Dammit’s adventures in mountain biking

From memory DMR Vaults have fairy chunky pins, which means they don’t sink into soles too well.

I had a similar style of pedal and upgraded to Nukeproof Horizons which are leagues ahead.
When used with my 5 Tens or Specialized 2FO shoes I find it extremely hard to move my foot when riding if I’ve positioned it wrong whilst riding. I can’t remember ever slipping off.

Hmm, I'd prefer not to sling my new pedals - do you know if I can get sharper pins that would fit?

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I like the look of those and they make an XXL!

Popped down to Queen Elisabeth Country Park today for day two of "how does anyone ride like this".

For me, and this is of course purely anecdotal, flats make technical sections much harder - I now have to think about my feet, where they are positioned on the pedal, and crucially how to keep them on the pedals when things are bumpy. Counter intuitive to those who use flats happily I am sure, but I've ridden with lipless pedals for 30 years, so there's a lot to unlearn.

@umop3pisdn goes dogging there !

Why bother messing around with flats?

What did you think of QECP?

Flats -as long as I stick with clipless I don't think I'll ever properly use weight transfer to move the bike around, instead I'll just pull my feet up. This works for hopping branches, and you can take a load of speed into a jump and pump into the face and go quite a long way, but there's a limit to how much you can develop, for me anyway. I've already made progress on bunny-hop style jumping that has eluded me for the past 30 years, but I'm a long way from comfortable.

I may well go back to clipless, but I am going to stick with flats for a while to try to break some bad habits and learn some good ones.

QECP - first time actually riding there rather than passing through, they could do with a few more signs! The red is steep, narrow, and switch-backed, more of a climb than anything else. The blue is more open and flowing, spending a lot more time going down, and I did enjoy that more, but was picking my way through both of them due to the pedal situation

A question regarding a new road bike build and rear mechs:

Should I get a short or mid cage derailleur? I can get around my Essex loops with 39/28 but I think I’d struggle on anything more challenging or with longer climbs.

So would you recommend a mid cage derailleur with standard chainset or a short cage with compact? Or is mid cage with compact the ultimate for variability?

I heard the pros all ride mid cage now anyway. Help

Short cage, 11-28 and compact. If youre spinning out of 50-11 youre going too fast

This is exactly what I’ve switched to since moving to Wales.

I’m not by any means a spinner and grind along with the best of them, I also prefer hooning down than going up so I never really considered a compact an option and didn’t want to miss the top end speed.

I’ve never looked back, such a more useable range, better for aiding my abysmal climbing and still managed to hit 54mph coming off the Blorange not so long ago.

Rear shock - it's been mentioned before that I should upgrade it, but I assumed it was tongue in cheek, however - the equivalent Santa Cruz has a Super Deluxe Ultimate, whereas the Pace has a Deluxe RT3 Debonair.

Pace offer an upgrade to a Fox DPS Factory shock, but the Guy Kesteven ride review very heavily suggested not to do this such was his impression of the shock tune on the Deluxe RT3.

However, I'm now wondering if the tune could be replicated on the for e.g. Super Deluxe Ultimate, which would also (presumably) offer a better experience?

Got an answer from Adrian/Pace (via Guy K):

"We’ve spent a lot of time playing with the tune so it compliments the kinematics of the frame and swopping out the shock for a different model or brand is not simply a case of ensuring the eye-to-eye length is the same as the original. It would take some time to arrive at a recommended spec’ for an alternative shock and given this is a mid-travel trailbike we found the RT3 shock stayed composed with damping characteristics remaining consistant under most circumstances- even Bike Park/long descents. So we didn’t test with a piggy back because it wasn’t really necessary however had the travel been say 150+ then it may have been more necessary. It was the same story when choosing a Pike over say the Lyric as the additional weight/cost/stiffness just wasn’t necessary."

So leave it alone then

Yes, that was the conclusion I'd come to. With my Fork Of Shame.

The real Dammit would have never got a heavier fork

Imposter

Because I couldn't leave well enough alone, I had a conversation with Finlay at Full Factory Suspension this morning (recommended by Guy Kesteven).

His view is that there are three tunes available for an RT3, and therefore it has to be one of them.

He also believes that he can both replicate the tune from the RT3 that SRAM is putting on the unit for Pace, and tune it more for me (weight, bumbling riding style), with a Super Deluxe Ultimate, and that said unit is far better than the RT3, has more range/options for tuning, and is in general a better unit.

I therefore ordered one today, and will post my RT3 to Full Factory Suspension for the tune to be examined/replicated in the SDU when ZyroFisher get their next delivery (17th of the 7th, apparently).

Your Shockwiz will thank you

Now what bike is F getting ;-)

Seems like quite severe overkill going on in this thread

Yes.

Harsh. I'm mildly trolling at most

Super Deluxe Ultimate

This makes meh giddeh!

Super Deluxe Ultimate

Needs more superlatives