amihov

Mountain Bikes have switch to a status symbol. I don't agree with a bike being priced at the cost of a motorcycle or a car regardless of what Mickey Mouse research has being done. All major frame design were done over 20 years ago and since then there is almost no change. Bikes use to be around 2000$ with all Fox shocks and top of the line Shimano or Sram. The only major difference now is that manufacturers are milking the cash cow extra hard. I have used all top of the line components and also all the entry level but unless you are a pro racer you wouldn't feel it . If the bike is tuned correctly even mid tear parts would exceed anyone expectations. For the current bike prices I would expect all bikes to be made out of Magnesium and Titanium. The adoption of carbon frame was only done to drain the customer wallet by providing a light and fragile frame that will not last, prone to cracking due to impact damage from rocks and drops. This hypothetical weight saving make almost no difference in the real world but is heavily promoted by manufacturers because it helps with sales and reduces the longevity of the bikes thi only means more profit for the manufacturers and empty wallets for the bikers. Good luck to everyone that is willing to dump over 3000 $ on a bike. You better start buying shares in your favorite brand because you are becoming a sponsor.

My approach is similar but i dont use brake cleaner. I never had a problem with just clean hands. After i get the rotor almost perfectly straight i try to find a spot with a long down hill track were i use a moderate bracking for as long as i can. The idea behind this is that once you get the rotor hot it will straighten it self. It works for me.

"Traction The larger the diameter of a wheel, the greater the contact patch of the tire. A larger contact patch results in better traction, which leads to improved acceleration, deceleration and cornering. As you can see below, a 27.5-inch wheel has a similar contact patch to the 29." Now this is one big fat lie. I am really sorry about the marketing expert but the area of the contact patch on one tire is only control by the tire pressure. Under the condition that the rider's weight and it is the same and the tire pressure is the same the area of the contact patch in all 3 sizes will be the same it is simple physics. Unless Giant sales team have invented there own law of physics.. F=P*A F is the riders weight A is area of the contact patch P pressure of the tire. In our case F is a constant P is a constant so from does 2 conditions in all 3 cases the contact area A of the tire A=F/P it will also remain constant. This is the reason way when you drive on the beach even with really large tires you need to drop the pressure down to 20 psi so you can increase contact Area of the tire. In our case with the 3 different wheels size what can change only from size to size is only the shape of the area but not the total area witch means in practice that with the same tire pressure and same tire width traction will be the same. The traction will improve only with wide tires running lower tire pressure , but implies on all 3 wheel sizes.