MtnBikeRiders.com

Good question, perhaps you can give us some tips! Haha. I’m just messing. But something exciting is about to happen for MtnBikeRiders.com. You may recall that we were in the process of building our own tandem mountain bike to do super cool stuff with like eating tacos and drinking diet sodas while riding down a gnarly hill. This weekend will be the start of this project, and it should be pretty epic to say the least. Hmm. I like that word…EPIC.

Our Fabricator Extraordinaire, Nick D sent me some thoughts on how to build this monster, here’s what he had to say:

Yeah, I already have some ideas how I want to lay it out.

One thing I need to do is have you take a picture of your old tandem from a side view. Then i need to measure all of the angles and lengths. After that we will want to sit on the old tandem and see where we want more room, angle changes, and any other modifications.

I.E. Front Bottom Bracket to Rear Bottom Bracket, Front seat post to rear seat post, head set angle,

At that point we will have some type of schematic to work from for our new one. That way I know which exact angles work and how far to separate everything. Then I will make a jig that has the exact length of our bottom brackets that we want which will lock both sections together. After that you just connect the points with tubes and call it a day.

So here is the order of operations:

1. Take pictures of old Tandem

2. Measure old Tandem

6. Cut old frames and prep for welding

7. Set all angles and lengths up

8. Weld all joints

9. Add accessory pieces of flair

12. Our main reason for building this tandem.Race and look cooler than everyone else.

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That’s right Fart Face, you read it right. For Throwback Thursday we’re giving away a BRAND NEW SONY CD WALKMAN!

The lucky winner will get to sit back and relax as they enjoy the sounds of their favorite CD’s in MEGA BASS! Kids, this isn’t an MP3 player one of those tablet things…it plays CDs!

To enter, you’ll need to go to our fanpage on Facebook, hit LIKE and SHARE. One lucky winner will be picked by Sunday 03/31/2013 12noon.

Good luck!

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The other night LadyP and I were riding and a small neighborhood butts against the trail. As I was climbing I started hearing some one yelling angrily. I head back down the hill to check on LadyP to make sure she was ok. By that time she had already stopped and busted out her phone to record the situation and have it ready to call the cops.

There was a guy yelling at some woman who was in a truck. Right when he started to lose it, LadyP and I started yelling back at him to knock it off or the cops will be called. He then tells us to STFU and mind our own business and continues to tell us, “ever heard of FREEDOM OF SPEECH!!!???” I yell back “when you treat a woman like that in public, it becomes our business!”

Mind you, we’re probably a good 75 yards away on the trail in the middle of a hill climb. So it’s not like we were that close.

We go back and forth, he challenges me to come down the hill and make him shut up. I remind him that we have him on video and we’re calling the cops. He starts riding away on his bicycle as he’s huffing and puffing about the situation. He was pretty pissed about it and much like a tantrum throwing child, he was still yelling about something as he’s riding away.

Anyway, LadyP and I were both worked up and was filled with adrenalin. What bothered us was there are so many people in his neighborhood that could have intervened, yet no one did. In fact, there was a dad on one street playing with his kids, he came out to look, but didn’t say or do anything while all this was going on.

So the question is, if you saw something like that, what would you have done? Keep riding or get involved?

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Every now and then you’ll need to bleed your brakes. One thing I would recommend, when you have this procedure done or when you do it yourself, it’s a good idea to get a new set of pads. Why? Sometimes when you bleed your brakes you’ll end up having to inject more fluid in your system. So what happens is, your pads are worn out and you put more fluid in, it causes the brake piston to push further out. Make sense so far?

What ends up happening, when you decide to replace the old pads at different time, you won’t be able to push back the piston far enough to be flush with the caliper to make room for your new pads so they can fit properly with the rotors because there’s too much fluid in your system.

New pads aren’t that expensive, you can find after market brands that can cost as low as $8 per set (depending on your brand/model).

