https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast4_Tennis

(full disclosure) I ended up with tennis elbow symptoms from a single ride on my new bike which I’d set up as closely as I could determine to my usual preferences. I want to have some clue for a safe setup (while I heal) before I get back on the bike and aggravate things again.

Here’s my excessive thinking in full from drawing diagrams and handling different bars off the bike:

“It seems likely that the alignment of the bar tracks relative to the angle your forearm makes to the bar.”

i.e. if you have a high front end and you position your weight behind the bar your forearms will meet the bar at a shallower angle; if you have a low front end and you get yourself over the handlebar your forearms will be angled down more. The slant of a relaxed gripping position doesn’t change much as you go through the main articulations at the elbows and shoulders for the movements you use to control a bike (e.g. push up movement) but the bar shape should match the slanted grip geometry of your relaxed hands given the angle of attack of your hands on the bar determined by your forearm angle.

The slant of your grip in 3D space is certainly affected by bar width, shoulder width, how bent your elbows are (how aggressively you’re riding), hand geometry and also by your relaxed rotation (supination/pronation) of the forearm; lots of personal factors so you cannot choose a bar as a fashion item.

All the graded markings on bars and stem are measuring angles that do not directly relate to forearm angle: your stem is attached to a fork steerer inclined as per the head angle of the frame; the number of spacers will raise and lower the front end and change the way you address the handlebar. All the advice given (“adjust it to what feels right”) is the best advice that could have been given; there is no universal right answer and any setup is a compromise (not least for seated, neutral and attack positions).

I think I’d grown used to rolling a bar forward to extend reach. Also, my old bar (Burgtec) had a shallow upsweep (4 degrees) relative to its backsweep (9 degrees) so a bit of roll forward got it back in a proportion closer to many other bars. I’d being trying to get my new bar (Renthal, 5 deg up, 7 deg back) to feel the same and it needs much less roll forward to align in the same way (although overall it has significantly less sweep than the Burgtec).

At the same time, I’ve had a hiatus because of 1) waiting for the new bike, 2) sorting out teething problems, and 3) DIY and chores taking priority over riding. Having previously been very active on the old bike, I’ve lost a fair proportion of my riding fitness and confidence which translates into a stance where I’m probably more straight-armed on the bike than usual.

So I think I’ve given myself an injury by being less confident on a bike fitted with a more aggressive bar and not having the resilience of regular riding to tolerate a small misadjustment. I probably had the bar rolled forward from an optimum position (not by much) by copying my old need for extended reach. The bar has less sweep shape overall compared to my old bar and less backsweep proportionally. I’ve probably ended up in a position with too little backsweep and that has held my hands in a lightly strained rotation sufficient to cause injury.

Having researched a bunch of bars, the Renthals are the shallowest swept shape (8.6 degrees) of any I’ve looked at. The Burgtecs that I’ve been comfortable on before have more shape (9.8 degrees) than many (Raceface default shape appears to be ~ 9.4 degrees for example) but not as much as Easton Havoc and Raceface Aeffect R (10.3 degrees) and Nukeproof Horizon (10.8 degrees).

I think I’ll ditch the Renthals and look at my options with a bit more swept shape in them.

[ calculation: tan(composite_sweep)^2 = tan(backsweep)^2 + tan(upsweep)^2 ]

If you’re only getting 115mm travel on a Genius, sounds like it is in traction mode and not in full travel mode. I’d go for a ride with Twinloc cable removed.

You would be better off dropping to a 30t as the 10-42 is a wider range overall

On full suss, chainring size affects antisquat so changes may have unexpected consequences besides gearing range. Obviously no equivalent effect on hardtails.

Rolling back or forward changes the angles so just roll back/fowrard to suit. I have my bars rolled forward as it provides less back sweep.

I guess this is where my thought process started. Bars measure with two sweep numbers (back; up). Once we choose roll, backsweep is not necessarily backwards and upsweep is not necessarily upwards.

On the two bars I’ve been looking at, the bar markings for roll are centred with the vertical orientation of the “rise”. With the marks facing directly up, the angles for backsweep and upsweep seem to line up exactly with their specification as viewed from directly in front and directly above. To get these sweep angles on a frame with a 65 degree head angle, the marks need to be rotated forward relative to the typical vertical stem faceplate split line by 25 degrees. Is this what most people would consider a neutral bar fit position and should I be counting “rolled forward” / “rolled back” from this reference point?

Suunto has had two ecosystems for a while.

