It can also be used on rims without spoke holes or rims with the tire on using our "inside nipple driver." More to come on this soon. With the tire on, we use lateral data and tension to true the wheel.
The bit in the traditional driver is interchangeable for hex, square, or squorx.
And square drive. I for one am ready to welcome our new robot wheel building overlord. Cause it works. It’s not better than a skilled human, but no worse. And it can go faster than a lot of them.
Work on jumping is definitely worthwhile. I personally think jumping is the most fun part of cycling. I'm still pretty bad at manuals and bunnyhops, but I have been working for more than a year at jumps, and I'm pretty good at using natural lips and bumps. I cleared my first decent jump about 10 months ago (after doing about 700 laps on my local, illegal, 0.1 mile long flow trail), and I haven't looked back. Last season at Northstar in Tahoe was much more fun for the work I had done.
But truly being good is the work of a lifetime, I think. Just yesterday I spent two hours (easily 100 laps) at the dirt jump park trying to get comfortable on 26 inch wheels (those bikes are SUPER sketchy). I actually am much better at jumping (at the dirt jump park at least) on my 29er rigid bike. My 150/130 trail bike is absolutely garbage at the park, but my 170/150 e-bike actually feels amazing.
I'm going to be getting a downhill bike this year, and so I am REALLY looking forward to lift season.
No argument there. I try to spend as much time as I can in the summer at Trestle Bike Park up in Winter Park (my "local" lift-service bike park), and I've had an older Canyon Torque AL for the last few years that I use expressly for the purpose. I've gotten a lot better, but my brain apparently still remembers the sections on potential energy from physics classes all too well.
As I am approaching retirement my main rule for riding my bike is to keep both wheels on the ground. I don’t mind rough, rocky, ground but I try to avoid crashing. At least serious crashes. Since my recovery time has increased over the years and I don’t want to be out of commission for long periods if I can avoid it. Jumping was something for thirty years ago. I avoided serious injury in those days but also know plenty of people that made a tiny error and ended up in surgery and a long recovery.
Agreed. I always work on skills like cornering, line choice, braking in loose conditions , handling slides on sand, etc. mainly I try to avoid situations where an error has consequences that are too bad such as large jumps and drops. Take a look at Pinkbike Friday Fails. It’s full of people going over the bars, hitting trees, high speed crashes, etc. Mainly by riding outside their skill range. Fortunately, in sandy Arizona, if I avoid crashing into cactus or a giant rock I am pretty good.
I wish it was less difficult to travel with bikes. I already don't enjoy flying and I've heard enough horror stories about bike shipping. Nor do I feel like paying through the nose to rent when I already own like $30,000 worth of bikes. If not for that, I'd love to go check out some other parks, but there's so much still to master in Tahoe.
I'm not young either (just turned 35, started cycling at about 31), and I also have a job, etc., and so can't really afford to get hurt. The key for me, in this context and especially for avoiding injury, has always been just doing hundreds and hundreds of laps and attempts, making tiny adjustments until you get it just right. This does make it somewhat difficult to adapt to new trails, etc., but I'd rather not get broken. It's also a great workout. My abs are sore as heck.
Yep, a systematic approach is key (and maybe lessons – or at least some good pointers – from people who are far more skilled). That's one thing I don't love about my local bike park. There are plenty of bigger features to choose from, but not a very good setup in terms of methodical progression from smaller ones.
With regard to skiing, a lesson always helps and even a 1/2 day makes a huge difference in the fun factor. I’ve skied for well over a half century and was paid to do it for a couple decades, and I still take occasional lessons. As far as riding my bike over vs around, I wish I could take a quick lesson in riding over stuff as easily, but it seems only the school of hard knocks is readily available.
Yep, for sure. I'm hell bent on getting to a point where I'm having just as much fun on skis as I used to on a snowboard. Getting pretty close in trees, but I've already been considering a moguls lesson since that's something I never really enjoyed much on a board but can already tell will be super fun on skis.
Great reporting James. Regarding the BMC with separating steerer, the Canyon Speedmax has had the same issue. The steerer literally comes apart where the stem makes contact. The first reports came from over a year and a half ago. In the beginning, Canyon blamed the users and forced them to pay for a new fork. I've been waiting for a replacement part for 3.5 months now - my bike reduced to a pretty paperweight. Canyon has been mute regarding progress and replacement parts unfortunately.
Good sir - the answer to your skiing dilemma is the thing that got me back into it a few years ago - the monoski! Yeah just like in the old Warren Miller videos from the 80s - but the new ones are shaped and really carve! I'm having a blast on mine and it's made lame SE Michigan skiing less lame! A new challenge from regular skis and less terrible than a snowboard for navigating ski lifts!
Your face looking at the Silca bottles while Ben was doing his promo thing in the gravel geo video was priceless
I actually had no idea he was going to be recording his sponsor promo live while I was there, so that was most definitely unrehearsed.
Obviously! 😀
Looks like TRUDI can only be used for rims with spoke holes.
Yes, that is correct. Probably should have mentioned that. It's also ideally suited for hex-drive nipples.
Thank you for the nice write-up James.
It can also be used on rims without spoke holes or rims with the tire on using our "inside nipple driver." More to come on this soon. With the tire on, we use lateral data and tension to true the wheel.
