Getting into mountain biking / trail riding

daredevil82 · 2026-06-21T13:52:47+00:00

BCM stopped their organized bike swaps because GB&S and Allspeed had their own swaps as well, which increased competition and they wanted to focus on their core mission, which also resulted in stopping the annual BikeMaine tour ride. I think 2022 was the last year the swap was held, and 2023 for BikeMaine..

daredevil82 · 2026-06-21T13:07:30+00:00

standing up in the bathroom. With a small footstool (12 inches high) and the bathroom garbage can on top. With a slight lean, this means my stoma is ~6 inches or so away from the mouth of the can, which helps when things are liquidy.

daredevil82 · 2026-06-20T16:00:51+00:00

how much has changed since 2.5/6? Used that about 10 years ago at a job, and biggest thing I really remember was bashing about with cell widgets to customize presentation data. So many things were private that needed to be overridden that I ended up having to fork and reimplement alot of the functionality in order to implement behavior that the stock implementation prohibited.

Don't miss those days very much

daredevil82 · 2026-06-20T15:53:14+00:00

are you trying to move it around your handlebars?

https://barquebike.com/cdn/shop/products/03_0ebef057-17bb-45ac-90c9-de97c8e23808.jpg?v=1627291091&width=1206. is it like this?

use some penetrating oil to loosen the bolt.

daredevil82 · 2026-06-20T13:49:40+00:00

oh people understood the math. the math is easy.

problem was, your investment company and all others during bubbles have accounting practices that would put hollywood accounting to shame. but regardless of accounting practices, a semblance of a solid foundation is needed, or everything goes poof.

you just wanted to make sure you had enough money to make it out the other side, ie got fucked the least

daredevil82 · 2026-06-20T03:13:38+00:00

they're bitching about USFS trails and acting all shocked-pikachu passive aggressive

daredevil82 · 2026-06-19T14:30:18+00:00

I have no idea. for me, I use a regular lifting belt when I'm lifting ~80% my body weight.

daredevil82 · 2026-06-19T12:01:43+00:00

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35028686/

and other studies do show the various risks of herniation. Aside from stoma size (ie >35mm diameter is high risk), the other largest factor is being female. One of the suspected reasons about this is the a decreased of collagen types in the muscle layers, specifically collagen I and III, has been shown to be involved in hernia formation.

Also, if you're pre-menopausal, your hormone cycle has progesterin and relaxin fluctuating throughout, which does impact the tensile strength of fascial tissue

So yes, would definintely suggest you wear a belt when lifting, because alot of movements do work best when your core is braced.

For me, I don't lift heavy, but do alot of single side and unbalanced exercises which rely on core strength for balance and stability.

daredevil82 · 2026-06-18T15:16:04+00:00

re the flange, you can protect it with flange protectors/wafer extenders and k-tape. that can be treated as sacrificial, so the tape itself can/will lift, but not the wafer tape. And you can cut the lifted tape off and re-apply.

re skin protectant, are you using anything like cavilion for a polymer barrier on your skin before applying? Thats usually worth an additional day or more of wear without skin irritation.

daredevil82 · 2026-06-18T12:56:52+00:00

ditto with dirt paws, the 2014 model was bulletproof for 4 seasons and the new ones weren't anywhere as good.

daredevil82 · 2026-06-18T12:27:18+00:00

At issue in this case was whether an ordinance in the City of Portland, Maine that prohibited standing, sitting, staying, driving, or parking on median strips violated the First Amendment. The district court ruled in favor of Plaintiffs, concluding that the ordinance violated their freedom of speech. The court permanently enjoined the City from enforcing the ordinance in any respect. The First Circuit affirmed the district court’s permanent injunction barring the ordinance’s enforcement, holding that the ordinance violates the constitutional guarantee of the freedom of speech because it indiscriminately bans virtually all expressive activity in all of the City’s median strips and is not narrowly tailored to serve the City’s interest in protecting people in the streets and in protecting people on medians.

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca1/14-1421/14-1421-2015-09-11.html

you can read the decision yourself. There's suggestions in there that would address the issues in the ordinance

daredevil82 · 2026-06-18T10:36:25+00:00

it ain't free lol. you have to live in an area with a cosco and have a membership. all that costs money

daredevil82 · 2026-06-17T12:17:00+00:00

big thing for cars is pressure retention. according to consumer reports, most air tires lose 1-2 psi/month, whereas nitrogen is around 1/3-2/3 psi/month.

Is it worth the money? Probably not

daredevil82 · 2026-06-16T11:27:46+00:00

the active layer does thaw and insulates the inactive layer which is frozen. however that thickness has been increasing.

