droo

Nothing wrong with Alpina spokes, as long as you get the double butted ones and use a decent wheel builder.

The Judy compression damper, unless there's a special Scott version, is on or off. The shock has 3 settings, one of which has more to do with the air spring volume than the damper. The higher end Fox and RS compression dampers, on the 32, 34 and SID have 3 settings, and the older SID and Reba also had up to 5 clicks of compression adjustment. If you'd like, pop in sometime and I can pop the damper out and check for you.

It's definitely not for everyone, but if the Spez lever on my bike ever throws in the towel this will most likely replace it. It's just that much more polished than the budget options, and locally manufactured as well. Wolftooth / Bikeyoke quality for a much more reasonable price - I've never seen anything rubbish come out of that machine shop.

You can, but you'll need a Bikeyoke DeHy converter which converts the Reverb actuator to a cable type.

Once you've bought the base bar and one Proride to keep the inside of the car clean for yourself, you're only in for about another R 1k for the second rider. Also, loading manky bikes on the roof is a million times easier than pulling them apart to put them in the car. No brainer IMO.

Cos FSA make their own unique everything. They even have a 19mm BB and a 3 bolt chainring standard. FFS. No disrespect to the agents, they just have a massive and weird inventory to try and manage and do pretty well despite this.

Odd, we've never had issues with the Ultimates. The T are a bit agricultural, but also not many issues. Magura are great but expensive when they break, Hope are bombproof but a bit underpowered for the weight, and Shimano are the 1980s Hilux of brakes - not exactly refined, but just get on with the job. For my money though, Formula Cura. They do everything that Shimano do, only better, and you can get spares if you break them.

Which Levels?

DJR on here on Bikehub may be able to offer some guidance.

New cassette and freehub inbound. You have to pull the adapter off before you remove the cassette. It's the only thing I don't like about Hope hubs.

Pressures will depend very much on which dropper you're running. 250psi in a command post and you'll need SpaceX to retrieve both your saddle and your gonads. 20psi is about the sweet spot.

Sent to a mate who's a collector, he reckons about 10k and it'll move fast... He's passed out on to a group or two so you may get a dm or two in the next few days.

Decent cable housing is lined, once it start getting sticky it means the lining is shot. Replace, even if it is a hack. As mentioned above, oiling will buy you some time but is essentially just putting lipstick on a pig. Thermophage has the only workable solution here, but even that is just pushing the actual job further down the road.

From a practical point, you'll need to be very good at masking and/or have a few tapping and facing tools for frame prep post repray. Overspray in threads, on faced surfaces and in pressfit interfaces will cause untold grief when reassembling.

They're expensive and a bit of a hack to use, but you'll get good results. the main thing is to put whatever you're cleaning in a basket to avoid damage to the bath. The danger is that if you don't properly (and I mean properly) dry and relube the chain when you're done, you'll wear a chain out in about 3 rides since all the lube will have been stripped from inside the chain. The best is to boil the chain in wax or soak it in oil, just dripping it on with a dropper bottle won't get the oil to penetrate far enough into the chain.

I'm on both sides of this fence. Any improvement is an improvement and I'm good with that. On the other hand, the greenwashing tends to negate that by promoting a marginal gain as The Solution, and people stop thinking when they leave the till cos they've done their bit. Either way, it's going to take a lot more than a 30% reduction in sealant packaging for us to continue as a species beyond the next 50 years or so. But something is better than nothing.

Fixed

Zero maintenance = repair or replace, both of which cost more than maintenance and with more ending up in landfill. It also results in something that performs way below par for most of its life.

DB are their entry level brakes. I'd imagine they're trialling this on bikes that get zero maintenance to see if they hold up. Maybe we'll see them move to mineral oil in a few years, who knows. In the meantime, I hope they supply rebuild kits for these things. I foresee many knackered seals from people not reading the warnings and bleeding them with DOT.

Sheesh, this would be a win. Hope you get them back.

MCR 9 has a 34mm head tube from what I can see, so you're out of luck. You can get a straight steerer fitted to a tapered fork, but it does come at a price...

As a rule of thumb, any bike you buy from Game (or Pick N Pay or Makro) will be rubbish. I've been meaning to go on a field trip to have a look at these things, will report back when I've done so.

Most Spez shops have a Songo box that you can drop used but still useful stuff in.

And Jacques can deal with the high velocity release of oil. Also much safer.

A new hanger may not be perfectly straight once installed. Get a hanger alignment tool on it and see.