# PROJECT: NOT BLACK



## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Decided to remove material. - Aurelius


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

This post might have come off as superior sounding, so I removed it.


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## jimmytang (Nov 13, 2020)

Personally, I think that's a good-looking bike as is but after reading your second post I have a better understanding of what you're doing. I'll be interested to follow your progress and learning more about your son.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Removed


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

jimmytang said:


> Personally, I think that's a good-looking bike as is but after reading your second post I have a better understanding of what you're doing. I'll be interested to follow your progress and learning more about your son.


Thanks Jimmy! I agree, ... even though I don't much care for black components all over the place, when the bike is clean and in the sun, it looks fairly nice even with the black. More on this as the build log develops ...


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## Bikeworks (Sep 10, 2020)

My autistic son loves red!!! If he were into bikes I'd be doing the same thing, trying my best to do what I could to make that bike as red as possible lol. Good luck in your project, hope he really takes to it


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## bizango (Mar 20, 2016)

This sounds like an interesting project! Do you have a plan or an aesthetic in mind? Maybe a vintage look (silver...started seeing that pop up more recently), or an matched anodize scheme? Are you thinking you will target most of the components? Maybe I just need to be patient and follow the progress ! This could get expensive, but for our sake I hope you have a big budget . Good luck!


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## uintah (Apr 21, 2020)

Black pants and black shoes are ok obviously?


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Bikeworks said:


> My autistic son loves red!!! If he were into bikes I'd be doing the same thing, trying my best to do what I could to make that bike as red as possible lol. Good luck in your project, hope he really takes to it


The whole bike won't be red but appreciate your comment. Our son it turns out is not autistic or connected to those with Asperger's, but in some ways I think he sees some aspects of the world in a similar manner. It has certainly given us a better appreciation for the neurodivergent.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Removed


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

uintah said:


> Black pants and black shoes are ok obviously?


LOL, ... black humor! (pun intended) Love it. Actually, it was soccer practice day in gym for him and for some odd reason his school asks that black pants be worn.


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## joeadnan (Oct 21, 2003)

Subscribed!!

Btw 26lbs stock is not too shabby. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Swolie74 (11 mo ago)

I wouldn't advise having your current hubs stripped and anodized, I know Industry 9 makes special anodized hubs, and if you wanted something really fancy you may even be able to get raw hubs and have them anodized yourself.

best of luck, can't wait to see the results.


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## gsteitz (Sep 9, 2011)

Subscribed! 

Fun project and wonderful story, stoke is priceless. Enjoy the build!


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Swolie74 said:


> I wouldn't advise having your current hubs stripped and anodized, I know Industry 9 makes special anodized hubs, and if you wanted something really fancy you may even be able to get raw hubs and have them anodized yourself.
> 
> best of luck, can't wait to see the results.


Industry Nine makes good stuff but their hubset is roughly $450 to $550. A bit much for the budget (which I will explain in a moment) we are shooting for. I will also go into some detail on how we plan to strip some of these components (not that it is any big secret).


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## Eric F (May 25, 2021)

The Procaliber is a good platform for building a light bike. You won't like the color scheme, but my recently-purchased (used) Procal tips the scales at 21.0 lbs... NBD - Trek Procaliber 9.9 SL

I look forward to following your progress.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

removed


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Eric F said:


> The Procaliber is a good platform for building a light bike. You won't like the color scheme, but my recently-purchased (used) Procal tips the scales at 21.0 lbs... NBD - Trek Procaliber 9.9 SL
> 
> I look forward to following your progress.


I think that bike looks sweet! You definitely took some time to pic the right weight saving components to bring down the weight to your target. A few of the shop guys at the Trek dealership told us that we would have no problem getting our Procaliber down to ~ 21 lbs if we were willing to upgrade the fork as well. Also, my son and I don't hate black outright, it is just that we wish major manufacturers would add a few more options. I actually ran into a Cannondale representative at Sea Otter years ago and mentioned the old red and yellow frames (like the one I posted above), and he said they sold like hot cakes. If I were Trek, Giant, Specialized or Cannondale, every single year for almost every high end frame I offered, I think I would look into the marketing of offering at least a version in a bright red/yellow paintjob.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

removed


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## Eric F (May 25, 2021)

~ Aurelius ~ said:


> I think that bike looks sweet! You definitely took some time to pic the right weight saving components to bring down the weight to your target. A few of the shop guys at the Trek dealership told us that we would have no problem getting our Procaliber down to ~ 21 lbs if we were willing to upgrade the fork as well. Also, my son and I don't hate black outright, it is just that we wish major manufacturers would add a few more options. I actually ran into a Cannondale representative at Sea Otter years ago and mentioned the old red and yellow frames (like the one I posted above), and he said they sold like hot cakes. If I were Trek, Giant, Specialized or Cannondale, every single year for almost every high end frame I offered, I think I would look into the marketing of offering at least a version in a bright red/yellow paintjob.


Thanks! My Procal is new to me, but the previous owner did do a good job with a few upgrades, including some super-light wheels. Mine is also the 9.9 SL frame, which uses a lighter carbon material.

Although some parts might be out of your budget, take note that recent Shimano XTR is dark silver (maybe that's what you're calling "gunmetal"). Maybe that's a fit for you.

In my early days of cycling - especially with road components - everything was polished silver. The good stuff looked like jewelry.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

So when it comes to the subject of changing the finish or color of components, you have three different routes depending upon the material and finish of the component:

*For metal painted components -* Paint stripper, boiling, sanding, or heat gun (best to go with the least invasive method first which is mild power from a heat gun). These can be followed by repainting or anodizing
*For metal anodized components -* There are many methods for de-anodizing metal (usually aluminum) components but the easiest for home users is to use caustic soda (typically 99% pure Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH)). This can be followed by re-anodizing or polishing.
*For carbon components -* Most carbon bike components are only overlaid with a clear coat and some decals. In that case, mild sanding (first 150 grit, then 300, then 800) of clear coat can prepare the piece for painting. It is not necessary to remove the entire clear coat or sand down to the carbon itself.

Now, there are hundreds of little variations on this and newcomers can get caught up in all kinds of details (such as whether to apply a primer to a sanded carbon component before painting it). I am not going to address all of that in this thread, but I will try to show a few examples.

Any time you start this type of project, it is best to start it someplace small. For this particular project, the starting point was the proprietary spacers of Trek's Knock Block system. For those not familiar with Trek or their products, they have tried to design a system that prevents your handlebar and fork from swinging around during a crash, and striking your frame doing this type of damage:









Layers of carbon have been abraded and damaged on the down tube when one of the fork legs swung around, creating an anisotropy.

The Knock Block system uses a tab that bolts to the frame with a tab that sticks up to prevent the headset dustcover from turning too far:








In this photo you can see the small black tab sticking up in front of the white vertical mark and flat head bolt. The dustcover (the round black ring further up the fork steerer tube) slides down over the tab with a groove that only allows the cyclist to turn their fork about 72 deg to the right or left.

Does this system work very well in real life? ... Not really, ... because most crashes where the front wheel is violently twisted around induce far more torque than that little black tab sticking up can resist. It's not a gimmick, but it is not an engineering solution that I would award one of my students an A or B for either.

After one slides the dustcover down correctly, most will end using proprietary spacers (before adding the stem) that look like this:










And yes, you guessed it. They come in only one color, .... anodized black. (A cyclist can buy aftermarket Knock Block stuff from Wolf Tooth and other companies that come in silver or other colors). You can even remove the Knock Block system entirely (which will void your frame warranty) and put in a better aftermarket options. ( ... and I may do that later in this thread).

So then the question becomes one of removing anodizing from an aluminum spacer. On the internet there is a spectacular amount of bad information on how to do this by home brew guys who just randomly experiment until they get what they want. (Not that dissimilar from the methods of many lower-level drug dealers to produce meth and dilute fentanyl, ... hence user overdose and death.) Methods such as using oven or drain cleaners are often recommended, when in actuality these don't usually do a good job and with little to no ability to control the concentration.

The better method is to correctly understand the chemistry and solution concentration needed.

In order to anodize aluminum, typically the metal (for example's sake, let's say a handlebar) is subjected to acidic electrolyte solution (typically diluted sulfuric acid) which produces:

2 AL + 3 H2O -> AL2O3 + 3 H2

What results is a layer of aluminum oxide (which is what the anodizing layer actually is) plus hydrogen gas. You can quickly see the Hindenburg dangers. In an industrial process (think Trek anodizing hundreds of components together in a large bath), hard anodizing in a sulfuric acid bath is conducted followed by dying (this produces the amazing array of colors that anodizing is famous for) and then by a sealing of the aluminum oxide layer. The end result will be an aluminum handlebar that now has anywhere from a 10 um to 100 um deep layer (this will depend upon current and voltage used for the electrolytic bath) of aluminum oxide penetrating about 40% of the way down into the aluminum pores. Unlike aluminum, aluminum oxide is not oxyophillic with the net result being a hardened surface layer that resists rain, dirt, and wear well.

To reverse this process and remove the aluminum oxide anodizing layer, we can use one of several methods. The easiest for the home user will be to use a strong base that is easily purchased, which in our case will be sodium hydroxide (NaOH). Placing an anodized aluminum part in an aqueous solution of sodium hydroxide produces the main reaction:

AI2O3 (s) + 2 NaOH (aq) + 3 H2O (l) -> 2 NaAI(OH)4 (aq)

This results in sodium aluminate, which then degrades by secondary reactions into aluminum hydroxides and oxides (the smut layer) which in turn tries to recoat the part (as if you wanted to re-anodize it). This reaction is exothermic and will release heat and requires a ventilated spot.

But enough with the theory, how does it work in real life? Well, first you need to purchase 99% pure sodium hydroxide:









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www.amazon.com














Then you will need to get yourself a plastic bucket (the hydrocarbons of plastics are not affected by NaOH). Most people at this stage will then worry about the sodium hydroxide concentration needed and the time it will take to de-anodize the part. What we want is a reaction that removes the anodizing in a fairly short time without concentrations that corrosively damage the underlying aluminum. Chemically this is a question of solution concentration and reaction rate which can be set up as a simple first order ODE (differential equation). I won't bore readers with the math or details and simply say that all you need is 20 mL of pure sodium hydroxide for every one liter (1000 mL) of water. It is also important that we consider the energy of activation for the reaction and thus the temperature of the water matters. To drive the reaction to finish in a shorter amount of time, we need warmer water. For removing anodizing from small parts, I recommend a water temperature of about 80 deg C.

