111 - Bike Shop Secrets: Will My Parts Fit if I Swap Mountain Bike Frames? - Mountain Cog

Episode Transcript
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Host:DaneHiggins (00:19):
Okay, I got a quick question.

Host:JoshAnderson (00:21):
Go for it, man.

That song's Jack Ritter.

Uh Jack Ritter, yeah.

Is that that's what the name is?

Yeah, I randomly called it that.
Yeah.

So the guy from uh God's Company.
Three's Company.
Yeah.
His name wasn't Jack Ritter.

I think we might might have screwed it up,
but that's what we attribute itto.

That's what we thought it was.
I think it's the real actor'spart name and then the
character's probably the lastname or something.

I think we s we've screwed it up, yeah.

I don't know.
I but I I don't know why, butwhen I heard the song, I'm like,
I gotta know right now.
We have to record this and tellpeople.
I don't know why I had I feltthe need to do that, but I did.

I got a question for you as well.

Okay.

What is an e-biker's favorite fruit?

Oh, oh god, I know this.
No, I have no idea.
It's it's it's a watt or melon.
Oh god.
You could do that as atriathlete.
I I think that'd be better ifyou said what's a triathlete's
favorite fruit.
Right.
Or even a road biker, right?
Only because as long as I'vebeen selling bikes, like
triathletes are so focused onhow many watts they're doing.

(01:19):
Wait, say that again,triathlete.
Triathletes.
Triathlete.
Triathlete.
Okay, cool.
Is I'm saying it wrong?

No, you just it for some reason you had to
like a weird.
Did it flow?
It just flowed.
It's kind of kind of funny.
I don't know.
You said it a lot.

All right, another question.
Okay.

Why did the e-biker get a promotion?
Um because he was cheating?
Because he always goes theextra mile.
That's legit.
I like that.
I got a three for today.
Oh shit.
Final one.
Okay.
What's the difference betweenan e-biker and a regular
mountain biker?

Um 20 pounds.

It's probably a better answer.
No.
One pedals and one pretends topedal.

Oh.
That's brutal.
So all right.
You know what?
So before we get started,because we're gonna we're gonna
talk about bike shop stuff.
Yeah, bike shop.
I got a I got something to getoff my chest.
Don't take your shirt off,dude.
For Christ's sakes.
It's not hair.
Um so the uh this is buggingme, and your your your jokes

(02:20):
kind of reminded me like e-bikesand stuff, and we've been
having a little bit of talktalks in the shop.
We've been getting a ton ofthese scooters.
E-scooters?
E-scooters in the shop.
And Disney like flats repaired.
Yeah, some of them are solidtires and stuff.
Oh, yeah.
Some of them that sounds like afun, you know, and then they
they have a wire that goes tothe rear, you know, and you
gotta I I I I I don't know.

(02:42):
One guy came in and he's like,I need this wire.
Uh there is no support forthose things out there.
Like people are buying themleft and right.
Bike shops don't have theparts.
We're not, you know, we don'thave 12-inch solid tires or
whatever they're running.
It's uh it's something that I'mlike wondering it's an issue.
And then I will tell you, Iprobably shouldn't say this

(03:02):
because somebody's gonna get mein trouble, but I ran over one
of those people.
You ran over one of thosepeople?
No, Dane, we shouldn't talkabout this on the podcast.
I know.
So uh this guy was um a supernice guy, nothing happened.
He was okay.
Well, you didn't run him over,you bumped into him.
Yeah, so uh uh uh what washappening is I was leaving uh a
a business and entering aroadway.

(03:24):
No, it's okay.
I don't care.
But what he did was so againstthe rules.
Now when I when when I hit him,it was one mile an hour or
less.
Like it wasn't a big deal, itwasn't violent, he didn't get
hurt, right?
But um I was pulling out andI'm looking left because I'm
turning right onto a roadway,and I had scanned already, you

(03:47):
know, but it's a divided, so Idon't really need to heavily
look to my right because I'm notexcept for pedestrians.
Yeah.
And I uh I look to my right andthen I look to the left, I see
a car coming, I'm watching thatcar, and then I decide to pull
out and I hear a just a yell,and this guy is in front of me
now.
And this guy was on thesidewalk on this thing, no

(04:09):
helmet, doing like 25 miles anhour.
And you know, of course I gotout, made sure he was okay.
I gave him a ride to his car.
I he was very nice.
He was more worried if hisjeans got scuffed up.
Uh huh.
Uh after the fact, after I felta huge amount of guilt, you
know, I don't want to hurtanyone.
Yeah, um, I started thinkingabout it, and my daughter

(04:32):
actually asked me about it, andwe talked about this as a like a
kind of a learning thing.
You know, he's on the wrongside of the street, on the
sidewalk, on an electric scooterdoing 25 miles an hour, and
then made the decision to go infront of a car without making
eye contact.
I the more I think about it, Idon't feel guilty.
I I I'm sure there's somebodyout there that's gonna be mad at

(04:54):
me that rides one of thesethings, but truthfully, in this
in this world right now, he madea lot of bad decisions.
That's like a Darwin Awards.
Uh he and I'm I'm thankful thatnobody got hurt.
Uh you know I it didn't doanything to my vehicle, so I
didn't notice anything.
He those solid tires had poppedoff, so he couldn't ride the
bike, you know.

(05:14):
So his bike was or his scooterwas usable.
Um but man, I am a little tornbecause I'm a huge e-bike
proponent and I like them.
Yeah, but it does make youunderstand that there are some
e-bikes that are causing ore-vehicles or whatever you want
to say it that are not a goodrepresentation and not
necessarily good for society.

(05:36):
And somebody riding 25 miles anhour, no helmet on the sidewalk
on the wrong side is just uhyeah, they're just gonna get
hurt.

You heard it here first.
Dane Dane Higgins is ane-scooter gatekeeper.

Yeah, it's not even that.
It's like you said, it's likeI'm more worried about you know,
maybe the education when youbuy that thing should be out
there.
Maybe there should be somethingthat helps people understand.
I don't think Walmart has theeducational program.
That's uh yeah.
It's those are the issues thatget lumped into everybody.
And so then people out thereriding uh uh you know an actual

(06:11):
e-bike, doing it as a trail bikebecause they have either a
reason that they need to or ordoing it responsibly.
Um I knew better than to bringup an e-bike joke because I knew
it was gonna send you ane-bike.

It triggers me.

It triggers me.
Yeah.
So I just had to throw that outthere because I would love it
if somebody had uh an opinionand they want to want to share
it.
Yeah.
Like I I've you know thoselittle free or not free ones,
but the ones you get downtown.
The birds.
The birds and stuff like that.
I get those.
I think they're actually kindof cool, you know, if you don't
have to park you know nearby andyou can scoot around.

(06:46):
But uh, just don't go the wrongway on the sidewalk at
twenty-five miles an hour.
And if a guy's pulling out of athing, don't don't just go in
front of it.

Like, no matter what you're riding,
whether it's an acoustic bike oran e-bike or an e-scooter or a
regular scooter or a skateboard,don't go the wrong way and
don't pull out in front of cars.

No, I mean there he's just going way too
fast.

So all right, let's get off this tangent.
Sorry.
Sorry.
That was seven minutes of yourlife.
Seven minutes of my life.
Seven minutes.
That's perfect.
All right, I have my own DarwinAwards story.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

So I am just now starting to get feeling back
in the top of my mouth.
I told you.
Inside my mouth.
I told you if you keep doingthat, that'll happen.
That's not what you think.
No, so on Tuesday night, we'vegot uh I've got I've got a group
group of guys and we do a uh anight ride, we call a fight
club, and and we were out doingthat ride.
You're not supposed to talkabout it.
Not supposed to talk aboutfight club.

