Been out for some MONSTER riding the past few days, 126 miles over 2 days :shock:
Did it all on the 99 FSR elite, i did fit some 1.5" Schwalbe slicks though, mainly because they are puncture resistant.
The bike was fine, bar a couple of problems, about 2 miles from my home, i was out of the saddle, going up a hill and my front shifter got caught on my shorts leg, pulling the bars to one side and throwing me into a metal fence
:evil:
I went down pretty hard, i also seamed to somehow pull the shifter cable out from the actual shifter, the little linkage it sits inside to hold the end on the cable splaying outwards (98 XT Rapidfire shifters) As i was 100 meters from my mates garage i nipped in for some pliers, bent the ends back together which held the end of the cable fine, i did have to reset the pesky cable on the front mech (you should all know how much of a pita that can be) surprisingly i found a much easier way of doing it on the spot, hold the front mech out towards the big ring, pull cable tight through the clamp and bolt up, no doubt it will be out, usually too tight, simply loosen the cable clamp off a little bit at a time till it slides enough for the gears to be as close as possible, then use the adjuster on the shifter to dial it in, i can change cables now in now time at all LOL
That was not really a problem with the bike though, so the FSR still wins.
The other problem was a daft rattle noise i could pin down, until i noticed the snapped spoke on the rear wheel, again not really a fault with the bike, i laced the rear wheel up myself on the cheap and reused old spokes (always fit new spokes if its a rear wheel IMO its the first one i have tried second hand spokes on and its not the first spoke thats snapped on the rear either) probably snapped because i was treating the bike VERY roughly at first, and dropped off a 2 foot concrete drop with the stupid 1.5" commute slicks on, i had also wound the rear preload up a lot as to not waste my pedaling energy for the long trip.
All in all, the bike was spot on, got a few funny looks from the roadies whenever we stopped, a full suspension retro DH bike on slicks with massive 203 disc front brake seamed to confuse them a lot, sure as hell stopped me quicker then them though, i did find that locking up the rear with the skinny tyres on never made much noise or "feel" so a couple of times i locked it up and never realised, ha!
Great trip, the missus is knackered though, she did the entire thing on a none suspension hybrid bike, fair play to that!
My arse is completely battered now though, getting on the bike this morning for the second leg was yooooowwwwch, i did 35 miles of it standing up to give my rump a rest, that just buggered up my arms/shoulders and knees though, the final 5 miles had my feet starting to ache as well, so i sat back down, double yowch