With this type of setup in a bucket, you can place small anodized components into the bucket and then check at three minute intervals (because how long it takes the aqueous sodium hydroxide solution to dissolve the aluminum oxide anodizing depends upon it's thickness). It is important that you remove the part every few minutes and look at it closely to examine pitting. We don't want to remove all of the anodizing and then begin corrosively destroying the underlying aluminum. We only want enough reaction time to remove the anodizing layer and not damage the underlying aluminum, which will show up as pitting. You will be able to see pitting with the naked eye. Typically for bike parts, the time we want in solution is about 6 to 9 min if using a 20 mL solution of NaOH per 1000 mL of H2O at 80 deg C.

After completing this process for my black Trek Knock Block spacers for 8 min, I ended up with this:










Now, when you watch the chemical reaction take place in your bucket, you will see your part coated with a black or grayish film. This is the smut layer of aluminum hydroxides and oxides that try to recoat the part as the reaction takes place. The trick is to move your part quickly from the bucket to flowing cold water and then begin scrubbing the part with a small brush (be sure to wear rubber gloves, ... aqueous NaOH is hard on the hands) to remove this smut. If it is done quickly you will end up with a tiny bit of the smut still showing in places (as you can see in the photo above). This bit of the smut can be removed by polishing the part with Mother's Mag and Aluminum Polish:










This can be done by hand or with a dremel tool using a buffing tip or with a drill, etc .... The end result is that you will have a nice silver component that can be shined almost to a chrome finish if you so choose. Many people online incorrectly state that your fresh aluminum part will then degrade to a dull gray appearance after it is subjected to the air. Actually what happens when freshly polished aluminum is subjected to air is:

4 AI + 3 O2 -> 2 AI2O3

which means you have re-anodized your part! The difference is that this aluminum oxide layer produced by contact with oxygen in the air is much thinner (typically about 800 nanometers) and has not been dyed. While pure aluminum oxide is whitish in color, a polished silver component left in the air will retain its silver color indefinitely unless subjected to harsh acids or bases.

In a bit, we will see what this looks like on the bike ....


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

As I mentioned in the last post, for carbon components (which people almost never paint because they want people to see the money they spent) the best way to change their color is usually through a thorough sanding job followed by the correct application of paint. For my son's project, I needed a decent carbon riser bar that was fairly light, less than 750 mm in width and with decent rise. The bar that met these properties was the Answer ProTaper Carbon Riser Bar:









(This is the one inch rise bar, but I purchased the two inch rise bar.)

Why Answer instead of one of numerous other brands? Simply because I needed a carbon bar made by a reputable manufacturer with a proven history at a reasonable cost. Turns out a bike shop in upstate New York had one of their two inch rise models on sale for $29. I snagged it.

This bar actually uses a plastic foam lamination method that Answer has been using for some time now. I needed the two inches of rise for my son's bike because at 12 years old, he stands 165 cm tall (5' 4") and weighs 46.7 kg (103 lbs). Rather than buy him another bike at 15 and another at 19 or 20, we decided to buy the Trek Procaliber in size large so that it can fit him even when he reaches adulthood. I and many of the other male relatives in my family are a bit taller than normal, and if he follows our growth course, he will likely top out at around 6' 2" or so. However, at his current height, his main worries are crotch clearance and reach. The standover height margin will increase when we switch to 27.5 wheels in a few weeks and the reach adjustment can be made by tilting the riser bar backwards.

When the bar came, it topped out at 211 grams on my scale. Pretty nice for a 720 mm wide bar with two inches of rise, and a 90 gram weight savings over the Bontrager bar it replaces. Contrary to what you read on the internet, painting carbon fiber is usually easy. The process for carbon parts usually consists of:

1 - Sanding with a few passes of 150 grit first, followed by a thorough going over with 320 or 400 grit paper. Do this by hand and do not sand down through the clear coat to the carbon itself. (The clearcoat layer on carbon bike parts is typically ~ 100 to 500 um, so you don't need to apply too much pressure while sanding.)
2 - Clean with a mild soap and water, then let dry in an arid environment for 24 hours.
3 - Spray on a decent to high-grade epoxy primer (this will help fill imperfections and any areas where the clear coat was sanded away). Wait 24 hours.
4 - Spray on a decent to high-grade urethane paint (most mid to high-level urethane automotive paints are excellent) and wait 24 hours. Repeat the cycle one more time.
5 - Apply any custom decals you choose.
6 - Finish off the carbon part with a high-grade urethane clearcoat. This is the layer that helps resist scratches, nicks, and dings, so you want a high-level resin.

I completed this process for my son's Answer ProTaper bar using automotive level metallic silver paint. I ended up with my son's spacers, stem, and bar looking like this:



















I made life easy on myself by pairing my de-anodized spacers and painted carbon riser bar with a Thomson stem. If you can destroy a Thomson component, you're riding at Red Bull Rampage. Not only is their stuff that tough, but their aluminum finish is pure bike jewelry.


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## uintah (Apr 21, 2020)

This is starting to sound like a community college course lecture. Good luck. Have fun. Hope your son gets to ride it this calendar year.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Part of the reason I am being thorough Uintah is because there is so much bad information out there. Googling "remove anodizing from bike parts" or "painting carbon fiber bike parts" produces a great deal of links which often feature incorrect information. It is also my hope that by the time this project ends, folks who wish to remove some of the ubiquitous black from their bikes can do so at a reasonable cost.


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## Eric F (May 25, 2021)

~ Aurelius ~ said:


> ...at 12 years old, he stands 165 cm tall (5' 4") and weighs 46.7 kg (103 lbs). Rather than buy him another bike at 15 and another at 19 or 20, *we decided to buy the Trek Procaliber in size large so that it can fit him even when he reaches adulthood*.


While I completely understand your reasoning behind it, this is my least-favorite thing you've said, so far. Proper bike fit is a big deal to me because of the impact it has on performance and handling. Humans can adapt and make things work in less-than-ideal conditions, but we perform best when things fit right. Maybe my years of road racing made me more sensitive to this issue.


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## uintah (Apr 21, 2020)

Eric F said:


> While I completely understand your reasoning behind it, this is my least-favorite thing you've said, so far. Proper bike fit is a big deal to me because of the impact it has on performance and handling. Humans can adapt and make things work in less-than-ideal conditions, but we perform best when things fit right. Maybe my years of road racing made me more sensitive to this issue.


With all scientific reasoning applied, the bike should fit his projected growth perfectly in 6 years. The son should be writing a parallel blog. Pretty sure this project is about dad.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Good point Eric but if my wife and I purchased a new bike for our son at the same rate we replace his jeans or shirts for school, then he would be getting a new ride every year to eighteen months. While the fit would be better, I fear that that process would actually harm him as concerns learning the value of work. As to your concern Uintah, I won't be riding this bike, and there do not seem to be many build logs (at least that I have located) where people change colors of components and then go into some detail as to the exact process needed. I hope to provide some details that others may not, ... and perhaps down the road that might be useful to some.


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## plummet (Jul 8, 2005)

Wow, That was a lot of extraneous detail for a photo of 2 silver parts. 

My 5 cents. Ditch this oversize monster bike and get him one he can ride now and not in 4 years' time. 
The right size bike is key for kids to enjoy riding. You might put him off by subjecting him to a farm gate.


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## Eric F (May 25, 2021)

~ Aurelius ~ said:


> Good point Eric but if my wife and I purchased a new bike for our son at the same rate we replace his jeans or shirts for school, then he would be getting a new ride every year to eighteen months. While the fit would be better, I fear that that process would actually harm him as concerns learning the value of work. As to your concern Uintah, I won't be riding this bike, and there do not seem to be many build logs (at least that I have located) where people change colors of components and then go into some detail as to the exact process needed. I hope to provide some details that others may not, ... and perhaps down the road that might be useful to some.


As I said, I completely understand your reasoning. As the father of a high-level youth athlete who has been in her sport for 10 years, I am familiar with how that growing thing works. For her, properly-sized equipment is kind of a necessity, not only for performance, but also safety. Thankfully, the pieces are less expensive than a good MTB. That said, I've easily spent pro-level bike kind of money over those years.

The approach I would take to a growing youth cyclist is to buy the size that fits them properly now, and replace just the frame as it is needed. That way any parts that get upgraded along the way stay with you. However, it's your kid and your money. Do what you think is right.

uintah's point was not about you riding it.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Well, if my son follows my growth trajectory (which he appears to be on), then he will be 5' 11" at about age 14 1/2 or 15, and that is the size this bike frame was made for, so it won't be six years or some such. In the meantime to tide him over until this project finishes, he has been riding his cousin's large size Specialized hardtail frame but with a shorter stem and lowered seat with no problems. The true test will be out on the trails, but I'm not anticipating any serious issues. We will definitely be factoring in rider fit and safety ...


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## She&I (Jan 4, 2010)

It’s great to see effort put into a kid’s recreation. 👍🏼 But as Eric F infers, putting a new 5-4 rider on a 5-8 through 6-2 mtb is not definitely factoring in fit and safety.

It won’t scratch your OC itch, but a few cans of paint and a new bike every ~two years that comes close to fitting would serve your kid’s riding better than this protracted noodling that he doesn’t care about.


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## phlegm (Jul 13, 2006)

My son is on the spectrum, and this will be the first and last post to ever address it. Ever.

The keen-eyed of you may have noticed my creation (update) of the WW sticky, and even an older post of a WW 24" bike for a child (if you search enough). I've put some energy into this forum.

Therapy has shown me that I'll delve into a project and put things aside for the sake of a connection with my son, however tenuous. My son showed a connection with a bike early on, and I embraced it.

However, no amount of weight savings made a difference. Different grips made no difference. Pedal changes did not impact the interaction, irrespective of color. I kept latching on to a magic bullet that never got shot.

I don't know the OP, nor their child, but I suspect I know the endless frustration first hand. It is oddly comforting, but also saddening to find someone who might be in the same situation, with the same connection.