(07:37):
Um so I'm the slowest in thegroup, right?
So I'm in the back and I get acactus stuck in my arm.
Like a meaty, it's like achoya, but like the the like the
chunky green ones, right?
With the big like gnarlyneedles.
Yeah, the anorexic ones,chubby.
It's it's dark outside.
I don't have a helmet light on,I just have one on my bars, and

(07:59):
I see it, and it's like kind ofhurting.
So I'm like, oh shit, I knowI'm supposed to stop and like
get a comb, and you know, youkind of use a comb or an afro
pick or whatever to kind of getit out.

Yeah.

But I didn't do that.
I just reached over with myright arm to my left arm, or
with my right hand to my leftarm, and I tried to pull it out
with my fingers.
Oh god.
And it got stuck in my gloveand and like very painful.
And I just instinctively wentto bite it to pull it out of my
glove, right?
Just I gotta I gotta questionyour instincts.
Yeah, exactly.

(08:29):
So I got most of it off, andthat was no big deal, but a
little three-pronged piece, likemaybe you know, a half inch,
gets in my mouth, turns around,one of the three prongs gets
stuck between my front teethfrom the inside out, like poking
my front lip through my tooth.

(08:49):
The other two prongs stick inthe top of my palate.
Oh my god, what is wrong withyou?
Why didn't you not just stopyour bite?

Jesus Christ.
So I so then I stopped.
Or why didn't you have a camerawhen you're filming this?
Because this would have beengreat.

Yeah.
So everyone's like way ahead ofme, and I pull over, I'm like,
oh my god.
And it took a while to get itout because it was like it was
wedged up into my palate, like Idon't know how far, but far
enough that it was hard to getout.
And then the front piece waslike stuck between my front two
teeth.
So I finally like wiggled itand got it out, and I was
bleeding and spitting blood out.

(09:27):
Jesus.
And then like an hour later,the whole top of my mouth went
numb.
And I it's been two days now,and it's I'm just now getting
feeling back in the top of mymouth.

So there's so you're giving me crap about the
Eight, and you just grossedeverybody out with your bloody
mouth story.

And I go tell the guys, they're like, Where
like what happened?
Did you crash or something?
I'm like, not exactly.
Cactus.
They're like, oh, well, whathappened?
I'm like, oh, it's a longstory.
Like Oh god.

I felt that story because cactus, I you
know, for some of the listenersthat know cactus, it is painful.
And when you a lot of cactuswill have a sheath on it, so
when you pull it out, thatsheath kind of stays in you,
yeah, which causes a lot of theuh you know, I don't discomfort
or what have you.
Sometimes they're poisonous orthey have a poison.
Yeah, something or some kind ofallergic reaction or something,

(10:24):
yeah.
Yeah, so there's lots of stuffthat's going on there.
But uh for people that don'thave cactus, just be thankful.
You probably have some bug thatdoes something similar.
You know, we don't have thebugs here.

We don't have ticks causing us not to be
beef.

Yeah, there's uh so everywhere's got stuff you
got to deal with.
Yeah, for sure.

All right, so we're gonna we're gonna jump
into uh bike shop secretsepisode here since you guys like
these and I've got a list ofquestions of things that I've
run into recently.

Sounds good.

Which by the way is kind of like how this
works.
Like I'm at in my garageworking on shit, and I'm like,
God damn it, how do you do this?
Or I got a question, and then Icome here and I ask Dane, and
oftentimes I text Dane, like,what the fuck should I do here,
man?
He's like, You're an idiot.
Take it to a shop, let me helpyou.
So take it to a shop, you're anidiot.
Okay.
Uh the first thing was um mybuddy is uh looking at switching

(11:14):
to a different frame.
And he's just gonna, he has anopportunity to buy just the
frame.
And so I'm like, hey, I thinkmost of your parts should swap
over, but there's some that thatthat may not.
So I thought it would be coolto talk through if you're
thinking about switching framesand keeping as many of your
existing components, yoursuspension, your drivetrain,

(11:35):
your cranks, your wheels, yourhandlebars, all that stuff, as
much as you, you know, your youryour seat post, and I know this
is like a deep topic.

Yeah, I'm I'm gonna narrow it down after you
get it.

Okay, yeah, you need you narrow it down.
But like um what sh what do ourlisteners need to, and and
myself as well, what do we needto consider uh to ensure that
we've got you know um compatibleparts for the new frame?
And as I'm kind of budgeting itout, I need to know like what
am I gonna need to buy or whatwhat will just like swap over.

So over to you, man.
We'll kind of narrow this down.
So so there's a couplecompanies that are starting to
change the way that they dobusiness and they're offering
frames.

Like Revel.

Yeah, and uh Intense.
Um, Intense as well.

That's right.
We talked about that before.

Yeah, and so it it kind of makes a lot of
sense business-wise in thisreally turbulent times, uh,
because they don't have to tryand keep up uh with every new
product that comes out.
Uh you know, the my biggestexample is when Fox put out a
new damper in their fork, butthe fork stayed the same.
Anyone who had that old damperin a box on their bike all of a

(12:39):
sudden had to start thinkingabout discounting their brand
new bike that's never been outof a box just because the damper
was different.
And that I think that made alot of manufacturers kind of
second guess whether they shouldactually offer a full bike or
not.
And uh especially the smallerones which are trying to make
ends meet.
Um, so we're gonna narrow thisdown to mountain bikes, we're
gonna narrow it down to one bydrivetrains.

(13:01):
Perfect.
Uh, and and the reason that isis because you do a front
derailer, it gets worse.
Uh, it gets so bad.
And then uh not road bikes,also very bad.
So there's a couple things.
One you have to think about umrear hub spacing, is one.
So what are the typical rearhub spacing?

So they boost and super boost and all that?
Yeah, how does that work?

Boost and super boost are probably the new
the most common now, but let'ssay you have a 2012 bike, you
know, which is not unheard of,that somebody has something like
a stump jumper that's got 29 orfull suspension, and you're
sprucing it up with a new frame,that may have a non-boost rear
hub.

Okay.
And so what's the numbers forboost?

Uh so boost is 148.
148 millimeter.
And then it's a 12 millimeteraxle in the rear.
That's a pretty standard sizethat's on most bikes.
So when you say boost, that'susually it.

So boost is 148 by 12 millimeter, and that's
that's the spacing of the rearaxle and the diameter of the of
the through axle.

The through axle.
Yep.
Yeah.
And so uh if your wheel isgonna fit or not, you know.
And so uh then the next one issuper boost.
Yeah, you'll find that ondifferent brands.
Pivot is the one we sell, sothey do a lot of those.
There's a couple other brandsthat use it.
I think Evil and uh there's acouple others that I honestly
can't tell you off the top of myhead, but it's not just Pivot.

(14:24):
And um that spacing is 157.
Oh my, I almost forgot that,and that's pretty bad.
We would have had to use Bob.
I do it all the time.
Well, and I've got I've got aton of super boost bikes.
Um so superboost, so the hubspacing is important.
You gotta have that.
Uh the next thing I would sayis your bottom bracket.

(14:45):
Well, hang on, since we're onhub spacing, can we go to the
front of the bike?

Is there any differences in the front of the
bike from a hub spacingperspective?

Doing just a frame and you're bringing your
fork over, whatever your forkand wheel is will stay the same.
Perfect.
So that won't be an issue.
So the next thing, so if youwant to go on that note, the
head tube and the headset aregonna in a lot of cases change.
Um most bikes now are tapered,which means that the lower

(15:13):
bearing is bigger in diameterthan the upper bearing.

So it's like one and a half, is that right?

Yeah, for the most part, there's a little
goofiness that every once in awhile will pop up.
I've got a fork in suspensionright now, is one and a half and
one and a half.
Oh, really?
Yeah, it's a straight one and ahalf.
It's an older older diameter.
And then there is uh a new kindof thing that's happening on
some of the bigger hit bikeswhere they're putting I may get
this wrong because it's new, butfifty-two millimeter on the top

(15:38):
and bottom.

Okay.

