sdurant12

Yeah, having bought an 80d Goretex Pro piece at an REI garage sale 6 years ago (I mention the garage sale because I paid like 25% of retail cost for it), I can say that this stuff is pretty durable. I've crashed on gravel, landing/sliding on my side. I thought the jacket would be shredded. Nope, it's fine. I've tree skiied and scraped against branches countless times. One time, I got absolutely taken down by the broken end of a branch that I shoulder checked. No tear. Another time, I faceplanted onto pavement while doing what I'll call "urban skiing". I slid on the pavement on my chest. The jacket got scuffs from where I had my phone in the chest pocket. You can still see the outline of my phone was, but there are no tears. The zipper finally died this year, after 6 years of use. I'm going to see about getting it repaired. If I can't get it repaired, I'll use it as an anorak for resort skiing.

@InitialDean: +1 on the NF's. The best pants I've had, even ignoring the tall sizes. Now, that they have tall sizes, I'm sticking with NF forever (or until they start making bad products, whichever comes first)

Tom Van Steenbergen (CAN) Brandon Semenuk (CAN) Brett Rheeder (CAN)

@kokofosho: my inseam length is long. On my Large Pivot Firebird with a 240mm oneup I have slightly over 7cm of exposed post.

@Gristle: +1 to bikeyoke being nicer. It's mostly the oneup rattling that's frustrating. When dropped the oneup has 5 mm of free vertical play and it's all I hear going down the trail. That plus my prior experience with a 170 oneup not coming up without a yank after a ~year of riding and I'm on team bikeyoke going forward. I just wish they would come out with a 240mm dropper. At 6'4" I like the extra space.

@waltworks: I'm curious - it sounds like you've done a lot of experimenting. What did you find to be a good bottom bracket height with shorter cranks? Did you find yourself able to lower the BB as much as you shortened the cranks? Or did you find that if cranks get 20mm shorter you can only go, say, 10mm lower? Pedal strikes don't always occur at the very bottom of the pedal stroke, so I'm wondering what you found to be a good compromise

POC disagrees. Just right

@ivemadeahugemistake: crap. Braking bumps being harsh is one of the things I'm worried about with a full 27.5 setup I built up the rear wheel yesterday. I will see how I like the mullet and then maybe make the move to full 27.5 As for the small chainring, I may end up running an e13 helix gravel cassette with a 9-45t range to help. Something to consider.

Oops, didn't mean to pile on/team up on you @ScandiumRider, I should have refreshed the comments before posting my own

@ScandiumRider: no one was really gatekeeping. No one said "sharp rocks are REaL RiDInG". People just said "we have different terrain (sharp rocks), and the PNW isn't known for that so maybe that's why". Everyone knows the PNW has some gnarly riding. But it tends to be steeps, woodwork and wet roots and not knife shaped wheel killers. The guy who brought up skill/riding literally said "or you have more finesse" suggesting that maybe he wasn't breaking things because he's a much better rider. Don't think there was any hate going around.