For practical reasons, I'd echo the concerns about right-sizing something for the rider now, despite future growth. I'd also suggest outside counselling as the road you are riding is a tough one.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Thanks for your thoughts Phlegm.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

You would think that Trek which has many of their carbon frames made in Taiwan to exacting standards would be right on the dot when it comes to precision but so far, I am finding some unusual things that seem a bit off. Case in point, the bearings of the headset do not set in the headtube exactly. Even when everything is correctly installed, there is actually a gap of about two millimeters between the Knock Block dustcover and the top of the headtube:










Once I reassembled the headset, the gap looked so out of place that I was sure I had done something wrong, so I checked Trek's assembly directions. I then reassembled the headset, spacers and stem several more times and still had this gap. Convinced that I had missed out on some secret shop mechanic trick that would align it tighter, I took my bike to the nearest Trek dealer and the shop mechanic confirmed everything was set up right. Even then, I still remain surprised. I would welcome any comments if you think this is off.

By looking down into the top of the headtube, it seems apparent that the bearing space is not deep enough. While I initially considered using an angled facing tool to remove about another 1.5 mm of material, the problem with that is that carbon fiber is not the same as aluminum or titanium frames. If you cut down into the carbon weave, you can significantly weaken the frame. What I may do is machine a custom dustcover cap that seats down closer to the frame.

Also interesting is the bottom bracket. Trek uses a Press Fit 92 standard (PF92) so that they can enlarge the downtube for rigidity. It is always a trade off with these types of designs. If it were Lance's Madone that was being serviced by a pro mechanic every night, I'd say press fit is fine. But for home users, I much prefer threaded bottom brackets. Threaded BBs when pre-prepped almost never creak, groan, or rotate.

Since I am limited by Trek's bottom bracket standard choice, I decided to use the best type of commercial bottom bracket that can mitigate those weakness; id est, ... one that threads together and uses angular contact bearings. The model I chose was Wheels Manufacturing's BB86-OUT-AC:










This model not only threads together but uses slightly higher preload of the left crank arm (non-drive side) compression cap to set the angular bearings. Most of you guys probably know this but angular contact bearings are far more durable than the standard cartridge bearings found in many brands of bottom brackets.

That then gives rise to the question of the proper pre-prep for a press-fit bottom bracket in a carbon frame. You will see many recommend either grease (like Park Tool's PolyLube) or Loctite 609. Actually Loctite 609 should only be used around the bearing as it is pressed into the bottom bracket shell, not when the entire bottom bracket is pressed into the frame. For pressing in the bottom bracket itself, grease is not bad but a better choice specifically for carbon frames is Loctite SI 593 CL Clear RTV Silicon Adhesive Sealant:



Amazon.com












Once you have pressed the bottom bracket in and tightened to about 45 N m, you need to allow the Loctite 595 to dry overnight. After that, you will not experience groans, creaks, or rotation (at least from the bottom bracket shell itself). I then slid on the cranks to be greeted by this:










The left non-drive side crank arm does not engage 3.3 mm of the spindle. Checking Trek's specs online for the ProCaliber 9.5 and then calling them to confirm it, they recommend a 52 mm chainline which means a 172 mm Q factor crank set should be used. The problem is that their frame is too wide to accept a 52 mm chainline:









(The tried and true method for determining the midline of a frame, particularly an asymmetric carbon frame, is to take a thin spool of wire and wrap it around the rear axle where it touches the left non-drive side dropout and then wrap it around the head tube and back down to the right drive-side rear dropout. Where it passes above the bottom bracket and seat tube, measure the distance between the wire and divide by two. That will be your centerline.)

Even when loading the non-drive side compression cap to 1.5 N m (which is what Wheels Manf. recommends), there is still 2 mm of the spindle that is not engaged. After rechecking with Wheels Manf. about the width of their dust seals, which are correct, it turns out the ProCaliber frame is off by 2 mm. The problem was solved by ordering thinner custom dust seals but a bit surprised.

More tomorrow ....


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Also a note which may help others; whenever I build up a new bike, I usually use Park Tools checklist found here:









New Bike Assembly


This article is a list of recommended procedures necessary for the assembly of a new bike from a bare frame to a completed bike.




www.parktool.com


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Got a question about the steerer tube being silver. In stock condition, when the Rock Shox fork is removed, its steerer tube is black. I needed the top eight centimeters or so of the steerer tube to be silver to match the spacers and stem. Fortunately, the steerer tube is painted so no need for de-anodizing or a sodium hydroxide solution. The answer was a Dremel tool with a wire brush wheel. I just brushed off all of the paint and then hand sanded it with 150 and 320 grit sandpaper for better grip with the stem.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Eric, curiously, what sport is your daughter playing?


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## Eric F (May 25, 2021)

~ Aurelius ~ said:


> Eric, curiously, what sport is your daughter playing?


Softball. She's a catcher.


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## plummet (Jul 8, 2005)

~ Aurelius ~ said:


> You would think that Trek which has many of their carbon frames made in Taiwan to exacting standards would be right on the dot when it comes to precision but so far, I am finding some unusual things that seem a bit off. Case in point, the bearings of the headset do not set in the headtube exactly. Even when everything is correctly installed, there is actually a gap of about two millimeters between the Knock Block dustcover and the top of the headtube:
> 
> View attachment 1989796
> 
> ...


That 2mm gap is potentially a bigger issue. The headset design will require that engagement or it could provide additional load to the frame causing frame failure. If you machine shorter cups you are placing a standard parts into a potentially faulty frame. They could void your warrantee and also lead to frame failure. 

I'd take the bike back to the shop and show them. You could get a replacement frame........


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Eric F said:


> Softball. She's a catcher.


That's awesome. When I was a kid, I used to be a fairly big NFL fan (Redskins and 49ers) and vowed I would never have a boy who plays soccer. Now, ... 30 years later and after becoming familiar with some of the biomedical research on concussions, my boy plays soccer, ... LOL! We've even been fortunate to attend a few LaLiga matches in Madrid and Seville. I was a bit surprised as the level of emotion and enjoyment seemed to be higher than the NFL games I have attended.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

plummet said:


> That 2mm gap is potentially a bigger issue. The headset design will require that engagement or it could provide additional load to the frame causing frame failure. If you machine shorter cups you are placing a standard parts into a potentially faulty frame. They could void your warrantee and also lead to frame failure.
> 
> I'd take the bike back to the shop and show them. You could get a replacement frame........


When I visited my local Trek dealer, the shop mechanic showed me a few other Procaliber frames, and they had the same gap. As long as the compression spacers align the steerer tube of the fork correctly and everything is tightened down correctly by the pre-load bolt of the top cap, you're good to go. After some careful measurement, the solution was taking a Dremel tool to the bottom of the dustcover. (I doubt we will be keeping the Knock Block system anyway.)


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

As far as drivetrain, I decided to try Shimano's 12 speed XT:










Why? Because I wanted to have an up-to-date drivetrain that combined longevity, low weight, cost and appearance. I have SRAM X01 on my S-Works Stumpjumper and XTR on my Intense Primer 27.5. I find both Shimano and SRAM to offer good stuff but I usually prefer Shimano's design philosophy. It short, ... their stuff just ####### works. They are not big on the latest craze or bling, ... and usually add a little bit more weight and safety margin than SRAM. In my 21 years of riding Shimano stuff and 12 years of riding SRAM stuff, I've never had a Shimano component completely fail or break on a ride while I have had three SRAM components do so (one chain, one shifter, and one hydraulic lever).

Before my son and I decided what components to use, we went to a few local bike shops and rode primarily Shimano Deore, SLX, and XT and then rode SRAM GX Eagle and GX AXS. Overall at the shifter we both liked XT (M8100) stuff more than any of the others. SRAM's GX AXS was nice but a bit heavy and while you can buy extra batteries, it was just one more thing to keep charged. For my son, there really was a small difference at the XT lever, especially under load. All the groupsets featured a great deal of black, .... but Shimano's motif just looked better (except for the cassette). Some of the things that I either have previous experience with or took note of were the shifter, the Center-Lock system (which imho is superior to six bolt rotor retention systems), and the use of mineral oil for the brakes (which I greatly prefer over DOT).

Overall, Shimano XT is right at the sweet spot for cost vs durability vs weight. That said, it was not easy to come by due to the COVID-19 supply chain issues. Most places online seemed to have the shifter, chain and crank in stock but locating an M8100 SGS rear derailleur was problematic, and finding the cassette with 10-51 gearing was impossible unless one pays scalper prices. Eventually, I located an SGS derailleur in Vancouver for stock prices and had my colleague pick up the proper cassette in Kyoto during an academic conference.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

This is the weight weenies sub-forum and one area where weight can be saved is in upgraded components. Looking at what I have removed from the bike so far, I have:

Praxis M24 Cadet Cranks at 764 grams replaced by -------------------> Shimano M8100 Cranks (FC-M8100-1) with 32 tooth chainring at 620 grams










Shimano Deore 10-51 Cassette at 596 grams replaced by ------------------------> Shimano XT 10-51 Cassette at 471 grams

Shimano Deore M6100 Rear Derailleur at 319 grams replaced by --------------> Shimano XT M8100 SGS Rear Derailleur at 281 grams

The XT Shifter and XT 12 Speed Chain that replaced the Deore Shifter and Deore M6100 Chain were only lighter by 3 grams.

The craptastic GXP bottom bracket bearings and cups supporting the Praxis M24 Cadet cranks weighed 71 grams and were replaced by a Wheels Manufacturing BB-OUT-AC metal bottom bracket with angular contact bearings at 101 grams. Very happy to add 30 grams for the performance delta and end to creaks and groans.

Overall, considering only drivetrain components, my son's bike lost 277 grams. Part of an eventual weight loss than will hopefully lead to about a 10.9 kg bike.


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## Eric F (May 25, 2021)

~ Aurelius ~ said:


> That's awesome. When I was a kid, I used to be a fairly big NFL fan (Redskins and 49ers) and vowed I would never have a boy who plays soccer. Now, ... 30 years later and after becoming familiar with some of the biomedical research on concussions, my boy plays soccer, ... LOL! We've even been fortunate to attend a few LaLiga matches in Madrid and Seville. I was a bit surprised as the level of emotion and enjoyment seemed to be higher than the NFL games I have attended.