But then the upper bearing is shrunk to a one
and one-eighth.
Okay.
Uh so like the big thing toknow from what I just said is
that the outer diameter of theheadset cup is all very
variable.
So you can't just take aheadset from one bike and stick
it in another.
Sometimes they match, sometimesthey don't.
Sometimes just the lower cupmatches and the upper doesn't,

(16:03):
or vice versa.
And so the headset companieshave actually started selling
the headsets separate now.
You don't buy a headset likeyou used to, you know, where you
get the upper and the lower.
Yeah, you can buy one or theother.
Like I remember, you know, thebiggest candy that we would get
for our bikes was a Chris Kingheadset, and you would buy the
whole headset and it was one oneeighth, and you'd press it in,
and boom, you're done.
Now you may have a differentlower and a different upper.

(16:26):
And Chris King even sells themseparate, or they'll have a
configurator, you know, whereit's like they'll you'll put in
the dimensions.
So that is probably one of theharder ones that we see people
struggle with.
Because there's also a standardwhere they may actually mold
the carbon fiber frame or evenaluminum frame to have the
bearing seat, so you don'tactually put a cup in the frame,

(16:47):
you just put the bearing in.
Right.
And so that can be verycomplicated.

All right, so we've so we'll we'll we'll keep
track so we can remind you.
So rear hub spacing, boostbooster super boost, headset.

Headset, what's next?
Um on your head tube of thebike can change between brands.
So if you are getting an olderbike and then putting a newer
bike, it's more likely thatit'll shrink.
And so you'll have plenty ofsteer tube on your fork.
But in the opposite, we had alot of um people trying to put

(17:19):
old forks on new frames.

Yeah, or vice versa.
Yeah, or new fork on oldframes.

Or sometimes a brand will be really committed
to a low stack height in thefront, and then the next brand
isn't very committed, and thenthe fork won't fit like a steer
tool.

Fork steer length length, yep.
Making sure you got enough.
So we got rear hub spacing, wegot headset and fork, steer, and
length.

Yep, yeah.
Now, once you've got that forkon the bike and it's the fork
you used to have, your stem willfit that because it used to,
but you may change the stackdepending on how many spacers
and stuff.

All right, so since we're on the front of the
bike before we move back, yeah,does rake matter between
frames?
So And and what and maybeexplain what rake is.

Yeah, offset is one thing.
Rake's a different, so there'sit's kind of if you if you try
and look up the subject, somepeople call one thing one thing,
and it it gets a little weird.
Um the biggest thing.

But I see like forty-four and fifty-two
rake a lot on for on forks.
When I buy a fork, I gotta pickdo I want a forty-four or a
fifty-two?

So the latest fork that you bought was a rigid
for a gravel bike.
Yep.
And the term rake is morelikely gonna be on a rigid fork.
Okay.
Whereas on a fork, a suspensionfork, which I deal with way
more, it's offset.

Okay.

And then it gets weird because where they do
the offset is a little weird.
And there was a little whileWest Time where they were nobody
was doing it the same.
So I will tell you the offsetwill change the angle of the
fork blades relative to thesteer tube.
And that can increase ordecrease the trail of the fork,
which affects the handling.
Right.
Okay.

So if you can match the offset to the new
frame, you're probably the bestbet.

The fork manufacturer will usually have a
recommended.
I will tell you that thedifference that you will feel on
the bike can often not benoticeable.
Um, some people will freak outabout it.
My advice when people areasking me about it is if you're
buying a brand new fork and youhave a choice, I would buy the

(19:20):
right one.
Buy the right one.
If you're buying a used forkand it's a killer deal, I would
not stress super a lot about it.
Okay.
And then there are is anotherpoint where they were kind of
fiddling with geometry as 29swere coming out, where people
were actually finding that onewould do different
characteristics than the other,so they would tune their ride by
changing the offset.

(19:42):
Yeah.

So offset is a nice to have, but probably not
a have to have to make yourbike work with a new frame.

It can affect it, but it's you know, it's only
it's going to affect a littlebit of trail and geometry
difference, but it's subtle, andso it's not something to freak
out about.
Uh, it's more important thatyou have an appropriate fork.
So, like if you had a let's sayum a Trek Supercaliber
cross-country bike that's ahundred millimeter travel bike.

Ah, that's a great one.
So map making sure the travelmatches.

Yeah, if you take that fork and then put it
on a pivot switchblade, which issupposed to have 160 mil, then
you're gonna need to change thefork.
The the length of that forkneeds to be longer so that the
bottom bracket doesn't drag onthe ground while you're riding.

And most of the bike frame websites will
say, Hey, this bike is set upfor this much travel in the
front for forks of this range.
And if it doesn't, I've foundthat if you just send them a
note, they'll respond back andsay, Yeah, like I I I wanted to
do something crazy with a RevelRanger and put a big old giant
fork on it.
And I wrote Revel, and I'mlike, hey, this is what I want

(20:48):
to do.
Is this crazy?
And they're like, Yeah, don'tdo that.

Yeah.
Yeah, and and that's one of theone of the bike shop secrets
you should know about when itcomes to that.
Sometimes the manufacturer willtell you not to do something,
and their motivation is toprotect the integrity of the
design.

Yeah.

And sometimes their motivation is to not break
the frame.
Yeah.

So and it's hard to know which is which,
right?

Yeah, and so uh I'll give you an example.
Um we had a team rider for theguru team who was riding a Santa
Cruz, I think a nomad, and shewanted to put a triple clamp
fork on it, uh, a full like DVOtriple downhill fork because she
loved the bike, she loved thefit, and she didn't really need
a ton of rear travel, she justwanted a little more in the

(21:33):
front, get a little raked out.
Um I I emailed Santa Cruz andthey're like, no, the the head
tube, and they they were niceenough to actually tell me why.
Sometimes they don't tell you.
Um but the head tube is notdesigned for the stiffness and
it it if the fork doesn't flex,the head tube is not strong
enough.
Not designed to flex and youcould break the head tube off

(21:56):
effectively.
Exactly.
And so they've factored in asingle crown fork which has flex
in it.
And if you go stiffening that,you could break the fork and or
the head tube.
And so that was a good answerbecause it it showed us that
there is a real reason.
So um uh Rocky Mountain Slayeris comes with a standard fork,

(22:17):
and then we found out it'sapproved for a triple clamp, and
then later the next year, theyactually made a park version
which had a triple clamp.
Oh interesting.
So some companies think aboutthat and some don't.
Um, there's uh been otherthings where so I'll give you an
example, Chris Kokalis, or ifBrian Mason's listening, they'll
be mad at me.
From Pivot.
From Pivot.
I rode the Phoenix downhillbike.

(22:38):
Um, it's spec'd for a Fox X2rear shock uh uh as a downhill
bike.

Yeah.

Good shock, very linear, but I like coil,
and so I put a coil on.
Right on Pivot's website, itsays not approved for coil.
Most of that, for the mostpart, is because the leverage
ratio isn't correct, right?
And you won't get the rightfeel, and it will mess with the
integrity of their design.

Like the ride, the ride quality, not
necessarily integrity like breakthe frame, but like it just
won't feel right.

There is some bikes that have what's called a
cleavish joint for the rearshock that will un they will
load a shock poorly, and a coildoesn't have as much stiffness
built in because it's just gotone small damper rod rather than
the air can also creatingstiffness, and so those will
either tear up a rear shock orsometimes break a rear shock,

(23:30):
which has happened.
Okay.
So there's that was a combo.
Hey, it's not really designedfor that because the leverage
range ratio is not correct forthat.
And this design has been knownto eat up rear shocks or
actually break them.
And they don't want to beresponsible if that shock breaks
and hurts their frame, they'renot gonna warranty that.
That's not a warranty if theytold you not to do it.

I I would think that most frames come with
a rear shock if you buy just aframe.
But let's say just there's acouple examples where they
don't.
Do you not also have to worryabout eyelet to eyelet or what's
that called stroke length orwhatever?

If they're gonna sell you a frame and it
doesn't have a shock, they'redefinitely gonna tell you what's
supposed to be on there.
Right.
And the length of the s theshock is the eye to eye.

Eye to eye.

