Truth. I just put my next sl's on my bike a few moments ago. Nothing w/ a 2mm hex belongs on a pair of cranks.
The worst good component you've purchased
- Thread starter trib
- Start date
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...
1. Any WTB tire.
2. EnduroMaxx bearings.
The grease they (used to) put in those things did about as good a job as rancid sour cream...
2. EnduroMaxx bearings.
The grease they (used to) put in those things did about as good a job as rancid sour cream...
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.
Last edited:
Just wait, eventually it'll contain everything.
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.
Agree 100%. I completely forgot about those nasty little buggers and the few bucks I wasted on them. What a joke.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
+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.
as did i. had me thinking i was doing some preventative maintenance.
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.
ah, yes. i forgot about the terrible CC Angleset that came with my M9. tried two different versions and both had terrible galling in the gimbals. terrible product.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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).
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.
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
5th Element shocks (for obvious reasons, they got great reviews at the time though)
Anything Ellsworth
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.
Last edited:
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!
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!
Last edited:
^^^^ 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
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.
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.
Stuff that is ridiculously hard to set up or requires you to maintain it at some unrealistic interval is also junk.
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