Movescount started as a web service back end for their watches and then gained a mobile app. The app has always been clunky. The web service has been good.

Suunto acquired Sports Tracker. Sports tracker started as an app with a web service behind the scenes. The web service was rubbish and the app was good.

Suunto are trying to bridge across these two worlds and it isn’t a smooth process. I still prefer my old Ambit 2 watch which is pre-bluetooth and only works synced via a computer to Movescount. Neither of the apps offer anything for me for that watch.

I also have a Spartan Trainer wrist HR (because it less weight to have banging around on a wrist). This could use either Movescount or the Suunto app. They appear to have downspecced the movescount app recently as I used to be able to set up sports modes on the app and can’t any more. They tried to pester me over to Suunto app but with the Ambit still being the mainstay on the Movescount platform I’ve stuck it out on movescount for now. No real answer. I mostly use the watches to capture a consolidated picture of my aerobic recovery and don’t care for the apps much at all. I don’t even look at them much during any workout – my sport modes display the time of day.

Suunto’s comfort zone is a deeply conservative concept of product. The modern bells and whistles feature tickbox stuff isn’t their natural home but it seems to be where the market has been led. Pointless really. Wrist HR doesn’t work. (it really doesn’t). Step counting isn’t fitness. Alerts from the phone are a little bit useful. Syncing via an app? Nice to have; you have to plug the watch in to charge anyway so it doesn’t make me want to not use my Ambit 2.

The final stage in my process is synchronisation from Movescount to Strava which is useful for consolidating other exercise sources that the watches don’t fully capture. Zwift running is my current fave, with footpod data (cadence and speed) and HR being necessary for running the Zwift app. Because the Zwift app nabs the BTLE signal for those, the only signal I can capture on a watch is heart rate (via a dual radio ANT+/BTLE HR belt). Heart rate gives me the recovery metrics in the watch; everything else is in the Zwift app and ends up on Strava.

Agree re. relive.cc

Oh wow, I’ve just been geexed. [tugs forelock, mumbles: ‘onored your geexship]

Just had one of my no reserve auction winners turn around and not want to pay, He’d been bidding on another seller’s auction as well and, winning both auctions, he chose that one over mine. He sniped my auction in the closing moments – four bids in the last 16 seconds. Already has an instance in his feedback of doing the same to another seller.

This is the first time I’ve had one of these, so I can’t say it is a trend and I’ll just follow the process to sort it out.

Annoying though.

Tempted to just throw a bunch of things up on buy-it-now rather than auctions as I’m in no rush but have a considerable amount of bike jumble that can be of use to somebody at decent prices – just want to avoid the auction aggro and not cannibalise my own sales by flogging each of my rather impressive collection of stems in overlapping auctions.

I’m liking the look of those. Had GA2s before but the fat ones look mint.

Doh. I’d forgotten those. OH’s bike has a pair of the Specializeds and I’m sat within 3m of it…

They measure ~31.25mm diameter and seem very soft on the surface down to a hard core. The two year old Oury’s on my bike are >32.5mm and seem to have more depth down to the core. Specialized’s on a 780 bar do measure up at 790 end-to-end so may be the best and quickest answer.

Maybe I’m just asking if there’s a single lockring Oury equivalent

Having a less bulky bike is really useful in lots of ways (e.g. moving bike in and out of a 4th floor flat; fitting in the car; zipping between trees).

If I can be in the same position on bars that are 780 end to end it is preferable compared to 800 bars. If I leave marks on the walls I get in trouble.

Shockwiz sets stuff up very plush and uses a lot of travel.

This is often stated.

Shockwiz sets up in response to the way the suspension is moving. It has no idea about what or how the rider is riding.

If you pin a test segment in serious terrain, Shockwiz sees more movement and will give you more green marks without softening suspension. If Shockwiz is telling you to set up your suspension soft it might mean you’re mincing (although it could also be the fork isn’t serviced or there is a fault.)

The bits where Shockwiz is good is in the detections part. Packing and bounce detections are useful diagnostics. I think it gets very arbitrary about tokens and pressure, misled by non-indications of deep travel which might have everything to do with riding style and terrain.

Iterate and always consider that setup is compromise. What Shockwiz is targeting might only have partial overlap with the compromises you consider optimal.

I would not schedule a custom tune based on Shockwiz feedback alone. Big hitting forks like the 36 exist to dissipate big amounts of energy. Hitting big terrain at big speeds are where the 36 should be dipping into its travel. A fork with a reputation for staying up in its travel isn’t going to give up the bottom end of its travel lightly. Maybe, don’t get hung up on it. Maybe, consider how the feel is working for you. From my own experience with big travel forks, that you don’t use the last bits of travel habitually isn’t an issue – they can feel right for everything you normally encounter and have the last travel in reserve. That said, not seeing the last 60mm of travel is a lot.