And then there's what's called a stroke
length.
And the stroke length is howfar that shock can actually
compress or c collapse.
Right.
And then some shocks, like wefound out where we worked with
your specialized, the shock canbe the same shock, but have two
different stroke lengths, andthat's a limiter that's put
inside the shock.
And so with yours, we pulledthe limiter out.

(24:34):
I didn't even know we did that.
Yeah, that's overstroking.
And so when you do that, youhave to test the bike to make
sure there's clearance.
So again, in the case of RockyMountain, they build their bikes
very modular and veryadjustable.
Uh, and so we found that youcould really play with stuff on
a Rocky Mountain, right?

(24:54):
And you wouldn't have frameinterference, you know.
And it's one of the one of thehidden selling features of that
bike is that you could kind ofturn it into different travels,
you know, depending on what whatshocks you put on.
And so some bikes are reallyfluid that way.
Um, other bikes you have to buybrackets to do that.
Yep.
Um, and then other bikes, solike I have a Norco Optic right

(25:18):
now, and it's uh kind of a weirdbike.
And uh it I love it, itactually rides super smooth, and
I gotta tell you, it's one ofthe smoothest bikes I've ever
ridden.
And it's a like a 125mm reartravel bike.
Um, but it's a high pivot.

Yep, we talked about that before.

Yeah, and so when we were talking to Norco, I
don't know if on the podcast Ibrought it up, but in private I
brought it up with them.
We did in private.
Yeah.
And uh so I'm gonna overstrokeit, not necessarily on their
recommendation, you know.

Just on the suspension guru's
recommendation.

And so I'm gonna eke out a little bit more
travel out of that bike becauseI feel like it could get a
little bit more rowdy than ahundred and twenty-five
millimeter usually is, and it'ssuper smooth.
And so I have uh one of the newRockShock vivids, and it has a
stroke limiter in it, and I'mgonna pull that out um and make
sure there's clearance.

So and when you make sure there's clearance,
what's the I know, but telltell our listeners like what's
the process to do that?

So uh this is tricky because you have to be
careful uh because you canactually damage the bike while
you're testing it.
Well, you can, butrealistically you can also get a
false uh false positive, falsepositive or false idea of the
travel.
Uh inside a lot of shocks, theyhave a bottom-out bumper.
And if you collapse that, solet's say it's an air shock and

(26:36):
you take the air valve, the theSchrader valve out and let it
collapse, and then you slowlysit on it and make sure there's
nothing contacting.
You don't want to jump on itbecause again, you don't want to
damage it.
But you're gonna look for anykind of limitations in that
travel.
Um sometimes there's a bridgeacross the rear tire that can
come up and contact the seattube.
Uh sometimes the tire willactually hit the seat tube, you

(26:57):
know.
Uh sometimes there's a lowerswing arm that has, you know,
kind of a it will hit somethingelse, you know, uh like the way
the frame shaped or something.
There's a lot of things youhave to think about.
The biggest thing that we haveto watch out for is you could
have a five millimeterbottom-out bumper in that shock,
and it may not be compressedlike it would be.

During your test.
Yeah.
So you've got to leave, yougotta leave yourself some.

You have to have a good idea of how much
more it's gonna keep going, eventhough you didn't get it to go
all the way.
And and and you have to besafe, you know.
So I've had a couple peopleactually, after we talked about
overstroking yours, actuallycome in and ask if they could
overstroke their bikes.
We tested them, and one of themwas a pivot, and I'm like, I
can't do this on a pivot.
There is not enough room.
They've designed the mosttravel you can get out of this

(27:40):
bike.
That's interesting.

So, I mean, uh fr from an overstroke
perspective, it sounds like thesmartest thing to do is to bring
it into an expert likeyourself.
Yeah.
If you want to do that, just tomake sure you're not gonna jack
something up.
Because you because you thelast thing you want to do is
like crack your frame.

Yeah, you don't want to put some damage in
because the bike company willknow.
You know, they're you know,when you go to them and say, Oh,
I don't know what happened.
Like this came from this youdid this because of Mountain
Cog, didn't you?
Exactly.
So you do want to be smartabout it.
Some brands uh, you know, knowyou're gonna probably do it, but
may still not approve it.
Uh and so that's the thingabout uh when you're dealing

(28:17):
with some of these, you know,when the brand tells you not to
do something, they areprotecting the design, uh how
they intended it to use.
They're also protecting theintegrity of the quality of the
ride that they wanted it to beridden as.
And then they may be, you know,protecting you from damaging
something.
So you if you're gonna messwith the bike, you you gotta
know what you're doing, and thenyou gotta own it if you mess it

(28:39):
up.

Right on, man.
All right, so we got rear hubspacing, we got talked about the
front spacing, which typicallyyour fork will go with your
wheel.

If it doesn't have a shock, you gotta match
the eye-to-eye and stroke.

Eye to eye to eye and the stroke of the of
the rear suspension.

Every once in a while, uh you gotta make sure
that the shock will fit.
So we have a new bike thatwe're selling that we want to
put um it's it's it needs alittle help in the rear end uh
to be a little plusher.
And so uh some of the customersare trying to put the Fox X2,
which is uh a linear, very nicethe new 2026, I think is what

(29:17):
they're calling it, is a reallynice version, and uh they fixed
a lot of the issues, and sopeople are really wanting this
thing, but it's kind of bulky,and on this one particular bike
it won't actually fit on thebike, and so you have to be
careful.

Some of them had the piggyback uh reserve as
well.

Santa Cruz had some issues on some of theirs
where they have that littletunnel that you put the shock
into, and people want to convertto coil, and the coil would rub
on the tunnel, and so they'vecorrected that on a lot of their
bikes, but you have to watchout for that.
And then we had a bike, uh wesold a bike uh brand called
Felt, and on their Cendy 275bike, um it had the way that the

(29:56):
frame is shaped, when you put areservoir on the rear, yeah,
the reservoir.
Could contact the frame.
And so you couldn't put anyshock with the reservoir on
that.
So we ended up putting a lot ofCane Creek inlines because they
didn't have reservoirs, but youcould get a coil.

Interesting.

So there are constraints when you're putting
a shock on that you gotta makesure you're aware of.

So while we're on shocks, there's a
couple things I just justthought of.
There's different ways that theshocks connect too, right?
There's like trunion andsomething else.
Like what's that?

That's there's trunyon and then there's a
normal eyelet.
Yep.
Um then you'll have somespecialty ones, like specialize
had a direct mount where it wasit was designed to go into their
yoke and it was just for them.
Right.
Um there's been pull shocks inthe past which are really goofy.
Man, you don't want to get oneof those.
Nobody makes those anymore, butit was an issue.

Yep.

And um there's uh I'm trying to think if
there's how many other ones.
I I had a Jekyll that wascrazy.
It was kind of like a trunion,right?
But you could move the themount up and down on the shock
so you could change the anglesof the bike.
It was really crazy.
Really crazy.
Yeah.
Um, it was kind of a coolconcept, tell you the truth, but
uh can't that died with theCannondale's version of that

(31:07):
Jekyll.
They have a Jekyll, I think,now, but it doesn't use that.
Doesn't use that.
Yeah.

And then and then um hardware, isn't there
like different spacers andthings like that?
That can be really tricky.

That's the bane of my existence because
there's no standard, so theyhave they have six millimeter
holes, they got eight millimeterholes, they got ten millimeter
holes, um I can't remember ifthere's a smaller one.
Uh, but then the width changes,and I don't really know how
these people decide what widththey use.

(31:38):
But you know, sometimes you'llhave like a three-inch long
piece of adjust, you know, um uhlike shock, they call them
shock hardware or mountinghardware.
And then sometimes they'rebarely bigger than the the shock
itself, you know, width-wise,and so and I have to keep all
that stuff.
So if you buy a new shock fromme, I gotta have that stuff
lying around so that I can putthat new shock on your bike.