The bit in the traditional driver is interchangeable for hex, square, or squorx.
And square drive. I for one am ready to welcome our new robot wheel building overlord. Cause it works. It’s not better than a skilled human, but no worse. And it can go faster than a lot of them.
Work on jumping is definitely worthwhile. I personally think jumping is the most fun part of cycling. I'm still pretty bad at manuals and bunnyhops, but I have been working for more than a year at jumps, and I'm pretty good at using natural lips and bumps. I cleared my first decent jump about 10 months ago (after doing about 700 laps on my local, illegal, 0.1 mile long flow trail), and I haven't looked back. Last season at Northstar in Tahoe was much more fun for the work I had done.
But truly being good is the work of a lifetime, I think. Just yesterday I spent two hours (easily 100 laps) at the dirt jump park trying to get comfortable on 26 inch wheels (those bikes are SUPER sketchy). I actually am much better at jumping (at the dirt jump park at least) on my 29er rigid bike. My 150/130 trail bike is absolutely garbage at the park, but my 170/150 e-bike actually feels amazing.
I'm going to be getting a downhill bike this year, and so I am REALLY looking forward to lift season.
No argument there. I try to spend as much time as I can in the summer at Trestle Bike Park up in Winter Park (my "local" lift-service bike park), and I've had an older Canyon Torque AL for the last few years that I use expressly for the purpose. I've gotten a lot better, but my brain apparently still remembers the sections on potential energy from physics classes all too well.
As I am approaching retirement my main rule for riding my bike is to keep both wheels on the ground. I don’t mind rough, rocky, ground but I try to avoid crashing. At least serious crashes. Since my recovery time has increased over the years and I don’t want to be out of commission for long periods if I can avoid it. Jumping was something for thirty years ago. I avoided serious injury in those days but also know plenty of people that made a tiny error and ended up in surgery and a long recovery.
Yep, like I said: potential energy. Or more specifically, how PE all too easily turns into KE. Also, that whole F=ma thing.
That said, I'm all for avoiding injury, but I also think there are ways to safely improve your skill base.
Agreed. I always work on skills like cornering, line choice, braking in loose conditions , handling slides on sand, etc. mainly I try to avoid situations where an error has consequences that are too bad such as large jumps and drops. Take a look at Pinkbike Friday Fails. It’s full of people going over the bars, hitting trees, high speed crashes, etc. Mainly by riding outside their skill range. Fortunately, in sandy Arizona, if I avoid crashing into cactus or a giant rock I am pretty good.
I wish it was less difficult to travel with bikes. I already don't enjoy flying and I've heard enough horror stories about bike shipping. Nor do I feel like paying through the nose to rent when I already own like $30,000 worth of bikes. If not for that, I'd love to go check out some other parks, but there's so much still to master in Tahoe.
I'm not young either (just turned 35, started cycling at about 31), and I also have a job, etc., and so can't really afford to get hurt. The key for me, in this context and especially for avoiding injury, has always been just doing hundreds and hundreds of laps and attempts, making tiny adjustments until you get it just right. This does make it somewhat difficult to adapt to new trails, etc., but I'd rather not get broken. It's also a great workout. My abs are sore as heck.
Yep, a systematic approach is key (and maybe lessons – or at least some good pointers – from people who are far more skilled). That's one thing I don't love about my local bike park. There are plenty of bigger features to choose from, but not a very good setup in terms of methodical progression from smaller ones.
With regard to skiing, a lesson always helps and even a 1/2 day makes a huge difference in the fun factor. I’ve skied for well over a half century and was paid to do it for a couple decades, and I still take occasional lessons. As far as riding my bike over vs around, I wish I could take a quick lesson in riding over stuff as easily, but it seems only the school of hard knocks is readily available.
Yep, for sure. I'm hell bent on getting to a point where I'm having just as much fun on skis as I used to on a snowboard. Getting pretty close in trees, but I've already been considering a moguls lesson since that's something I never really enjoyed much on a board but can already tell will be super fun on skis.
Great reporting James. Regarding the BMC with separating steerer, the Canyon Speedmax has had the same issue. The steerer literally comes apart where the stem makes contact. The first reports came from over a year and a half ago. In the beginning, Canyon blamed the users and forced them to pay for a new fork. I've been waiting for a replacement part for 3.5 months now - my bike reduced to a pretty paperweight. Canyon has been mute regarding progress and replacement parts unfortunately.
That is a huge bummer about your bike. Hopefully you live somewhere that's at least been inundated with snow and cold during much of that time.
Thanks James! Reading about you switching to skiing is inspiring - without a rideable bike, it's giving me a bit of a push to try to learn myself 😁
I definitely found proper lessons to be incredibly helpful starting out. Good luck!
Thanks for the tip James!
“…ride around stuff th(a)n launch over it…”?
Gah.
I hate errors in general, but if it only ends up being one out of ~4,500 words, I guess I can live with that.
Agreed, though in this case it does change the meaning significantly. I had to reread it a few times
Good sir - the answer to your skiing dilemma is the thing that got me back into it a few years ago - the monoski! Yeah just like in the old Warren Miller videos from the 80s - but the new ones are shaped and really carve! I'm having a blast on mine and it's made lame SE Michigan skiing less lame! A new challenge from regular skis and less terrible than a snowboard for navigating ski lifts!