Medium was best fit without guard but with the guard was super tight.

The cheek pads have a removable higher density foam pad to tune the fit. Medium with these pads removed is a good fit for me. There is a velcro closure on the cheek pads to access these.

I’ve had this happen on a non-Airshot Joe Blow (the yellow one).  Easy to strip down and lube up with a bit of silicone lube and back to working.  Not recurred since.  I’ve used mine with a standalone Airshot many times.

Too much damping. Chainring size mismatched with rear suspension kinematics. Sag/support mismatched for rider CoG, rear suspension kinematics.

There is a sweet spot.

On another note – I thought metric was all about getting more stroke for a given e2e, but 45mm is less than 50mm – obviously.

No. Metric is about increased overlap and standardising the space available for the ifp.  All of that takes up millimetres in the interests of appropriate performance whatever size is needed for packaging in any particular frame design.

Dual eye metric shocks are longer for their stroke length.

Trunnion mount are shorter because the attachment point is moved.  Metric shocks being shorter only applies to trunnion mounts

I did the wooden ladder drops at the Rothorn lift station in Lenzerheide at the end of season.  Wooden “park” features are a mind warp for me.  Facing up to the perfect sized ladder drops with perfect landings meant I had to get my head around the gravity of the situation; typical bike park features with a gradation from small to large but the small was still significant.  I usually don’t cope well mentally with man-made stuff because I presume the size range goes from “competent” to “confident” to “just not me”.

Here’s what happened.  I was confident that day…

Little one was fine.  Moved onto the middle sized one; that was fine too.  Did it twice to make sure I’d not fluked it.  Didn’t really have any qualms rolling into it.  Correct speed for both of these was a gentle roll in; nothing more.

Big one was lurking there and felt like an opportunity that I’d regret if I didn’t take it.

It was a real struggle to get my head around; I’d obviously defaulted to viewing it as a “just not me” feature but I also knew my riding was as good as it has ever been.  I looked at it.  More distance to make; bigger drop overall – maybe 3m; maybe more; I’m not good at judging.  It just felt huge.  Important to not case; important to not overshoot.  The only people I’d seen going off it in the preceding weeks had been yoof on DH bikes.  I’m not yoof and bike was a season-weary enduro machine.  But I had a factual basis for feeling confident; confident in the way I’d been riding all over the mountain; confident in the bike I knew well having ridden it all season.

I resolved my mental struggle into a decision about the “right speed” to carry into the drop.  I locked that into my mental program and rolled in.  No problem; slightly heavier landing than the middle size; maybe a bit short.  Lined up again; locked in my mental game; rolled in: heavier landing; a bit over-excited trying to over-compensate for coming up a little short before; possibly touched down the rear wheel first so had a bit of slap bringing down the front which is the opposite of what’s required.  Tried it a third time; still needed to play my strong mental games to take myself off the edge; used “relaxation” as the key target state: nailed it.

Technique for all sizes of drop was just about the same: 1. have a plan; 2. visualisation; 3.  keep it simple at launch; a mild impulse to leave the lip (if anything) and a softening at the hips for the rear wheel tracking off the lip; 4. keep the mental game solid for having a good ready position in the middle of the bike; ready for anything.

For me, “a manual” is something I visualise as a high energy move that has a significant percentage chance of my not executing it correctly.  It involves pushing through the feet; pushing through the back wheel.  Done incorrectly, that hard force delivered to the back wheel could turn into the dreaded forward rotation.  Manualling off the launch also means you’re in a back wheel heavy position for an obstacle where you’re planning a front wheel first or both wheels touchdown.  That sounds crazy to me; far too much to sort out in flight.

My technique is more a “squashing” technique; I’m taking energy away where I can; I start by a small impulse to keep the front wheel up (I suppose manual-like, but miniscule) then the softening at the hips means I’m lowering my body mass early (meaning there’s less drop still to come) and in the air I have range of motion to either extend out to the landing or let the bike come into me even more to take the edge off casing the landing if I’m coming up short – I used both those contingencies in my attempts on the big drop.

That’s all for artificial features with a horizontal launch but I don’t think much changes on more natural features.  The key is to have a good position, good mental commitment and good visualisation.  If you have a good position over the bike with range of motion in your arms and legs, you’re ready for most things.

