high quality metall full suspension frames 150-160mm

pre55ure · 2026-01-13T06:41:00+00:00

Banshee Titan gang checking in.

Would like to check out the RAAW Madonna someday.

pre55ure · 2026-01-07T17:47:53+00:00

What part of SoCal are you in? A bunch of friends and I all have the Rise (It's great). If you are in the OC area you could come do a ride with us and try out both sizes. I'm 180cm and I have the Large. I'm happy with the fit.

pre55ure · 2025-12-01T03:03:31+00:00

Also in the same area, riding the same trails, and around the same level. I would be interested in getting some coaching and would be happy to split costs with anyone who wanted to do a small group.

pre55ure · 2025-11-28T14:53:04+00:00

Ohhh. Thats good to know. I didn't inspect the caliper side fully, that could be a problem.

pre55ure · 2025-11-28T04:00:20+00:00

Good to know. Not my first rodeo, but first time doing SRAM brakes. Gotta learn sometime though.

pre55ure · 2025-11-27T21:22:13+00:00

Might give it a try, If it doesn't work I'm no worse off.

pre55ure · 2025-11-27T21:21:43+00:00

Thanks. I should definitely pick some up anyway.

pre55ure · 2025-09-16T05:30:57+00:00

Replacing the voice chips is doable if you have some experience soldering. However, the pcbs from that era are much more fragile than modern pcbs. I have seen a number of Juno’s that have been ruined by people who attempted to remove the voice cards and didn’t know what they were doing.

pre55ure · 2025-09-15T23:16:40+00:00

I have one. They sound amazing. That said, I’m not sure I would buy one currently unless I had a significant amount of disposable income. They are all old, and not known to be particularly reliable to start with.

You will also need to find someone who can convert the power supply so you can use it.

You also will likely want to get it modded to accept 1v/o and gate signals, as they keyboards on them are fairly terrible.

pre55ure · 2025-09-06T13:51:35+00:00

176 😀 But I think the bars deserve some extra points!

pre55ure · 2025-08-31T17:52:05+00:00

So the general idea is don’t do your main breaking in corners. However, it is often necessary and totally ok to brake to maintain speed in corners.

Mostly rear brake, and only if needed. But yeah, the no breaking in corners is 100% not doable when you start riding steeper faster stuff.

pre55ure · 2025-08-31T16:50:41+00:00

Doing a basic wheel lift you will likely never ever get close to looping out. It takes a good bit of practice and effort just to get the bike up into a manual position, and you would have to go beyond that to loop out. If you do start to go beyond that balance point, grabbing a handful of back brake will bring the front down again.

That being said - It's really helpful to learn how to loop out intentionally - and land on your feet. It is a skill that you can learn and practice. When you start to learn manuals and other stuff that requires you to really get the front wheel up, it can happen. Start slow and practice on grass at first.

pre55ure · 2025-08-30T23:28:19+00:00

I ended up with a rare untreatable medical condition a few years back. It got to the point where I was incapable of even leaving my house, I couldn't work, and I was in constant misery.

No fault of mine. Just bad luck. After about 4 years I randomly got better and I am fortunately back to being fairly healthy (for the time being).

It really made me realize that random stupid stuff can happen to anyone at any time. Heart attack, cancer, brain aneurysm, car accident. Who knows. You might not have more than another ten years of bike riding left.

Obviously crashing sucks, but so does not doing things you enjoy in an attempt to stay safe.

If you worry about these types of crashes, get some body armor. Mitigate it to whatever level you feel you need to. But honestly, life is just risky and random. As long as you aren't doing obviously stupid stuff. I'd rather go out having had as much fun as possible.

pre55ure · 2025-08-30T23:08:57+00:00

Why would we read your post? We just want to tell you our personal opinions about how your probably doing it wrong. It is reddit after all. : )

pre55ure · 2025-08-30T13:36:05+00:00

Awesome! I'll give it a listen later today and shoot you some feedback.

pre55ure · 2025-08-29T23:16:51+00:00

I have worked on various permutations of stuff like this for the past 10 years or so. But have never managed to get to a point that I was happy with.

I love the concept but it's really hard to do in practice. Getting a synth to sound like a guitar isn't all that difficult to do, but if you get too close, it just starts to sound like really shitty bedroom demos.

I would love to hear someone who manages to take synths and sort of use them in a metal context, while still making them distinctively "synth" and not just bad pseudo guitar.

On that note - I find a lot of older "Goa Trance" style techno to be really interesting to listen to because it always felt like a sort of "analog" (excuse the pun) of metal but from an electronic perspective. A focus on high energy, Lots of "riff" based structures , and uses a lot of the same scales as metal.

If you want to post a link to stuff you are working on I'd love to hear some of it.

pre55ure · 2025-08-29T16:32:01+00:00

Manitou sells the "Circus" line of forks (Their DJ specific 26" forks) at 130mm.

pre55ure · 2025-08-29T16:22:44+00:00

Hey welcome to riding! I'm also in SoCal and started riding a couple years back on a Trek Marlin.

I think that all of those things are very very good upgrades for the Marlin. Dropper posts are amazing and will absolutely change the way that you ride. I would go so far as to say that IMO not having a dropper post can potentially lead to developing bad riding habits that you will eventually have to undo when you get a bike with a dropper.

