Radimus Review: Part Two (but actually one tho)

I already kinda explained why I swapped my Optimus out for a Radimus about a month ago, so I'm not gonna bother repeating myself.

I really do like this bike so far.  It makes me wanna do bad things... or halp me when I do bad things I wasn't planning on doing.

Perspective and scale do nothing for this, but that's Heckle Rock at the bottom of Heartbreak Ridge (popular on the YouTubes).  It has been rebuilt and reworked multiple times, but this is it in its current state.  I normally come down the rock line and make the right down the slabby bits.  I missed the turn because I was going faster than normal and ended up doing a huck off the big rock totally unprepared.  I'm not saying it's huge, but watch any of the videos and 99% of the people actually RIDING this section (after a Heartbreak beat down) don't opt for the huck.  Suffice to say, as I'm happily functioning as a human and typing about how much I like this bike, everything ended up surprisingly well.  I probably had my max heart rate spike to about 239BPM for a hot second tho.

About the bike tho...

I was able to shorten my chain stay length from the Optimus.

The longer front end adds stability, and whatever the "industry" is doing be damned, I like super short chain stays.

That's with the Pisgah gear that stays on there 24/7/365, 32 X 20 e'rywhere.

Which makes my rear end tuk't as fuk't.

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm sorta long in the legs and old in the back.  The spacers I stole from my gravel bike to make things good enough are good for now.

Yeth, that makes my head part hurt.  For the long run, I've ordered some Oddity Cycles Lowrizer handlebars.

I got a chance to ride around on Boyes's super happy fun time bike in the parking lot while I was up in Fayetteville.  

He's rolling around on 70mm rise Oddmone bars, and because I wasn't smart enough to ask Boyes a bushel basket of questions while I had his ear (and break out a tape measure), I was sure I wanted one too.  That's what I ordered at first, but then after I rode the Radimus with 35mm of spacers and stem flipped putting me mebbe 10mm higher than what I was used to with the old frame, I wasn't sure I wanted to cut the steer tube to accommodate 70mm... with no way to go lower... and I can always put a not-so-obnoxious amount of spacers under the stem to get it up to 65-70mm anyways.

And yeth, I'll eventually have to put the bars on my Vertigo and try them  How could I not?

And also yeth, I'm aware that there are some hideous crabon options that would at least make it easier for me to mount a Woohoo to the bars, but this is my happy fun time bike, so if the data acquisition device gets left at home, so be it.  I can always mount it to my top pipe if I need to look at routes and whatnot.  Or one of you industrious folks with a 3D printer could make me a 22 to31.8 shim bit... ?*

I was pissed enough about the lack of forethought regarding swapping wheels and having to ride the XT wheels on back-to-back mountain rides that I came home from Pisgah Sunday evening and went straight away to robbing Paul to pay back Peter from that one time I robbed Peter to pay Paul.

Hurts my feelings a little to have the Epic Evo hanging on a hook with ded wheels but whatever.  This bike is headed to the Pisgah 55.5K in three weeks, so it gets the good shoes.  Tires will be swapped before then... to... dunno?  What's the weather going to be like 24 days from now?

I like the new Vassago head badge...

And the updated drooper hole with rubber grommet thing.

I know most of you are looking at this bike and thinking about the bike it replaced and thinking some more and...

You're right.  And you're wrong.  But also right.

But I'm also not worried about what you think... so there's that.  I'm really looking forward to some long rides on this bike in the very near future.

*I ordered some shitty shims from the internet, so mebbe they okay.