TimTucker

One I don't see mentioned: hand pruners! At least in many areas, the trails don't maintain themselves.

Using just the chain breaker you've now shortened your chain -- it'll get you back to the trailhead, but you're going to have to do more maintenance at some point if you want to be able to use your full range of gears again. If you swap in a master link for the broken link, you can run indefinitely with 2 master links since it's the same length. From past experience it's also a bit easier and faster to recover from fumbling a master link install vs. pushing a pin too far.

Even the $5 ones at Walmart are a good start -- you don't even need to bring along a full kit, just drop the quantities down to about 1/3 and you'll have enough to at least treat a single injury and get you back to a full kit in your car. I keep my stripped down kit in a ziplock bag on one half of a bag that fits in a water bottle cage (the other half is devoted to tools).

Tried one of those -- felt great on my head, but like most helmets with centered buckles, the buckle rubbed terribly against my Adam's apple when properly adjusted and made it painful to look downward. What's the point of a downhill rated helmet if you can't look down when the straps are properly adjusted? Making things worse, the product photos for bike helmets rarely show the straps, so it's difficult to determine before buying whether or not they use a centered buckle. The bizarre thing is that the same manufacturers almost always include the straps in product photos of their ski helmets (which are far more likely to include offset buckles because they usually have centered chin pads).

@fautquecaswing: Sounds great. Give me a nice set of 32x3.0" wheels and I'll be on my way with 300mm rotors.

The benefit of bigger rotors is lower hand fatigue, since it takes less effort squeezing to get the same amount of braking force.

The great thing about that it can let you run a longer dropper.

Still tops out at 140mm. Would have hoped that a fancy LE model would get you 150mm of travel, but that seems to remain reserved for the EXT Pro variant that's only available direct from Manitou (but usually out of stock).

Would be curious to see the difference in satisfaction for 2-piston vs. 4-piston, rotor size, and MSRP. I've been more than satisfied with Tektro's 4-piston HD-M745's + 203mm rotors -- I'd wager than many people would find that going to a bigger rotor & a cheap 4-piston option would improve their braking performance far more than spending 2-3x more on brakes.

Surprised not to see Microshift make the list - their Acolyte 1x8 drivetrain is amazing for the price. Tektro's 4 piston brakes are also a good choice on a budget - when I put together our family's bikes HD-M745s were about half the cost of Shimano's 4 piston offerings and are compatible with the same pads.