Build or buy?
Building means you specify all the components. Even $5K bikes often come with pretty lame wheels, crank sets, cassette etc and you will not get to choose tires, seat, shifters, calipers, bars etc. It was a no-brainier to build, and I am happier with this ~$2,500 build up than most (all!) $4K stock bikes. Why the cost difference? I could hunt down discounted parts. E.g the shocks, wheels, and frame are not 2009 models.

If you are returning to mountain biking look in the ~$700 range for an off-the-shelf bike with front shocks and disc brakes, any less and you’ll not enjoy the sport. Getting semi-serious means $2K+ on a full suspension bike. Regulars I see again and again at local  mountain bikes trails are mostly riding $2,000-$3,500 machines with maybe 10-20% spending even more. The sticker shock takes a few weeks to get over. If you do buy off-the-shelf look at the specs to see if any parts are ‘custom’ . Custom generally means it is a non standard size, and replacement/ re-use on another bike will be hard or impossible. Another good reason to build. At the end of the day this sport is more about the rider, but go too cheap and parts will soon break costing you more in the long run.

Tools needed?
Quite lot of tools are needed, probably at least $400 worth. In rough priority order:
. Allen key set (~$10)
. Allen key sockets (~$15)
. Torque wrench (~$50)
. Cable/ Housing cutters (~$20)
. Bottom bracket tools (~$30)
. Cassette whip/ remover (~$20)
. Decent work stand (~$200)
. Headset press ($50->120)
. Crown race setter (I use a $3 tube from a DIY store)
. Star nut setter (~$10)
. Pipe cutter (~$20)
. Chain link splitter (~$10)
. White lithium grease (~$3)
. Several misc DIY tools you should already have

Where to start
Stripping and rebuilding your old bike is a great learning experience; it should you take a day or two. You’ll be annoyed how expensive new cables/ housings are, but will have a slicker bike at the end of it.  I bought an $89 Sette 16″ frame and rebuilt an old bike into one the correct size for my wife, it came in at ~22.5lbs which is amazing for an $89 frame and $300 shocks.

Hunting down the Dream Bike
Boy, this took me many hours online - scouring reviews, price trade-offs, forum postings etc. The most useful resource is the mtbr reviews forum – for each part I looked at the bad reviews, and also got a good idea of what everyone was buying for that component. This way I found some parts that I am really happy with, e.g. Odi Ruffian removable grips and the Thompson Elite seat post.

Search lots of bike sites as prices often differ widely, for each high value part use comparison shopping sites like Froogle – this found me XT cranks at over $100 off when everywhere else wanted MSRP.

Below I will try to discuss the trickier choices made; in general I tried to distinguish between parts I may upgrade and parts I should never need to replace on this bike. E.g. ‘cheap’ mechanical BB7 disc brakes vs the Thompson seat post. In some areas you probably want to check out lower-end parts before splashing out, I put an Manitou R7 fork on my wife’s bike and rode it for a while before justifying $800 Fox forks.

Parts Arrive
This bike comprised of eight or nine boxes of parts from five different suppliers. As I said there can be HUGE price differences between retailers, so the extra shipping costs are more than worth it.

BMC Trailfox 2.0 Frame under wraps
This is a unsold 2007 found for $499, MSRP for a 2009 model is $2,149

If this does not excite you then you are dead.

Avid BB7:My first disc brakes and they rock. No longer am I locking up/ skidding after being airborne + doing endos etc is very controllable. Be sure to use Avid speed dial levers so you can adjust the lever pressure required
Fox Talas 140 RLC: When downhilling it was immediately obvious that these work better than my Manitou R7 MRD and I loved the Manitou. The 100-120-140 adjustability is great, I run 120mm for XC and 140mm for DH/ light FR. 100mm feels plain weird on the BMC frame so stays unused. With hindsight the 150mm Talas model would have been a better choice, but these things were expensive as-is. If buying a Fox fork be aware that adjustable compression is only on the RLC models which adds a lot more to the base price. Add the QR15 option and you are close to $1000 for shocks alone!
Thomson Elite Seatpost: Brilliant! It has machined groves which stop the post slipping and must be about as light as the carbon EC70 post that slipped so often on my old bike

Mavic Crossmax ST:Good wheels are must, try finding these stock on anything less than $5K. These can run tubeless tires but as with hydraulic brakes they seemed an unnecessary complexity I did not want to deal with. Perhaps a future upgrade?

