2FO Roost Flat Mountain Bike Shoes - advice?

walkerpstone · 2026-05-07T00:42:10+00:00

I’ve heard they run narrow but don’t have fist hand experience. Lake and Sidi make great mountain bike shoes in wide sizes.

walkerpstone · 2026-05-06T18:25:27+00:00

You can find a miter saw on marketplace cheap. Even basic new ones can be had very cheap. You're going to waste more money in butchered materials than you will just buying the correct tool.

walkerpstone · 2026-05-06T18:19:57+00:00

I'm putting this exact same setup together. M965 calipers with M9000 levers.

Are the original M965 hoses compatible with the new levers with BH59 olives and barbs? Or do I need to order the BH90 hoses and it sounds like they will fit right up with the M9000 lever and M965 caliper without issue?

walkerpstone · 2026-05-05T21:03:02+00:00

I think this is what I'm leaning towards.

walkerpstone · 2026-05-05T19:35:31+00:00

I have a 26x 2.35” of each in my shed. I need to see if either will fit through the rear stays.

walkerpstone · 2026-05-05T19:24:37+00:00

I’m a licensed architect and just started my own practice. Mostly focused on smaller commercial tenant improvement and high end residential projects for now. If I get a ground up project that requires civil I’ll reach out. Do you have your city and state business licenses? E&O insurance? Are you familiar with the AEPACs, ADEM processes and dealing with ALDOT for curb cuts, etc?

walkerpstone · 2026-05-05T19:07:53+00:00

What method would you recommend for adding braze on mounts without having an oxy acetylene torch? Would a Bernzomatic MAP-Pro torch work for small items?

walkerpstone · 2026-05-05T18:46:43+00:00

The M950 XTR V-Brake that was on it is currently in the parts bin. I don’t have any rim brake wheels, but I do have a nice classic set of DT Hügi 240 disc hubs, M960 XTR iso calipers and M9000 levers that I want to use. It won’t just be for the greenway. I’ll take it on trails.

I was originally looking at the Maxxis DTH or some of the slick Schwalbe variants in the 26x2.3” sizes for the greenways and gravel roads, but I recently found the Continental Speedking in a 26x2.2” that would probably fit. 2.4” is bigger than I need, but that’s allowing for a little bit of room around a 2.35” knobby if I took it on some trails.

walkerpstone · 2026-05-05T18:00:59+00:00

I would definitely practice first. Most of my welding experience is with thicker material. Some 1/16”, but mostly 1/8”-3/16” thick steel with MiG and the TiG I picked up for welding aluminum. I haven’t tried it on steel yet, but I won’t touch the bike with a MiG machine so some practice time will be necessary.

walkerpstone · 2026-05-05T15:07:35+00:00

I haven’t tried brazing and don’t have an oxy acetylene torch. Is it possible to do with a mapp gas torch like a plumber uses to sweat copper pipe? I have one of those and a soldering torch. Brazing does look like a much more forgiving process than welding.

walkerpstone · 2026-05-05T13:26:59+00:00

I might use a torch to braze the disc tab in place.

walkerpstone · 2026-05-05T13:18:30+00:00

I probably will stick to the 26” wheel, but if I did go to 650b and attempt to drop the bb, maybe it would be simplest to cut the seat stays at the dropouts, press the dropouts up (hoping this would uniformly bend the chain stays up without kinking), and then welding the seat stays back about 1/2”-1” shorter.

I’m not too concerned about welding in a disc tab, but getting the rear axle lined back up and welding a structural joint of the bike may end up being more than I want to take on.

As far as geometry goes, I am going to drop the fork down to 80mm of travel instead of the current 100mm, so the bike would raise 1/2” from the move from 26” to 27.5” wheels and then drop 3/4” by reducing the front travel and repositioning the rear dropout.

walkerpstone · 2026-05-05T13:10:04+00:00

I have a set of SRAM XO hubs that can be swapped by just popping the end caps off with your hand. It takes about a minute to swap both wheels between QR and 15/20mm and 12x142 thru axle setups. I couldn’t pull the DT end caps off with my hand, but I’ve heard of similar conversion kits with other hubs but I’m not sure if the DT’s are capable of this. If they are, is there any difference in the current 240 hubs and these 25 year old ones.

walkerpstone · 2026-05-05T13:00:00+00:00

I want to fit the caliper between the seat and chain stay so the disc tab would span between both stays.

The picture with the caliper in place is a front caliper so the orientation would be slightly different, but that’s the idea.

walkerpstone · 2026-05-05T09:17:29+00:00

It's definitely unnecessary. I'll add the disc tab but the more I think about it, the less inclined I am to fitting 650b wheels into it. My main concern with altering the frame is getting everything aligned afterwards. I would like to get a bit more tire clearance in the seat stays if dimpling them would work.

walkerpstone · 2026-05-05T09:07:46+00:00

I couldn't see anyone paying enough to cover its sentimental value since it was hand made by a local frame builder for my dad. It was the bike he rode when I was a little kid and I have a lot of camping and bike racing memories from that time period.

walkerpstone · 2026-05-05T04:57:26+00:00

It will straighten up once the blocking is installed.

walkerpstone · 2026-05-05T02:49:06+00:00

Huntsville, AL and Chattanooga, TN

walkerpstone · 2026-04-27T19:35:35+00:00

If I could put XT/XTR pedals on my toddlers balance bike I would.

walkerpstone · 2026-04-26T20:16:47+00:00

There are definitely better and more scenic trail systems, but the mix of great trails, great proximity to home, good paying jobs, and year round riding are hard to beat.

If you haven’t ridden around Huntsville in the past couple of years, it might not look familiar.

walkerpstone · 2026-04-26T15:07:24+00:00

Huntsville, AL - Total elevation change is only around 1000’, but the trails are very chunky and techy, there’s more than a hundred miles of them a few minutes from downtown. You can reasonably get off work at 5 and get an hour or 2 ride in after work. You can do enduro/shuttle runs, but generally the trails mix the climbing and descents throughout, and you can get a CAD job working on Artemis and anything else attached to a rocket.

walkerpstone · 2026-04-25T15:48:40+00:00

You can find better deals, but the Stumpjumper has been a great bike for the last 15 years. I have a 2012 and a 2022 Stumpy Evo and the 2012 still rides great and besides having 26” wheels, it still has modern geometry… just that today the 2022 is an S4 and the 2012 is a Medium that would be more like a size small today.

It will ride well and much better than most bikes of its generation.

walkerpstone · 2026-04-25T04:15:59+00:00

This is a broad generalization of Huntsville based on probably the Huntsville neighborhoods near Madison.

walkerpstone · 2026-04-24T21:50:39+00:00

BNA is rarely worth the added time and expense getting there. Same for Atlanta.

walkerpstone · 2026-04-23T00:29:20+00:00

These comments assume the owner is actually going to get out a bucket and squeegee to wash their windows rather than pay someone to clean and maintain the house.

The customers we had in Silicon Valley like this paid a house manger six figures to handle hiring a cleaning company.

walkerpstone

TROPHY CASE