Ebullition/Doubt 7: Stay the Course and Change Everything; Make it Yours

Hello Doubters, worldwide! Fall is upon us here in the deep south of the US of A. The best time to ride despite a rando hurricane or heat spike. The terrifying Joros that were set to destroy everything were in fact, mild this year. I spoke in our last get together about some initial experimentation I undertook with my first 29er and what was also coincidentally my first carbon bike. We’ll dig deeper in that hole today unearthing the good and the okay.

Music Selection: Forever ☆: 3 Series I’ve been a longtime fan of the shoegaze genre, particularly Swervedriver, Ride and My Bloody Valentine. I also have a sweet tooth for techno, idm, lo-fi house, big beat and related nonsense. I know little to nothing about Forever ☆ but I dig the mash up of fuzzy guitar chaos with drum and bass.

Full custom gospel sounds. I have never been one for much of anything prêt-à-porter. As a little kid, I cut the labels off my clothes. I had my mom or a seamstress she knew custom make me clothes (shorts, pants, shirts) using kid’s themed sheets or other patterns, because I wanted things that did not exist at the department stores. Always DIY; make it up as you go. You’d think I’d grow out of this. You would be incorrect. I repainted my skateboards, bikes and whatever else adorning them with stickers homemade and otherwise.

Decades on, I still do this. Any color you want as long as it’s black. I began painting bike frames in middle school. Matte or flat black was my go-to with its mean understated look. I still love that look on bikes and most of my bikes ended up this color. In the early 00s I began taking my steel and alloy frames to a powder coat guy who did an incredible job for a very reasonable price. However, carbon frames cannot be powder-coated and custom carbon paint jobs are pricey. Enter Spray. Bike, a company that makes paints specifically for painting frames including carbon ones. The cans are about twice the cost of hardware store paints but finish nicer. My Evil Wreckoning was gunmetal gray, but I was determined to have it be black. Repainting it took a couple of weeks including disassembling it, prep work, finishing and then putting it back together. It was not perfect, but it turned out reasonably well and it was my own thing. Not to mention that it cost me a fraction of what a custom paint job would have run.

Dancing this mess around. As mentioned last time, putting an angle adjust headset in the Wreckoning completely changed it for the better. I began to tinker with other things too. In the early-mid 00s Cane Creek released their Double Barrel shock. This thing was a revelation at the time as you had pro-level tuning options at your fingertips. It was daunting to tune initially for many, but my pals and I knew the designers at Cane Creek and were treated to a couple of days of tuning rides with the shocks on our own bikes on an Asheville classic. It became incredibly clear to me that a properly tuned shock could make a mediocre bike feel amazing while a poorly tuned one could make incredible bikes ride like hot garbage. I am incredible grateful for that education, and I have used it on countless bikes.

The Wreckoning uses a suspension that feels damn good regardless of shock tune. However, I sought nuanced improvement. Things like having the bike feel plush initially, yet still having a supportive mid-stroke to push against and enough end-stroke ramp to not bottom out the suspension violently. I sampled four different shocks during my time with the Wrecker. These included the original Rockshox Monarch plus it came with, a Rockshox Vivid air, the Monarch with an Avalanche tune and a Fox DHX coil. The standouts were the Avy-tuned RS and the DHX coil. These are mentionable in the realm of Dirtbag Digressions as a custom shock tune from Avalanche, Dirt Labs and others are pretty reasonable if you already have a shock. Additionally, if you have a coil there are many options for different spring rates of course as well as super light springs and progressive springs. Basic steel springs can be had for $30-$50 and the SL’s or progressives are around $130. I also highly recommend looking for these used for even less. They never wear out so save some shekels if you can. I tinkered with all of those and liked the bike set up with a progressive spring best. This gave it the best support and ramp up. Translating that back into American, the bike became more poppy and could handle bad landings* better than ever. I was building some of that Calling’s playfulness back in even though I did not know it at the time.

*Several years ago, a friend was following me over a gap jump and noted that I push my bike down hard into landings. Others have commented that I tend to shake the trail. I credit TRS for helping me mostly break that habit and in turn breaking less stuff.

One final change I made was to add a bottle mount to front triangle. The first couple runs of the Wreckoning V1 did not have any bolt holes for a bottle mount. I was already obsessed with carrying as little crap with me as possible and having a frame mounted bottle was a must have for me by this point. I initially investigated having a carbon repair shop do it to no avail. DIY time. I fabricated a mount for a bottle cage out of sheet metal that I custom formed to fit the top side of the down tube. I adhered it to the frame with 3M VHB tape and later reinforced it with some Velcro strips. After using this set up for a while, I purchased a 3D-printed one affixing it in the same way.  As with the paint job it was not perfect, but it looked okay and worked even better. This was a one-time thing as my succeeding rig which I’ll delve into next time had those coveted mounts. So go wreck everything.

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