(32:00):
Yeah, or you're ordering stuff.
They've calmed down on the theinterface in the shock uh the
hardware that fits in the shock.
It's gotten a little bit moreuniform.
There's uh some that use abushing that you actually press
into the shock and it stays inthere, and then you put the
hardware on it, and RockShockuses that a lot.
And then Fox uses uh either afive or a nine piece, I can't

(32:23):
remember.
They have some crazy ones, theyhave stainless steel, stuff
like that, but where you putthese bushings in, and so you
can't mix the brands, right?
Oh, I didn't know that.
But the inner eyelid of theshock is the same, so I can put
Fox hardware on the RockShock.
I just have to pull thatbushing out to do it, and you
have a special tool to get thatpressed-in bushing out.

(32:44):
So it's it's not easy to do inyour garage, you know, some
specialty tools for sure.
Yeah, for sure.

All right, uh, one more thing I can think
of, and maybe I'm missingsomething.
Well, two more, actually, twomore things I can think of.
How about C post?

Okay, that's a good one.
So that one is like a lot ofthese where you can really just
get into the weeds.
So dropper posts.
We're gonna narrow that down todropper posts.

Okay.

Okay, and the reason that is is because a
regular seat post, you just needa diameter.

So as long as the diameter is right 31.6,
30.9, for the seven two,whatever, twenty eight.

And then it's long enough to fit your legs.
If if you had a regular seatpost and it's long enough or
maybe even too long, you canactually cut that seat post in
most cases and just put it inthere.
Not a dropper.
We're not talking about cuttingdown a dropper.
No, not a dropper.
Uh although there is one on themarket you do that.
Uh so there's always anexception.
Right.
Um, okay, so droppers, here'sthe things that because people

(33:38):
come in all the time and they'relike, I just bought this off of
line online and it doesn't fit.
And yeah.
Here's a shim, go home.
Yeah, you thought it was easy.
Now, some of the droppercompanies will have like kind of
a measuring uh tool, you know,to to show you the the stuff,
and and that does okay if you'reyou for the most part, but you

(33:59):
need to have the frame to beable to do those measurements.
And then and then there's akind of definitions, they call
it insertion depth, which soundsso dare.

You're talking about six millimeter
holes, eight millimeter holes,ten millimeter holes, and
insertion depth.
I've got all kinds of jokes,but we're gonna keep it clean
today.
Um, this is not that podcast.

It's not that podcast.
Do they even have that podcast?

I think they do.
Really?
We might have that podcast.
There is a secret mountain cogpodcast.
Oh, don't tell me that.
It is it is on the web.

Yeah.

And uh It's dirty.
We we owe we owe our friend uhAudi East a hat.
He keeps writing me asking meto send him a hat.
I guess we made a commitment tosend a hat and he he followed
through, so we got I gotta senda hat out.
Okay.
But anyone that can find uhwe'll do we'll do this.
Anyone that can find the hiddenmountain cog episode.
What's it called so they'llknow that they found it?
I'm not gonna well they'll knowwhen they found it.

(34:47):
Oh, okay.
All right.
Anyone that can find the hiddenmountain cog uh podcast
episode, uh, you'd have to be alongtime listener because it's
like something we talked aboutin the early days.
Yeah.
Anyways, uh it's out there.
Well I'll fund a hundred dollargift card to Guru Bikes if you
can find it.

Wait, why do I get it?
Oh, you mean they'll get ahundred dollar gift cards.
Yeah, I'll fund it.
Yeah.

And uh you'll hook them up.
Dude, you're giving away moneynow on the podcast?
I I want to see if anybody canfind the hidden mountain cog
episode.

I'm just saying we're doing product
reviews.
Now we're gonna start givingaway stuff.
I mean, this is legit.
We're kind of real here.
I'm just saying.
Shit, shit.
I didn't mean that.
I just need to take this timeto have everybody like and
subscribe.
Follow us, send us to yourfriends.

Yes, yeah.
Yeah, find the hidden mountain.
What the fuck were we talkingabout?
I don't even know what it is.
Insertion.
Insertion depth, yeah.
That hidden mountain cogepisode may have some insertion
depth humor in it.

Okay.
All right, so let's let's getback.
Uh so seat post.
You've got a ton of differentvariables.
So the the thing that you havethat's number one is the
diameter.
So you can have 27.2, you canhave 30.9, 31.6, you can have
34.9.

(36:05):
There may be a couple, I don'tknow.
It was like 28.6 too, right?
Uh so in modern bikes, not asmuch.
That was like a Trek size orI'm sorry, that was a special.
Uh shit.
Sorry.
Uh, that was a Schwin size.

Schwin.

Yeah, I think if I remember correctly.
Okay.
Yeah.
I somebody who's as old as I ammay remember better than I do,
but uh Schwin had kind of theirown.

Anybody that's as old as you is not
gonna remember well.

Yeah.
Um 27-2, we don't see a lotanymore, except on maybe gravel
bikes.
Yeah, or little kid bikes.
Yeah, maybe kids' bikes, but uhfor the most part, 30.9, 31.6
are the number one, and thenthere's been a big push lately
to go to this 34.9.
Okay.
Do you know why?
Stiffness?
Yeah, uh stiffness andstrength.

Okay, yeah, makes sense.

Um the I see, because we service droppers, I
see a number of them bent.
And so, and everybody'sobsessed with the longest
possible dropper.
I don't know if it's some sortof phallic thing.
I'm not really sure what'sgoing on.
But everybody's like, if Ican't run a 250 dropper posting
detector, and it's it followedthe the twerking trend.

So I think people just like to drop it low,
man.

I I don't know.
Uh, but I will tell you, ifyou're a big guy and I'm a big
guy, you are riding too long apost and you go through like a G
out, you know, where you'resitting and you you you put that
leverage, you can bend thatpost and you're now buying a new
post.

So because the the amount of stuff you have
to change, yeah, yeah, and it'shappened quite a bit.

And so um for the record, I've never bent to
post.
Yeah, yeah.
It's most of the time we see itif somebody's kind of riding
along and they're seated andthey hit a dip on an e-bike.
Yeah, not on an e-bike, itdoesn't have to be an e-bike.
Not everybody who rides ane-bike are big, so um uh Lacey.
Uh so fair.

(37:52):
But she would probably bend apost.
She would bend a post before Iwould bend the post, probably.
Exactly.
So um so the diameter uh 34-9allows them to actually make the
stanchion bigger, which willgive it a little more strength.
And so the problem is the bikemanufacturers don't like it.
Don't don't necessarily, theyhaven't universally adopted it.
Adopted it.
So um some have, some haven't.

(38:14):
But so you've got the diameter,that's number one.
Yep.
Then you have to figure outwhat your leg length and where
your saddle is going to be onthat frame that you have never
ridden.
Right.
Which is tricky.
Yep.
And then you have to make surethat you get the appropriate
height that you can actuallyuse.
But if there's something socommon on full suspension bikes

(38:38):
is they may sometimes they havesomething that blocks the
insertion down.
Yeah.
We've actually had this happenon hardtails where the rivets
for the bottles stop the thepost from going in.
And so you have a certainamount of depth that it can go
in, and some bikes they don'tgive you a lot of options.
Uh some bikes have made ittheir mission to give you full,

(39:00):
you know.

Yep.

And so you've got to figure that out.
If if you buy a 200 post, thatmeans it's it's from the dust
wiper on the dropper post up towhere it stops when it's fully
compressed is 200 millimeters.
So then you still have yourcollar height, which is the the
seal, yep.
Um that that is always too bigto go in the frame, so that's

(39:24):
got to sit outside of the frame.
And then you have your clamp upto the rail, and then you have
your saddle height.
So all of those numbers are arestacked to give you your saddle
height, and so you have to beable to figure all that out
without a frame that's that youdon't have.

So so probably a good recommendation,
you can you can very easilycheck to see if the diameter
matches, and if you've got adropper and the diameter
matches, it might work.

Yeah, yeah.

And then when you get the frame, test the C
post that you have, and if itdoesn't work, whatever C post
you want to buy, all thosewebsites have like here's how to
calculate the size that youneed, or or call up your
friendly bike shop.
But um, if you do, you betterbuy the seat post from them.

