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The worst good component you've purchased

manhattanprjkt83

Rusty Trombone
Jul 10, 2003
9,644
1,214
Nilbog
This thread has some obvious good garbage stories in it, there was much of it out there back in the day. But it also has me thinking many of you don't know how to set up your stuff...
 

ritche

Monkey
Dec 3, 2011
311
19
Plus 1 on the Enduro Bearings!, > the shock eyelet needle bearings ! - at one time the needle/pins fell from the casing, scattered on the floor, looking and finding all the 22-24 pcs? and you have to be patient to put back all together using grease. Tolerance issues! there is slop/play no matter how you tighten the shock bolt, waste of money.
 
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Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,232
20,016
Sleazattle
Cross post from the light thread. Anything NiteRider ever made. Over priced garbage. Old school HID system would drop out randomly on the trail. MiNewts would do the same. Buddy of mine got their top of the line LED system a few years back and had to warranty it twice in the first six months.
 

Kanye West

220# bag of hacktastic
Aug 31, 2006
3,740
470
Plus 1 on the Enduro Bearings!, > the shock eyelet needle bearings ! - at one time the needle/pins fell from the casing, scattered on the floor, looking and finding all the 22-24 pcs? and you have to be patient to put back all together using grease. Tolerance issues! there is slop/play no matter how you tighten the shock bolt, waste of money.
Agree 100%. I completely forgot about those nasty little buggers and the few bucks I wasted on them. What a joke.
 

Bikael Molton

goofy for life
Jun 9, 2003
4,010
1,146
El Lay
Lol avid, Hayes and manitou. I had some nightmare with Avids that I've blocked from memory.. Pre-Juicy, I think? Replaced some old Hayes with first gen Saints before they could get bad. Didn't need to bleed those Saints for 5 years.

My prime pain points were crank brothers first Mallets and their first multitool. If you hate Park (I don't), you need to try Crank Bros to see how much worse it could be.

Also, yes WTB tires, but I didn't know any better then. I also didn't know how bad that 150mm control tech that I was on in 1995 was messing me about either...

Never had issues with the old 25.4 Thomson stems, but I wasn't using them for DH cuz why would you. I don't really crash on XC rides...
My King hub from '05 has never needed an adjustment or new bearings. Bought a full set of bearings for the rear and front Hadleys on by DH bike after 5 years of use, only to discover the stockers were still fine, and still are, 2 years later.
Kinda mad that I may have to retire the 135 King if all '16 frames are Boost(?). Got a 10 year old King headset on the trail bike which I know is unrideable due to theoretical RIdemonkey design flaws, though it still turns fine on the original bearing, stays tight and hasn't ovalized the frame.

Side note: I find quick-engagement hubs are more helpful for bitch-cranking through overly-rocky east coast XC spots, than on the DH bike.

I also still ride 2009 FSA Gravity Light cranks (the notorious ones) which still haven't bent, in spite of the pedal-strike-happy TR450 they're on. One pedal is seized on though so I can't throw any more cash in the toilet on ano'd pedals, which I'm counting as a plus.
 

4130biker

PM me about Tantrum Cycles!
May 24, 2007
3,883
448
I don't usually have the highest end bling parts, but here are some:

Love the how the tires ride, but specialized control casings always die way before the tread (butcher, purgatory, etc) is gone for me.

Can't believe this hasn't come up: Joplin. Squishy POS that I just warrantied then sold.

Srams shifter that was supposed to work with shimano (rocket, or attack or some shit). Tried to build an 8spd drivetrain for my DH bike with one, and grenaded it on the first shift before a big ride.

ISIS bottom brackets: it seems like mine went bad every week, and makes press fit seem like a great advance, even though it could arguably be the opposite.
 

Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
18,853
9,557
AK
My particular favourite was a Magura HS33. The old chameleon didn't have disk mounts and I assumed a bright yellow german hydraulic rim brake would be the next best thing. Unfortunately, a greasy rim is never going to brake well, leading to locked up rear wheels in the wet and only marginally better performance in the dry. Of course I couldn't admit that at the time, only now can I admit how woeful the yellow beast was. I suppose it worked better than any of the front forks I had at the time.

