Anyone have anything they'd like to rant about?

[toast2266]

This was the same day I went to take a Santa Cruz 5010 for a spin and the brakes were engaged against the rotors when the bike was just sitting there. The mechanic told me "oh yeah those SRAM brakes swell up sometimes when they're in the sun and the pistons press against the rotors". Um, you know where you are right - Socal where we ride bikes in the sun all day? He didn't seem to think this was a problem at all or unusual.

In his defense, that was definitely true. Never happened to me while riding, but on a few occasions I'd leave the bike sitting in the sun and they'd start to seize up. Moving the bike to the shade for a couple of minutes would resolve it.

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[Eluder]

I'm not saying that it doesn't affect the experience, but you all have way too high of expectations for people making 35k a year.

[smmokan]

A friend demoed a bike this summer, bars were fine (large frame so not a huge deal) and they set the suspension pressure to his rough weight which was good. We discovered the rear shock's rebound was set to full fast when the rear tire was like an ice skate on the first descent. Luckily between the two of us we have one semi-functioning brain and figured it out pretty quickly, but someone who's not very savvy might have ended up hating the bike or hurt.

Playing devil's advocate: your friend could have taken 30 seconds to check the suspension settings before riding the bike, especially if he was considering buying it. Coming from someone who sets up a lot of demo bikes each year, I wouldn't assume the person who set your bike up did things exactly as you want.

[jm2e]

Demos that aren’t set up properly. My 5’2” wife demoed a bike today. It had 800mm bars and they set up the suspension with 25% more psi than they should have.

That’s been a big problem with wife getting bikes in Italy. This year I brought a bar/stem/gripss from her trail bike. Made a massive difference.

Demo trucks should really just have a minor assortment of handlebars on hand with grips already mounted. It takes ~3 minutes to unbolt the brakes and stem and then bolt up a new bar.

That shops and demo trucks should keep different length bars: 100% agree. Stock bars are cheap. Even cheaper relative to bike price.

That it takes 3 min to swap bars? 100% disagree. Maybe on a single speed with coaster brakes. But I did the swap 5 times in 2 weeks on 3 different bikes. Which means 10 separate stem/bar swaps because I had to put their shit back on when I was done. I can assure you that the average hack wrench takes more like 30-45 min. Brakes, shifter, dropper, computer. Wires tangled. Four different wrenches needed.
And …… FUCK headset routed cables. That made things harder and eliminated my ability to add/remove spacers. Fuck that.



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[toast2266]

I can assure you that the average hack wrench takes more like 30-45 min.

I raise a single eyebrow and offer no further comment.

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[evdog]

With any luck they would have shifters and brakes that you have to remove the grips to get off, and glue on grips.

[XXX-er]

I am such an insensitive bastard that I can just ride whatever in whatever size and guess-ti-mate

Like I rode shop bro's L 5.5 and thot it felt long so I bought the medium and perfect eh

[Andeh]

I am such an insensitive bastard that I can just ride whatever in whatever size and guess-ti-mate

Like I rode shop bro's L 5.5 and thot it felt long so I bought the medium and perfect eh

While the industry is moving in the direction of more electronics and wireless, XXX-er is holding out for brakes that operate by smoke signals and shifting that is done by banging sticks together.

[XXX-er]

I will have you know i AM the anti-christ on a full power E-bike and i actualy bleed the whole brake, so while I can see taking bars/ pedals/ seat for a bike I will ride for a week, on a demo I can just hallucinate a properly sized riding experiance, but considering the huge $$$$$ shop bro is making they he her should really try to adjust what he can but also the end loser can always ask ?

[jono]

Back in the day all the bikes I test rode at an interbike were mis tuned

the first year Reign had a Psylo that was puking oil big time

the exception was the Cannondale Prophet, Cannondale bro asked how much I weighed pumped up the suspension to the recs on the card and it rode awesume

Was the Cannondale dude a good sized black guy by any chance? That guy was their secret weapon for a few years. Whatever the other guys were paying their techs was too much, cause he setup bikes to sell.

[jm2e]

I raise a single eyebrow and offer no further comment.