Concussions are not rare in soccer...nor in softball. My daughter has had 2. Despite serious interest from multiple college coaches, my daughter decided not to play college softball. She has 4 weekends of travel ball left, and then it's over. I'm going to really miss watching her play. That said, I'm going to have more time for things like riding my bike.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Yep, I hear ya Eric. My son wanted to play padded football in the after-school league, but my wife and I said, "no." Too much risk of connectome alterations in the frontal lobe.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Fairly often I see all manner of bad advice being given out and incorrect "expert" information. Sometimes, this information even comes from expert sources. Since I just finished with the bottom bracket and headset installs, let me use the uninstallation of these as an example. In the old days when I was a youth, the majority of frames were chromoly or heavy aluminum. When press fit bottom brackets or headsets were un-installed, typically a tool would be inserted and the prongs at the back of the tool would push up against the pressed in cup:










The mechanic would then hammer out the cup like this:









(Using a mallet to hammer out a headset cup, ... a big no-no on a high-end carbon frame.)

On an overbuilt chromoly frame, this is fine. On an extremely stout downhill aluminum frame or a cheap Walmart bike, this is ..... meh, ... okay. On a fully optimized carbon frame that weighs 1050 grams, this is a big no-no (despite this method being used daily in shops all over the world). Why? Because hammering out a pressed in headset or bottom bracket cup on a high-end carbon or aluminum frame could leave gouges:









(Severe gouging on the inside of a bottom bracket is similar to the gouging on this carbon fiber car part.)









(Even a small gouge can lead to carbon fiber thread damage.)

This means that every time you crank the pedals, you cycle two sinusoidal loads into the gouge:









(Pi is the same as one radian)

Over time, that gouge can easily lead to a crack and a damaged frame.

Even Park Tools, ... one of the best bike mechanic websites in the world recommends this horrible method:









(Using Park Tool's RT-2 to hammer out a headset cup)

Why is this method so bad? Because it introduces a great deal of shock and torsional forces into the frame. This is a big no-no with carbon frames.









(No, ... just no. ... Don't even consider it.)

So if cup removers and rubber mallets are not recommended, what is? .... Even force application presses:










Presses such as these contain expanding collars that can smoothly and evenly press out a bottom bracket or headset cup (or install a steerer nut or a hub bearing). They work so much better and are far gentler on superlight carbon frames and components. If you are a home mechanic and service your own bike, these are a must. If you take your bike to a shop to have it serviced, ask that no cup removers requiring hammering be used (like the Park Tools RT-1, RT-2, BBT 90.3 and BBT 30.4)

(Final paragraph removed bc it might come off as slightly superior sounding.)


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Moving on to installing the XT rear derailleur, I found that it would not thread into the derailleur hanger. I checked the Deore M6100 I removed and sure enough, it had not been installed correctly. I was not worried because any time I purchase a new bike, I always purchase two or three derailleur hangers for the frame as well. After inspection, it appeared that the first two threads were damaged, which meant they had to be chased and re-cut.










Cutting new threads means that you need to use a tap which in this case is the M10 x 1.0. Tapping (and dying) also means you will need a lubricant to reduce the coefficient of friction as you cut the new threads. If you are a Park Tools fan, then they will recommend their CF-2 cutting fluid:










Their price is about $17 for 8 ounces which is ridiculous. Their fluid is fine, but just as good and far cheaper is motor oil. The rule is five weight (5W) for tapping or dying into aluminum and ten weight (10W) for cutting into steel.

Online there are many people who are upset their Park Tool (or other) tap snapped or was broken. The secret to tapping (and dying) is to only turn them one or two full 360 deg rotations, then back the tap out to allow the flutes to clear the cut material. Then engage another one or two rotations. Slow and steady wins the race, and you will not suffer a broken tap in this manner.

After I recut the threads and threaded in the new XT derailleur, I was greeted by this cluster####:









In this pic, it appears the derailleur hanger is bent a little bit and that the cage of the derailleur is also bent (despite being brand new). That means it needed to be checked and unbent:










Turns out it was indeed bent by a small amount. After correcting that, I took a close look at the pulley cage of the derailleur and after a bit of internet research, found that Shimano actually designed the bend on purpose:






Apparently, Shimano designed the bend into their 11 speed road derailleurs and carried it over from there. A tactic to address the cross-chaining that comes with any 1 x 12 drivetrain.

More on this later today .....


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## Eric F (May 25, 2021)

~ Aurelius ~ said:


> Why is this method so bad? Because it introduces a great deal of shock and torsional forces into the frame. This is a big no-no with carbon frames.


Have you ever considered that a frame encounters significant shock and torsional forces when riding?


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Eric F said:


> Have you ever considered that a frame encounters significant shock and torsional forces when riding?


Of course, ... but not from a sharp edge pressed against its surface.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Received a good question asking about the painting of aluminum parts. The gentleman wants to know how to get a professional level job that resists scratches and nicks. He explained that he had tried to paint a few aluminum bike parts before using Rust-Oleum spray paint from Lowes, but that the paint had begun to chip or flake off almost immediately. Here is the procedure for aluminum bike parts:

1 - Remove any existing paint or anodizing from the aluminum part. You can remove paint by sanding, with a heat gun, by boiling or by using a paint stripper. I recommend the least destructive method first, which is by simple sanding (which we have to do anyway) or by using the low setting on a heatgun. You can remove anodizing by the method already discussed on page 2 of this thread.

2 - Sand the aluminum part with first 80 grit, then 150, then 400 grit sandpaper. Take your time and do it by hand. Then clean the part thoroughly with regular soap and water. Then wipe down with a cloth and allow to fully dry overnight.

3 - In a dry, arid room away from sunlight, spray a good epoxy self-etching primer (from a major automotive paint brand) over the component and allow to dry overnight.

4 - Sand the epoxy self-etching primer layer with first 150 grit and then 320 or 400 grit sandpaper. Wash the component thoroughly with soap and water. Then wipe it down with a cloth and allow to dry overnight.

5 - Apply a high quality urethane primer-filler (from the same paint brand if possible) and allow to dry overnight. Then inspect for any areas that are not fully filled. If necessary, spray additional coats until a perfectly smooth surface greets your eye. Allow to dry overnight.

(It should be noted that urethane in the paint world means polyurethane, which are carbon rings connected by urethane linkages. It is the 3D structure of these links that allow polyurethane paints to better resist UV radiation and extremes in temperature. This means paint that can actively take dings and scratches without showing visible wear.)

6 - Spray two to three coats of high quality urethane paint (from the same automotive paint brand if possible) over the component. Spray one coat and then allow it to fully dry overnight, and so on.

7 - Apply decals or other graphics if desired.

8 - Spray one or two coats of high quality urethane clear coat (from the same automotive paint brand if possible) over the component.

So yeah, a bit of a pain in the butt, but if done correctly, you will have a professional level paint job that will not degrade in intense sun or poor weather. The secret is to use polyurethane paints and to acquire your paints from a well known automotive paint company. These paints are designed for intense sunlight, high and low temperatures, and poor weather. Also, don't rush the process; It takes a good week or so to correctly paint an aluminum part and have it come out well.

We will be using this process later in the thread on a few aluminum pieces.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

I don't remember exactly what age I was when I first had enough peach fuzz to shave, ... maybe about 15. By the time I was 18, my Scottish ancestry had kicked in and I could grow a decent beard. Facial hair has never been my thing, so I began shaving with what most of buds were using, which was a Gillette cartridge razor that had about 4 blades at the time:










Why four blades? No one seemed to know. Apparently it was cooler and more stylish than outdated three bladed cartridges. Within a few years, Gillette decided that four blades were not enough and introduced their new even more miraculous cartridge which had five blades:










Do five blades actually provide a better shave than four blades? They do, ... at least according to Gillette's marketing department. That would make anyone wonder that if by 2050, Gillette will be recommending a 12 blade cartridge as the best shave on the planet:










I never really spent that much time considering if five blades was really the best for my face, but I did often have a small amount of irritation after I shaved. Finally, when I was about 21, on a camping trip that included one of my uncles (who sorta resembles the appearance and temperament of Blain (Jesse Ventura) from _Predator_ (1987)), I pulled out my spiffy five bladed super razor one morning, which happened to catch his attention. He looked over,

"You know what that is don't you?"

(Looking confused) "Uh, ... a razor."

"No, it's a toy for the slack jawed patsies of your generation."

"Oh, ... and I suppose you abrade your face daily with freshly chipped obsidian?"

(His left eyebrow rose a few millimeters.) "Don't get lippy junior, ... you might next awaken to find that this trip has ended and your hot little girlfriend has now shacked up with me. What you need is one of these:










(And then he handed me over his razor that looked like something used by troops in WW2.)

Needless to say, I was a bit nonplussed. The thing had one blade and didn't appear to my burgeoning engineering skills as something that could outperform my super razor. He looked at me:

"That's the problem with you engineering peckerwoods, ... some things don't need improving." He then held up his razor in the light, "You oughta try this baby before you cast judgement. This thing will turn you into a god damn sexual tyrannosaurus, ... just like me."

(OK, .. I actually stole that last line from _Predator_.)

So, I decided to take him up on his offer. When I returned to civilization, I ordered a Merkur 23c razor and gave it a shot. Surprisingly, it worked so much better than the Gillette cartridge crap that I had been paying crazy prices for a pack of five cartridges. Not only was my facial irritation gone, but I could buy enough razor blades for two years for the price of four Gillette Fusion cartridges.

What has this got to do with mountain biking?

12 speed is marketing bullshit, and we are paying through the nose for it.

Imagine the conversation that took place in the inner depths of SRAM's marketing department around 2011 ....

(Marketing exec) - "We've come up with a grand new design philosophy which we are gonna call a 1x (one by) drivetrain. We ditch the front shifter, front derailleur, shift cable and leave only one chainring on the crank."

(Mechanician) - "Do riders actually need that? There are many good engineering reasons to keep 2 x 10 or 3 x 10 drivetrains."

"Yeah but you're forgetting the marketing potential of the Highway Principle."

"The Highway Principle?"

"Yeah, ... half of all drivers on the highway have less than a 100 IQ."

"That's not very ethical."

"Who gives a #### about ethics. Many riders don't get the whole front derailleur thing anyway, ... their too dumb or uncoordinated. Plus, mountain bikers sustain a great deal of concussions. A whole bunch of people are gonna buy into this immediately, ... trust me on this. We're gonna market it as a purified and simplified drivetrain that makes riding less complex and lowers bike weight."

"Yeah, okay, you might save 200 grams, but you lose a great deal of useable gearing."

"Who cares, ... we get to introduce all new cassettes and standards. And, ... you're missing the best part of the plan?"