The Build Begins

Rule one: never clamp anything but the seat post, tubing on modern higher-end frames can be crushed otherwise. Install the seat post and mount in your stand.
Rule two: Weigh everything before it goes on the bike. You will want this info when shopping for upgrades.

Pressing in a headset: This BMC came with one pre-pressed but this is the tool you should use – a headset press. Almost all headsets these days are thread-less and press in, instead of screwing in like they used to. This is a much better system as headsets coming loose was too common in the 80s and 90s

Attach the cassette- needs a lot of torque and the special tool is called a cassette remover. This is a 9 speed cassette I had laying around, it will be a PG990 soon.

Attaching brake discs to wheels- use a torque wrench if possible. These are my first disc brakes so BB7 mechanicals were ideal; $46 each for 2009 models is a bargain. Rotor size was copied from a Sepcialized Enduro at 203mmF, 185mmR. With hindsight this is total overkill and they will soon be swapped for 160mm front and rear. Unless you weigh 250lbs and shuttle ski runs I cannot see 160mms overheating.

Pressing the crown race into place. That is a $3 piece of plastic piping which almost everyone uses – no other special tools are required

The other headset parts. This can be confusing for a beginner so make you download the relevant pdf. These are sealed bearings, don’t bother saving a few pennies on the old bearings-in-a-cage variety. Note: I missed the compression ring form this photo

Mouting the wheels getting ready to size the steerer; use something to prop it up. Put the headset parts, stem and spacers (max 30mm) in place.  Measure twice, cut once. Do not cut a steerer too short as the repair will be expensive.

Cutting the steerer- the pipe cutter is just a plumbers tool. Debur using the tool’s deburrer and then smooth off with a metal file

A star nut setter: Star fangled nuts are easy to bash it in with a hammer and I have done that before, but not on an $800 fork. The setter tool is only ~$10 so why not use one?

Depth of start nut varies on who you ask, from 4mm to 20mm. I set this one to 10mm. It should not matter since the star nut is only used to preload the headset bearings, the stem bolts are what holds the bike together.

Leave a gap from the top of the spacer to the stem since you are going to preload the bearings in a minute. The star nut bolt does not need to be very tight, just enough to stop play in the headset. I put the bike on the floor and tighten the steerer nut until steering becomes tight, then back off a little. At this point you should tighten the stem bolts

Disc brakes and Hollowtech cranks are next. Both being new to me it is time for lunch.  There is no point rushing and I want a clear head especially for that expensive crankset

Putting a caliper in place- very simple but you will need a mouting bracket that matches your frame and the rotor size. There are three different standards out there so do some homework on this or expect a trip to the local bike shop to find the correct mounting hardware. Avid brakes come with a cool auto-alignment system  (CPS) that works much like the curved washers from v-brakes. This saves having to face the brake mounts.

Hollowtech cranks:The scariest component. MSRP is $305 but all affordable cranksets semed to have bad reviews. Hollowtech means outboard sealed bearings and very few parts + look bulletproof. The black spacers are for use with a 68mm shell like I had – another plus, this a one-size-fits-all deal

Of course they needed a new tool. A torque wrech cannot be used with this tool so I used the torque wrench on my car’s wheelnuts to verify what 50Nm feels like. You do not want to strip BB threads!

This side requires very little torque and simply preloads the bearings. Tightening the crank on is done with two allen bolts at 90 degrees to the crank – they come with a stack of warnings so I doubt you’ll get it wrong

Derailleur Alignment Tool: I am not sure how accurate the tool is, but all three bikes I used it on had misaligned hangers. Misaligned in different ways so I assume the tool is correct. Use the tool to check Up, Down, Left and Right – lightly bending the hanger until it is within 4mm on any measurement. I have to say that my shifts are pretty smooth and maybe this helped?

The spoils of XTR components. The front mech comes with a helpful guide to set the correct distance from the chainrings. If you are buying XTR you can probably eyeball this measurement.