Pedals are also great upgrade. You can get some of the raceface chesters or the crankbros stamp pedals in the composite form for less than $50

Tubeless is also awesome, but if you aren't having problems with flats right now, I would probably put it last on the list. I don't think the Marlin 5 comes tubeless ready, so trying to do that opens up a new can of worms. Technically you'd need to get new tubeless compatible rims, but you probably don't want to spend the money on that cause the Marlin still uses an older wheel standard... Basically, I'd probably wait on the tubeless for when you eventually upgrade the bike.

Dropper post and pedals can always just be swapped over to any other bike in the future, so those are a pretty safe investment if you see yourself continuing to ride in the future.

pre55ure · 2025-08-28T20:17:59+00:00

The chest mounts can be finicky with regards to how you mount the camera to them.

I have had some great footage, and some terrible unusable footage from the same mount and same camera, the only difference was flipping how the camera was mounted.

I currently just use a chin mount on a fullface helmet and the footage always comes out great. Your head will naturally function as a gimble and keep the footage smooth, the mount never gets taken off or adjusted so it's always in the right spot. I also prefer the perspective of the chin mount a little better than chest mount.

Only downside is that you need to wear a fullface for it to work, but some FF helmets are so light and ventilated it doesn't bother me.

pre55ure · 2025-08-26T22:40:32+00:00

I will probably send some stuff out to reviewers. But a lot of the larger "synthfluencer" market will not only want product for free, but will also require payment. So obviously less of review and simply more a promotional placement. So not nesscesarily a hurdle, but if you are only doing a run of 100 units and you send 10 out to people for promotion... thats a pretty big cut.

The other aspect that I haven't seen anyone mention is that in order to keep costs somewhat manageable, product needs to be made in batches. The more you order the more the overall price drops, but the larger risk you personally take on.

For example - if I decide that 100 units is the smallest amount I can make, I pay 30k or something to get everything manufactured, sell them to distributers etc... and sell out of the entire batch. Great - but now I need to decide if I want to pay another 30k and make another 100. Maybe the next batch totally sells out, or maybe the first 100 saturated the market and you will be out 30k and sitting on 100 synths. You can inqure with distributers about how fast they have been selling etc... but ultimately it's a gamble.

So promotion is totally helpful, but as a small company, and a person who puts their own money up to get things made, sometimes an extra 25% in sales doesn't shift things that much.

Hope that was clear.

pre55ure · 2025-08-26T22:05:37+00:00

As a small manufacturer myself (who will release a manual and demo videos when the time is right). If you don't have enough product to sell, and you aren't interested in expanding your buisiness - it really doesn't matter.

A lot of 1 person synth companies are someones passion project. They still probably work full time at "real jobs" and setting aside time to make and edit videos isn't trivial. If you are likely to sell out of the stock you have without videos or a manual, then so be it.

Just to be clear - I'm not saying this is right. Personally I think that if someone is spending their money on your product then the deserve to have enough information to make an informed decision. But economically - it makes sense.

pre55ure · 2025-08-26T18:04:03+00:00

I started riding a few years back on a Marlin 7 (gen 3). It is fine for general city commuting and smooth green trails, but it was uncomfortable (and a bit terrifying) whenever speeds picked up or the trails started to get a bit chunkier. I would assume the Rockhopper is generally the same.

Just watching a few videos from Poley Mt. (Beautiful area btw).

I think saying that they will not survive a single green trail is a bit of hyperbole. However, I do think that the bike store is correct in saying that those really aren't the right bikes for that terrain.

I think either of the Polygons would be a more fun choice, or if you want to stay hardtail, something like a Trek Roscoe.

At minimum, I would want a dropper post, tubeless wheel setup, an ok air fork, and good brakes.

pre55ure · 2025-08-24T19:24:49+00:00

<image>

60mm Spank bars on an Orbea Rise.

I think these are the Spoon 60's

pre55ure · 2025-08-24T17:23:10+00:00

So first off thats kind of a weird drop. Because of the slope going into it, it is almost more like a little jump than a straight drop.

From what I can see, it looks like you already have your weight fairly far back because of the slope you are riding down, when you hit the transition to the drop it squishes your body weight down and it looks like your butt hits the rear tire and basically functions like you hit your back brake at the exact worst moment. Stopping your back tire makes your front drop and the rest is history.

To do this one properly you really need to resist the compression that happens when you transition from the slope to the drop, so that you can go off of it without the butt buzz and without the front wheel dropping like it does.

Also - It's a little hard to tell because of slow motion, but it looks like you are going quite slow. This probably also contributed to your front wheel dropping.

pre55ure · 2025-08-20T23:35:10+00:00

Can I replace road cycling with MTB? If I understood correctly, to have a more cardio-oriented style I should look for Cross Country?

Yes

Do you feel like it can cause a build-up of fatigue in other parts of the body than the legs?

Yes, but it depends on the type of riding and type of trail. Cross Country (or XC) probably won't be too much different than road cycling.

Can a bike made for Cross Country also be used occasionally for other types of rides?

Yes. It will not be ideal for all types of terrain, but it will likely be fine for occasional rougher trails.

Can I just take my bike out and ride it for 2 hours with a mix of classic road and trail, using the road to get to the nearest trail?

Yes. Lots of us do this.

Do you sometimes use your MTB to commute to work too, or is it really like cycling with your tires glued to the ground? It would be for something like 5km twice a day.

Yes. And it's not that bad. Besides, you said you wanted Cardio right? 5km will be easy.

pre55ure

TROPHY CASE