I'm in a tw0 week struggle with my new bicycle. Lets begin I received a new Giant 29er, out of the box it is a fat lady. However, with a diet and work out plan, the flubber hides a tight little bikini body. Stripping her down was easy. The hard part was getting her to accept new parts. Here is the gremlin list.
Rear brake - how many time can you bleed it and it not work. I'm on par with BP for spilled oil.
Crank Bolts - how many of these can you loose? Oh and I'm using an MRP so it has funky washer that is impossible to find.
MRP- I hope it's in the right place. They use a 3 MM Aluminum bolt. The head is good for one use.
Front Brake - This is the loudest thing I have ever heard. I've done everything in the book to shut it's mouth.
Lets talk wheels now - they have a whole special section. Lets just say all this could be avoided if someone I know would order my Stan's wheels.
The wheels are not tubeless so you have to tape the eff out of them. They are a deep-V so the tape does not fit easily in the groove, further more the spoke holes are asymetric so they look like a drunk 4 year old drilled them wherever. Then my stans valves are too small for the giant valve hole. So I have to track down jumbo valves after pushing the small valve through the hole like 10 times. Inflate, re-inflate more tape, more cussing, more stans. (By this time my living room floor has a glossy sheen of stans on it) Yes, I do all my bike maintenance in my living room. Why? #1 I don't care #2 no wife of gf to tell me not to. The upside is my living room can probably run tubeless, I just don't know where to pump it up. So I get bot wheels to cooperate, and hold air for 24 hrs. The next day on my shakedown rid I noticed I mounted my front tire backwards, a directional tire backwards just doesn't work so well. Naturally I had to deflate and remount. Oddly this tire was quite nice to work with. It new that in less than 24hrs it would try to kill me. Luring me in to set the hook. Race day 10 minutes before the start, flat tire. Tube, lots of C02, time trial back to the car for pump more co2 and a tube. (because for the record tubes suck, I can't run them off-road) 10 minutes in to the race flat. But wait, I have a 26" tube on a 29 rim. This is brain damage, pure hell to do at the side of the trail in a race. Fairly pissed at this point. I really think I could have hung on the group for a low teens finish, or cracked the top 10. Instead I swept up the dregs of the pro-field. I can't tell you how excited I was to do 5 miles of flat fire road by myself in to the wind. It was so nice to hear stories of how everybody worked together in wicked pace-line in that section, must have been nice.
Back at home. Tire exchange. Specialized does have a great tire warranty, so at least my ripped $65 tire is not a total loss, but the shop is on the other side of town and naturally they work on the highway on the weekends. So I got to experience some high quality gridlock, on a sunny 95 degree day. ( my a/c works like crap, a whole other saga)
New tires, and another role of Stan's tape. Guess what that tape don't stick unless the rim is fully dry and free from old Stan's. So thats an hour of scrubbing and waiting. Now this tape is too wide. The tire pushes the tape down the sidewall of the rim, exposing the spoke holes. It's almost comical at this point.
Day 3 screw it lets ride tubes. Let me remind you I can't ride tubes. two flats on this ride. Oh and the tube effed up one of the tape jobs. eff me in the Goat A$$.
Yesterday. I got one tire mounted tubless and happy. I started on the second rim. I got about 1/4 the way around the rim, and out of tape. I have no more emotions left.