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Time it, and report back? Maybe I’ll do the same. I’m sure we’ll meet somewhere in the middle since all memories are an exaggerated version of how awesome or terrible we think our performance was.
Just make sure when you do it, it’s outside without a stand, it’s 90F and humid as fuck, the brakes, shifter, dropper lever are different from what you usually run. Know that you’re delaying the days ride, or rushing to return the bike before the shop closes, or late to meet a friend for dinner, or your wife is standing impatiently next to you wondering why it’s taking so long and asking if she can help.
And make sure you count on getting the lever position wrong.

I’m doing pedal swaps at the same time. How long does it take you to flip flop pedals between 2 bikes? Assume the demo bike has plastic flats with a different Allen size than your pedals. But it might also have no Allen option and requires a pedal wrench. I’m talking about the time from laying the bike down, to digging tools out of your pack (or out of your rental car, or running back up to the hotel room) to pulling off 4 pedals and rethreading all four, and packing up tools again. I can do that pretty quick. But I’m pretty sure you’re going to say 30 sec and I think it’ll take you >5 min.

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[Bunion 2020]

While the industry is moving in the direction of more electronics and wireless, XXX-er is holding out for brakes that operate by smoke signals and shifting that is done by banging sticks together.

Hey now, you just described me and because cable actuation has proven to be so unreliable over the past 100 years.

[toast2266]

Time it, and report back? Maybe I’ll do the same. I’m sure we’ll meet somewhere in the middle since all memories are an exaggerated version of how awesome or terrible we think our performance was.

It's a cold and rainy Saturday so I'll bite.

- put bike in the stand
- remove brake levers, shifters, dropper
- remove handlebar (leave grips on)
- stand around for 10 seconds acting like I'm putting that bar on the bench and grabbing a different one.
- reinstall bar
- reinstall brakes, shifter, dropper
- drop the bike out of the stand and adjust bar roll and lever position with the bike on level ground

Total time: 4 minutes, 23 seconds.

So I was off by a minute or so. I think I could get it down to 3 minutes if it was my job though. Especially if I used a drill to spin out the stem bolts.


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[XXX-er]

Was the Cannondale dude a good sized black guy by any chance? That guy was their secret weapon for a few years. Whatever the other guys were paying their techs was too much, cause he setup bikes to sell.

that was awhile ago ^^ so I don't remember but I know the suspensions were all fairly bad compared to now which doesnt matter if nobody sets them up

[unitofstuff]

Playing devil's advocate: your friend could have taken 30 seconds to check the suspension settings before riding the bike, especially if he was considering buying it. Coming from someone who sets up a lot of demo bikes each year, I wouldn't assume the person who set your bike up did things exactly as you want.

He did pedal it around the parking lot when we picked it up, but he's a fairly new rider and it probably didn't jump out at him. Given that they adjusted the pressures for his weight, I just assumed rebound would be set to something reasonable. Lesson learned to check over a demo a little closer next time.

[funkendrenchman]

People that don't clean their bikes before trying to sell them online.

[sfotex]

People that don't clean their bikes before trying to sell them online.

Or wash them, and then take pics with water dripping off everything....

[XXX-er]

Before i put my bikes online I lick them clean

[panchosdad]

Before i put my bikes online I lick them clean

I believe this.

[rideit]

“How many li_ii-ics…to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop”?

[Canada1]

I only know a couple local stores fairly well. At those stores, the most junior employees are on the rental fleet. I could see that model repeating at shops across America?

[XXX-er]

They are mountain bikes and get ridden in the dirt but a rant does not have to make any sense as long as it makes sense to you

[HankScorpio]

Built up a frame recently with internal brake routing so I had re-attach and bleed the brakes. First thing I do is take out of the pads, put them in a bag and set them aside.

Brakes get bled, pads go back in and of course they're contaminated. I don't even know how it happened.

At least the shop down the street had the right pads in stock.

[VTskibum]

I’m from the government and I’m here to help. Closing off almost all of the fun trails and in theory to be replaced w official trails, which are all but guaranteed to be horribly dull. Pretty sure this is the death of what was once a great little trail system. Odd how it never impacts what the old blue hair Karen hikers enjoy?! Fun bowl/jump line behind this fence, also per the plan looks like any of the fun blue-ish level trails days are limited.





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[toast2266]

That sucks. Condolences.

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