I wanna check out Chattanooga sometime. Is Raccoon the one that's more natural and tech ?
Yeah, the combative sales approach doesn't fly on RM.
I just bought a 2016 Banshee Spitfire, any suggestions or recommendations?
- Thread starter csermonet
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I'm not sure, I know Raccoon(or at least the trail we were sessioning on Raccoon) is shuttle-able on a trail bike. That's what we were doing. The trail we were riding was 70-80% down, and the other 20-30% was mostly flat with some slight climbing. You could shuttle it on a downhill bike and still have fun, however it's the perfect trail bike shuttle trail. It's about a ten minute descent by car, and anywhere from 15-30 minutes to get down by bike, depending on fitness and tech skill level. It's been a while now so memory is a little rusty, I haven't gone on a proper ride since before I shattered my humerus Oct. '15
I'm going to hell anyway so I'll admit I giggled. I'm sure it was less humerus for you.
@csermonet Dayum dude, was that bike related ?
No it was not. Car accident. I was a passenger in a car that hydroplaned and rolled in the pouring rain, at night, going 45-50mph, and I didn't have a seat belt on. You can however see my fucked up collarbone in the xray too, I broke that riding bikes a few years back and it healed all sorts of fucked up. The collarbone was completely fine in the car crash, it just looks jacked up. Literally the only injury I sustained in the car wreck was the shattered humerus. I didn't have so much as a scratch anywhere else on me.
Damn that's some serious hardware, sorry to hear about the crash.
Also totally agreed on the bike color thing, my last few bikes have been all kinds of stupid colors (not by choice) and all I ever want them to be is black. I think the matte/gloss black combo is the greatest.
Also totally agreed on the bike color thing, my last few bikes have been all kinds of stupid colors (not by choice) and all I ever want them to be is black. I think the matte/gloss black combo is the greatest.
No worries, I'm alive. Thank you though.
I really loved my raw DHR after I polished it. But I always wanted one of the ano black ones too. Now I have one. You can't ever go wrong with black. I am the same way with my gear, I try to find solid black jersey's and shorts, goggles, gloves.
Hey! I spot a Missing Link™ there! Dude, you lost the ability to have unbeatable pedaling performance and the ability to climb like a hardtail, go down like a DH bike by putting that plate and all those skrewz™ there.
Anodized red yeah, it did turn out nice. Actually was anodized black prior to that though, just needed a change somewhere in the 6 years of riding the same frame. Flat bar was for functional reasons (ran the fork quite high to lift the BB up from 13.6 to 13.9 for the riding I was doing, and needed a lower bar to offset the bar height increase).
Pre-kashima (and pre-flatbar) iteration, circa 2010:
Damn good lookin bike. I still think that generation of Iron Horse bikes were some of the best looking bikes ever designed. The lines were just so simple yet elegant. In my opinion, the 6 Point was the best looking of the bunch. It's on my top 5 favorite bikes of all time(favorite aesthetically, purely on looks).
How did you get it anodized? I imagine it's hard to find an anodizer with the capability of something as big as a bicycle frame. Was it expensive? Does it need to be masked off like if it was painted? Or can you ano over the threads and on the bearing seats and all that?
lol I'm still nervous to really push it like i used to, and take a digger on that side. It was a real shitty rehab. And it still hurts if it's in the right position. And when I'm rolling over trying to get comfortable at night, I can feel the screw heads up top pushing against the skin and muscle tissue. Tingles a bit. Not particularly painful, but the kind of feeling that just makes you cringe.
It's not too hard to find places that will anodize large things (we have two shops within an hour drive here), but the prep is important. For a factory finish you need to get the frame blasted which has been the harder part each time we've done it since it's often hard to find someone. Soda blasting works very well, and the other two options are glass bead blasting or walnut blasting. Soda is the gentlest and still leaves a nice textured finish, factory frames are bead blasted which gives a slightly deeper shot-peen effect which is also nice. Stripping alone isn't a good option IMO, and polishing isn't a good choice either since it's very labor intensive but also will scuff much more easily since the surface is flat/even.
The great thing about the peened effect from blasting is that light scratches on the frame will only affect the peaks on the surface so the frame stays looking good for longer. Funnily enough this was true for the original Saint M800 cranks which were anodized after a blasted finish (and would look good for ages), but the later M810+ cranks have a polished finish and end up losing their colour from shoe rub quickly. It's a good real world example of what I mean.
A rough cost is usually $90 for blast and $90 for anodize.
My buddy @toodles wrote up a thread on it after we first got our frames done (back in 2007) which has some good info:
http://www.rotorburn.com/forums/showthread.php?104623-Anodising-aluminium
My post #18 in that thread has more pictures:
http://www.rotorburn.com/forums/showthread.php?104623-Anodising-aluminium&p=1161349&viewfull=1#post1161349
My post #20 in that thread has info about bores etc:
http://www.rotorburn.com/forums/showthread.php?104623-Anodising-aluminium&p=1161716&viewfull=1#post1161716
Few more pics of red one:
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Did you end up having to re-chase the BB/HT/bearing bores after anodize or did they just mask them off for you?
The bores don't change in tolerance anywhere near enough to need to do either of those things in my experience (did the same frame twice) - however it's probably not a bad idea to mask them if you want to be particular. The part that was problematic on those frames was the rear bore of the lower link (an axle slides through but isn't retained in any way) so I'd definitely be masking things like that - frame/linkage bores that aren't bearing seats. In fairness though, this part had a tendency to develop play even on stock frames, and wasn't the best design. In any of these cases where the final fit was metal to metal and static (not dynamic) a thin coat of Loctite 609 or 680 retaining compound on assembly was a permanent solution.
There is no material removed by the anodizing process itself (only a small amount added - I'm guessing you already know this stuff with a machining background), but it's the initial etching process that removes some material. The etching process is done to clean the surface and remove existing anodizing - however you can run either no etch or a much shorter etch process if you're a) concerned about tolerances changing, and b) the part doesn't have existing anodizing to remove.
A full-length etch followed by anodizing generally results in a net *reduction* of material in case anyone is wondering, but it's generally small enough to be negligible unless you've got an inteference fit that is questionable in the first place (which some are - so it doesn't hurt to be careful and take note when disassembling things). The part we had a problem with was actually a static sliding fit with no inteference, so I think those are the ones that need to be masked. Thankfully if they are static interfaces the retaining compound solves the problem.
Yea, I know ano typically only adds a few tenths, but never really put a mic on the bearings and bores to see what the fit was. Curious because I have my 2011 Banshee Legend that I'm thinking about giving a refresh and ano might be nice instead of powder.