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SRAM brakes are Rand for Rand not nearly was powerful as Shimano. Yes, you may like the modulation but that becomes irrelevant when you need to apply some extra pressure to haul your speed down on a long descent. If you want the stopping power of Deore or better 4 piston brakes you probably have to shell out nearly R10k for Code Ultimate in SRAM. In my biased opinion of course (based on some really rubbish Guide R brakes and many years of Shimano brakes) 🙂

Deore brakes are reportedly very good value. Anything from there on up will be light years ahead of the Levels. I suspect you will need a handlebar clamp for your shifter - most bike shops have these lying around and may even give you one. There may be some expensive options to allow SRAM and Shimano to be mounted together. Google is your friend.

Sounds like torturous fun - pity its so far away 😞

Lol, imagine those grips when wet. Like holding on to a wet fish on a fishing boat in False Bay during a strong South Easter...

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/1300-watt-sprints-vlad-dascalus-power-data-shows-how-fit-you-have-to-be-for-a-world-cup-xc-podium.html

His Insta is all in Portuguese, so it may well be so...

"I'm super excited for this weekends race" H Avancini - 11/05/22

And possibly - 'use a fracking dropper post you tw#t" 🙂

No, my Instinct has never done this, but when my wife's Forerunner 45S went flat, it needed a reinstall of the Garmin app to work again.

That said, they probably could have made better work of the camera placement and angles and focused on the gnarly bits. The rocks and features look so much more terrifying in the photo spread on PB thanks to way better camera angles.

I bought a strap wrench from Brights this morning and the next step is to dismantle and inspect the Spesh dropper post. I suspect it will only confirm what I know already and that's that it will need a rebuild and an expensive new stanchion. I see a Lyne dropper in my future. Scarily, the second hand prices seem to have skyrocketed with people asking the same as or more than the new prices...

You can buy mineral oil suitable for Shimano and other brakes in bulk eg 1l bottles from motor parts stores. Total make make mineral hydraulic fluid as do Castrol I believe. Nice to have a bulk supply when messing with tricky brakes. BTW I'm running some old 785 XT brakes and they're generally good but sometimes lose oil (its as if it evaporates as there's no visible leaking. The front brakes just goes soft and barely works and the fix is quite simple - screw in the Shimano bleed cup, add fluid and then pump the lever watching a bunch of bubbles leave the system. This is usually all that's necessary and I don't mess with the caliper at all.

Maybe I just wasn't in the mood, but despite the better camera work, I enjoyed the Petropolis race far more. Maybe its the track which is pretty boring to the spectators eye. TP was running Suntour electro suspension which i imagine is like live valve or something. Are there other riders in the field with live valve I wonder? I would imagine it could be a bonus in a frenetic XCO race and make the bike more manageable for less effort? Hoping Nino makes no 34 this year.

Whaat, no chatter re this weekend Albstadt round of the WC?!? - Looks like a wet weekend and we all know how that track is in the rain... should be a good one, despite the relatively boring track.

Thats funny, but quite likely, given the cycle industries' obsession with gadgets and ripping consumers a new one.

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/falling-batteries-and-risk-of-fire-leads-to-santa-cruz-recall-of-2022-heckler-emtbs.html So you're not damaging trails more than a normal bike, except where your eBike catches fire and burns down the mountain 🙂

LOL, 200psi in a Spesh dropper - that's insane. Google is not your friend if you abandon logic and don't read what the manufacturer says and rather rely on some git on MTBR.

I think you answered your own question - "and your HD does not have much travel," If you had a proper motorbike that road would be a piece of cake. So weh! 🙂

I forgot to mention the other issues in the fleet. wife's bike needs a rear shock service (R1.5k) , its making weird squishy noises, and a new chain and possibly also a new cassette. Already have a new chain but I'm a little scared to fit it in case it leads to more expense 🙂 My HT need a new dropper post or an expensive repair to the existing one (thanks Spesh). My enduro bike rear wheel is basically toast - new rim and spoke time is around the corner.

