[dhr-racer]

i must be suuuuper lucky as since 04 i really havent had one issue with any parts. ive had 3 manitou forks that i ran the piss out of (slider/travis triple 203 intrinsic/travis single 180 tpc) and am now on a boxxer team that im going to try this year. my only issue is the first travis was an 06 with the black stantions and a swear to go a feather rubbing them with i coat of Vaseline covering the stantion would still rub that f-in coating off.

dangerboy 2 finger levers i also must say are the bomb!

my fsa gap cranks came loose everyride for the first 3-4 weeks. there fine now

other then that i rally havent had any issues for years... things i learned before 04....

Mr. Control/Axiom chain guides suck and bend with any chain tension, deore hubs suck balls, sun BF mammoths and 2.6" stouts dont go well together, raleigh dh bikes, even when they actually are dh worthy (the smokin' dh), still suck. kenda kolossals are more worthless then the marzocchi tires, seeing one of the lady intense racers at a canada cup race behind the ski hut take off her armor to reveal nothing on underneath but a smokin hot bod rules........her realizing you were taking a shortcut to the pit and saw her....awkward

 

[bullcrew]

Pop corn: fatening and the little shell caps get stuck in your gums

Buffets food police: all the fat little kids sticking there little grubby fingers in there and taking the toppings off the desets, basically my cinnamon roll is just a biscut now! No icing!!!!!

Salsa spicy hot: BURNS worse coming out then it did going in and then ya have to wipe! Damn is there no sympathy!

Beer commercials: The only time I get girls that look like that dont look the same in the morning!
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!

Arbys sauce: Too much will give you really bad diahrea!

 

[dropmachine]

Crank Bros 5050's:

Stans Flow rims with thier rimstrips, USED AS A LIGHT ALL MOUNTAIN SETUP. OTherwise they rock.

Kendas, except fresh small block 8s.

THESE STEMS.

Any pedal that costs more then 150 bucks.

KRANKED 6 or 7 or whatever. ****. Utter ****. So are 90% of the other movies out there too.

DT 6.1 rims.

Your face.

 

[dropmachine]

Forgot to tack on Avy forks. Shocks are awesome.

 

[dhr-racer]

THESE STEMS.

i would kick my child if he came home with that....

 

[jamesdc]

avid brakes
all kenda tires except k-rad
sram chains
I-Beam seats
marzocchi roco's
marzocchi 08+
manitou forks
most azonic parts
e13 chainguides
chris king headsets
enduro fork seals

 

[fred.r]

I forgot to mention and totally agree with everything said about King headsets.

 

[dhrace507]

Here are some products I've used that I haven't been too happy about. Just skip this if you don't want to read too much.

Mid 90's Specialized Evil Twin DH tires on an old Diamondback hardtail. Way too hard of a compound. I slid out on the concrete riding to middle school and was bleeding through my jeans the whole day.

Late 90's Cannondale CAAD 4 hardtails. Broke 3 in about 6 months, but I trying to dirt jump with them.

Late 90's Some sort of gold colored boomerang chainguide. It had two guides top and bottom. Terrible in just about every way.

Late 90's White Brothers DC 110. Bad seals, bad upper tubes and poor turning radius. It looked cool when new though.

Late 90's and early 2000 Cheeta dual slalom bikes. They were all flexy and twitchy. And they almost all broke.

2000 Marzocchi Shiver. Just kidding, it wasn't that bad.

2002 Nokian Tires. Some were good on grass, but there better not be any rocks in the grass.

2002 Manitou Black. Holy flex. I wore a hole in one side of the lowers from the wheel flexing to the side on impacts.

2002-2004 Troy Lee gloves. Most of them fell apart on me.

Square tubed DHR's. Not nearly as good as the new one, which is awesome, and not as good as the bike I rode for the 03 season. The square tubed ones were too steep, too tall and relatively heavy.

Sunline headset bearings. I don't think they are being produced anymore. Cool idea, but get your tolerances right.

Chris King headsets for dirt jumping. Not nearly enough angle on the bearing/race interfaces for the harsh impacts. Mine have usually come loose in these situations. Tough as nails I think, but others are better.