You’ve got more than one bearing.  Try two or more greases and and report back in a year or two.  I’ve always been tempted to try a silicone grease because it won’t ever wash out… but the flipside is that if it gets contaminated you’ll have b*gger all chance of flushing it out.

I’ve tried blue “bike marketed” bearing grease (Exus E-G01) but it is mostly pitched for low friction wheel bearing applications which probably means it is runnier than ideal for a long lasting life in pivot bearings.  Key word is “ideal” which may be overcomplicating the question; adding a suitable packing of any decent grease to a factory sparse fill of lube is probably a good thing for this application.

For those of us who can’t be bothered to search that nifty geometry website to find which bikes have a reach of 483mm, can you tell us what you’re getting?

I’ve plumped for the 29er Norco Range (XL).  First 29er.  150mm travel (160 Lyrik up front).  Was looking at all sorts of shiny options and this presented itself as the more dull and meagre choice.  Hopefully not too leaden.

funny that, because top of the leaderboard round here is dominated by all the proper fast riders round here.

The original comment was specifically linked to the matter of start or finish sections doubling back in tight bends. Having shyte gps giving a 20 second advantage is something that fast riders can obtain as much as slow riders and the ticket is a shonky gps setup.

Autopause functionality causes havoc.

Segments that start or end with hairpins can mark some runs starting having already negotiated the bend. Top of the leader board will be dominated by those with less accurate GPS.

Badly designed segments where the start point is too close to the point where people loiter at the start or linger at the finish can mis-trigger.

Short segments suffer disproportionately from the above

A crouched position is the one you use when you need grip or bump absorption. As you go down any trail you should be alternating with a stood up position in the bits that are just filler to give your muscles time to recover.

Hardtail or fs? Fs pedaling efficiency is altered radically by chainring size

Be wary of the 4 pots until you have secured a supply for replacement pads  Last time I looked none of the usual suspects were even listing them for back order

The 2 pots are excellent. Pad compatibility back to The One, Mega, R1, R0 etc means they’re easily available. I ran 2 pots in the Alps for four months this summer. 203 rotors front and back. Bent one lever and subbed in a shimano m/c fwiw.

Er… You can use a rear as a front.

Counterpoint

Two sets of vaults. Both as described, rattly within weeks of a rebuild  by comparison, Nukeproofs have never needed attention

I’ve read back through all this thread with the two month’s ago position and the new update.

I’m able to swap between clipless and flats no problem but earlier this summer I had a problem with my feet getting knocked out of position on downhills on flats.  I’d been getting faster and faster in alpine terrain but constantly repositioning my feet was getting tiresome.  My temporary solution was some mallets but then I went back to the flats again and fixed the problem by… tuning my rear suspension.

I went from zero volume spacers in a Vivid Air rear shock to a bodged volume spacer made from a bit of cut out inner tube while keeping the same pressure I was used to; this softened the top out and solved the problem.

This might not be your problem but flats won’t mask bad suspension setup.  My recipe refined over the summer changed a bunch of my settings that I’d previously relied on…

… higher tyre pressure (24psi/28psi)

… faster rebound – lots of rocky high speed descents so fast enough to ensure no packing

… moderate sag (25%-28%) – determined by the need for support more than anything

… a little bit of positive volume reduction to let the negative spring *catch* the topout

… as much LSC as needed to calm the suspension feel or less LSC to make it lively – adjust to taste

I don’t agree with the midfoot placement thing for flats (although if you’re on a really long reach bike you might want it because it positions you correctly behind your bars).  I found myself on a shorter bike than ideal (when my big bike cracked) and I adjusted my cleat position (mallets) forward before I got comfortable – my feet find their way to the same position on flats.

Riding definitely qualified as full speed through rock gardens on proper DH and enduro.  Just put the same setup to the test on my first enduro back in Scotland and riding blind I was on the pace in a way I’ve never been before.

YMMV

I’ve tried ultrasonic cleaners.

Bought a James Products Ultra 8050 or their equivalent model back in the day.  It was actually pretty good.  Heater circuit failed at some point.  Not big enough to get bigger cassette cogs in so you had to rotate them but it definitely did clean.

More recently I tried one of the cheapo industrial looking ones. Feature list included degassing and sweep functionality. Complete shyte.  On paper it has the power and you see ripples in the water but it doesn’t do much cleaning. However using the sweep and power controls you can get it to reproduce some early Chemicals Brothers tracks.

The variable bite point issue is down to a poor bleed.