New SRAM chain. Note the removable link which means the chain can easily be removed in the future. The other tool is a chain link splitter which is only needed to remove links from the chain if it is too large.

Put the chain around both large cogs and allow for two extra links. I have ran with zero links before and had no isues – actually I might do the same on this bike to reduce chainslap on rutted downhills. With a tight chain running the extremes of gear combinations is the only issue, but that is a no-no anyway.

It is looking like a real bike now

Cables: … ugh, not hard but it takes a while. You must use a specific cable cutter or expect frayed cables. Housing and cables are different for both brakes and gears, also these days we run continuous housing from the levers to brakes – use tiny zip ties or special clips to attach the brake housing to the frame. Zip ties are my preference

Intially I am using an old set of bars/ levers but wanted to dump the old grips. Push a WD40 tube as far as you can, spray in oil and twist. These came off totally intact with little bother

I had never used these bars and they were incredibly wide. It was cool to see preset cut-down points. Again a few twists of a plumbers pipe cutter and deburring is all that is required

Removable grips:What an awsome idea for people that love swapping out components. My hands grip really, really well with these too – possibly the best part on the whole bike!

Six hours later it is complete (cables were tuned the next morning). It came in at 27lbs 8oz which for a ~$2,500 5″ travel all mountain bike is not bad at all. It should drop about a pound when replacing the old bars, shifters and oversized brake discs. Those tires are 2.6lbs too, yeah, yeah weight weenie.

The Results?

Time and money very well spent. The brakes in particular are changing my riding style, locking up is now almost a thing of the past, especially when scrubbing off speed after time in the air – you know when a corner is coming up immediately after landing. Having full suspension makes rides so much less fatiguing and landing misjudged takeoffs is much safer.

For a brand that is almost unknown in the US it attracts a lot of attention and questions – everyone so far seems to approve.

$49.95 Premier inc Rental Properties + $34.95 Per State
$109.95 Business including S Corporations

H&R Block Home & Business 2008 promises the same functionality for $67.96 (Google for a discount coupon code). This was enough of a saving to try it, worst case I waste a few hours and buy TurboTax.

Since the IRS have not finalized rules for 2008 a few areas are not yet available including what seemed to be almost all the s-corp filing. Still I entered our W2s, a dummy 1099 and all the details on my rental properties with no issue. Everything was as easy as it was with TurboTax. There are still all the detailed sections to ensure you are aware of what can be deducted without reading 17,000 pages of IRS publications or trying to get a comptent accountant to talk to you. As for problems so far,  non are worth mentioning being just very minor niggles. Before buying I read online that H&R does not even let one print PDFs – well I just saved my 2008 draft with no problem (File -> Save As PDF…).

Here are a few samples screens, please don’t laugh at the repairs on the rental – it has barely an issue for five years and last year seemingly everything broke:

Looks a lot like TurboTax right? Go ahead save the money, you’ll feel amost right at home

As with Turbo Tax this Rental screen  maps straight to the tax form field – ah this is soo simple

There are many photographers on the route who take photos of all interesting cars and bikes to sell them online, the most popular being Killboy and Dragon Slayer Photos. Police on roads like this are normally semi-tolerant, all biker/ fast car roads I know are Policed heavily on weekends but I have never seen a speed trap; they are pretty lenient but if you start passing on blind bends, ride with a ‘hidden’ tag etc then expect some attention from LOEs.

What about the Wagon? It is my wife’s ’07 328iT and our fifth factory-delivered BMW – for good reason too, small BMWs rock! Normally I’d take my car which has a manual-box and grippy summer tires so expected to be disappointed with the auto-box and stock run flat tires. Surprisingly I was impressed with this stock setup, the tires communicate what is happening very, very well – going too hot into a bend results in modest understeer that is incredibly easy to control. Admittedly I had put a little extra air in the tires to stiffen the sidewalls, and of course the grip level is no where near a good summer tire; still I think 95% of the public will be happy with the handling in an emergency situation. Especially after this ride in the new three series when returning to the US in a couple of years it will be is a hard choice between a 335i with OZ rims/ summer tires/ coil-overs + FZ-6 for weekends OR a Honda Civic commuter + Ariel Atom for weekends. This is the Ariel Atom, I’d start with the smaller engine, 0-60 in 2.6 seconds is surely a total rush but I like Terra Firma…

http://dotnetworkaholic.com/feed/

The transition was fairly painless. The DasBlog posts imported to WordPress directly from the RSS feed, but all the comments were lost. This may be a future possibility so I zipped up a working copy of DasBlog. Moving my eight Blogger posts to WordPress was easy with the correct plugin for ‘new’ Blogger (i.e. not the default Blogger plugin). First impressions are that WordPress is very easy to use, has plenty of features and lots of community support.