Romic Shocks. Most of mine blew up way before they were supposed to.


The following are not regular bike products, but still products most of us have used or might use in the future:

Mammoth Mountain bike park's coffin jumps. Those things suck. Poor, poor design. Helen Keller could have done a better job.

USA Cycling's downhill athlete assistance at world championships. Get your **** together. Terrible. If anyone here goes for juniors, elite or masters, do everything yourself. You might be much better off.

BlueWolf events. Just quit.

Crested Butte. You have so much potential and such a poor downhill event.

Some notable GREAT, GREAT products I've used:
2007 Turner Slalom/4X frame. Great geometry, super strong.
2009 Fox 40 Damping. Keeps the fork high in the travel and the bike level.
Burgtec 'Penthouse Flats' pedals. You've got to try them for yourself.
Truvativ Stylo Cranks. I've used a lot of them and they have never let me down for DH, dirt jumping or whatever.

 

[William42]

I forgot to mention and totally agree with everything said about King headsets.
And I wrote it in my first response, but deleted it before posting because I felt horrible posting it. So here it goes; Turner makes great bikes and most people know it already, and I think they can handle the constructive criticism.

Brutal. My canfield's chainstay side yolk connecting the CS/SS is too close to the chain, making for incredibly noisy chainslap that is also unfixable. Too close to put something in between to quiet it.

 

[fred.r]

Brutal. My canfield's chainstay side yolk connecting the CS/SS is too close to the chain, making for incredibly noisy chainslap that is also unfixable. Too close to put something in between to quiet it.

Haha, I still feel bad posting it. I love my Turner, and they've been nothing but great to me CS wise. The hardware issue is the only drawback to the frame to date. Brand loyalty is a funny thing.

 

[Eren]

How the hell can you guys not get an LG1 setup right? This is hilarious.

because most of ridemonkey dont know the difference between american and metric sized allen wrenches

 

[Ian Collins]

gravity light FSA cranks....smoked 2 pairs without crashing or even clipping them on something...no jumps drops etc....just applied too much force muscling my bike through a rock garden....that is WEAK

 

[Ian Collins]

i would kick my child if he came home with that....

i second that

 

[Steve M]

721s - yes they're light, no they don't like rocks. I have killed em in a single day.

Mag30s - for such a heavy mofo rim, it should last more than a couple of months. Completely destroyed.

SIC something stem... seriously it's a stem, it creaked like a bitch because of the reducer shims and it didn't clamp the steerer tight enough.

Juicies of all kinds... easy to overheat, overly soft lever feel, and no matter how much I bled them they never seemed to feel any better.

Gamut chainguides... broke the first bashy in 2 days, the second one in another 2 days, the third one about 3 weeks later (but this time I haven't been bothered to replace it so I've still got it 2 months later), the guide roller allen key is imperial where everything else is metric, the locknut for the guide roller fell off (ok not necessarily a product fault but I never touched it from factory, it happened to be in the right spot out of the box), the 8mm head bolt for the upper guide is PLASTIC, the smaller metal bolt below that fell out (again, never touched it). In its favour, it's light, super easy to set up, and hasn't actually made the critical error of dropping the chain.

Rockshox singlecrown forks, particularly those with poploc crap - I have never seen so many failures of anything except Manitou. I work on these regularly and they are cheaply made, prone to almost inexplicable failure, and worst of all, the failures aren't a single recurring issue but a broad range of problems that seem to be more or less random.

Manitou Swinger rear shocks... I don't think I need to go into any detail, but sticky, wack damping, and prone to blowing up should summarise fairly nicely.

Manitou Shermans - biggest pain in the arse to work on, and a huge combination of metric and imperial (eg 8mm allen key in the bottom of the damper shaft, 7/16ths hex head on the spring side footbolt, mixture of metric and imperial threads among other things). The Crapid Travel thing is truly ****house, but in spite of all that, if you're willing to mess around with them enough you can get them to be a very nice fork to ride.

Truvativ cranks/BBs. I'm pretty sure they're made out of refrigerated butter.

 

[JewBagel]

hayes brakes, much easier pad change compared with avid (until now), bleeding them was a bitch though, you needed at least three or four hands to do it.