"Which is ... ?"

"We will charge more for it than we did for our drivetrains that included the front shifter, front derailleur and extra chainrings! We're actually going to get people to pay more for less!"










Like Gillette's razors, .... by 2025, SRAM will say that 13 speeds is the latest and by 2035 we will have 15 cog cassettes with chains that are 2 mm thick. In fact it is even worse than that because you are actually getting less drivetrain for a great deal more expense. In 2000, an XTR rear derailleur from Cambria Bike cost about $90. Inflation means that one dollar in 2000 is equal to $1.65 now. That means that XTR rear derailleur in 2000 should cost us about $149 now, but if you check the prices you will find that a 12 speed M9100 XTR rear derailleur costs $274. SRAM laughs in the face of such prices and charges $323 for their XX1 rear derailleur. We've been bent over the table while we happily proclaim how much better our new imperial clothes are.

I will dive more into the idiocy of 12 speed in the days ahead ...


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

If you follow Shimano's official instructions for bleeding their brakes, you will follow 18 separate steps and still end up with mushy brakes. Instead, I prefer this method:


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Reserved for tomorrow


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Former content in this post might have appeared condescending, so I removed it.


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## uintah (Apr 21, 2020)

WTF?


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## Eric F (May 25, 2021)

uintah said:


> WTF?


Flexing.


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## uintah (Apr 21, 2020)

Eric F said:


> Flexing.


I'm waiting for the intellectually superior son to decide he now likes black.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

uintah said:


> WTF?


LOL ... Uintah, my son just read what you wrote and had this pithy response, "You see Dad, ... I bet if this Uintah guy was my dad, I would have already had my dang bike one year ago without having to 'earn it'!"


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

So my plan for the wheels is pretty simple, we will be building a set of 27.5 wheels. There are a few reasons for this and one of them is to give my son an additional 0.75 inches in standover height. My son also likes to test his bunny hopping skills and 27.5 makes that easier. Keeping in line with the roughly Shimano XT level we are shooting for with this project, my son and I started looking for good candidates for the hubs and rims. After a fair amount of investigation, we found plenty of high end hubs that are silver like Chris King, but we didn't really want to spend $800 just for two hubs. We also wanted a rear hub that is silent (or can be made to be silent). Finally, we decided to go with Shimano's own XT hubs:










Most higher-end bikes never use Shimano hubs because of their weight. They simply aren't competitive weight wise with the likes of DT Swiss 240s, Chris Kings, and so on. Riders also like the fact that most higher-end hubs use cartridge bearings that are set at the factory and don't need to be touched. That said, Shimano hubs, ... even after all of these years, ... still have something wonderful, .... the cup and cone bearing:









(The screwdriver is pointing at the cup's race, ... the surface the bearings ride on.)

The cup and cone bearing is an angular contact bearing and if the cones are adjusted properly will usually allow the wheel to cycle to spin with very little friction. How little? Well, let me throw out a question for you to consider:

Which requires more watts to power during a one hour race (if all other variables are held equal), .... a DT Swiss 180 hubset weighing about ~ 280 grams riding on ceramic bearings or a standard Shimano XT hubset weighing ~ 450 grams riding on Grade 10 steel ball bearings? (Assume everything else, cassette interface, spokes, rims, tires, rider, etc ... all the same)

The common wisdom would say, "Look at my spectacularly expensive ceramic hubset that saves me 170 grams over boring Shimano hubs. It's definitely going to go faster."

But is that really true? A question we will return to later.

Back to the XT hubs, Shimano has actually done a fair job of removing some of the weight that they are always known for. On my scale, the front weights 142 grams and the back weighs 305 grams. My goal for my son is to match these up to some nice 27.5 DT Swiss XR 331 rims (about ~ 710 grams for two rims) and some lightweight Sapim spokes (about ~ 260 grams for 56 spokes) along with some decent alloy nipples (about ~ 20 grams) for a wheelset that weighs about ~ 1440 grams (or there abouts).

There is just one downside though, ... the XT hubs only come in black. So we are back to removing the anodizing of the hubs, and you can't just dunk an entire hub in sodium hydroxide solution. The hubs needed to be disassembled:










Okay great, the hubs are now disassembled, so I can dunk them in sodium hydroxide solution now like this guy, ... right? :






*Wrong*. Removing the anodizing from a hub requires some considerations. First among them is the bearings, which have to be removed. Additionally, if a hub uses cup and cone bearings, then we first need to see what the cup race is made of. How will we do this? With a small neodymium magnet. Under normal conditions, aluminum is paramagnetic and the magnet will not be attracted to it. Steel though is magnetic due to its iron content and will attract a magnet strongly:










The magnet test shows that the race is indeed steel which is what one would expect anyway since aluminum can not be brought up to the Vickers hardness needed to run steel ball bearings against. (Steel races are part of the reason why Shimano hubs cannot be brought down to the weight of DT Swiss hubs.) Steel however is a good sign for our aqueous sodium hydroxide solution because it will not corrode at room temperature. However, if the temperature of the solution grows greater than 80 deg C, then NaOH can indeed begin to corrode steel, and then you will end up with a race that looks like this:









(The cup race of this hub has been pitted due to dirt getting in the bearings.)

Although the guy in the video above doesn't know it, he has likely corroded the aluminum shell of his BMX hub by using a hot water NaOH solution, which means his sealed cartridge bearings will ride a tiny bit loose. So, we have to account for the reaction chemistry and the energy of activation. I won't bore readers with the calculation, but we will be using a solution made from 15 mL of sodium hydroxide at 50 deg C. At the same time, even though the NaOH will not damage the steel, I am going to add another protection layer by smearing boat grease over the races. Sodium hydroxide will indeed corrode the hydrocarbons of the boat grease (this is what makes sodium hydroxide lye solution so good at eating through organic matter in clogged drains) but if our layer is ~ one millimeter thick, it will take far longer than it will to remove the anodizing.

We also have another consideration, ... the splines of the centerlock:










If the Centerlock splines (which are aluminum) are allowed to react with the NaOH solution, they will corrode slightly as the anodizing is removed. We can't allow that because our disc brake rotors must mate to those splines with as little play as possible. (Actually, our NaOH reaction is only going to remove perhaps 50 um of material, so the Centerlock splines will be just fine, but no need to take a risk you don't have to.) Those Centerlock splines are going to take a great deal of torque, so we can't have them corroded. Therefore, we will use the same technique to protect them as we used with the steel races, a thick covering of marine boat grease. And since we have no other seals or extras to remove, we are ready to dip the hub in our NaOH solution:










After exactly five minutes, you can see our de-anodizing reaction working along nicely. The charcoal colored stuff near the hub is the sodium aluminate (the smut). If we pull the hub out after five minutes, you will see this:










Still a ways to go and time to re-apply a bit more marine grease to the Centerlock splines. After five more minutes, I removed it to see this:










Looking a lot better, but still not where we need to be. By my back of the hand calculations, it should take about 12 min 40 sec before all the anodizing is off if the anodizing is 50 um thick (which I had to take a guess on). Notice the pristine condition of the Centerlock splines.

.... I will continue this more tomorrow.


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## uintah (Apr 21, 2020)

~ Aurelius ~ said:


> So my plan for the wheels is pretty simple, we will be building a set of 27.5 wheels. There are a few reasons for this and one of them is to give my son an additional 0.75 inch.


This is stupid. You should have just bought him a bike that fits in the first place.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

It's already apparent we're not taking that advice, ... so the point of your post is?


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## Eric F (May 25, 2021)

~ Aurelius ~ said:


> It's already apparent we're not taking that advice, ... so the point of your post is?


Your kid could be out riding already. I almost forgot that is - distantly - about a bike for your son.


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## She&I (Jan 4, 2010)

~ Aurelius ~ said:


> ...the point of your post is?


To point out to you that it’s summer and your kid is dying to ride a bike that comes close to fitting him, and you seem to think that your instructional blog covering endless minutiae and the convenience of not having to ever uprade your kid’s bike are far more important?


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

We're too busy surfing to ride bikes. We do most of our riding from Sept to May as we have pretty sunny and dry weather in coastal CA. Only part of this thread is about my son's bike, while the other parts are for folks who might want to change the color of some of their components (a topic where detailed and explanatory posts don't seem to be that common) and stumble upon these posts in the weeks, months and years ahead. And last I checked, no one is making anyone stop by this thread


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## slapheadmofo (Jun 9, 2006)

I bought my kid a few different bikes that fit him at whatever stage of growth he was at and we spent lots of time together going places to ride them instead of spending countless hours obsessing about how perfectly finished practically invisible parts of them were and then writing endless screeds about how to deal with these non-issues.

I'm no psychologist, but it seems that there's a pretty fair chance that Dad projecting his own issues might be a thing here. Of course, it is the weight-weenie forum, so obviously there's a lot of inherent OCD that goes with the territory but damn, spending years to get rid of a few black parts seems pathological to me.




phlegm said:


> My son is on the spectrum,
> I'd also suggest outside counselling as the road you are riding is a tough one.





~ Aurelius ~ said:


> Our son it turns out is not autistic or connected to those with Asperger's,


As mentioned earlier, this all seems to be a lot less about about the son than the OP.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Again, ... unless there is a gun held to someone's temple that I am unaware of, no one is forcing anyone to read posts in a particular thread. If this thread is not for you, wander on along. And no, ... we are not returning the bike or buying a smaller one. Last post on these topics from me.


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## uintah (Apr 21, 2020)

~ Aurelius ~ said:


> If this thread is not for you, wander on along.


If you think you get a say in what I or others post, maybe you should take your own advice.


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## Eric F (May 25, 2021)

~ Aurelius ~ said:


> Again, ... unless there is a gun held to someone's temple that I am unaware of, no one is forcing anyone to read posts in a particular thread. If this thread is not for you, wander on along. And no, ... we are not returning the bike or buying a smaller one. Last post on these topics from me.


When you post on a public forum, expect responses, including ones that aren't a pat on the back. While there are some bits of solid informative detail in your posts, the intellectual masturbation that you weave around it makes it pretty mind-numbing.

Clearly, you're committed to this bike. Some of us are still shaking our head about your justification for the decision.

As a So Cal guy, one of the things I like best about the area is that you can ride one day, surf the next, and (during part of the year) go snowboarding the day after that. You only ride Sept-May? How sad.


