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Manufacturers.......this Is What We Want!


murph82

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Customer: Those brake mounts look strange, what are they for?

Shop: It's so you can upgrade to a 19" wheel in the future if you wish.

Customer: Oh, a 19" wheel? Why would I want one of those?

Shop: [Explains why 19" wheels are better...]

Customer: Oh I see, I might aswell just get a bike with a 19" wheel if it's that much better!

;)

That's sort of what happens some of the time anyway. I know whenever I talk to anyone I usually mention the whole 20"/19" rear wheel thing so they've got all the facts before they decide whether they want to stick with the Rip or upgrade to the Bird.

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I think the reason that we produce the Rip in the way it is has been well documented and as many have said, its up to the seller to try and up-sell to a Bird. In terms of re-selling the Rip for 'pence' as somebody said, I would have thought that the market for re-selling Rips was quite buoyant, as we never seem to get it right on producing new ones. (we are once more out of stock till May).

As some of you will remember, about five years ago we designed a Magura mount on the Bird which allowed both 20" and 19" wheels but that only suited Maguras. As you might expect we have looked at all sorts of ways to make the Rip upgradeable to 19" wheels but it always comes down to cost. We do have a design for a brake booster which bolts into the existing pivot holes and has new pivots for 19" wheels but nobody has convinced us yet that there is a market big enough for us to stump up the tooling costs for production. We made a similar one years ago for converting 26" frames to take 24" wheels for dirt jumping etc. and it was a flop.

In terms of smaller pitched chains, Shimano tried it on Track Bikes 25 years ago but they produced very few of them before discontinuing. You can read something about it here.

http://cyclingwmd.blogspot.com/2009/07/vintage-dura-ace-10-inch-pitch-track.html

Sets of these are now as rare as hens teeth and are very sought after but opinion seems divided about the increased benefits. As is often the case, the rarity of them is more responsible for the value than any of the improved performance aspects. I realise that the arguments in favour of smaller pitches are slightly different to those of track machines, but I can't help feeling that had the improvement been great enough then they would have become the industry standard. (As in a-headsets, cartridge bottom brackets etc. etc.)

I do posses a brand new full chainset, chain and sprocket of one of these, which I intend to put on Ebay shortly.

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I think the strength of the rip is a low start up cost for trials.

Much the same when I bought my first electric guitar, I thought 'I'll buy something dead cheap so if I suck and can't get into it I've not lost too much money.'

If then the person enjoys riding trials, it's worth the effort saving up for a 19" rear wheel mod, because they know they'll enjoy it.

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Echo shouldnt just force us to have push fit bbs if u want one of ther new frames, cus i want an echo but bought a reset ti bb not long ago and feel like i havnt got the use out of my £100 yet. Do more 26" frames with the option of long and short rather than just a set wb. More high bb bikes. Make carbon fibre chain stay protectors. ti bolts with stronger heads. All frames should have standard headsets. Titanium trials chains. Some sort of super light kevlar tube protector.

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Echo shouldnt just force us to have push fit bbs if u want one of ther new frames, cus i want an echo but bought a reset ti bb not long ago and feel like i havnt got the use out of my £100 yet. Do more 26" frames with the option of long and short rather than just a set wb. More high bb bikes. Make carbon fibre chain stay protectors. ti bolts with stronger heads. All frames should have standard headsets. Titanium trials chains. Some sort of super light kevlar tube protector.

Sell the Reset BB, then buy an Echo and ask Tarty to upgrade you to the Ti BB? Then marvel at how your new BB is not only lighter than a Reset but also far far more reliable in both bearing longevity and axle strength ;)

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Cheap and good quality rear (116mm) disk hubs,

Fixed.

I was thinking about getting the BT Large disk hub Adam told me about via email but as I couldn't find much information on it I decided to spend my money of family presents (Y) Now I'm saving up again, converting to dual disk bit by bit.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

The 2.4" Big Betty surely qualifies as a decent TGS tyre?

I'd very much like a frame like the Inspired Hex but with horizontal dropouts and a disc mount. I'm guessing that the reason why these frames don't have such features is that they'll be introduced one by one over the next 2 years?

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In that they designed their own dropouts from the ground up (well, so to speak) I don't know if they'd be likely to drop that system any time soon to make them horizontal dropout. Equally, I wouldn't have thought that they'd go rear disc on the Hex. It's been mentioned before and I think Ali said that neither he nor Inspired were that into the idea.

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