So I'm gonna just throw a little wrench into
that because it makes it soundsuper easy.
It's not easy.
Well, if you don't have thebike to know what your seat post
length is gonna be.
Um You have to get the framebefore you do this.
Yeah.
So and so if you if you don'thave the right diameter and
you're gonna buy a seat post.
Wait till you get the frame.
You gotta get the frame, andthen you probably should see if

(40:26):
you can scrounge up a dummy seatpost before you buy it.
And actually that happens.
There's a bike in the shopright now where we built a
custom hardtail for a customer,Babyfoot.

Babyfoot!

Yeah, the bike's name is Otto, so you'll
see Otto show up on Instagram,I'm sure.
He'll have his own uh Instagrampage.
But it's a new house, uhHummingbird.

Yeah, we saw those guys at the uh Sedona Bike
Fest.

Yeah, it's a really cool bike, but we did not
uh put a dropper post on hisbuild until we got him in here
and fit because he's a tall guy,yeah, and we had to make sure
that we got the right one.
And so even in the shop, wejust had a dummy post in there,
then fit him, and then we eitherhave the post in stock, or

(41:11):
often I have to order them.
There's so many differentconfigurations that I a lot of
times I have to order them.
So I had to order him the rightpost size for his bike, and so
that happens a lot.
So it's it's it's even at abike shop level, it's hard to
have everything in stock.

So we we gotta do a little rabbit hole on
baby foot here.
First of all, he's got acontender coming after him for
the human e-bike uhclassification, Chris, my buddy
Chris.
Oh, they need to ride together.
He is a human e-bike, yeah.
He rides with us, like I can goas fast as I can on my e-bike,
he stays on my e the whole time.
Nice.
Um but I'm looking at his bikeand it's yellow.

(41:49):
It's a big bird like mine.

Well, school bus, because Mike was a teacher.

Oh, that makes sense.
School bus.

And that's why he called it auto.

Do you know why?
No, because no, I don't.
Simpsons.
School bus driver was auto.
Auto, that's funny.
There's always always a story.
Right?
Okay.
He typically runs those Versustires because he can color match
and he's got Maxis on there.
What are those recons orsomething?
Where did he buy that bike?
Where'd he buy that bike?
From you?
Yeah.

And you would not put versus carry versus you
kidding me?
They do have a cotton candycolor that I thought about
buying just because it's pink,and I'm like, um, I could show
up to the trail with pink tires.
That'd be fun.
Uh but I'm just not gonna buy atire because the color.
Like, I just can't do that.

All right, you think we have uh exhausted
seat post, maybe seat collar?
Um, that usually comes with thebike or with the frame.

Now, if you want a pimped one, you then
again you have to figure outwhat the what the outer diameter
of the tube that it's goingover on.

By by the way, all this knowledge and all
this checking and making sureeverything's compatible, like
this is part of the service thatyou get by working with your
local bike shop, is these guysare experts in it.
Yeah.
Save you a whole bunch of timeand money and and headache.
Um if you're just not sure, youknow, find a good bike shop and
go in, is what I say.

One thing that um that did pop up, uh I was
telling you about that seatpost.
Uh, if you that that customerhad bought the seat post
themselves.
Ahead of time.
Uh they bought the same brandthat we carry.
Guess how much more uh sorry,guess how much less they paid
than us?
Six dollars.
Zero dollars.
Like they paid the same amountas if they would have bought it

(43:28):
from us, um, but they got thewrong length.
And so when our fitter Tylerwent to fit them, they needed a
different post.
And now it's a used post, andthat company won't take it back,
you know, if it's a usedproduct.
And so here we have thesituation where had they bought
it from us and it was the wrongpost, you could have taken care

(43:48):
of it, they would have spent thesame amount and we would have
swapped them out.
And and so there's a lot ofhidden if you want to talk about
secrets of the bike shop, uh,one of the things that people I
feel like don't get is how manyhidden things that they get from
the shop that they don't evenknow.
You know.
Um I'll give you an example.
We had a customer, very goodcustomer, come in and he had

(44:10):
purchased some tires online, buthe wants us to put them on his
on his rims.
Yeah.
Uh we went and put them on therims and then sent him on his
way.
Um unfortunately, and you cangive us a little shit for this.
Yeah, I'll take it.

I know this story already, and I'm gonna
give you shit for it.

Well, I'll I'll give you I'll give you more
specifics.
They were the wrong size.
No, no, that wasn't the size.
No.
Oh no, this is different.
They weren't tubless ready andthey weren't holding air long.
Ah and so uh in this case, um,it is uh they were road wheels.
And in this case, what what iscommon is road bikes have not

(44:53):
fully embraced tubeless.
Yeah.
They're starting tube.
And it's very common that aroad bike can have a nice road
bike can have wheels on it thatmay not be tubeless ready.
We knew that wasn't the casebecause we sold him the rims.
Uh, so we knew they weretubeless ready.
He had told us to set them uptubeless, but he had brought
them in.
We kind of went on faith.

(45:13):
And the other thing that wekind of noted that does happen
is on road bikes, they hide thelogos quite a bit.
Yeah.
They're not as this big uh hotpatch.

You have to like you have to get in there
and it's like it's like etchedinto the black.
You have to get in there with awith a microscope and a fucking
flashlight.

Mountain bikes have gotten pretty anal about
putting it clear what's goingon.
Yeah like what your tirecompound is, what size it is,
um, if it's tubeless, you know,everything.
Like uh if it's got sidewallprotection.
Like they they the it's aselling feature for them, and
they were pretty loud and proudabout it in most cases.
Road bike tires, notnecessarily, so our mechanic did

(45:52):
not notice they weren'ttubeless.
He kind of took on faith thatthis guy had bought tubeless and
they weren't.
And then we ran into thisproblem.
Now he doesn't have wheels thathold air, you know, because
those road bikes are verysensitive to their tubeless
setup, and non-tubless roadtires don't have a bead that
locks properly, and they don'tnecessarily have the profile

(46:15):
that locks properly.
And even with sealant, theythey often won't hold air.
So, this situation where had hebought those tires from us and
we had made that mistake, therewould have been a zero net for
him, we would have put the rightones on and he would have gone
on his way.
But because it was bought, wedon't there's nothing you can do

(46:35):
for him.
We don't have that opportunity,yeah.
And so that's one hidden secretthat people don't know.
Another hidden secret is uh uhsomebody came in and they wanted
to build their own wheels.
And building wheels is ithappens, and and and honestly,
there's books on it, there'svideos on it.
It's not impossible to do.
Um it's a dark art.
It is one of those things wherethe more you do it, the easier

(46:58):
it is.
Um, but some people just wantto work on their own stuff.
There's nothing wrong with it.
I've built my own race wheelsbefore, they were awesome.
Took me like 17 days to do it,but but uh but they were great,
you know.
Um so this person had come inand said, I need this length
spoke, and I'm gonna build myown wheels.

(47:21):
Please order me these spokes.
And so we ordered them thespokes.
They weren't the correct onesbecause they had not used the
calculator correctly, and theycould not return them because
they had already used them.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's one of those where in this case we
had actually told them, Are yousure?
Because for a fee, we willcalculate your spokes.
Yep.
And then, you know, you don'thave to worry about this.
He's like, I know what I'mdoing.
And so he ordered the spokes,and unfortunately, they were the
wrong.
And I will tell you that thatour guys who are master wheel

(47:55):
builders have had that happen tothem because it's not a simple
thing, right?
It's not.
And the there's a lot ofcalculators online that they're
not always correct, and it'svery easy to get the wrong
measurements for the hub,depending on you know, if you're
using a stock configurator likeDT, and maybe you picked the
wrong hub.
Maybe you picked the centerlock and not the six bolt, or

(48:16):
maybe you just picked the wrongyear and they slightly changed
it.
So uh the ERDs, which is uh therim, effective rim diameter, uh
I believe is what it's called.
Uh, somebody's gonna change meon that, but ERD tells the wheel
builder what the size of therim is.
Right.
And those are not alwayscorrect.
In fact, our wheel buildersdon't trust ERDs anymore, they

(48:37):
actually physically measure themthemselves, and that is a
little shop secret that they'vehad so many uh wrong spokes that
they've learned that thosecalculators don't work.
So there's a lot of littlethings that the bike shops do
that you don't even know, youknow, that save you time and
money.
But I, you know, if I if youwant to build your own wheels,

(48:59):
I'm down, you know.
It is it is uh uh it's it likeyou said, it's a dark art, it
drives me insane.
I I'd much rather have our guysbuild them.
They build such a good wheel.

