39 inch wheel MTB.

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MattiThundrrr said:
I'd agree with your geo statement, @Karate Chicken Industries , but maybe not rim brakes. I'd like to try a set of mechanical disks, see how they perform in the slop vs rim brakes. My vees are still not happy about my last trip into the really messy stuff
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Mechanical disc brakes are good. I have small ones on my carbon mountain bike. They work well in the rain and work at very high altitude where fluid brakes fail because the fluid almost instantly evaporates. I’m talking riding in the Himalaya. I have a friend who hired sherpas so he could climb and ride down the worlds highest mountain pass. His hydronic brakes failed right away and his buddy with mechanical discs made it. They are inexpensive and light. The down side is they need adjusting about twice a season. For me they work in the slop as well as when it’s dry, just like juice brakes.
 
Matti, not much slop here and if one is riding wet trails they are either rutting them out or picking up clay and ending up with a 100lb bike.

us56456712, CBD is my singlespeed savior. I feel stronger than I did at 30.

Both of y'all, YMMV. Some call me The Freak and for a few reasons.
 
Karate Chicken Industries said:
Matti, not much slop here and if one is riding wet trails they are either rutting them out or picking up clay and ending up with a 100lb bike.

us56456712, CBD is my singlespeed savior. I feel stronger than I did at 30.

Both of y'all, YMMV. Some call me The Freak and for a few reasons.
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Being a retired oncology nurse we used a lot of canabonids back then. They weren’t strong enough to do any good and didn’t improve anything when used as adjuvant therapy. So I have been skeptical, but I’m becoming more open minded about them. There are pot shops everywhere now that it is legal and I have been thinking about trying them. One of my 70 year old riding buddies didn’t use narcotics but made pot brownies for pain control with his knee replacement. I’ll let you know how it works. Can you tell me the dose and what kind works?
.
 
Fortunately, Coloradans can grow their own and my go-to strain is Canna Tsu. Recent thought on CBD is that it's not effective unless all of the other cannabinoids are present, including THC. I like my lungs, so I infuse coconut oil (1/4oz crushed flower to 16oz coconut oil) to use both topically and internally. Topically, I rub oil into my knees and ankles post-ride and internally, I bake my own trail energy bars and sub butter in the recipe with the infused coconut oil. Another bonus on the topical application use is that it's highly anti-inflammatory and keeps bruising at bay. I don't think there is much it can't help.
 
I have mechanical disc brakes (Paul Klampers on my Surly) and they are lovely but they don't hold a candle to my Magura MT7s. I have never had a single problem with hydraulics and personally I find myself messing with them less then any of mechanical brakes. Bleed them once a year and forget about them. Now if I was doing touring in remote locations or on a gravel or road bike, I'd absolutely run mechanical discs but on a mountain bike hydraulic all the way for me.
 
Karate Chicken Industries said:
I'm pushing 60 and ride hard. The old adage, "It's not the bike, it's the rider." is largely based on a true story to me. Granted, if you put a skilled rider on a proper bike, it's going to allow them to perform up to the bike's potential. Even so, anything beyond Compact Geometry on a well-tuned tubeset diamond frame with proper linear cantilever brakes (v-brakes) is fluff, IMO.
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Sure a better rider is always going to be a faster then a less skilled one. But that is where I stop agreeing with you. I have way more fun on a modern mountain bike trails particularly when the trails get steep. I mean if you enjoy old school bikes continue to do so but I don't buy into the whole anything beyond such and such is just fluff.
 
MattiThundrrr said:
No elevator in my life, I live in a valley. That's my problem. I guess I need an all terrain bike, not just for mountains.
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IMO that is the great thing about the uptick with gravel bikes and bikepacking. Companies are making more all round bikes but old mtbs are also great for that and so much fun to build.
 
I always try to refrain from dissing the very industry that has provided me with tools to enjoy cycling for 60 years now. Since I was 5 and riding my 24" Schwinn Tornado (yes, I was tall at a young age) to today riding my Trek Checkpoint ALR4 (yes, that's the aluminum version with two chain rings btw, didn't see the need to spend another $900 to get a carbon bike that I have 700 x 45 tires on) to modifying and riding old bikes from the '30s - '60s (Rat Rod Bikes; that's why we're all here, right?).