The freehub needed 2x bearings which are over R100 each and there was some machining to the spacer which was damaged. And we're not taling about a DT 240 hub here price wise. I have just solved the noisy new chain issue by refitting the used steel RF chainring which shows little if any wear. Just tested it and nothing but the gentle sound of a happy chain. Yay. On examination, the old ali front ring was quite worn. It's definitely a case of lig koop is duurkoop when it comes to drivetrain components. I remain impressed with the GX cassette which is now on its third chain in 4 years and shows barely any wear.

Funny how a pile of maintenance issues suddenly rear their heads with little or no warning and often after the bike has been standing around for a while... My trusty HT developed an awful creaking sound over Easter. Its hardly been ridden this year if at all prior to that. I was aware the dropper post was in a parlous state but hadn't noticed any crunching and creaking from the bike. I isolated it to the drivetrain and found the freehub with a completely failed Enduro inner bearing. No sign of water ingress or rust. That failure led to parts and labour around a 1/3 of what the hub had cost in the first place. This after 4000km and fairly moderate use - no big wet rides over a 3.5 year period. I have been told the Funn hub in question was simply "crap" and I'm quite prepared to believe that, though I'm not sure exactly how manufacturers manage to produce stuff that wears to the extent that fundamental parts fail like this rather than wear out gracefully. The outer bearing was still serviceable as were the other hub bearings. Are the tolerances and design so poor in anything that's not a DT or Hope, or its it time there was a total rethink of bicycle component design, especially rear hubs? That said, the DT hubs on a far older bike we have are still very good to go - almost no bearing wear, as are the Mavic hubs on my ancient road bike. A 9 year old Giant front hub on the same HT has never needed a bearing change and they are still running fast albeit a tad noisily. Then again, I've seen DT hubs wear their front hub bearings leading to play at the wheel, too. The rear Giant hub was donated to someone else and I bet its still working fine too. Contrast this ancient Giant stuff with the OE Specialized hubs on my Enduro and there is no comparison. The low end Spesh stuff is absolute junk that made my Funn hub look like a Swiss watch. I think the first bearing failed after a couple of months and the hub as a whole never ran smoothly. Being unable to ride my HT I switched over to my enduro bike but there too were issues. The RF BB bearings have also reached the end of their natural life and also not in the way I'm used to Shimano stuff going. There is a slight sense of bearing wear when the crank is spun without a chain, but even with that low perceived wear, there is a very noticeable side to side play in the cranks. Oh well, new BB time and hopefully no damage to the crank itself. I'm going to add this to the list - I have just done a chain swop to find the cassette or chainring is too worn for the new chain. Maybe its time to take up trail running 🙂

I liked my XT dual controls, not that the brakes worked that well...

Oh yah, YT Music was the other sub I ditched when Google stole my money. Now on Spotify - first three months free, and so much happier. I liked Google play music but YT music is k$k.

Interesting insights from the BikeHub crew, thanks. I suspect these trends are cyclic and at some point there will be too many subscription services catering to the same people and then someone will have a brilliant idea and create some free to view ad sponsored content to steal their customers... I had a what i suspect is a common experience last year. My 8 year old managed to spend around R2k on my Google account thanks to a pay setting on google I didn't even know existed. My bank was very helpful and blocked my account on Google very swiftly. This led to my Strava premium membership and one other subscription being terminated. I decided not to reinstate it (and my account is still blocked on Google) and that I'd recover the lost funds by simply not subscribing for as long as it takes to recover the funds. I doubt I ever will go back to Strava premium however. I think Google bank on a percentage of users spending accidentally as I did and that the new drive to create subscriber content relies to some extent on the same concept - people simply clicking subscribe without checking that they're now on 25 different subscriptions at $1500.00 per month.

Those gravel riders are way too gnarly for me. I need my 180 forkses.