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## slapheadmofo (Jun 9, 2006)

"_Le mieux est le mortel ennemi du bien_"


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## slapheadmofo (Jun 9, 2006)

plummet said:


> Wow, That was a lot of extraneous detail for a photo of 2 silver parts.


Seems like a really, really, REALLY long way to go to avoid spending $10.


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## driver bob (Oct 12, 2005)

subscribed. As long as discussion does not degenerate into personal insults then it is perfectly fine to disagree on content.

Smaller wheels on this bike is IMO a mistake.


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## life behind bars (May 24, 2014)

driver bob said:


> subscribed. As long as discussion does not degenerate into personal insults then it is perfectly fine to disagree on content.
> 
> Smaller wheels on this bike is IMO a mistake.



Here to post the same.


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## gsteitz (Sep 9, 2011)

Eric F said:


> While there are some bits of solid informative detail in your posts, the intellectual masturbation that you weave around it makes it pretty mind-numbing.


ROTFL, this is pretty accurate for how this thread has developed. Aurelius, I was all for how this things began but I can't help but feel the tone comes across a bit heavy and preachy at times. And I agree with others that it seems more about creating this thread than about getting your son on this bike that you have in hand already.

My son just got a new bike and it was a significant upgrade from his previous one. We had to wait six months for it to get through the production queue but no time was spent fiddling with it once in hand. It is most definitely NOT BLACK!


__
http://instagr.am/p/Cf6b6OyOhz1/


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## driver bob (Oct 12, 2005)

Also not black


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## slapheadmofo (Jun 9, 2006)

I see black components on those bikes. 

While I get that certain types of people get really carried away with shopping, color matching and plain old just staring at their bikes, etc, there is something profoundly wrong with having a bike for a kid that functions perfectly, but instead of just letting them ride it, for some reason there apparently has to be a wildly overwrought dress-up program that goes on for ages first.

I hope the OP's kid is at least getting to ride the bike in between "upgrades" and it's not just sitting there.
That would be a real shame, particularly when all the time and money spent on these "upgrades" would easily cover a number of perfectly functional, correctly sized bikes and the time to go ride them. As always, shopping isn't mountain biking. Go ride.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

As has already been stated, my son currently is using a loaned Specialized (which he is not even riding bc of his other hobbies and our tendency to surf). His birthday is not until the fall and so we have plenty of time to finish his build. (Actually, the only thing holding it up is that the rims have not come in.) I ride on and off with a group of five other male colleagues and one female colleague. All but one have children, some older than my son, and two of them have already taken the course as far as buying bikes that we are taking now. One of my collleague's sons sometimes joins us riding a 29er that uses 27.5 inch wheels and it has been working spectacularly well for him. My son and I discussed it and decided to do the same. Trying to change our opinion after a bike has already been purchased and on the road to being built up is a bit like criticizing your wife's/girlfriend's decision to cut her long hair to a much shorter style after the haircut is already complete. The horse is already out of the barn.

As to the intent of this thread, it is simply to provide some information on de-anodizing that I wasn't easily able to find anywhere else, and also to show a few examples of how components color or finish can be changed. I thought it would be cool to show a bike build that does not include the ubiquitous black hubs, spokes, rims, seatpost, handlebar, etc .... The idea that my son is not involved in this or that this is "my" project is false. If you have ever spent time around the exceptionally or profoundly gifted, you know that they tend to have idiosyncrasies that most kids never take note of, ... and that is true of my son. He has a very different way of looking at the world, ... for example he usually likes to have red laces in his sneakers. Why? ... Who knows why, ... because there is some excitation in a developing B9 neural network that my wife or I do not possess. The perfectionism some of you note is not really my thing, ... it is my son's trait, a common thread linking the profoundly gifted. I also thought that the parents of other gifted children might enjoy a peek into our somewhat offbeat life.

That said, I believe Gsteitz made a good point about preachy. In so far as this thread comes off as preachy or condescending in some way, I apologize. I have removed some content and amended some of the posts to only include technical information now.

I am hopeful that with the information in the thread, if others google "removing anodizing" or "changing bike components color," then perhaps they will be pointed here and find some of the posts useful. I am hopeful that I have put up some information that does not seem to be that easily found elsewhere and am now closing out my participation in this thread. If others come along and wish to know more or have engineering questions, send me a private message, and I will try to help you.


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## Wheelspeed (Jan 12, 2006)

Hi. Supporting the "colorizing" process, there are also sticker kits for wheels and frames you may be interested in. I happen to have a Giant but these colorful sticker kits are available for everything:


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## joeadnan (Oct 21, 2003)

I’m happy to read what OP has been posting. I’m learning lots of new things. 

Please carry on as before, and don’t let the detractors dissuade you. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

I appreciate the kind comment Joe. If my son and I are successful by the time this project finishes in early August (best guess), his bike (hopefully) will have some nice features which few other bikes if any (at least that we are aware) sport, including:

1 - A fix for the Shimano's worthless free stroke adjust (in their brake levers)
2 - A newly designed freehub for the XT rear hub that is totally silent (part of the reason we are doing this is bc we like to come across animals in the forest and not spook them with the angry bee sound). This has already undergone CNC machining and is enduring durability testing now.
3 - A newly machined Knock Block dust cover (if indeed we keep the Knock Block stuff)
4 - A new Rock Shox SID forked that has some custom machining done to it. (This fork is essential if we wish to drop our weight below ~ 10.9 kg or so.)
5 - An active ping security system that we are hopeful will be better than Apple's AirTag and others.
6 - A custom coded A.I. assistant that is based upon a long running machine learning project that our lab completed in 2017 (that has nothing to do with bikes).
7 - And perhaps a conversion of the XT rear derailleur and shifter to a wireless electronic system like SRAM's AXS. (This though would be a bigger project and likely not be finished until later in the fall, as it requires a number of custom machined parts, plus the electric motor, etc.... I would also be relying on the aid of my colleagues in the mechanical engineering dept.)

That said, I get the impression (and I could be wrong here since I am a new member) that most viewers here just want the perty pics of the expensive components. Long winded discussions about actual engineering may not be most people's thing here at MTBR. So, I'll put it up to a vote. Vote one of the following options:

1 - Shut the hell up, we don't give two shits about you, your son or your build.
2 - Just show me the pics after the build is completely finished.
3 - Interested in the build but only technical details please
4 - Interested in the build and don't mind the commentary (as long as it is not condescending)

Depending upon how many votes we get, will determine if further posts follow. 

(I won't be posting for a bit under any circumstances as my family is going on a vacation. And if people want the thread to continue and then someone makes some shite comment about the bike being too big for my son or that he can't ride it until early August or some such, they will just be ignored.)


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## uintah (Apr 21, 2020)

~ Aurelius ~ said:


> 7 - And perhaps a conversion of the XT rear derailleur and shifter to a wireless electronic system like SRAM's AXS. (This though would be a be electric motor, etc.... I would also be relying on the aid of my colleagues in the mechanical engineering dept.)


With this statement, now I know you are just screwing with us.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Instead of every single post where you complain and whine Uintah, perhaps you could consider refraining and see if you might learn something. The mechanical engineering dept. at my university has full fledged protyping labs that have some very high end CNC routers, 3D fabs, etc ..... By 3D scanning a rear derailleur and passing the data to a CAD software suite (think Fusion 360 or Auto CAD), and then CNC machining the parts, we can have a rough design out fairly quickly. We can take apart a SRAM XX1 AXS rear derailleur (including removing the pivots), scan every section including the motor and have it fully 3D modeled in CAD in less than one afternoon (roughly). From there, we play with permutations, and try to optimize to the existing Shimano XT design. If we decide to try that in the fall, I will document that process, and you might learn something.

We already know you would choose option #1 above, ... you have made that clear. Let me return that clarity; THIS IS NOT THE THREAD FOR YOU. This is the last time in this thread I will be replying to you, and henceforth, you are on ignore.


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## joeadnan (Oct 21, 2003)

~ Aurelius ~ said:


> 4 - Interested in the build and don't mind the commentary (as long as it is not condescending)


My vote. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## She&I (Jan 4, 2010)

Any forum is not a productive place for a user who wants a curated discussion. Yelling at users and demanding they post a certain way or else? A person doing that needs a blog in the worst way. This isn’t a classroom, it’s social media.

I’m hoping for your kid to sprout to six feet tall by August so he can enjoy your new bike. Good luck to you both!


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## driver bob (Oct 12, 2005)

13 posts deleted that were argumentative and unrelated to the thread.

Everyone involved in those comments needs to dial down the rhetoric and accusations (real or implied).

@aurelius : To come online and make the insinuation you did about another member *is not* acceptable. Those posts are deleted and will not be repeated.
@uintah : This is a weight-weenie subforum and *is* the appropriate place for more detailed posts about "custom" builds.

* If the thread continues to be tit-for-tat argument it will be closed and further action taken as appropriate.*


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Roger that Boss. I will make only one final post once the bike is fully built. 

(Joeadnan, if you have detailed questions, just private message me. I will try to help out.)


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## driver bob (Oct 12, 2005)

~ Aurelius ~ said:


> Roger that Boss. I will make only one final post once the bike is fully built.


If you wish to continue to post about the bike build in minutiae please do so. While it my not be my exact cup of tea it is of interest to many and as you have said, may be useful to someone in the future s they go about a weight-weenie build.

Years back I cut and polished XTR cranks and all sorts of little aluminum pieces back to a mirror finish. For a lot of people that is of zero interest but for some it was and may continue to be useful information.

Ultimately your call if you post or do not post, I continue to watch this thread with some curiosity of where you are going with the bike.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Okay, I'll take that under advisement when I get back home. Thanks for your outlook on the matter.


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## Eric F (May 25, 2021)

~ Aurelius ~ said:


> 2 - A newly designed freehub for the XT rear hub that is totally silent (part of the reason we are doing this is bc we like to come across animals in the forest and not spook them with the angry bee sound). This has already undergone CNC machining and is enduring durability testing now.


You're designing and fabricating a silent freehub? This already exists. The rear hub on my bike is XTR with "Scylence" technology. It's almost completely silent. Before I knew that it was intentional, I thought there was something wrong with it. In all my decades of riding, the sound of a freehub/freewheel is the sound of cycling. A silent hub just sounds wrong, to me. At some point in the not-too-distant future, I will probably get my rear wheel rebuilt with a noisy hub.

