40 psi. If you want real low pressures then tubeless makes sense but there is very little weight savings.

I am 210# on a good day and I am able to run ~27-28 PSI in the front tire and 30 in the rear. I really like how the lower pressure grips and feels. I agree that by the time you add your 3-4 oz of sealant you are likely not really saving any weight, but for me the conversion is not about the "weight savings."

And when I ran ghetto tubeless I had all sorts of issues with burping and boogers and I didn't really feel it was worth it.

This is the key. A true UST or Stans setup is not prone to the headaches of a ghetto setup. Sealant boogers on the inside of your tire casing are usually a good thing. Those typically mean that is a flat that was fixed before you even knew there was a puncture. All the little gooey fibers are forced to the puncture and coagulate, sealing the hole.

[Iceaxe]

Flats are not an issue for me as I run tubes with slime, and I don't run real low air pressures, never had a pinch flat. But goat heads are a problem around where I ride. So the real issue is weight, ease of use and maintenance.

And weight in the wheel is extra bad as it is unsprung weight.

[Iceaxe]

One more item.... My new bike has Rockshox's front and rear, with a bunch of different adjustments. I have a shock pump but it is 15 years old and I was wondering what a good one is these days. It would be nice to have one that looses air at a predictable rate when unhooking.

[neilether]

Flats are not an issue for me as I run tubes with slime, and I don't run real low air pressures, never had a pinch flat. But goat heads are a problem around where I ride. So the real issue is weight, ease of use and maintenance.

And weight in the wheel is extra bad as it is unsprung weight.

A tubeless setup will give you freedom to try out lower pressures, should you so desire, without the increased risk of pinch flatting. If goatheads are a frequent occurrence, this is a no-brainer. There may be a slight weight savings over a tube, but likely not one that is noticeable.

One more item.... My new bike has Rockshox's front and rear, with a bunch of different adjustments. I have a shock pump but it is 15 years old and I was wondering what a good one is these days. It would be nice to have one that looses air at a predictable rate when unhooking.

Shock pumps are all different. All I do is make sure that I use the same pump every time. That way, I know what pressure my pump should read to get me the appropriate sag measurements on my suspension. Even if the 150psi that it is reading is not actually 150, or if when you unhook the pump a bit of air bleeds out that's ok because I know when the needle says 150 and I unhook the pump and go for a ride the suspension will be where it needs to be.

[Iceaxe]

Spent part of the day working on the new bike trying to dial in seat height, suspension and crap like that. Here is the new bike.

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[live2ride]

Love the color. Go tubless especially if your already running slime in the tubes. It will save soe weight and should be pretty hassle free with the Stan's rims.

[Iceaxe]

Love the color.

You're not going to miss seeing the bike, that is for sure. The surprising thing was even the hubs are anodised orange.



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[neilether]

Luckily it's been nice and warm for you, so you can get a lot of time in on the new rig.

[Iceaxe]

It turned cold and snowy the day the new bike arrived. I've only been able to ride one day and that was on the local paved trail. The bike will probably spend the next two month just sitting and staring at me....

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[Iceaxe]

A quick update on the new bike... so far I love it for the most part. I went with a 29er and I can see that was a good choice. The one thing I hate about the new bike is it shifts with thumb triggers, I much prefer my old twist grip. Four seperate thumb triggers gets a little annoying. The worst part is when you want to jump 3 or 4 gears and have to hit the trigger 3 or 4 times fast. A simple twist of the grip was so much easier. I put platform pedals on this bike and I'm going to stick with them. It just makes attempting difficult obstacales more appealing.

The bike shifted like crap the first few rides but is now shifting smooth, I figure the chain must have knocked some sharp machine burrs of the sprockets or something. This is my first bike with disc brakes, and they are nice, particularly when riding in snow and mud.

I still need to dial in the supension, but waiting for warmer weather.

The granny gear on this bike is not as low as my previous bike, that has messed me up a couple of times. I thinking if the entire rear gear set was on tooth smaller, or the big sproket was two teeth larger it would be geared more to my liking. I'm not sure how difficult/expensive a gearing change is. Or perhaps after a few more rides I'll just be used to it. I'm getting better at selecting the correct gear every day. I had my previous bike for 15 years and rode it nearly every day so knowing the correct gear to grab was second nature.

This bike is a monster on rolling single track, it can really eat up a lot of ground fast. I've never ridden anything like it before. If I decide to do some more racing this bike is going to rule supreme. I'm still waiting for the snow to melt out of the local downhill tracks to try it out in that enviroment.

So that is my up-to-date report.

[nelsonccc]

Pretty easy to spend $40 and get a new rear cassette with a bigger granny gear. Also SRAM did just come out with some pretty slick twist shifters. I wouldn't know though I run a SS.

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