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Betting on Moto GP – Ghost Rider
TEXT: The Moto GP season ended with a very exciting race at Valencia which was won by Dani Pedrosa after the new world champion Jorge Lorenzo had a mishap as he was trying to overtake a back marker. He wasn’t helped by the fact that despite a wet track he was on slick tyres.
If you enjoy betting on Moto GP then no doubt you will have had an enjoyable season, particularly if you have been betting on Lorenzo and Pedrosa who soon turned the championship into a two horse race, however the fierce competition between the pair of them kept the betting exciting almost right up to the end.

We always feel a little flat when the Moto GP ends, and tt will be a few more weeks before the bookmakers post odds for the 2013 season, so you might care to spend some time at your favourite online casino such as www.jackpotcity.co.uk playing some motorcycling games such as Ghost Rider, a video slot.
The game features Johnny Blaze, a stunt rider who traded his soul with the devil in return for the life of his friend with the result that he became a fiery demon with blazing scull and flaming breath. In the slot game fire is featured as a backdrop and rings of flame surround the symbols. Ghost rider himself is a wild symbol and his logo is scatter. There are many other related symbols such as a fiery wheeled motorcycle, a volcano, weapons and even a bible, and the symbols have exciting animations.
It is a five reel slot with twenty five pay lines. The top jackpot is 10,000 coins and the maximum coin is £5. The maximum number of coins you can bet on any one spin are 125, and you can select the maximum bet with a button.

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This past weekend I attended a church retreat to learn a butt load of stuff about the gospel. During our break, my buddy Officer Ben and I decided to hit the local trail. We ended up riding part of the Santa Ana River Trail (SART).

We had some great views and once we got into the thick of the forest, we were riding under a canopy.

Kinda neat how there was some mini waterfalls along the route.

There were patches of snow through out the trail.

When Ofc Ben and I started, it was all downhill. So we easily cruised miles and miles without knowing how far we actually went. Eventually we decided to turn around to head back to our retreat. This is where the granny gears came in. The climbing back up through SART was pretty brutal and I stayed on my granny gear all the way up. I think we were climbing for at least 45 minutes and the thinner air at the high elevation made it more difficult.

All in all, any day that I could go riding, whether XC or DH, I’m still happy…yes even climbing. When you have a bike, the KHS XCT 556 that can pretty much do everything, then heck, it’s even more fun!

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Check it out kids, I took some old grips that I was about to throw away and used them for something else on the bike.

Filet it down the middle.

Cut the ends off.

You can now wrap it around your chain stay and zip tie it for the perfect fit. Since you have 2 grips, go ahead and install both to protect the length of your chain stay.

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As you may recall I talked about Burt Reynolds getting a facelift. So after giving it some more thought and double checking with LadyP to make sure I can part out her old bike, I went to town on Burt the following morning.

After spending some time to strip the KHS XC604 of its parts, I started doing the same for Burt. I removed all of his single speed parts. The process was pretty seamless. The KHS had the same cable stops as Burt. So that means when I installed the cables, it went in easily. I did have to trim some excess housing to make a perfect fit.

I took me less than an hour to do the whole conversion. To my surprise, the bike came in at 26.5lbs with my DH pedals.

Here he is looking all sharp and stuff with his new drive train and brakes. I guess I lucked out that the color scheme that LadyP picked for her bike ended up working for Burt.

The white and black really go well together with bits of red to accent the whole bike. Burt also got a set of Avid ElixirR brakes, way better than the mechanical brakes that he came with.

LadyP was pretty good to her drive train. It just needed to be lubed and it was ready to go!

Later that afternoon Burt and I headed out at the world famous Fullerton Loop. First thing I noticed with Burt and his new drive train, rides nothing like the 2×10 that’s on the Airborne Goblin. One thing I’ve come to love on the Goblin was the 2×10, it just feels more efficient on the flats. But one thing Burt did well in was climbing, thanks to his granny gears of 22t/34t.