Personally, I don't want to sneak up on animals. I would prefer they know I'm coming, and stay away from me. Particularly the kinds of animals that can do me harm.


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## _harris (Jul 8, 2020)

Eric F said:


> You're designing and fabricating a silent freehub? This already exists. The rear hub on my bike is XTR with "Scylence" technology. It's almost completely silent. Before I knew that it was intentional, I thought there was something wrong with it. In all my decades of riding, the sound of a freehub/freewheel is the sound of cycling. A silent hub just sounds wrong, to me.


I had an old (late 90s) planet X mtb hub with an almost silent freehub...
ended up getting an identical, unbranded hub more recently and it's also eerily quiet! drivetrain is louder while pedalling than coasting


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## rapsac (Sep 26, 2004)

~ Aurelius ~ said:


> 1 - Shut the hell up, we don't give two shits about you, your son or your build.
> 2 - Just show me the pics after the build is completely finished.
> 3 - Interested in the build but only technical details please
> 4 - Interested in the build and don't mind the commentary (as long as it is not condescending)


4, since choosing 3 may not get us the posts with all details, OP needs to be happy too ;-)


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Thanks for the vote Rapsac. I'll be continuing this build when I return from vacation overseas. Except for the initial missing rims, my son and I could have built up this bike in a few days, but I chose not to do so for a few reasons, one more of which I will detail in August.

Aware of Scylence Eric (thanks); if I lived in Alaska I would do as you suggest and ride a louder freehub bc there really is wildlife that can kill you. In coastal California, not so much. Hence, my decision to go with a totally silent hub.


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## Eric F (May 25, 2021)

~ Aurelius ~ said:


> Thanks for the vote Rapsac. I'll be continuing this build when I return from vacation overseas. Except for the initial missing rims, my son and I could have built up this bike in a few days, but I chose not to do so for a few reasons, one more of which I will detail in August.
> 
> Aware of Scylence Eric (thanks); if I lived in Alaska I would do as you suggest and rider a louder freehub bc there really is wildlife that can kill you. In coastal California, not so much. Hence, my decision to go with a totally silent hub.


I'm up against the San Gabriel mountain range which is home to mountain lions and black bears. Bobcats and coyotes are here, too, but they're not big enough to be a significant threat to full-size humans, and tend to be a bit timid. If I recall, there was a lethal mountain lion incident in the Santiago Peak area not all that long ago.


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## AKamp (Jan 26, 2004)

Eric F said:


> Concussions are not rare in soccer...nor in softball. My daughter has had 2. Despite serious interest from multiple college coaches, my daughter decided not to play college softball. She has 4 weekends of travel ball left, and then it's over. I'm going to really miss watching her play. That said, I'm going to have more time for things like riding my bike.


My son is 5'10". He just bought a large ProCaliber and it fits very well. But back to this, my very same son got a concussion in Cross Country a couple of years ago.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

It is good a few times a year to take a vacation and restore peace of mind. Last year, my wife and I were fortunate to purchase a 2nd home in Sicily which we will be increasingly visiting as we get older and try to align everything for an early retirement in ten years. My son and I were able to get out and do some riding on several days. I have an interest in Ancient Rome and Greece, and Sicily has ruins from both cultures:









(Riding on the way to some ruins from Magna Graecia near Siracusa.
Face pixelated on purpose.)

What is one of the best things about riding in Italy? .... A national health care system! Did a group mtb lite ride and one older rider (a native Sicilian) slipped and injured his collarbone. A few of us in the group escorted the guy to the hospital (he was ambulatory) and never once did anyone in the hospital or emergency dept. ask about what insurance he carried or his ability to pay! Turns out he had a hairline fracture and joined us with a sling for an evening pizza. Once someone acquires the proper Carta di Soggiorno (roughly equivalent to an American Green Card), you automatically gain a spot in Italy's national health care plan. (which is pretty damn nice)


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Now that I am back in Cali-land, I had a chance to consider 1 x 12 drivetrains a bit more, ... and, ... I am not a big fan. One reason out of many and something for all riders to keep an eye on, .... derailleur hanger torque:










With the clutch engaged and the derailleur shifted over to the outer (low) cogs, there is a significant amount of torque being placed on the derailleur hanger. I have not seen any reports of bent hangers due to this torque, but the amount of Newton-meters is no longer trivial. Something to keep an eye on for observant riders.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Back in July, my son finished de-anodizing the rear hub, and we had a chance to look at Shimano's relatively new free hub design:










Shimano does not make many engineering mistakes overall, but this freehub is not one of their better designs:










It was not as quiet as I wanted and it suffers from a few other annoying problems, so I decided to make a better freehub ....

Since I did not have time to redesign it myself, I decided to allow machine learning to do it for me. Those of you reading with backgrounds in computer science, engineering, etc will find this old news, but machine learning really has little to do with "artificial intelligence" and much more to do with pattern matching. Basically, I relied upon deep neural networks (a series of interconnected nodes based upon certain mathematical rules) to optimize a 3D CAE space for thirteen separate parameters (I could set this parameter space to any scalar but for my XT freehub design specifically, I needed 13 parameters). An example of some simple code in that direction looks similar to:












The pain in the butt part was training my neural network to recognize the optimal configurations. This took almost three weeks, and in the end produced over 36,500,000 solutions, .. LOL. I then narrowed those solutions based upon some other parameters I did not feed the deep learning code and ended up with about 22 designs that I really liked. After looking at them carefully, I chose two to fully render in CAD software, and then sent them out to be machined (at the machine shop run by the Mechanical Engineering dept.). Those two freehub designs are now finishing endurance and safety testing. More on this in the coming weeks ....


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Because this bike for my son is a long overdue birthday present, I am trying to pay attention to detail. One of the things I decided to do for this custom build, is to add a bit of bling to his M8100 disc brake levers, ... which, ... again, ... meant getting rid of the ubiquitous black:










Like some of Shimano's smaller parts, fully disassembling these levers is a pain due to the riveted reach bolt. So now, I have to fool with cutting off the mushroom end and then rejoining it later (which I may solve with a quick little TIG weld).

Playing with some ideas to add just the right of bling and customization .... Not sure yet in what direction I am going to take these levers to blend in with the overall theme.


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## Eric F (May 25, 2021)

~ Aurelius ~ said:


> Now that I am back in Cali-land, I had a chance to consider 1 x 12 drivetrains a bit more, ... and, ... I am not a big fan. One reason out of many and something for all riders to keep an eye on, .... derailleur hanger torque:
> 
> View attachment 1994908
> 
> ...


Why is derailleur hanger torque significantly different for 1x12 than it is for any other 1x configuration? Torque around what axis?


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Eric F said:


> Why is derailleur hanger torque significantly different for 1x12 than it is for any other 1x configuration? Torque around what axis?


It increases with respect to the Y axis as you pack on more and larger cogs. Any time independent three space system will have six degrees of freedom. If the X axis is the line running through the rear hub axle (so motion of the rear wheel would be rotation around the X axis), and the Z axis is the line almost running from the bottom bracket up through the seatpost (so adjustment of the saddle to the right or left would be rotation around the Z axis), then the Y axis is perpendicular to the X axis (if you're entire bike leans to the right a bit, then you are rotating clockwise around the Y axis to the right a bit). (If our bike suddenly became an airplane, then rotation about the X axis is pitch, " " the Y axis is roll, and " " the Z axis is yaw.) As the effective lever of the rear derailleur (the moment arm) increases in length to deal with the wider cassettes and the clutch increases tension to keep the chain from slapping the chainstay, torque about the Y axis increases. This torque is directly related to positioning the rear derailleur correctly for the huge 45 to 52 tooth cogs.

(There is also torque about the X axis (this also increases with respect to say, a nine cog setup) and the Z axis (but Shimano and SRAM negate this by increasing the distance where the shift cable enters the derailleur with respect to the B knuckle).)


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

I've pointed out a few things that I believe are poorly designed in the thread. Now, let me point out something that is excellently designed:










The Thomson Elite seatpost is badass in looks and functionality. It has not changed in over 20 years for good reason, ... it is extremely well designed. If you can damage this seatpost, you are either:

A - Crashing at Red Bull Rampage

or

B - Doing something massively wrong

Not only that, but the post looks like bike jewelry. Many weight weenies won't choose this post because it weighs about 220 grams (there is a Masterpiece version I think that weighs about 180 grams), but I would gladly take the 40 gram offset and have the stability versus most of the wonky attachment schemes in superlight carbon posts.


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## AKamp (Jan 26, 2004)

I have actually kind of enjoyed this thread however I don't see how you can say the torque on the derailleur hanger is increased. The total throw or span of the rear derailleur hasn't changed, you are just shortening the shift between the different gears. The entire throw of the rear derailleur though hasn't changed significantly since bikes were 6 speeds.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

She&I said:


> To point out to you that it’s summer and your kid is dying to ride a bike that comes close to fitting him, and you seem to think that your instructional blog covering endless minutiae and the convenience of not having to ever uprade your kid’s bike are far more important?


She and I makes a good point above. Except that the rims have not arrived yet, I could have built this bike for my son (without my special add-ons and customization) in only a few days, and he could be out riding it right now with the 29er wheels that came on it stock.

So why have I not done that?

In order to understand why and the trick I am about to lay on my son, it is best if I explain how the trick was played on me (if you decide to read on at your own risk, .... prepare for a long winded story. (.. although the upside is that it is lite on intellectual masturbation)) (This forum also seems to lack the indent function that helps with readability, ... sorry about that.)

Without going into all the miserable details, I didn't have an easy upbringing. During most of my childhood I lived in a trailer in a small coal mining town in Appalachia. (It is for this reason that books and movies like _Hillbilly Elegy_ and _October Sky_ speak deeply to me.) I might have succumbed to the same fate as so many others kids around me if it had not been for a wonderful aunt and uncle. My uncle had little formal education, served four years in the Army, and for most of his life ran an autobody repair shop. What he lacked in formal education, ... he more than made up for with his kind-heartedness. When my stepfather became drunk one Easter and kicked in my Huffy, bending the frame, he bought me a new one. Sometimes on a Saturday I would visit him and watch the guys fixing the dents and dings in the various vehicles that came through his shop.