Maguras too, terrible bleeding design. Rotor adaptors didn't seem to line up right causing the pads to ride too far inboard wearing down the little supports on the rotors.

old VPP. Always creaked and wore out bearings fast, also required quite a high air pressure on bikes like the blur 4x. That said, the blur 4x is an awesome bike. I really hope SC updates that one next.

canfield's upper pulley, it creaks like hell and the bolt attaching it to the frame needs to be about twice the size as mine has already bent after maybe 12 hours of pedaling. I love the bike though, it's just the damn pulley.

manitou forks

cannondale, how many bad ideas and bankruptcies do they have to go through until they don't come back. I'm still waiting for that day.

WTB rear hubs, AC did not have a good design, why did wtb license it? at least two or three times while riding I'll come out of a corner and mash on the pedals just to have the free hub body skip a half rotation or so before engaging. Maybe that's why they guy sold it to me for 5$.

dt 6.1's

truvativ howitzer and how their external bb's are not compatible with shimano, RF, hope, king, etc...

Kona

kmc x9sl, skips too much, really not worth the extra $$

kenda tires, almost all of the ones I've owned on any of my bikes have had the steel bead separate from the tire, even when they were only a few days old <--especially the K-rads.

 

[dropmachine]

I love that people bag on the 721. its a light race rim, and they complain that it dies "in a day."

If it dies in a day 1)learn to ride like something other then a brakeless truck and b) don't choose lightweight race rims.

dur...

 

[Bicyclist]

I love that people bag on the 721. its a light race rim, and they complain that it dies "in a day."

If it dies in a day 1)learn to ride like something other then a brakeless truck and b) don't choose lightweight race rims.

dur...

Yeah, I've never owned a 721 but I'm surprised by the amount of dislike for them here since people always recommend them here.

 

[toodles]

I love that people bag on the 721. its a light race rim, and they complain that it dies "in a day."

If it dies in a day 1)learn to ride like something other then a brakeless truck and b) don't choose lightweight race rims.

dur...

I see your point, but there are now rims that are as light, have the same width and last much, much longer.

The comment about the DHR hardware I agree with. I didn't know there was a replacement available for the T40 hardware... will have to check into that.

 

[Steve M]

I love that people bag on the 721. its a light race rim, and they complain that it dies "in a day."

If it dies in a day 1)learn to ride like something other then a brakeless truck and b) don't choose lightweight race rims.

dur...

Strangely, the Alex Supras are the same width, about the same weight, half the price, and I didn't even put a dent in mine in 6 months. I think it's a legitimate whinge given how highly reputed 721s are. My riding style isn't about to change significantly (I'm not Sam Hill but I'm not a complete hack either), of course I could hit the rocks slower but that'd defeat the point of trying to go fast. I run 823s now and they're way harder to dent, despite having heard them rim out numerous times.

After your recommendations 1 and b, I would like to recommend number III: keep tyre pressures up there if you ride hard.

 

[nenjarickard]

888 RCV, horrible fork, spiky and squishy.

Bad product reviews wich 75% of the times is failure from the rider/mechanic.

 

[djamgils]

I hate Enduro Max bearings. They just dont last longer then a month. The grease goes out in a day and the dirt comes in because of a slot on the inner ring so they can be filled up completely with balls.

Avid Code's, they need bleeding every week. The pressure point keeps changing leaving you with no brakes sometimes. the pads wear under a angle, this could have been prevented with some simple design changes.

VPP sucks. almost all the multi link bikes have wack leverage ratios. the socom is progressive-degressive and then extremely progressive again. I would much rather have a bike with a smooth leverage curve.

 

[RMboy]

I have to say RaceFace.. I have had there stems and cranks and BBs and seat posts, all have broken or worn out in months. I have claimed warranty on the broken ones, as i hardly ride hard and i was told to F*** OFF... So thanks RaceFace

OH and i hate your S**T GAY flames u put on all your products... ITS NOT PIMP MY RIDE, SO DONT DO IT!!! AND you copied the LG1 and then went and put FLAMES ON IT.... WHO is your DESIGNER i want to speak to him!!!!