So, let it out, which parts did you buy and suffer through? This is a safe place, no one will judge you for thinking a 100mm flex stem was a suitable purchase.
HS33s worked good for me. The trick was to use a brake booster, because without, the hydraulic pistons would simply bow out your seatstays instead of applying braking force to the rims. They were impressive in how well they could do this, but with the booster, they had decent power and consistency for the day. They even "floated" back and forth, allowing a slightly out of true rim to be ridden, rather than jam up like V brakes or have to be run super loose to gain more clearance.
 

trib

not worthy of a Rux.
Jun 22, 2009
1,456
388
I used a booster, there was probably a combo of things which didn't help me.

X-Lite phatso rim: gave the tyre a super square profile, so any lean and the bike was already skidding.

WTB tyres: admittedly didn't clog too bad with mud, but didn't grip it either, adding to the above issue.

welsh mud and rain: constantly greasy rims meant that I'd be pulling handfuls of brake to try get any stopping power.
 

Bikael Molton

goofy for life
Jun 9, 2003
4,010
1,146
El Lay
X-Lite phatso rim: gave the tyre a super square profile, so any lean and the bike was already skidding.
Those are back again! Not sure if the more sane tire cos will actually design a tire that works for them this time around...

It IS more "drifty" to corner on pure sidewall though.
 

trib

not worthy of a Rux.
Jun 22, 2009
1,456
388
a 2" rim with a 2.1" tyre was perhaps poor thinking, my Chameleon could fit a 2.3 as long as the wheel was perfectly true. Which it never was
 

Muddy

ancient crusty bog dude
Jul 7, 2013
2,032
907
Free Soda Refills at Fuddruckers
Plus 1 on the Enduro Bearings!, > the shock eyelet needle bearings ! - at one time the needle/pins fell from the casing, scattered on the floor, looking and finding all the 22-24 pcs? and you have to be patient to put back all together using grease. Tolerance issues! there is slop/play no matter how you tighten the shock bolt, waste of money.
Agree 100%. I completely forgot about those nasty little buggers and the few bucks I wasted on them. What a joke.
+1 on the needle bearing being very small, but there's a cleaner option to the janky bolt in the kit. A Shoulder Bolt/Stripper Bolt slides right up against the inner race and top hat bushings. No joke.
 

Sandwich

Pig my fish!
Staff member
May 23, 2002
21,031
5,921
borcester rhymes
I hated my angleset at first, but then I replaced a component and noticed that they had made a running change to it, and I no longer had issues.
 

landcruiser

Monkey
May 9, 2002
186
40
San Jose, CA
More my fault than the product, but...

Back when Speed Springs were considered an upgrade for forks, I went out an got some for my Quadra 21R. My 14/15 year old mind and it's understanding of suspension couldn't figure out why they felt like such shit. Springs were supposed to be better than MCU's right? Thankfully I earned enough money later that summer to buy a Bomber instead and the undamped coil-sprung 21R was very short lived.

You can see the MountainSpeed sticker on downtube proclaiming my ignorance.

Surprisingly no regrets about the Answer Body Shock though.


 

Kanye West

220# bag of hacktastic
Aug 31, 2006
3,740
470
I forgot a few on here:

BOS cartridge for 1st-gen 888's. I've never seen such poorly thought-out assembly in my life. Performance of the cartridge was actually fairly nice once it was in. But building it up was....unreasonable, to say the least.

Elka shocks - nice feel, but having the adjuster literally pop off and spray oil everywhere sort of dampens (durr hur hurrr) my stoke on this one. Cool shocks besides that, and the lack of support in the US.

