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16 hours ago, GunMetalGrey said:

It certainly is one of the more visually pleasing bikes I have owned. 
What fat tire bike did you buy? 

 

I bought a Trek Farley 9.8

15 hours ago, jc43089 said:

It looks fairly intense.  

Beat me too it.  The intensity is nuts

13 hours ago, straight6pwr said:

cant believe some bikes can cost as much as cars. logic does not apply, apparently.

Hmmm......lets explore this logic.  

In 1990 my Dad sold my Uncle an old Rabbit for $1.  Therefore, by applying your logic (as opposed to not applying it) any bike costing more than $1 would be illogical.
This is a sad way to look at things.

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18 hours ago, straight6pwr said:

cant believe some bikes can cost as much as cars. logic does not apply, apparently.

I used to be impressed by the costs of this stuff, but after spending countless hours riding, many hours servicing and plenty of look into R&D it all makes sense. These are low production bikes that are the supercars of bikes. The new bike is just shy of top of the line, only really lacking carbon wheels. Without seeing the trails that are ridden I can understand it not making much sense. 
4 piston calipers for the brakes, dynamic geometry, dropper posts, and more suspension technology than your car has. The suspension on these bikes is amazing, the abuse they take is crazy. I recently rebuilt my old bikes fork and seeing all of the small pieces and how well it all works together (for the damper) you start to appreciate the time that goes into these things and understand the $1,000 fork cost a bit more. Adjustable low and high speed compression and rebound is typical on most high end suspension now. It's like a formula one car when it comes to setting these things up right. 
Riding a normal bike on the trails is like driving an original mini through the baja 1000, you can do it, but a trophy truck allows you to go much faster and have more fun doing so. 
Sure you can go to walmart and grab a $150 bike, but it will not last more than a day on the trails. The new bike is certainly on the other end of the spectrum at a 7k msrp, but they get up past 10k on occasion. So I'm still in the realm of sanity ;)

Alright, I'm done geeking out now. 

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ffcfeba9d7fc3e336e8bb9aafbea3b43.jpg

Rented this in April, I believe list price is in the $5000-5500 territory.

Getting back on my hybrid bike was like going from a baja truck to a nissan hardbody

Even if I did trail riding 10x a year it would still make sense financially to rent a top end bike like that (until you wreck at least)

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1 hour ago, HipMF said:

Getting back on my old bike yesterday was a little tough after riding a $2300 rental bike last weekend. That being said, i still can't justify spending that much money on a bike that doesn't even have an engine...

Where the dirt bike trails at?

Buy used, you can get great deals on those same bikes. Tim has probably only sent you 1000 links to them!
You are the engine good sir. 
 

35 minutes ago, Snap said:

Even if I did trail riding 10x a year it would still make sense financially to rent a top end bike like that (until you wreck at least)

I've thought about this before, and you are correct in terms of financials. 
The downside is needing to be at trails that have rental bikes, which is not all that many from what I have found. The other trick is bike setup. I'm sure some of it comes from spending more time on them, but it takes me a couple rides to get my bike dialed in to where I want it. Suspension tuning, air spring pressures, cockpit layout, seat position, etc. A rental bike requires me to start at square one every time. 

It is more cost effective pending what type of riding you do though, that's for sure! 

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27 minutes ago, GunMetalGrey said:

Buy used, you can get great deals on those same bikes. Tim has probably only sent you 1000 links to them!
You are the engine good sir. 
 

I've thought about this before, and you are correct in terms of financials. 
The downside is needing to be at trails that have rental bikes, which is not all that many from what I have found. The other trick is bike setup. I'm sure some of it comes from spending more time on them, but it takes me a couple rides to get my bike dialed in to where I want it. Suspension tuning, air spring pressures, cockpit layout, seat position, etc. A rental bike requires me to start at square one every time. 

It is more cost effective pending what type of riding you do though, that's for sure! 

Can confirm great deals on bikes. 1000-2000 Doll hairs gets you a solid bike these days (Used)

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Picked up a CNC router table a couple weeks ago.

1497130776245912329745_zpswczekl3h.jpg

Still waiting to get the license for the software to run it transfered over from the previous owner, but in the meantime I decided to test the machines capabilities. I intend to pay for the machine by building bed-of-nails fixtures for circuit boards. Long story short, this requires drilling very small holes in fiberglass or plastic at very precise locations. I had some 0.024" drill bits laying around, so I poked some holes in a piece of 1/8" hot-rolled steel that was laying around at the shop.

IMG_20170610_152341_zps6zccu9o0.jpg

Sweeet.

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On 6/9/2017 at 11:14 AM, GunMetalGrey said:

Sweet Jesus, just jumped right into that one huh? lol
We have the same cranks, shifter/derailleur, and brakes! 

That's a wicked bike, should be a ton of fun! I love seeing 25lbs on that build. 

I bought it used.  Not perfect but the guy did the tubeless conversion and sent me a dropdown post with it (don't have it on yet)

I don't usually baby step into things, hahahaha

The bike is so cool to just whip around on, I can ride with my kids or hit hardcore trails without changing the setup.....other than maybe air pressure.

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On 6/10/2017 at 6:06 PM, Snap said:

Very nice! Not sure I have ever seen a .024" bit!!

The one's I have are for drilling circuit boards and have an 1/8" shank. Not surprisingly, they don't last long drilling steel...

Also measured the repeatability of the 3 axes by putting a dial indicator on the table and moving the machine away, and then back in both directions. The X and Y axes are actually really good, with no measurable inconsistency or backlash. The Z axis wanders .001" to .0015" depending on the location, which I'm guessing is wear on the leadscrew due to it holding up the weight of the head all the time. Spindle runout was not so good (IMO). It measured about .003" at the face of the collet. Out where the tip of the bit would have been while I was drilling the holes it's closer to .005", which explains why the line isn't as straight as it could be.

So far my research into finding a spindle with lower runout hasn't turned up much. It looks like you either have to gamble on a chinese unit which may or may not actually be better, or spend $800+ to get down to .001", which still isn't even that great IMO...

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How well do those bikes hold their value? (If you were to sell it in 3/4 years)

What's the typical usable lifespan on one?? (breaking/fixing or being made "obsolete" by something more baller)

Or are they just infinitely upgradable?

Just curious as this stuff is friggin' neat.

Couple coworkers are crazy into roadbikes. One brought theirs to work one day and I was absolutely blown away by how light it was and how much carbon was on the thing!

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My (somewhat limited?) experience shopping for a used bike shows that trying to find a "good" bike for less than a grand is pretty difficult. I'm sure the uber-high-end stuff probably depreciates faster though.

Everything is upgradable. Standards change every 8-10ish years, so trying to upgrade a 5 year old bike to whatever is trendy today is probably possible, but not really economical vs buying a new bike. Upgrading a 10 year old bike is kind of a joke. High-end stuff is high-maintenance. Lower-end stuff tends to be lower maintenance. Basically, plan on spending a shit-ton of money and having bike that no one even wants five or ten years from now.

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I think it would be way too heavy and cumbersome to deal with actual mountain bike trails, not to mention really bad etiquette. I like the idea of having a super-light "moped" with full-size wheels and a riding position that's more motorcycle than scooter, but I doubt this thing is actually street legal, so.... I guess that makes it pretty much useless...? dunno.

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Finally got the software for the router on Thursday.

First project finished. A Hoffmeister kink inspired paper towel holder.

IMG_20170618_095251_zpskuxpbyhm.jpg

I'm still on the learning curve with the machine, but it seems to work alright. Not as precise as I would like for routing, but better than the poorly-setup Shopbot machine they had at FVTC.

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