So that's awesome.
Okay, uh I think the lastquestion I have, and maybe maybe
there's more, but what aboutbottom bracket?

Okay, same thing.
Uh lots of different standards.
There's no standards to thisstuff.
So you do have threaded, and itused to be safe to just say
it's threaded, but people don'trealize there is a Italian
thread, which is totallydifferent, and those are not
compatible.
And then there's a new what'scalled T47 thread, which is

(49:39):
different too.
So you can have three, at leastthree different.
There are some weird Frenchones that I'm not gonna bring up
because there's nothing modernwith that.

Yeah.

Um, but there's at least three different
types of threads that a bottombracket could be.
Italian is pretty much mostlyroad bikes, so at least two.
Um, and those are the easyones.
The hard ones are press fit,and that's where they just have
a cavity, and they've uh I thinkthe manufacturers just realized
that one, if you just make ahole and you don't have to go

(50:09):
machine anything, it's waycheaper.
Way cheaper.
Yeah.
And uh there are some uhcompanies that make that hole
very nice, and then there's somecompanies that don't
necessarily make that hole verynice.

See, you're making the hole nice now.
You're back to that secretepisode.

All I'm saying is if if you want a nice hole,
you need to spend a little bitmore money.
So true in so many differentways.
So um so PressFit got a reallybad name because it got adopted
pretty quick because I think themanufacturers were like,
Woohoo, we can save money.
And um, so it but just I mean,like overnight every bike seemed

(50:48):
to have them.
Um one of the problems is is ifthe tolerance is not correct,
you can have kind of an ovalsurface, right?
And that will createopportunity for some of the
bottom brackets to actuallymove, walk, or creak.
And that was really, reallycommon.
And PressFit got a really badname.
The reason I say that isbecause we're a pivot dealer.

(51:09):
And again, Brian, if you'relistening, you'll like what I
have to say this time.
Uh but uh pivots QC and they'reuh very tight about their
quality control.

Yeah, we we saw them in their factory doing
that.

So as a seller, I worked at a another
dealer.
I'm not gonna name the companybecause I sell the bikes now,
but um I worked at a brand whodid not have the best QC on
their bottom brackets, and wehad a constant creaking issue.
Then when I opened another shopand became a pivot dealer, I
would say that there was likeone bike.
I I I'm not exaggerating when Isay there's one bike that the

(51:45):
customer just stopped riding apivot because of the creek.
Of the creek, and it was oneparticular bike that was built
in a way that you couldn't putin these uh thread-together
ones.
Yeah.
And that bike is so gone andnot on the on the board anymore.
Yeah.
Um in the time 12, I think wedid some calculating, 12 years
I've been selling pivots, wealmost never, ever, ever, ever

(52:09):
have creaky bottom brackets.
Now we do there's two thingsthat happen.
We have a special process herethat we found that helps them
not creak.

Yeah, you talked about it before, but it
yeah, but if you haven't heardthis episode, probably good to
say it again.

So we use a Teflon uh and that helps a lot.
But also um I I kind of realizethat some of the bikes that we
sell stock, they come pre thebottom brackets are inserted by
pivot.
Um, and so I don't know if theyhave a special sauce or
anything, but the amount ofbikes we've built stock or um
built from the ground up withpivot don't have that issue, it

(52:44):
really comes down to thosequality controls.
And if that bottom bracket isnot at the right tolerance,
you're gonna have more issues.

I hate to do this to you, man.
Uh-huh.
But we have to be like we haveto have be uh honest with our
listeners.
Sure.
Yeah.
So Lacey's Vault that we boughtfrom you two weeks ago, yeah,
while you were out recovering.
Yeah.
When we put it up on the standand Tyler did the fit.

The creek.
So that that one uh pivot putthe bottom bracket in that one.

So they took it out.
Did they do the Teflon?
Did the Teflon and it worked.
And he said, um, your Ren saidthat he thinks they had spec
that particular model.
It was a lower, it was I thinkit's the lowest model of the
vault that you can buy.
Uh-huh.
Has a screw together, but thisit's it's like not a like a
praxis.
It's it's it, I think it was apraxis.
Yeah.
And he's like, he goes, Yeah,we're we're gonna talk to Pivot
about specing this.

(53:32):
This we've you know, this isnot this is not a good part
here.

There there is that factor, but um I find it
kind of cool that they put theTeflon on and it went away.
So that was so far, no problem.
Yeah, that was something thatthat I did many years ago, and I
just kind of found it online asa hack and we started doing it,
and I've had a couple mechanicsthat we've hired that have just
been like, You're crazy, youknow, and I'm like, uh, just see

(53:57):
if it comes back.
And now I actually ran anexperiment with a friend of mine
who bought a pivot, and webuilt it from the ground up, and
I put in the recommended justyou know, you use a grease and
you put it in.

Yeah.

Creaked right away.
Uh, and I and he's a friend,and I told him, and so he came
back and I'm like, yeah, I'llpull it out and I'll you know,
I'll put Teflon it in, put itin, and hasn't been back.
And so I'm not gonna say thatyou'll never have a creak on a
pivot.
I'm not gonna say that you'llnever have a creak if you t use
Teflon, but press fits are muchbetter, and they're really the
bike can the bike can make orbreak a press fit for sure.

Right on.

Then you have uh so we talk about press fit,
uh, which is usually the bearinguh that has a housing around
it.
Like a plastic housing around.
Yeah, plastic for um for someof them, metal on others.
Then there's some there'swhat's called BB30, there's BB
right, there's if you get intothe road bike world, it gets I I
pull a lot of hair out when I'mdealing with road bikes because

(54:53):
they're insane.
Um Specialized has a lot ofweird ones.
Specialized had one where theyrecommended you glue them in,
like JB weld them in.
I'm not even kidding.
And if there's anybody thatworks at a specialized shop that
can back me up, just send us amessage.
But um they you would have toweld JB weld these in, and then
if you took them out, you had JBweld them in again.

(55:14):
There's other ones where theyrecommend using like a how the
hell do you get it out if you JBwelded?
You hammer that sucker out, youknow.
And it JB welds kind of good,but it's not it's not permanent.
It's not always permanent.
Um I I think uh there's somewhere they tell you to use green
Loctite, which is uh supertough Loctite.
It's not.
It's a um bearing retainer.

(55:34):
There's a number.
I don't know what the numberis.
Um but basically it's it green,red, blue.
Is that the but I have I havebearing retainer that's um red?
Yep.
And then I have non-permanentred.
There's a couple differentLoctite makes a crap load of
stuff.

Yeah.

In general, when a bike shop's talking red,
they don't want the thing tocome apart.
Blue keeps it from rattlingapart, and green usually fills
gaps.
Right on.
And when you see green inaction when it dries, it looks
like a Jolly Rancher.
Uh so it dries hard, like ahard candy.
And so if there's littlecrevices or it's not going in

(56:11):
all the way, or the bearing iskind of loose where it should
be, the bearing retainer willkind of keep it in place and not
let it move around.
Fills up those gaps.
Yeah, yeah.
And so that's kind of one ofthe things that sometimes
happens on some brands.

Is there anything else on the bottom
bracket has um so then you havethe cranks.
Yeah, okay.

