Mountain Biking
 

So Saturday was my birthday (turned 19) and my gift this year was a mountain bike. So today I went out to Laguna Nigel with a couple buddies and we did a 12-13 mile ride and had a total blast.

Anyone else here Mountain Bike?

One thing that was pretty crazy was that I somehow got my rear brakes to fade on the descent! It has hydraulic brakes front and rear with a 7" rotor front and 6" rotor rear and 2 piston calipers. And somehow, I managed to heat up my rear brakes so much that a full, hard grab of the rear brake would only mildly slow my speed. I didn't touch em for a bit and once they cooled they worked perfectly again. (I think the reason they faded was they were new so they weren't bedded and therefore didn't grab as hard and I was romping on them to keep me from going 80mph down this 40* downhill slope).

Anyway, a new (from what I can tell, expensive) hobby that I found to go with this one. Figured I'd share.

Obviously you were using your brakes too much. Try abusing the front brake more but only when you have too.

I currently have 5 bikes. 3 are mountain and 2 are commuter (main source or transportation). It is also my other passion besides RC. I don't even own a car, but my fiance does... Here's a list of my current rides.

Mountain:
1. Santa Cruz Chameleon Single-Speed (I built it in 1998-still a fav).
2. Santa Cruz Heckler (My 5 inch bike for normal to gnarly trails)
3. Giant Reign X (My chairlift - freeride 7inch bike)

Road:
1. On One fix gear (main commuter bike - fast, had it since 2001)
2. Giant Tran Sport (it has industrial front and rear racks that I use in the summer to hail my rc and tacklebox to the track)

Well, you know who has done some biking in the past and wishes to do more in the future? Me! Some time this summer I really want to head out to Big Bear and descend some mountain. When are you (or are you already) out of school?

Happy (late) birthday, BTW!

Man, that is so weird. My birthday was friday and I bought a '07 Kona Coiler. I haven't had a chance to really ride it yet but I'm still pretty stoked. I might go today but my rear brakes need to be bled and I should replace my grips and seat soon. Glad to see we have a few mtn bikers here :mdr:

i used to do a bit of mountain biking but i have gone to road bikes now and i have just bought a scott s40 with full 105 ultegra and dura ace setup
happy belated birthday :lol:

i've been riding singletrack for about 10 years... and 5 years ago, i custom built my end-all-be-all $5k freeride bike. trek liquid full suspension frame, mavic tubeless wheelset, FOX front and rear air shock, full XTR, blah blah blah. :lol:

http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL127.../171579291.jpg

ive been into moutain biking for a while, though i havent been able to do much of it lately due to school. But it is another one of my passions, right next to RC and Car Audio. Here's my steed, im actually trying to sell her to get a newer model since i work in a bike shop and get pretty good deals on bikes.

Its a great bike and rides awesome, to date i have $5,500+ invested.

http://i582.photobucket.com/albums/s...n_01/BIKE1.jpg

oh, and on the brakes issue, its fairly common with brakes in general. Though hydraulic brakes are good, there are great differences in the quality of available brakes on the market, just like anything else, you get what you pay for. There are sets of mechanical Disc brakes that i would run instead of the lower end hydraulic sets, For instance the Avid BB7's perform as good or better in my opinion than many entry level hydraulic brake setups. If i were to keep my bike instead of sell it The next thing i would do is put a set of Avid Code DH/FR 4 piston hydraulic brakes on it because the Hayes that are on my rig fade a bit when ridden hard and they lack the tuning and power the higher end brakes have.

Well, I have an 04 Norco 250 sitting in my basement. I fubar'd the cranks a couple years ago and havn't touched it since.

Kind of got out of it, I am only 19 now but I realized that I am kind of a workoholic and that if I eat er' hard on the bike I'd be off work for a while (oh hey, I am off work for a while! thanks economy).

I used to ride a kona x-country bike(forget the damn name of it) and one day the cranks had apparently had enough, one broke in half and stabbed me right in the calf muscle. 13 stitches later (and now a pretty wicked looking shark-bite type scar LOL) I was patched up. Did I mention this happened when I bunny hopped off a curb?

The bike I got is a Mongoose Amasa Super. It has a 27 speed Deore drivetrain with a Shimano Rear derailer (I beleive it is an "XT" derailer - no idea what that's supposed to mean - that just stuck with me cause the guy helping us mentioned it like 30 times).

The brakes are Hayes Stroker Hydraulics both front and rear with 180mm disc front and 160 in the rear.

The forks are Rock Shox with 85-130mm on-the-fly adjustable travel spring shocks with lockout and on-the-fly adjustable rebound rates.

It's an awesome bike considering my skill level, and I hope to abuse it for a while.

I am already looking to increase the size of the rear rotor to help resist fading. While out there I saw a couple of hardcore down-hill guys and they had crazy 10" rotors front and rear (same calipers as me though).

Thanks for all the happy b-day wishes. This birthday was probably my best yet. My girlfriend planned with all my friends and parents to throw me a surprise birthday party.

Still rockin' my 95' Schwinn s9six .20, and my 01' norco VPS...

Only one not pictured is my Santa Cruz Heckler.
I also put a new Lyric fork and chainguide on the Giant Reign X (the freeride setup).

http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/h...g?t=1243888055

Is this the bike you got?
http://www.performancebike.com/bikes...05_20000_20500
I was considering that model when I was in the market, but settled on its GT competitor instead:
http://www.performancebike.com/bikes...00_20000_28504
Except mine is the previous year model and a different color. Did you get yours from Performance Bike, by chance?

So next time, instead of a RC bash, we gotta do a MTN bike bash :lol:

Wow MetalMan, that is a total coincidence. I almost got the previous GT Avalanche 1.0 (the gray colored one which is probably the one you actually have), but settled on the Mongoose instead (yes, that is the exact bike I got).

The BS part is that when I bought it last week it was 850 but we managed to get it discounted to 630 before tax, so we still made out better even with the price drop.

But now my dad is going to order one too.