 

[Viv92]

Anyone else have problems getting the clamping bits on ODI grips to fit onto the rubber grips? I always have to file them down. The grips are the best otherwise though, so I still run them.

 

[ROTFLMAO]

Continental Digga 2.5 UST tires. They don't corner well or brake well at all in any sort of soil conditions. Nicely made but they just don't grip.

 

[norbar]

DT Swiss 6.1 - 1 week of riding on a aline like trail and I'm a very light rider and they were destroyed.
Truvativ BB's - Any wet conditions and you will kill them
Sunline Barends - Supposedly they work with carbon bars. The truth is they rip holes in them and fall off 3times/day
Sunline Grips - Very easy to tear
DNM rear shocks - Overheating to the point of having a hardtail out of my fully.
Non tuned pre 09 DHX airs - They'd be harder to bottom out even if they were build 100% of jelly.
Ridemonkey - I'm loosing to much time with you guys

 

[contactjt]

IronHorse Sunday - Great handling bike BUT - likes using it's travle a but too much, very poor shock mounting hardware (even the latest one), very poor cable routing, not the best quality over all.

Chris King Headsets - fundamentally flawed design, rubber has no place in a headsets interface with the steerer tube - shame on those big pro teams fooling the fools into running them

Race Face crank interface - easy to destroy the splines

TLD D2 - Looks great, but for the ridiculous extra expense it is no safer than your average DH lid, and is not as safe as the Remedy

SRAM shifters - too delicate, I have had 3 fail (internally-not crash)in 4 years on different bikes

SRAM derailleurs - work well, but not a tough as Shimano, SRAM also wear too easily and get sloppy at the main pivot

Mavic 721s - went through 2 sets in 6mths, but I'm a ragged bast$%d!

Crank Brothers Cleats - even the new ones wear way too fast and cost way too much.

Shimano DX flats - Pins are a complete joke, tiny and get totally mashed on impact making it impossible to replace them.

ALL brake pads - they're just too god dam expensive, especially as they are so suseptable to contamination - leaves you holding on to a crap set for too long hoping thy sort them self out!

 

[jackalope]

* Older Boxxers (and probably Zochs) that did not have steel inserts for the axel bolts, making them recockulously easy to strip out. Altho to be fair, I am the ultimate ham fisted wrencher...Thankfully, it seems that most forks now have a decent "quick release" style axel system.

* Along the same lines as above, the first generation Fox 36 lowers...They tend to crack around the axel bolts (and not just mine). Again, I may be guilty of cranking down a little too much, but I really have tried to be gentle and it still cracked. Problem is that I love the fork so much, I will probably end up giving Fox the $200 or whatever it is for the new lowers.

* Cranksets without steel inserts. Yes, I've had properly tightened pedals (at least they were right before the ride) get pulled out and destroy the crank arm.

* And my personal fave: Frame manufactures should list the weights of their frames (all sizes & shock variations - assume 175 lb rider for spring rate) and list geo's at the prescribed sag point. Static geo numbers really don't tell the whole story for a DH bike.


Overall tho, I really have had great experiences with most mtb products.

 

[IH8Rice]

dislikes:
-you
-building up a DH bike since nothing ever seems to fit together right.
-hayes semi-metallic pads-they wear stupid fast and dont stop fo sht
-race face bb's. last about a season before they feel like a grinder when spinning them
-taper lock bb's
-all trigger shifters..ill never switch away from grip shift
-all mountain bikes since theyre all overpriced......its a bicycle for christ's sake
-you
-THE helmets...they look great but their XL is like a kids small. its like half the size of my TLD XL/XXL

 

[boogenman]

How the hell can you guys not get an LG1 setup right? This is hilarious.

I second that!

I have been using and setting up LG1 guides since 2004 and only jammed a chain 1 time. Those guides are the poop. If you can't set one up right I hope you also use full service gas stations.

 

[Kntr]

Shimano clipless pedals with the cages around them - do the nuts holding the outer part of the cage on always fall off? I had 2 sets do that so the cage ended up just flapping around. go crankbros!

There is a fix for them. Ive had my LBS do mine. They see it all the time and have all the parts to do it... $10 to fix.

 

[boogenman]

Stuff that sucks.

