Good lorb. I bought my soft-sided travel case back in the summer of 2019 when I realized I was heading towards the better and shorter end of my YOLO life experience. When I found an EVOC on some miraculous super sale, I went ahead and threw down my money. I've never been happier about traveling with a bike, and quite greedily, I've told friends when asked if they can borrow it, my only expectation is that they buy me a new one if it gets damaged. I've had too many fucked up pieces of luggage and not one but two hard shell travel cases rendered unusable in the past.
Anyways, I got to travel with it once, and then Covid, and then two years later, I'm flying again.
Suffice to say, after pulling it down from the attic, I was staring at a pile of plastic sticks and poles and scratching my head because I forgot everything I knew about how this thing works.
Although I'm flying out Thursday morning, I'm waiting to pack my bike until Wednesday. I'm holding on to the dream that some Race Face riser bars are going to show up (not magically, I ordered them) before I leave. I'm having a hard time mentally dealing with the fact that my controls could rip my frame apart... in a wreck just like the last two doozies I've enjoyed in the past four or so months.
Pretty sure the riser bar won't solve all my woes. The SRAM brake levers are H-U-G-E. Not the actually lever so much as the body itself. I've got some Shimano XT brakes on hold at Bike Source... but I can't put them on because I'm missing the matchmaker do-dad that makes SRAM and Shimano play nice. I woulda bought them a week ago, but who knew a bike shop would have something in stock nowadays?
Speaking of XT anything, I also bought some XT pedals because I don't wanna swap pedals from bike to bike to go for a ride. That said, this is my first non-XTR pedal in almost two decades? I dunno if it's because I don't feel like I'm an XTR level rider or if the price jump from XT to XTR finally broke me, but I definitely blinked. My days of new XTR components are ded like single speeds and 26" wheels and things being "in stock."
I've considered naming this bike "The Money Pit," but what bike isn't?
Had I read through the 106 page Epic EVO discussion on MTBR, mebbe I woulda known this top tube issue was a problem and been able to do something about it before heading west. Now I'm just gonna do my best to not wreck whilst risking my biscuit. This solution I found in the thread seemed a little too extreme.
Same with a Fox Step Cast 34... which would take a 160mm rotor... which means buying a new rotor.
Oh, yeah. Here's something strange...
That SID Select + that only has 120mm of travel has a minimum rotor size of 180mm. When did that become a thing? Not for nothing, but I weigh 135lbs (give or take), and modern brakes are a beautiful thing. The 180 rotor weighs 20 grams more than a 160, which might seem like nothing, but to a guy who unashamedly spent his spare time Sunday evening swapping steel rotor and brake mount bolts to titanium, it's a thing. Also for a guy who travels with ONE spare 160mm rotor just in case shit goes sideways?
Things will be dark here for, jeebus... almost two weeks. I've got too much on my plate right now, and this trip is coming at me like a full-on blitzkreig. Here's hoping I keep it upright till then and don't ever need this spare derailleur hanger that I spent an hour trying to figure out how to never forget... because friends don't ride with friends who don't carry spare derailleur hangers on epic backcountry adventures.
But mebbe sometimes.
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