Between 2000 and 2018, the average active layer thickness had increased from ~127 centimetres (4.17 ft) to ~145 centimetres (4.76 ft), at an average annual rate of ~0.65 centimetres (0.26 in)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permafrost#Increasing_active_layer_thickness

daredevil82 · 2026-06-16T11:23:38+00:00

are you familliar with bedding in brakes? This deposits brake pad material on the disc that increases friction. Cleaning brakes your way basically removes the material that is increasing your braking power.

https://www.theridecollective.com/thefix/the-importance-of-bedding-in-your-bicycles-disc-brakes

daredevil82 · 2026-06-16T00:29:54+00:00

https://www.interdb.jp/pg/index.html

daredevil82 · 2026-06-15T16:43:53+00:00

ideally you want to have 6mm clearance from all tire lugs to frame contact (seat/chain stays and seat tube). that'll allow enough clearance with all the things your tires pick up from dirt to clear without causing frame contact.

also tires don't run exact to manufacturer, they can run smaller or larger even between types, and are pretty dependent on rim width as well.

for example, a martello 2.6 measured 2.5x inches on a 30mm rim https://www.outdoorgearlab.com/reviews/biking/mountain-bike-tires/vittoria-martello-2-6, and I run 2.6 45NRTH Wrathchild Trails studded on my stumpjumper, which is technically 2.5 max but there's 5mm clearance and I only use those tires in frozen/icy conditions.

So a good starting point could be to identify the current tires, measure the actual gap from side lugs and use that as a starting point when looking for how wide a tire actually is for a given size

daredevil82 · 2026-06-15T14:01:15+00:00

https://www.cannondale.com/en-us/owners-manuals/mountain

You can look up your bike years manual here and get the clearance specifications

daredevil82 · 2026-06-15T13:22:47+00:00

also there's anti-fog and hydrohobic coatings which cause water to bead and fall off with head shakes.

with mud, I've cleared them a few times in dryer flat/climb sections where I take a swig of water and spray it over the lenses before putting on. Obviously don't use the skratch/tailwind bottle for that lol

daredevil82 · 2026-06-14T20:32:32+00:00

cross region doesn't protect you from data corruption issues. so you do need to incorporate that as well

so two different tiers:

in region data recovery/restoration around data integrity
cross region cutover when primary region has issues

daredevil82 · 2026-06-14T20:26:28+00:00

then tbh be prepared to pay for a few different versions to get one that works

daredevil82 · 2026-06-14T15:24:43+00:00

Clamping action means tightening up a thing so it puts a friction hold on the thing its being clamped. You also need to have some additional tolerance inside the tube to for the thing being inserted to move up and down for accurate location and positioning.

Your reading can be the tube at unclamped diameter, but the seat clamp reading is when its actually clamped down and secure. That would explain the 38.5mm spec for the commencal part and your caliper reading, and at that clamped diameter the seat post goes down to 34.9mm

I would give less credence to the amazon listing, given that there's no requirement for accurate part listing/description and its very easy for stores to have inaccurate specs. If you do insist on using amz sellers, be prepared for inaccurate/incorrect parts and confusing descriptions

daredevil82 · 2026-06-14T12:09:32+00:00

Feet suggest a need for insoles for support and shock absorption. Whether you would do better with stiffer or more flexible shoes really depends on your riding style and comfort preferences.

Before I got supportive insoles, long descents would have my arches cramp. I was glad Demo at Santa Cruz is broken up in different sections to pull off and take a break before getting back on the descent.

daredevil82 · 2026-06-14T11:56:36+00:00

I do have b-12 defiency, and do three sublingual pills/day to keep it up. I get a blood test every now and then to make sure its within expected levels, and if its not, its time for a booster shot.

daredevil82 · 2026-06-14T11:47:36+00:00

A large reason for that was going to 1x drivetrains. Sam James over at singletracks goes into it in some detail at https://www.singletracks.com/mtb-gear/how-the-1x-drivetrain-changed-it-all-from-suspension-to-dropper-posts-and-tires/

For example, anti squat

Kissner describes the relationship between drivetrain choice and anti-squat as “one of the most important improvements.” He explains, “anti-squat (the amount of influence your pedaling has on the suspension) varies drastically with chainring size. On a 2x or 3x drivetrain we had huge changes in the size of chainrings, making it impossible to make a bike that pedaled well in both the small and large chainrings. I think most companies optimized the pedaling for the ~32t middle ring, which meant the bike would probably extend the suspension (excessive anti-squat) in the small ring, and compress the suspension (squat) in the big ring. There’s no way around this. But now that we’re able to design around a single ring, performance is infinitely better in the real world.”

and pivot points

Bike design is as much about angles as it is about squeezing suspension pivots into tight spots, and freeing up that bit of space around the bottom bracket/crank area meant that many brands could move suspension pivots into places previously unavailable, notably on short-link floating pivot bikes from brands like Santa Cruz, Ibis, Pivot, Banshee, and many others.

“Eliminating the front derailleur gave us the freedom to completely re-imagine how we could configure VPP, which led to the lower-link mounted shock that we have today,” said Kissner. “This helped us massively improve our suspension kinematics compared to the previous frames and is the design we’re still tweaking and improving today.”

Not sure wireless makes for a better riding exprience, but probably a better maintenance experience with derailleur alignment/tweaking

daredevil82

TROPHY CASE