I found that on Burt, I was on my big ring quite a bit and noticed that I was cross chaining by using the 28t-32t. I am assuming I was doing this because it’s what my legs have grown accustomed to while riding the Goblin. Just like with any bike I test or have ridden, it will take some time for me to get used to everything about Burt. When I converted him over to a single speed. It took me at least 5 rides to finally like how everything was. From cock pit to gearing, it all took some time to get dialed in. I figured it’s going to be the same story with Burt this time around. One thing I did change, and will probably change again by the end of the week is the handle bar. I’ll need something wider since I like my bikes to have short stems and wide bars.

Though Burt Reynolds isn’t a new bike to me, having this new configuration sure feels new and it’s got me all excited! I’m working on procuring some better parts for him, so who knows what he’ll end up with in the next few weeks.

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As you all know, Burt Reynolds is one handsome bike. For those of you just tuning in, that’s this bike right here.

Yup he’s a handsome devil. But then I got to thinking…”Wouldn’t it be fun to mix things up again with Burt?” If you recall, Burt started off as 24speed entry level 29er. Then it went through a transformation that you see above as a single speed 29er with a rigid fork. I actually spent some clams on the drive train, fork and all sorts of small parts just to get it to become Burt ReynoldsS…yes two S’s for Single Speed.

But it got me thinking. I really love how the Airborne Goblin works, heck in my review I noted how much faster I was with the darn thing. But the fun has to come to an end because the Goblin is on it’s last few days with me. You see, he’s a demo bike and the kind folks of Airborne were sweet enough to let me use him to do some XC racing before I hand him back. With the thought if seeing the Goblin go, I was pretty sad. I then started thinking of ways on how I can continue to ride a 29er.

This is where Burt Reynolds comes in. He might just be my next project bike…again. So I was thinking that if I take LadyP’s old bike, a KHS XC604 with X0, 27speed drive train and strip it, I could use those parts on Burt, right? Ya why not. Though it’s not a fancy 2×10 drive train, I’m sure I’ll manage with it’s X0 level parts. Plus it has Avid Juicy brakes, an upgrade from Burt’s mechnical Tektro’s. The only thing that is a bit of a bummer would be the fork. Burt like its hard, therefore he rocks a rigid fork.

Well there you have it. So many ideas floating in my head about bikes, Burt, 29ers and all that jazz. I’m still not 100% certain that I want Burt to become a 29er with a 27speed drive train. But if he does convert, it might be an interesting ride…

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Normally I’m not a big fan of using ear buds while riding for the obvious reasons of being distracted or not hearing things around you. But I recently received a set of Open Ear Headphones by Aftershokz

So the whole idea with Aftershokz is that the speaker/driver is placed outside of your ear canal and uses your bones to project the sound coming from it.Having this configuration allows you to hear your music and still hear your surroundings. I had Doc Thunda try it out yesterday and while he was listening to music, he and I could carry a full conversation. It’s actually kinda weird to have Aftershokz. The best description I would have for it is this, just imagine that you’re sitting at Starbucks, you hear the ambient music. Not too loud, not too soft, but just enough where you could easily sing along with it but at the same time you can hear the person your sitting next to. Basically you have music in your head while riding…kinda cool if you ask me.

Anyhow, let’s talk about the idea of music while riding.As I’ve been testing the Aftershokz I’ve loaded up my MP3 device with some random songs and by golly, some of those songs worked great in helping me push harder or just have a bit more fun as I’m riding. Here’s a list of songs that I really liked on my ride from yesterday.

Bon Jovi – Living on a Prayer. This is great during a long downhill ride.

Warren G – Regulate ft. Nate Dogg. Perfect for cruising the single track.

Snoop Dogg-Who am I (what’s my name). I liked this during a climb. It wasn’t too fast but it help me carry a tempo up the hill.

Muse-Madness. This is another great climbing song. I ended up singing “Ma ma ma ma ma maaadnesss”

Debbie Deb-Look out weekend. This one was surprise to me. I thought it was great to start the ride with since it’s faster paced. Beside, you just can’t go wrong with Debbie Deb!

Lupe Fiasco- Paris, Tokyo. This is what I finished my ride with. The jazzy sound mixed with hip hop was awesome for cooling down and cruising back to the trail head.

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