Cane Creek shocks - Where does one even start with this hype trainwreck? Bent shafts, spiking behavior with no progression adjustment, major seal problems across all lines of shocks. All the damn adjustment in the world supposedly, but no way to set up the shock to be reasonably compliant while still maintaining composure in g-outs and bigger hits. Huge disappointment for the amount of hype and cost associated with it. "Amazing customer service" is nice when you need it, which is all the time, but doesn't come close to making up for a shit product.
 

Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
18,853
9,557
AK
Thought about this one for a while. I've had lots of products fail or turn out bad, but in many of those cases I couldn't really fault the product, as it's crappiness was usually fairly obvious or I would just beat the heck out of it beyond what it was intended for.

One that really sticks out though is the Curnut shock. Back in the day, Avalanche made a massive DHS shock for a few select bikes, like the Cortina DH8 and some BMW models. The Curnut seemed the same, with a huge shock body and huge travel, you know, marketed to be sooo plush because it was super-low leverage. It was one of the most expensive shocks at that time. I saved up for this to replace the relatively crappy Vanilla RL that came on the bike, hell, I probably used some student loan money. This was the biggest POS I'd had in a long time. On any kind of choppy or rough stuff, it would pack like crazy and turn into a jackhammer. There was a noticeable rebound clunk, which was evident static and on the trails. No amount of tuning made any noticeable difference. I send it back and asked them to check the shock, as the clunk was pretty bad. They said they dynoed it and it was good, so I got it back. Tried it out. Nope, still clunked like crazy and felt like a jackhammer. Sent it back again. They said they did a complete rebuild and dyno and it was perfect. Rode it, nope, still felt like crap. It was such a POS compared to how much it cost and what you got for that cost. Replaced it with a DHX a little while later and at least had something somewhat bearable for the rest of the days (while I continued to replace bent shock bolts and ovalized scissor leakages, but that's another story).
 

Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
18,853
9,557
AK
What's a scissor leakage?

Is that what children get when they run through the house with them?
It's something you design so you can use a 5" long skinny bolt to take the load of the shock and give your linkage bike the same rate as a single-pivot, to ensure it doesn't benefit the suspension in any way. The extra-bending feature is complimentary.
 

trib

not worthy of a Rux.
Jun 22, 2009
1,456
388
I was expecting a few of these products to be bought up,some are a surprise. There's two things I was really expecting to bought up but have managed to escape critique.

5th Element shocks (for obvious reasons, they got great reviews at the time though)
Anything Ellsworth
 

4130biker

PM me about Tantrum Cycles!
May 24, 2007
3,883
448
Old chain guides (MRP) Seems like they all took modification and usually weren't very reliable.
 

toodles

ridiculously corgi proportioned
Aug 24, 2004
5,479
4,720
Australia
Mojo Boxxer Cart. Who the fsck though tying rebound and compression adjusters together was a smart idea? Super retarded damper. Decent comp damping had the fork rebounding at a rate you could time with a sundial.
 

kickstand

Turbo Monkey
Sep 18, 2009
3,441
392
Fenton, MI
Same here. Had my rear one warrantied for a Saint and that sucks too. More so than the Zee.
Add my shimano SLX brakes to the list, went for a ride with the kids today and my SLX's are behaving exactly like my Zee's, inconsistent bite point, sometimes where I have them adjusted to, sometimes at the bar, sometimes as soon as I touch the lever.

For sale, shimano Zee brakeset 1 year old.
For sale, Shimano SLX Brake set, less than 1 season old.

Will trade for Sram Guide RSC.
 
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ridea

Monkey
Oct 30, 2006
354
1
south west of England
Balfa BB7 has to be the worst, the rear triangle had heat shrunk/bonded in wedges which the bolts holding the whole rear end on screwed into, which of course fell out after a few months...

Then there was the first batch of Sunn Radical on which the chainstay-like section which drove the shock linkage wasn't welded properly and snapped after less than a month of owning the bike

The Circa 2006 200mm travel boxxers with the thinnest section lowers which I folded two pairs of, even when they were in one piece/straight, they spiked and the bushings had the worst quality control so they were super sticky.

