More About My Stupid Cheap Mountain BIke

Yeah, I'm going to go on a bit about this one because it's been so much fun for me lately. There are very few things that I don't like about this bike. One is the graphics. Way too much stuff going on with arrows and chevrons and big bright colored letters everywhere. The other is that it's heavy.

Heavy isn't the worst thing in the world. The law of bike parts is "Light, strong, cheap - pick two." The worst thing is when you don't get two. Stuff that's expensive and breaks or is heavy and feeble. The guys who shopped the stuff for this bike did a good job: It's all cheap and it all works. I'm suspecting the frame is the lightest thing on here, relatively speaking.

Having the opportunity I've upgraded a few things for both weight and function. First the big one: The fork.

The Suntour XCM is a better fork than you usually find at entry-level. But not that good. Off it came and on went a Rockshox 30 Gold TK Solo Air. Which is way too long a name for any single component. This did three things. It cut just over two pounds off the weight of the bike. More importantly it took it right off the front greatly improving the balance. Even more significant, this is a much better fork. Better traction, smoother ride. On my first ride it took me ten miles to realize that this thing was completely hooked up and wasn't going to break loose unless I worked hard at it. There are lighter forks and some are a bit smoother but this thing is dialed right into the top of the price/goodness ratio. You'd have to spend a lot more to get even a little better.  Eventually I'll be re-doing the bars and getting a lock out button on there.

I installed this with a Cane Creek Ten Headset. One of the best pages on the internet is The Cane Creek Headset Finder. I looked up my bike and the spec of the the steerer tube and it told me what to get. Install went smooth and perfect and the headset itself is smooth and perfect. An extremely gruntling product. The Ten Series headset isn't as fancy or light as the 40 or 110, but it is inexpensive and this is an inexpensive bike.

The other big upgrade was the crankset. The old one wasn't broke, but it was indeed heavy and not pretty and I found someone selling a Shimano SLX set for a very good price. On it went.

Looks good on there, don't it. Saves just about a pound. There is a slight issue, the front derailleur doesn't quite have enough adjustment range to completely clear the small ring so there's a little rub I can hear on the stand. My last bike didn't even have a small ring. So this is completely a non-issue. Whenever something breaks I'll upgrade on the der.

So here she is. The front brake hose has been edited since this pic.  Don't you wish my prose has.

Keep riding and having fun out there. Back with more later.