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KuЯdt

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Everything posted by KuЯdt

  1. Wes at Velorangutan is a dealer. I wonder if that's where Austinvines demo'd from. In addition to Revel, he carries Ibis, Orbea, Devinci and Scott. Oh and demos are free, so give them a shout. I tried the Ripley and then the Occam, fell in love with the latter and got that. I think those AF Ibis bikes are a pretty good value. Sooo many good bikes out there now, if you can find one in stock.
  2. Vipers seemed a lot rougher this last time than the other time I was there about a year ago. Could be that it was just blown out from the recent enduro race. Agreed that it is a lot of fun. I feel like they made that last little hump toward the very end of it bigger, because you can't help but launch off of it when you're carrying speed through there. Oh and you didn't miss anything with Centipede. It's just like 6-7 mounds of dirt...rollers that I suppose you could double some if you want. I was planning to head back out there a week form Monday on President's day, since I have the day off. Weather is looking iffy right now though.
  3. yes, and with that Stealth sole. They are indeed very sticky. I was much more comfortable on my 2nd ride with them yesterday. I did have to kind of focus on lifting up, because disengaging with cleats is a twist out motion. Get your new frame built up yet?
  4. Right, probably not going to be sending it on these flats anytime soon, if ever. This is really like teaching an old dog new tricks, but I'll keep at it for a ride or 2 each week and see where it goes. That is, until I get sick and tired of swapping out pedals all the time.
  5. did my first ride on those Fookers yesterday, just a little 10 miles on the SATN near my house. It has been quite some time since I've ridden flats. In the first couple miles, my feet were coming off the pedals on the upstroke. Also it took me a while to get my shoe where I wanted it on the pedal. That stopped after a while. I didn't have much issue going through chunky tech sections. Although I did get hung up once and needed to dab, and my foot came flying waaay up and out off the pedal due to the involuntary motion I have for disengaging from my clipless pedals. That was comical. Going downhill through rough stuff felt fine and there was no slipping, especially when out of saddle and in a more aggressive position. The one issue I had was with a little downhill that has a small kicker as you start down it. I usually launch off it with no issues, but yesterday I came off the pedals and got nose heavy and it felt really awkward. I think that type of situation is where I'll have the steepest learning curve.
  6. I got these Fookers, which are chinese knockoffs of the RaceFace Chesters. I figured I'm not out too much money if I hate them, plus the name is just fookin' awesome.
  7. Timely discussion for me, and it's always a lively one. I actually just ordered a set of flats and five tens which are arriving today. I've ridden clipless since the 90s. The reason I decided to try flats again was to work on my technique some. I think riding clipless can allow one to become a bit lazy and cheat a bit when it comes to bunny hopping and popping up ledges and whatnot. People do rave about five tens, so I hope this is a good experience. Riding flats in the 90s was really BMX-style bear claw pedals with tennis shoes or vans, and that resulted in mangled shins and stiches in my calves.
  8. I can't say I've fully cleared that but have come real close, I usually do what I do with most jumps - case it. Before my last run a couple weeks ago, I decided to stop by the truck and chug an IPA first. Just about cleared it that time, but like you said, I came right out onto that jeep road and had to hit the brakes in order to avoid 3 dudes hanging out there in front of Viper's Den (one of whom was wearing a giant banana suit...wtf). Maybe I need a bit more liquid courage. Speaking of clearing jumps, I went out to Reimers today. We did the main trail and then a couple runs down the flow trail. I still couldn't work up the nerve to hit the 2 big gap jumps, but my buddy did for the first time. He made it look pretty easy, so it gives me a little more confidence.
  9. yeah, I think you'll find yourself riding the blue trails more than the green. everything on the blues is rollable. This last time my wife went with me who is very much a beginner and rides a hardtail. After she rode the greens a few times I took her down Antidote, which is a short blue jump line. She was like oh this is awesome fuck that green trail. So you can ride those as slow or as fast as you want. My favorite combo is probably Antidote-Recluse-Venom. Have fun.
  10. Following, as I'm about to go down this path in Austin as well. I've heard recommendations for Ringer, Energy One, and Titan. My GC who is redoing the kitchen recommended Zen Windows. I don't know much about any of them but will probably start getting quotes soon.
  11. I finally made it back out to Spider Mountain on Monday. Spent most of my time hitting the jump lines trying to improve my jumping (still suck at it), but did hit the double black trail to try and get some redemption. I managed to take the wrong line on both of the difficult sections. On the first one, I missed the main line and ended up on the left side which I guess would be the B line. But it kind of puts you at a bad angle coming out, and I had a slow awkward washout crash at the bottom. Then on the steep rock garden-y part there is a new B line on the right that I did not know was there and accidentally took. It's much easier than the original line down the ledges. So I still have to go back out there and hit that trail properly. In some ways I think the single black is tougher, just because it has some steep off camber sections that can be difficult to maneuver.
  12. I may do the same. They're kinda like tree gates to me - sure it's a challenge but not something I find all that fun. Luckily I didn't break any bones, just a grade 2 sprain. A couple days off the bike and I felt ok to do some more conservative rides. Which was perfect for the Back 40 today. That was a pretty fun trail. I started at the Blowing Springs trailhead, so ended up with a couple more miles than just the Back 40 proper.