DT 6.1 rims, barely ever dinged or flat spotted a rim before these and first ride I dinged about 20mm deep massive spot. 3 more followed over the next month till I scrapped the wheel set absolute cheese and not even particularly light

oh and running ultraga/105 mech's pre the mountain bike industry realising downhillers need short cage mech's which I at one point had a pile of about 6 of, not sure if that's really Shimano's fault mind!
 
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ridea

Monkey
Oct 30, 2006
354
1
south west of England
ISIS bottom brackets: it seems like mine went bad every week, and makes press fit seem like a great advance, even though it could arguably be the opposite.
^^^^ This! I forgot how terrible they were, seemed like every month my cranks had about half a metre of play in them and sounded like a bag of gravel in a cement mixer
 

Gary

"S" is for "neo-luddite"
Aug 27, 2002
7,537
5,470
UK
Nightsun lights. $300+ for 2 99c dichroic bulbs, a lamp housing made from titanium meccano and a sealed lead acid battery in a waterbottle. This thing did get me hooked on nightriding though.

GT STS DH... everything about that thing was shit! the trunion shock mount that wound itself out during runs changing geometry as you rode, squeaky plastic pivot bushings, the rockshox super deluxe shock that had no damping once it heated up and then blew if it had to take a big hit on a longer run, the aluminium frame lugs that snapped, shock/linkage hardwear with imperial threads and metric heads. a suspension design that restricted dropping the saddle below XC/Vouilloz/Peat heights. The stupidly wide top tube that combined with the Rockshox DHO elastomer dual crown fork with it's plastic damping cart meant the front wheel couldn't turn more than 45deg. . bizarre aftermarket rear disc mounts you had to bolt on. The worst internal cable routing ever and dedicated cable ferules that snapped. the AC components chain device apparently designed specifically for the bike (never had so many jammed chains). AC BB that lasted about 6 days before play developed... I fucking loved that bike at the time though.

Hope closed system brakes. what fun they were. You had to set them up so you'd be leaving the start hut with brakes that wouldn't lock a wheel if you pulled the lever to your grip as by half way down the mountain the levers had pumped up so much you had to wind the adjusters out while riding.

THE mudguards. just hopelessly weak overpriced junk.

Gloves. bought, ripped and replaced so many pairs of the horrible bunchy feeling restrictive things before finally giving up on them for good.
 

Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
18,853
9,557
AK
This thread has some obvious good garbage stories in it, there was much of it out there back in the day. But it also has me thinking many of you don't know how to set up your stuff...
Stuff that is ridiculously hard to set up or requires you to maintain it at some unrealistic interval is also junk.
 

IH8Rice

I'm Mr. Negative! I Fail!
Aug 2, 2008
24,524
494
Im over here now
Old chain guides (MRP) Seems like they all took modification and usually weren't very reliable.
not only did they require some grinding but the bike mfg's and chain guide companies never talked with each other. youd call the bike mfg to find out what length spindle BB youd need only to find out the chain guide company recommended a different size....and in the end, neither were right. thankfully in my early DH years, i worked at a shop and we had dozens of different size spindles in stock. and if the chain fell off in the middle of a ride, you were screwed.
 

4130biker

PM me about Tantrum Cycles!
May 24, 2007
3,883
448
not only did they require some grinding but the bike mfg's and chain guide companies never talked with each other. youd call the bike mfg to find out what length spindle BB youd need only to find out the chain guide company recommended a different size....and in the end, neither were right. thankfully in my early DH years, i worked at a shop and we had dozens of different size spindles in stock. and if the chain fell off in the middle of a ride, you were screwed.
Hahaha I forgot about the different spindle-length shit show!

man, current chain guides are such a breeze in comparison
 

supercow

Monkey
Feb 18, 2009
969
128
Hope head doctor headset adjuster. Supposed to replace the starnut, but the thing should burn in hell. So much hate for it.