How many spots can you spot?

• Fast automobiles are my only vice, I shun status symbols and live frugally in a small suburban ranch
• Before hitting 40 I will run a full marathon and break a 6 minute mile
• With luck I will semi-retire into an AI related PhD at about age 45, then teach Computer Science until my gray matter expires. Twice before I have been a gnat’s whisker from applying for a PhD, but working in the USA was more appealing – oh yes, and I like shiny new BMWs too much
• There is only one naturally spotted domestic cat, the Egyptian Mau. My wife owns one and walks him on a leash! She also owns Ocicat which are bred to be spotted
• About ten years ago a system admin Nazi (is there any other kind?) raked me over hot coals for forwarding an amusing ‘Chain letter’ – hence I am not tagging anyone else

http://braincells2pixels.net/subtext/

Technology journalists receive free products to review every day; as long as no implied stings are attached I believe Microsoft is in the clear. Of course should the blogger start snuggling up with anyone for more freebies than he/she would soon loose credibility – the blogosphere excels at sniffing rats.

So, BMW where is my prototype utterly awesome, mold breaking, Porsche pummeling 420hp 2008 M3 to review? [Disclaimer: Ok, ok I do have a deposit on one of those 420hp beasts - a final fast car before kids arrive]

http://www.dotnetworkaholic.com/rss.xml

I did my best to provide redirects for all the old feeds, but some aggregators do not recognize them.

http://www.dotnetworkaholic.com/blogger/

Time saved from the NAS v’s File Server prompted me to this. In 1999 I had my own
home brew TV PC which required enormous amount ‘nursing’. Just ripping a CD took 8
hours in 1999! Then came better capture software like Virtual Dub and home brew scheduling
software, then Snapstream, the PVR250 capture card, the set-top boxes (my 6412 was
too buggy/complex) and finally we have media easily available on the internet – take
video podcasts for example. Each step reduced the time required for the geek hobby
as it progressively became mainstream. Blogging is now mainstream enough that 99.9%
of us should be able to live with a commodity engine. It has to be said that .Text
and the DasBlog have served me well – my flat cap (a Yorkshire thing) is tipped to
all involved.

http://www.dotnetworkaholic.com/blogger/index.html

Time saved from the NAS v’s File Server prompted me to this. In 1999 I had my own home brew TV PC which required enormous amount ‘nursing’. Just ripping a CD took 8 hours in 1999! Then came better capture software like Virtual Dub and home brew scheduling software, then Snapstream, the PVR250 capture card, the set-top boxes (my 6412 was too buggy/complex) and finally we have media easily available on the internet – take video podcasts for example. Each step reduced the time required for the geek hobby as it progressively became mainstream. Blogging is now mainstream enough that 99.9% of us should be able to live with a commodity engine. It has to be said that .Text and the DasBlog have served me well – my flat cap (a Yorkshire thing) is tipped to all involved.

So where is my time being spent, it is obviously not in writing many blog posts. Generating more passive income, that’s what! It is tempting to blog in this area, I almost had a serious rant when several financial bloggers published their networth, only one was over $500K. In the USA is all about perception, and anyone can be a self appointed expert with no experience required… which leads me back to the Right to Hire, Right to Fire post.

The Right to Hire, Right to Fire entry was only posted temporarily but will return. In 2009 I’ll have 20 years IT experience and hope to collate wisdom gained as a set of posts… As mentioned in the (in)famous post, I have been fired from two of my ~fifteen contracts; both where I was fighting very hard to do the right thing and save failing projects. Time has now passed and everyone involved in firing me in 2003 have now been let go for incompetence + the company only kept the two strong developers I recommended!