  13. Don't be so quick to...ride away. lol My bentonville trip isn't really improving. Did a ride yesterday in pretty sloppy conditions, and found a fun area with drops, skinnies, jumps, and rocky tech. I had to awkwardly step off of a slick skinny, and it was a bit higher than I realized. Im now on the couch with an ankle brace while the weather outside is perfect. Hoping it will be better by tomorrow or at least Monday. We shall see. Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk
  14. I went out there last week for my yearly Walnut ride. Monday morning on a cold day is perfect...not many riders or hikers but there were a lot of off-leash pit bulls. I had a blast out there too, as there has been a lot of work done since the last time I went. Tons of berms, and I rode Upper Log Loop multiple times as it had a lot of new features on it. That trail is a blast now.
  15. I'm in Bentonville right now and have been unable to ride due to the snow on the ground. Got here last Sunday night driving through a snowstorm (which was sketchy af). They ended up getting 6" and then it hasn't gotten above 35 all week until late yesterday afternoon. I think starting today I'll be able to find some trails to ride. It will be cold, though. On the plus side, the dogs have been absolutely loving it.
  16. FYI, looks like YTTV is giving away a Chromecast with Google TV to existing subscribers. Got the below email earlier and ordered, no charge. I already have one and really like it so will either give this one away as gift or maybe use it in another room.
  17. Oh and I forgot to mention that I ran across these 2 videos recently which were a HUGE help. I did a couple test runs using this guy's settings and the results were good. I had never really messed with color correcting before, but I can see how it makes a big difference.
  18. yeah I have struggled with this same thing. I could never get videos I recorded in 1080 to look good on youtube. There was probably something I could have done differently, but as wd said, once I switched to recording in 2.7k things got better. Really, it's about your render/export settings. You need to give youtube the best quality video possible as they are gonna take it and compress it, render it in different resolutions, etc. they have published recommended encoding settings here. They recommend using the H.264 codec, so that's what I've been using. Another important thing is to make sure when rendering your video to use a high bit rate - at least as high as what the original video was recorded in. That varies based on the resolution and fps settings - the higher the res and the higher the frame rate, the higher the bit rate. I'm now recording in 4k (because fuck it, why not) and 30 or 24 fps. I've posted a screenshot of my render settings below (I've also since switched to using Davinci Resolve, it's crazy how powerful that program is and it's free). So far this has been working pretty well for me, but I am certainly no expert on the subject, just trying to learn enough to make things look decent.
  19. That's a pretty well spec'd bike for sure. Looks like it's seen a few crashes with all the scratches on it. I'd want to take a close inspection if it were me, and make sure there were no hard impact points or cracks. Yeah that seems like it would be a drastic change for you as this is pretty much an enduro rig, and with 650b wheels. I will say that when I was looking at bikes last year, I thought I wanted a "downcountry" bike in the 120 range. Test riding the Occam changed my mind, and having owned and ridden it for a while it changed my outlook even more on what I wanted out of a bike and how I ride. So even if you don't pick this one up, you might want to consider options that you may have considered too much bike in the past.
  20. There is definitely some XC stuff in the Slaughter Pen system. Tatamagouche and Medusa in phase 1, along with other trails near there that I didn't ride (Schroen Train and stuff around there, Rim Trail). I'd recommend exploring Slaughter Pen regardless as it has all types of different stuff, and is just so much fun. Hmm, I had been wondering which direction to take that trail. I'm told not to miss the Ledges trail, and it's apparently best ridden S to N, so that would line up nicely with riding Back 40 CCW.
  21. ugh, sorry man that sucks. I hear great things about Ripmo AF, and can vouch for the Occam.
  22. yeah, Slaughter Pen definitely requires some pedaling to make the jumps. Not a whole lot of vert there, but there are a couple of decent short downhill trails in there. I realized that I totally missed one I intended to hit - Warthog/Blackbird. I was on Tatamagouche with the wife and she was so over it at that point since that trail is more like what we have here - rocky, ledgy singletrack. So we bailed, otherwise I'd have made my way up there. Next time. Thanks for the tips on the other stuff around there. Next trip I'm planning to hit Coler, Back40 and I had heard some about Leatherwood so sounds like I need to check that out as well.
  23. First trip to Bentonville is in the books. That place is amazing and super fun. The wife was with me and is a beginner so I spent a good bit of time walking her through various sections and didn't get a whole lot of time for solo rides. We never even made it beyond Slaughter Pen, and there are still trails in that system we didn't get to. I'm planning to go back next month and try to figure out how to jump. I'm so bad at it and cased the shit out of everything. Also need to re-ride some of this stuff, and hit that big step up I noped out of on Hammer Down.
  24. Nice (and nice song choice), pretty fast coming down Rudy's. I rode the BCGB saturday morning - TC and Jedi then came down from the quarry and took nothing but trails that looked unfamiliar to me. I got into some really rough stuff back in there. Ended up coming out via Panty Line. Only 9 miles, but felt like I rode 30....BCGB has a way of beating you up.
  25. That's a heck of a lot of elevation gain for around here.
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