Emphatically, it isn’t.  It is down to slow and excessive piston retraction because of two speculative causes…

1. brake dust build up on the ceramic pistons that then gets pushed back past the seals if you do a pad replacement without cleaning the pistons before pushing them back

2. the swarf that Shimano couldn’t be arsed to remove after machining my calipers that then impacted in the pistons and snagged the seals

Allow prejudice to help with this…

Rallon lets you choose colours.  Do not go down this route if you are colourblind.

Specialized will have some evil proprietary part that seeds built-in obsolescence

Whyte… er… comes from a shop.

Mate, you’re average Enduro racer gets the fear,

This.

When it spirals, everybody loses it.

Where I perceive the brands have come from…

Garmin.. from 1st gen GPS bridging out of GPS being a military only technology; sorted the ANT/ANT+ thing and nailed it; segment-defining in most segments

Suunto… from Alitimeter/Barometer/Compass (expedition equipment)

Polar… from 1st gen consumer heart rate monitors

Tomtom… from consumer-facing 2nd gen GPS

Fitbit… from spinning low cost step-counters as a socially motivated fitness movement

I know there’s a ‘full travel every ride’ thing, but the problem with that is, if you have a bike that performs best at 25% sag, and you aren’t getting big dogs/you ride very light, there’s absolutely not an issue with not bottoming out.

I’ve definitely come round to “full travel” being a special occasions thing that I specifically deemphasise in targeting my setup.

On the other hand, on the cycle path alongside a busy dual carriageway I can hold, say, 24mph on my road bike. Would an ebike at the same speed be any more dangerous?

24mph is not a casual road bike speed.

Experience of the commuter brigade in London is that the self-selecting sample of e-bike riders who have derestricted (whatever) their bikes also have a high proportion of nitwits who believe that their powered bike gives them a right to barge their way to the front at the lights.  Nailing the throttle (whatever) off the lights is their justification.  The non-casual road bike riders who can match and exceed their speeds between the lights don’t behave like this and are generally courteous, so why can’t the nitwits just be pleasant to be around.  Answer: because they are nitwits.

Nitwits will be nitwits and there is no proof that currently notable nitwit behaviour on derestricted e-bikes from a self-selecting sample of the self-interested can be extrapolated to the general population.  Correlation and causation are different things.

Maybe the anti-ebike anxiety expressed here is an anti-nitwit anxiety.  It becomes convenient to conflate the two just as “white vans”, “audis” and “pizza delivery scooters” are the conflated embodiment of the worst behaviours on our roads.

If you have a lot of rise, rolling the bar a small angle gives more forward/backward adjustment of your hands.  Without stuffing up your wrist angle completely you can fine tune reach.

Corollary: If you choose a bar shape that requires a lot of roll to suit  your wrists the bar roll will force a shortening or extension of reach that may not be what you want.

Does the bearing rock on the seat on one axis only?

Had this on a ribble road frame. When it got that far there was no recovery

Amongst the shock attachments there are:

1. Yoke

2. Pointless twin half yokes (Yeti SB(metric))

3. Attach to linkage (guarantees rotation and hence friction unless countered with a roller bearing (old style) or bearing trunnion mount (contemporary), the “Reach under” Ancillotti Scarab Evo a special case of that as is the Pants Spesh Demo

4.  Attach to two linkages to get double the friction  (Mondraker, Trek full floater (with extra cantilevering of welded aluminium fabrications))

5. Drive direct from rear triangle / seatstays / horsty bit (YT, Yeti SB(imperial), 1st gen Devinci Spartan) and Crotchless as a special case of that

The direct attached option 5 definitely comes with the potential for side loading the shock but we also see implementations where the seatstays / horsty bit are stabilised to the frame by a robust link (YT, 1st gen Spartan)

The attach to linkage thing seems to be the pragmatic alternative, with the clever solutions addressing the friction issues.

When yokes are attached to coil shocks it is truly horrifying (because that big beefy coil doesn’t do anything to stabilise the  shaft on its axis).  You just have a long bendy buckly flopfest aiming to push a skew aluminium shaft through a skew sealhead.

I’m guessing the next enduro bike I buy will be a 3. (because they’re everywhere and are guaranteed yoke free) or a YT (because nobody else seems to be doing 5.s these days)

Why the downer on free speech @peaslake?

Derogatory slur on people holding a counter view as any fule kno.

Let me correct your post for you:

I also have a Kona Process 153 of 2014 ilk and it’s fine yoke has not exploded and killed any baby robins.[Post ends]