[sgv321]

Hello, Im new here & am hoping to get into Mountain Biking. I just picked up a Motiv Groundpounder yesterday at Costco, & installed a Catseye onboard computer. I like the way the bike looks & hopefully it will be a good staring bike for me to grow out of & into a better one.

I have a few questions:

1. How come when I pedal the Motiv Goundpounder, the circle that my legs travel in is so small. I dont really get to fully extend my legs, & my knees come up quite high. The frame & seat is the right size/height.. any ideas? (as you can tell I dont have the MTB lingo down yet) Can I adjust this? How much would it cost to adjust?

2. When I was testing the Catseye Computer, I was spinning the front wheel & noticed that the left side front brake pad was touching the front wheel all the time & so it does not allow the front wheel to spin freely. I cant tell when I ride the bike but I dont think it is supposed to be like this, is it? How can I fix this? (I didnt get a owner's manual with the bike)

3. I wanted to take off the front wheel, so I released the quick release lever on the front wheel & tried to pull the wheel off. The problem is that the tire on the front wheel is wider than the width of the open brake "caliper". So the tire cant squeeze thru the open caliper, it would if it had a much skinnier tire on it. Am I supposed to deflate the tire? I used to have some Shimano brakes that you could lift a small lever to open the brake caliper more, but the Motiv Groundpounder does not have this feature & also it needs to open A LOT in order to have the tire squeese thru.

 

[Bikerpunk241]

1. Raise the seat a little bit, but you always want a little bend in your knees

2. You'll notice there is a screw on the side of the brake where it mounts, that is to tension it, tighten it, and it should pull the pad away from the rim.

3. Sounds a though you would need to deflate the tire to get it out, make sure that if you pull it out without letting out some pressure that your brake pads stay in place and don't twist, if the pad is rubbing your tire, it'll eventually go all the way through making you need to buy a new tire.

Hope this helps.

 

[Nomad]

It might be a good idea to start making buddies at your local bike shop.

I used to work at shops as summer jobs, and we would get bikes in all the time from places like costco, or wal mart, or other non-bike oriented mega-stores. Most of the time (like 90%), the bikes were barely put together correctly and usually needed a decent bit of work to get the derrailleur's set up correctly, the brakes aligned right, the seat at the right height and lots of other little things that can get annoying over time.

A second good thing that comes from getting in good with a shop, is you start to find riding buddies, or guys just willing to spread their knowledge of things that have gone wrong with them and how to fix it.

Good luck man! Hope you love it...it's an addiction after awhile!

 

[gtbike]

Take your bike to a shop and let them got hrough it. I recommend a full tune up, with a good lubing too. Like it was said by punk, these big box bikes are put together usually by someone who is not trained or in a real hurry to get done. Buy Zinn and the art of mountain bike maint. It will help you to better understand what is goin on with your bike and maybe eventually try some smaller fixes. Good Luck.

 

[NFaust]

About your last question, fitting the tire through the brakes. I looked at your other post, and by looking at the picture you have rim brakes. If you are looking down on top of the brakes, you'll see the cable that pulls your brakes. You'll notice that there is a metal piece, somewhat like a funnel on the end of tghe cable. If you pull the two sides of the brakes together, then you can release this "funnel-like" thing and the brakes will come apart into two sections. I will try and post some pictures of what I am talking about later, but hopefully you get what I am saying. Good Luck!