For more than 10 years, Fahzure's primary ride was his Killing Machine but, on its fourth fork and needing drivetrain and brake work, the Killing Machine became hard to trust. I shopped around for over a year anticipating catastrophic failure of the KM (it never happened). I rode the Ibis Mojo HD, Knolly Chilcotin, Yeti 7, Intense Tracer and many more of the 6-7 inch offerings. I decided that I had to have coils, front and rear, some sort of multi-link rear end, and a design based on a 180mm fork. Tys chose to support the home team, by picking up a One, so that eliminated that option for me. Thanks to my friends at Big Red and Wasatch Touring, I was able update my ride while staying within the lineage. At my age, the less I have to adapt, the better, I thought. Fahzure's new ride:
The Specialized SX Trail is the longest travel non-dual crown offering available from Big Red. I switched out the drivetrain to 10sp Shimano, put on a 90mm Thomson stem, meaty Oury grips and a Reverb seatpost, which is awesome when it works, so far, not very often; 39 lbs as you see it. Saddle is a donor from Griffy after the stock slim jim folded (you'll thank me later, Chowdah) on no footer hard landers. Lots of stuff on the bar and still tons of room:
Front hubs are indistinguishable in my opinion, the Fox axle works well:
Fancy front end: matching color F & F, headset, hub:
Look at all of those shapes, angles and joints:
XT 10speed w/ SLX shifters has worked great; cool through axle, derail hanger, derail guard:
After six months of light use, the green ano has started to fade at different rates, to different tones; earn your turns stem:
I'm fairly indifferent about cranks and pedals, as long as they don't break; my first steady relationship with a chainguide equipped bike has been a bit testy:
Four pot Code brake calipers combined with carbon XO levers, light and super powerful brakes; so far, so good on the rear hub:
750 mm-29.5 inches wide handlebars is quite a switch up for Fahzure, who previously was running bars in the 25-26 inch range. Fahzure loves his table tops, turn downs and, especially, X-ups. The wide bars combined with the longish stem are intimidating, where bar ends can catch on legs or clothing...will it work out?:
Super Sick Sending Sundays came to end this past weekend and the turnout was as strong as ever, all kinds of conveyances were present; little tykes:
Many people were first timers on janky bikes, like this one with the quill-type stem a full inch and a quarter above the minimum insert line:
Danky Dan, who has taken up with a plastic 29er, was out Crossfit training on his dualie:
Tys styling the big stepdown:
Fahzure in the skills park:
Flo nearly bottomed out in the skills park (check those stanchions):
In the skills park, I got the courage to try a number of tricks on the new bike, including suicide no handers, no footers, and X-ups; on the big stepdown, I got to send it:
Griffy sends it legoman moto style:
Extend your arms and legs, scoot back, twist your arms to full click at the elbow:
Pavel was up with the Go Pro and, with lightening fast speed, put together these two vids of Fahzure and Tys:
Thanks for a great fall warmup, Canyons, Tys, Pavel, Flo. So far, the transition to SX has been seamless, with one exception. All of my other bikes are black or blackish. I'm considering some repaints this winter, perhaps in dark metallic:
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