Fox RP23- I have the HV air sleeve and it still sucks balls. Propedal on and it takes small and large bumps like poo and the rebound slows way down. Propedal off and it blows through mid-stroke travel on small bumps. Maybe sending it to push will help.

Fox Float 32 RLC- I only get 4" of travel because I need the HV air piston due to my 200lb weight

Kenda Tires- no need to explain.
Kenda K-rad tires- like oil and water on skate park ramps.

Hayes Brakes- dead feel in the lever, poor power and modulation.

Hayes El Camino Brakes-

Haro 357 DH bike - felt heavy, to long to manual

Romic rear shocks- Feel like $1,000,000 when they are not blown, 90% of the time they are blown

 

[BillT]

DT-Swiss 6.1 rims - 4 days at Mammoth destroyed my both my front and rear 6.1 rims

Avid Codes - Stopping power is fine and so is lever feel; however, the rear will not stop making a dieing goose sound. I'm trying new pads this week to see if that will help.

 

[MDJ]

Gamut Chaiguides - sorry, I'm not on the Gamut love train.

Fox 36 - The lowers will dent if you look at them wrong.

Park Tools - someone mentioned the chain tool and it got me thinking. I haven't bought a Park tool in years because I hated most that I did buy.

 

[SirChomps-a-Lot]

Avid Codes - Stopping power is fine and so is lever feel; however, the rear will not stop making a dieing goose sound. I'm trying new pads this week to see if that will help.

I'm so tired of reading reviews that bag out a particular brake because it squeals. Any brake will squeal if it is contaminated.

 

[jerseydirt]

I think organic pads will not make as much of a squeaking noise. But you will get modulation because they aren't supposed to stop on a dime like the regular pads.

 

[Sghost]

Avid Codes - Stopping power is fine and so is lever feel; however, the rear will not stop making a dieing goose sound. I'm trying new pads this week to see if that will help.

Pump your pistons out and see if one of them is sticking a little bit. Do it a few times and look closely.

 

[Prettym1k3]

Hayes brakes. Worst brakes ever.
Nite Hawk lights. Horrible beam pattern.
Giro helmets. More of a preference thing, but I've never worn a Giro that fit me properly.
Shimano chains. They go snap, snap, snap.
Manitou Forks. Had three Shermann's. Two had the travel-reducer get stuck in the down/locked-out position. One had such bad stiction problems that I sold it almost right after I got it.

That's all I can think of for now.

 

[Jm_]

I'm so tired of reading reviews that bag out a particular brake because it squeals. Any brake will squeal if it is contaminated.

Yeah, I don't think you get what the OP was talking about. He's talking about extreme vibration, not just a bit of "squeal". I'm not sure if you've ever experienced this type of vibration from a brake, but it's completely different than "squeal". It makes the entire bike vibrate so bad that you lose control and simply can't ride more than a few mph because the vibration becomes so bad.

I had this with my codes, eventually I solved it by switching the rotor direction, but it's a crazy problem that I've never had with any other brake, it also took a LONG time for it to "go away", it was around long after the pads "bedded in".

The problem is that the design of the brake (and pads) allows a resonance frequency to be set up and propagate. All sorts of stuff then comes together like your frame/fork, hub, rotor, etc to allow the vibration to propagate. Sometimes switching one of the "components" in the system fixes it, sometimes it does not. Anyone that claims to know a "sure fix" on this is either not aware of the real problem or just making stuff up.

 

[Jm_]

Other bad: Romic shocks (broke 3x), Shimano Saint (old style) derailer. What's the point if it sticks out like 2" from the frame? The spring is also massively strong, so strong that it screws up my thumb.


Good: Shimano chains. They used to suck, I used to buy Sachs/Sram, then they updated the design and ever since they've been crazy strong and I haven't broken a chain. I broke plenty of old ones though.

 

[chic06]

Goods: Kenda Excavator tires (If sam hill used these he would never wreck again)
Domain adjustments have good range, light, cheap
Everything SRAM

Bads: Minion tires a bunch of knobs fell off, but everyone else likes em so go figure
Truvativ cranks
Iron Horse Paint (the bikes ride good though)
DT rims always get destroyed