My Felt Dispatch single speed road bike was one of the most fun bikes I ever owned. But at a certain point, about 7 years ago, the twinges in my knees told me that gears were better for me in the long run, than pride. My Fisher CR7 was my first real mountain bike. Raced and rode the heck out of that for 6 years. Never failed me once. And it cost $1100 in 1989. (I worked it off all summer in my first year as a bike shop employee. Who had $1100 to spend on a bike in 1989? ) I nearly endo-ed in the parking lot test riding the first bike we got in the shop that had 'linear pull brakes' ( V-brakes they became know as) because the braking power was so much greater than I ever experienced with my cantilevers. Mid '90s front suspension forks were getting refined, and boy, did they take the beating out of my wrists and shoulders. Was the extra 2.5 lbs added to the bike weight worth it? You bet!

I didn't ride a full suspension mountain bike till 2015. I rented a Santa Cruz Tallboy in Arizona our first year out there, every where I looked people were on full sus bikes. In about 30 minutes, I was sold! Nimble and still a great climber, that 120 mm travel fork and 100 mm travel rear Fox shock really smoothed out that rocky, sharp, hard terrain of the desert Southwest. A couple years ago I went for more travel in the suspension, lost some of my climbing ability, but the BIKE handled the drops and let me not take the 'perfect line' every time; and kept me on the trail. My skills have diminished , as well as my stamina, but the BIKES have kept me going.

Not all of us are 'freaks' of nature like @Karate Chicken Industries and @us56456712 . Most of us are just out there giving it all we've got and enjoying ourselves; whether it's because of or in spite of, technology and all of it's advances. I still sell bicycles to new riders. Actually, I should rephrase that; I sell fun, adventure, physical fitness, and knowledge of what various bikes are intended for and can accomplish. The bikes sell themselves.

A love for cycling is contagious. Spread it!
 
Different strokes for different folks, it's what makes the World a fun place to be in.

FWIW, I rode my only suspension bike yesterday and had a great time. The chosen route was in an area that I had taken the big orange singlespeed to a couple of times last year and the side of the range I was on called for it. The right tool for the job does make a difference in both performance and comfort. A lot of the technical terrain ridden was well beyond the rigid 29er, but because the limits of suspension and hydraulic discs are much higher in this realm it was made rather easy. Not getting beaten up and having the ability to ride more terrain is not a horrible thing.

My biggest beef with many (especially novices) who rely largely on technology beyond compact geo diamond frames and v-brakes is that they tend to be really hard on the trails because they don't have to have the skillset that those who came up on rigid or hardtail mountain bikes normally have. I lived in Fruita during that evolution and saw the trails deteriorate rapidly with rutting and washboards that were user caused by poor riding technique, especially braking. Some of the early poor suspension designs did not help either, with stinkbugging URT and other gone by the wayside FS frames.
 
OddJob said:
Not all of us are 'freaks' of nature like @Karate Chicken Industries and @us56456712 . Most of us are just out there giving it all we've got and enjoying ourselves; whether it's because of or in spite of, technology and all of it's advances. I still sell bicycles to new riders. Actually, I should rephrase that; I sell fun, adventure, physical fitness, and knowledge of what various bikes are intended for and can accomplish. The bikes sell themselves.

A love for cycling is contagious. Spread it!
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I do not have a natural talent for cycling as I did for baseball. I love both, but have had to be an enthusiast about cycling since 1968 to attain what it has become for me. Riding with naturally talented riders is not something I've ever been envious of, but have always been enthralled by. There is always something to learn from other cyclists, no matter what their age or even skill level may be (reminders of improper technique one may have relapsed into are always good). I stopped playing baseball at 12 because it was no longer fun to me due to team/league politics. On the trail and by oneself, those do not exist and that (IMO) is one of the most beautiful things about mountain biking.

Spread the love and the benefits, all day every day. Every hiker encountered on my ride yesterday (except for a couple who didn't return my greeting during a proper yield to them) was friendly well beyond wondering what I was doing on a trail like that. Be the Ambassador, especially when more than a few of the hikers expected me to barrel past them and stated it is what they normally expect from "mountain bikers" on the trail. One nice lady said I was a "serious" mountain biker. "I'm just out here having fun."
 
I'm not the only one who at least wants those 39" wheels for a project, for sure.
 

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