So remember we talked about the boost and
non-boost and super boost?
Well, the cranks can sometimesbe uh variable depending on how
the wide the back end is.
Chain line.
Yeah.
And so your chain line canchain.
Some companies you have to buya crank to change the chain
line, specialized.
I'm sorry.
Uh Shimano.
Um some companies, so Shimanodesigned their cranks where if

(56:54):
you want to change your chainline, you have to buy the crank.
Other companies, the crankstays the same, but the chain
ring offset changes.

Okay.
That's why you put the spacerson or whatever, right?

No, um, it'll be like uh twist.
No, the chain ring will havelike a dishing.

Oh, I got you, I gotcha.

And so sometimes there's zero,
sometimes they're threemillimeter, sometimes they're
six millimeter.
If it's a off-brand, you know,not a mainstream, they may play
with that a little bit or maybesplit the difference or
something like that to maketheir more universal where you
use them.
And then you can always spacethe bottom bracket back and
forth on a lot of bikes.
Okay, that's what I wasthinking.
Yeah.
Um, old school, what they calljeep uh GXP uh bottom brackets,

(57:33):
they would do what's called acapture, a bearing capture on
the non-drive side.
When you shove that thing inthe bike and tighten down the
non-drive side crank arm, itwould actually pinch the bearing
and that would hold it inplace.
And you could actuallysometimes see a gap on the drive
side where the crank wasn't allthe way in.

(57:53):
And it was designed so weird.
Yeah, yeah.
And uh and that GXP wasactually not bad for threaded.
What they started to realizewith those press fits is that
now if you have that gap, youcan kind of walk that bearing,
that that bottom bracket cupout, you know, and so then you
had to have wavy roshers or orsometimes space them to keep

(58:14):
that from happening.

Hey, sorry about the background noise
listeners.
We've got a monsoon comingthrough, and uh I'll I'll do my
best to get it out in the uhsignal, and not sure I'll be
able to, but uh sorry aboutthat.

Yeah, it's although I'm loving it.
I love the rain.
I love the rain, I'm not gonnacomplain about the rain.

So I have to go up and make sure you're gonna
it's not a big deal.

It's kind of in a place that doesn't mess
with anything.
I gotta go make sure it doesn'truin the building.

Do you know we've been on one question and
we're almost done?
Shit.

That's a good question.
I knew this was a goodquestion.
Yeah, this is a reallycomplicated buying a frame and
swapping parts is really, reallyhard.
Even our mechanics have a hardtime because there's all these
variables and it's easy.
So we didn't talk about discbrake adapters.
No.
So I forgot about that.
So like rotor size, disc brakeadapters.
Um, there's some forks, so Isell a lot of forks.

(59:05):
Yeah.

Sometimes when I'm selling a fork, the
brake posts are not let's sayBut that shouldn't okay, just
just so our listenersunderstand, that shouldn't
impact you if you're using thesame fork and the same wheel.

Yeah, but it may affect you on the back
because some bikes may have a160 post, and then you'll need
an adapter to maybe go if youhave 180.
Or what can happen is the bikemay be set up.
I have a bike that I just didthe other day, and I was like,
holy crap, this bike is set upfor 203 or 200 in the back.

(59:38):
You can't go smaller than 200in the back of the bike.
Oh wow, that's crazy.
And so the chances thatsomebody had a 180, they're
gonna have to now get a rotorand an adapter.

It was funny.
Dane Dane uh helped me figureout a rear uh uh caliper adapter
situation on my gorilla, and hecame over and he looked at it,
and I had like two adapters.
Like clues together to make itwork.
He's like, Jesus Christ, Josh,this is not right.
Let me let me get you the $7adapter that we'll fix this or
$17 adapter, whatever it was.

Host:DaneHiggins (01:00:10):
It's funny that Gorilla uses an old
standard, and I have a box ofthose things because all the new
ones are post-to-post.
And then that one was IS topost.
And then IS to post in thefront back in the day was not
the same width as IS post to therear.
So you couldn't use the sameadapter.
Now post to post, you can kindof interchange.

Host:JoshAnderson (01:00:32):
Dude, if you're not a bike nerd, we have
lost half our audience.

I'm sorry to any non-bike nerds out there.
It's crazy.
So uh I'm trying to think ifthere's anything else that you
have to factor in.

So you gotta make sure you're doing do we
cover the chain line enough?

Chain line is yeah, chain line may change if
the rear spacing changed.
Um if the rear spacing changed,you probably didn't change,
you're probably okay.
Okay.
But you probably will need adifferent bottom bracket.
So your old bike may bethreaded and your new one may be
press fit.
But but cranks pretty muchstandard.
One thing about the bottombracket is you have to match the

(01:01:06):
bottom bracket to the crank.
To the spindle width, right?
And then you have to match thebottom bracket also to the
frame.
So so it's not like you can sayI just I need a dub bottom
bracket for my pivot.
I have to have two numbers.
I have to have that dub, whichwill tell me the diameter, yeah.
And then I have to have theframe so I know the the shell
size.
And so you have to get thosetwo things.

So I'm taking away that like the only thing
that's standard is the waterbottle cage.

Oh God, no.
Uh so you're shitting me.
No, it's for the most part thespacing on those is the same,
but like we've definitely sold anew bike where somebody's like,
I'm gonna use my old waterbottle cage, you know, for
whatever reason.
They don't want to spend 10bucks and didn't have the right
fitment or whatever.
No, like the frame may besmaller, and now they can't get
the bottle out, and they have toget what's called a side

(01:01:52):
loader, which comes in from thesides.
So even then it doesn'ttransfer, so depending on the
bike.
Um you know, the bike shop, thehardest thing that we have to
deal with is ever-changingstandards, and they never are
the same.
Uh, we just sold this umArgonne 18 gravel bike.
It's sitting over in the FitCenter and it's gonna get fit

(01:02:15):
and then we're gonna finish thebuild.
And it came in with the newSRAM uh gravel explorer group,
and it uh that group is nowbuilt like the Shram
Transmission, so it hugs theframe.

Right.

Uh direct mount?
Yeah, direct mount to the axle.
And I was like, wow, you know,because road bikes have not
embraced some of this stuff asfully as the mountain bikes did.
And so that thing is now, andit's really cool.
If I wanted to throw on like aT-type XO rear derailer and make
that a monster gravel, I can doit, you know, and that's so

(01:02:47):
there's some standards that areshowing up that are we really
want to stay, you know.
But now they got what a 32-inchwheels that they're trying to
push on us.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So like now I gotta think abouthow many tires am I gonna have
to stock tires and rims anddifferent forks, probably forks,
like oh my god, it's justkilling me.
Uh, there's been a little bitof movement in the road bikes,

(01:03:09):
so we were talking about um uhstandards on forks.
So tapered is a standard thatwe've kind of embraced in
mountain.
On road, kind of a standard,but not really because you have
tapered, but you have differentdiameters of taper depending on

(01:03:30):
where the bike was built, and soyou may have a one and one
eighth uh to one and a half, butyou may have a one and
one-eighth to one and a quarter,and so they get kind of weird.
Oh, Jesus.
And so when we were deep divingon the fork you needed, that's
one of the things that keptcoming up is what's going on
with that fork?
Is it the right diameter?

We'll say that one because I I've that was
one of my questions, butthat'll be another deep dive.
Yeah Dane, can I ask you onefinal question?
Sure.
Okay.
Um I think this might have beenIs it about penetration?
It's not, but it's in thatvein.
Okay, all right.
Get it?
Vein?
Yeah.
Um this is a very seriousquestion.
I've been wondering this.
Do guys that prefer small gripsalso have small wieners?

I would say there's no correlation to that.
But something small feels goodin your hand.
So being as somebody who likesbig grips, there could be.
I don't know.
I don't know.

I don't know.
If you like small grips, justlet us know.
Yeah.
And maybe that's why.

Uh I do have short fingers, but I like big
grips.
That's weird.
Isn't that weird?

So super weird.
Appreciate you guys.
Thanks, Dean.

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111 - Bike Shop Secrets: Will My Parts Fit if I Swap Mountain Bike Frames?

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}111 - Bike Shop Secrets: Will My Parts Fit if I Swap Mountain Bike Frames?