As I got older and approached driving age, I began to fantasize about someday owning a cool car. One Saturday when I was sixteen, I told him I'd like to find an old muscle car and restore it someday. He told me that there was a wrecked 1968 Camaro in the front yard of a farm on one of the roads leading out of town. Sure enough, when I checked out that farm on my bike a few weeks later, there was indeed a Camaro junked in the front yard with about seven other buckets of rust. (Reminding me of the Jeff Foxworthy joke that you aren't a true r e d n e c k until you have more cars in your front yard than ex-wives.) I cautiously approached the frame and not seeing anyone step out onto the front porch with a shotgun, decided to look it over closely. It was apparent that the something had impacted the back right side of the car pretty hard, ... maybe the result of an accident. I wasn't sure. The Camaro was in terrible shape, ... broken windows, rotted interior, two tires missing, and a dirty engine with grime all over. I knew I had no skills to fix any of those things, and even if I had, my net worth at age 16 was perhaps 20 bucks. I didn't have two nickels to rub together.

So I rode my bike back home and tried to purge the Camaro from my memory. The problem was, ... it kept reappearing in my mind. I remember vividly the pain of showing up at my 11th grade Fall Formal dance with my date in the back seat of my mom's rickety Subaru, while one of the rich kids whose father was the only doctor in town drove up in a nice corvette. Man was that a f....... nut punch.

In the meantime, I began to take small shifts at my uncle's shop helping out. I didn't know **** about sanding or autobody repair, but I quickly began to learn. All the while, the wrecked Camaro continued to play in mind, and one day I mentioned it to my uncle for perhaps the 20th time. He looked at me and said,
"You have the SAT exam coming up next spring don't you?"
"Yep."
"I tell you what, .... I will help you out with the Camaro in accordance with how well you do on the SAT."
I didn't know what to say to that.
"You score only average, and I am not going to be that helpful. You bust your ass on the SAT, and I will find some way to help you a bit with the Camaro, ... provided it can be restored at all."

Probably important to note at this point, that in this small town about every third guy was some type of home brew mechanic. Almost none of the people who did vehicle repairs in town had ever been to an officially licensed Ford or Chevy mechanics certification program. One guy might know a bit about trannies (transmissions) while another might tinker around on the weekend with interiors.

So, I spent the entire winter doing nothing but studying for the SAT and taking the pre-SAT exams. My guidance high school guidance counselor saw my pre-SAT results and asked if I wanted to enroll in physics and calculus courses, and I said I would give it a shot. I remember showing up to calculus class the first day of the spring semester, ... just me and three other students in the entire school of 1500 students.

It finally came time for the SAT, and I sat there nervously taking the old pen and paper version over four long hours. I lost more weight in those four hours than Rocky Balboa did fighting Clubber Lang (in both fights). Then there was the dreaded five to six weeks of waiting for the results to come in the mail. I would run out, see the mailman, lock eyes, and then he would shake his head, ... _not today_. One Saturday I ran out to meet the mailman who had no new news, and walked back inside to be greeted by my drunken stepfather. He told me I was dreaming of pie in the sky going to someplace like Princeton or Harvard, and that I needed to prepare for a career in the trades or mines. We got into a huge argument, and he slapped me in the mouth for "being smart." I grabbed my bookbag and stormed out the door, walking down into town to my uncle's shop.

When I walked in, he smiled and said, "I wondered when you were going to grace us with your presence."
I nodded my head, "No banter today uncle, it has been a bad morning."
"Okay, ... but I've got something you might be interested in."
I looked over, .. and there between his fingers was an envelope.
I knew immediately. "How'd you get that?!"
He smiled, "I've got friends in low places, ... including at the post office.," and then he handed the letter over addressed to me with its large stamped letters reading, "The College Board."
I opened it nervously and read the results that would forever be burned into my memory, ... 99.9% percentile on the math section, .... 99.3% on the English section, ... and a six on the essay.
My uncle looked over my shoulder, threw his hat in the air, jumped up and down and turned to his three employees, "Work's over for today boys! Rest of the shift will be paid in full. We're heading to the bar and the first round is on me!"
"Uncle, I can't drink! I'm only seventeen!"
He then looked over at me and winked, "Bullshit! ... When we recover from our hangovers tomorrow, we've got something important to attend to."
I looked at him with a dazed look in my eyes. (To say I was dazed would be an understatement.)
"We've got a f....... car to pick up!"

True to his word, a few days later we spoke to the farm owner about the Camaro wreck. He nodded, and said he could let the wreck go for $300. I explained I had no money but could help him out by doing work at his farm in return. He scratched his head for a moment, then said, "Would you be willing to mow the one acre around the house every Thursday during the summer?" I looked at my uncle, then turned back and nodded. We shook hands and then loaded the Camaro on my uncle's flatbed, and in to his shop we hauled it.

A few days later on a Saturday, I walked into the shop and my uncle said, "I've got some bad news. The Camaro's frame is bent. We can't put this vehicle on the street like this. It won't pass inspection. We've got to take it over to the frame shop. When we got to the frame shop, the owner examined the Camaro and said that he could straighten the frame and place some reinforcement welds on it for $330. As I had explained with the farmer, I told him I had no cash flow but would be willing to mow his yard or help around his shop.
My uncle interceded and said, "For God's sake Jimmy, ... can't you see this kid wants a cool car to get laid!"

And from that moment onwards, I became known as, "the kid that needed to get laid." It didn't take long in a town of 4500 souls and a county of 25,000 for that to spread.

Jimmy looked up from the frame at me, "Why didn't you just say that in the first place kid? I remember that feeling well! Hmmm, ... alrighty, I got to charge you a bit for the welding, but I will straighten her for free. If you can pay me $20, I'll call it even?"
I shook his hand and there began my journey to restore the 1968 Camaro SS.

Important to note, ... it didn't happen all at once. First the frame got straightened, and then the long process of doing the body work began (typically this takes the most work in any auto restoration). I would mow yards or do work at people's shops in exchange for them helping me without charging me much. Several times, people would ask if I was the guy who needed to get laid? I would nod in the affirmative (despite consummating my relationship with my girlfriend a month after taking the SAT), and they would laugh and then usually find a way to help me.

Ever so slowly over many long weekends, the Camaro came back to life. The body was completely sanded, the 396 cubic inch V8 engine was rebuilt, a new tranny was located at a junk yard, .... every month I managed to get something completed on the car. I had to locate and recondition many of the parts from junk yards or scrap sites. I didn't have the money to buy anything new but some people in town took pity on me (they wanted to see me get laid too), and I was able to get a new dashboard for $75. I got two bucket racing seats for free from a guy that had owned two Camaros in the past and had extras in his garage. In the process, I learned everything from MIG welding to Bondo application to replacing gear oil in an axle. I was no mechanic but the education I received was hands on and immense. That summer between my junior and senior years was a time of magic. I'd wake at 7 AM and study various subjects (usually calculus, physics, chemistry and biology) until about 11 AM, and then go mow yards or do work in my uncle's shop until six, and then go meet my girlfriend and eat, watch movies, and make out until the witching-hour.

My goal was to finish the car as best I could by spring prom of my senior year (at the beginning of May). In Feb and March, I learned that I had been accepted at all the universities I had applied to, but I had a difficult decision to make as some of them offered me full scholarships while others did not. My girlfriend also found out that she had been accepted to study nursing at the University of Pittsburgh. My 18th birthday came only a few weeks before prom, and I had the car pretty much done, but I was still stuck with four ugly black wheels on it. The gloss red paint job and racing stripes looked awesome but the wheels undercut the overall appearance. I told my uncle that I would try to get them replaced later in college if I was lucky. He shook his head and told me to focus my limited budget at university on the essentials and not some silly racing wheels.

My birthday fell on a Friday that year, and it came and went like so many other Fridays. I went to school, did some practice for graduation, stopped by my uncle's shop after school and was told he was out picking up parts. Stopped at home to find that my Mom and girlfriend had gone to look at prom dresses. On the coffee table was a note from my girlfriend that said, "Meet me at the diner (a place she worked at part time as a waitress) at 7 PM."

So, at seven, I walked down the hill into our town's tiny "downtown" area and then began to walk slowly up the rise to the diner when from a few hundred yards out, I saw fireworks going off. My first thought was that it was not July 4th. As I got a little bit closer, I thought that perhaps the diner was having a celebration. Finally, when I got within a hundred yards, it dawned on my dinosaur cerebrum that it was for me. There in the parking lot was my mother, my uncle and aunt, my girlfriend and her mother, my pastor, several of my teammates from wrestling, my high school calculus teacher ... all standing around a shiny red 1968 Camaro with four new chrome wheels on it.









(This is not the exact Camaro I owned, but until I can locate my old photos, this is almost exactly what my car turned out like.)

If I said that I just walked on unfazed, ... all manly like, ... I'd be lying.

For a moment, I just had to catch my breath. When I got over to them, it was like I won the SuperBowl. It was a wonderful evening of family, good conversation, cake, candles and gifts. Turns out, everyone there had chipped in to buy me the four chrome wheels which cost $650. After the party was over, I walked out with my girlfriend and opened the Camaro passenger side door for her. I got in and turned the ignition over. The Camaro came alive on its frame, ... it actually rumbled, ... like a beast alive ready to take off. My uncle leaned in and said, "There are those rare moments in life to let her out. This is one of those moments."

I nodded, let my foot off the clutch and pushed that gas pedal downwards. All 396 inches of cubic displacement kicked in as the tach needle jumped up past 2000 rpm in less than one second. The big fatties in the back bit pavement, squealed in a cloud of rubber and smoke, and off we went.

Actually, ... we only went about six blocks at 25 mph but what a six blocks it was. A magical night and something I hope I can pass on in a way to my son.

Two weeks later when prom arrived, I pulled into the circle in front of our high school gym entrance and heads turned as that V8 could easily be heard over any other auto there. As I opened the door for my girlfriend to step out, a crowd began to gather. A few of my friends even joked, "Well, if this doesn't get you laid, ... nothing will!" We might have come from trailer trash, but we were going to try and shoot for something better. We went on inside to a great evening of dancing.

That last few weeks went by so fast and then summer began. I spent part of it earning some side money in my uncle's shop and part of it doing some pre-study of different subjects that I would be taking my first year. I had already decided I would be studying engineering, but I was not yet 100% certain which type of engineering I would gravitate towards. Even though I didn't have that nailed down yet, I spent time on two important subjects I would need to be a successful engineer; differential equations and linear algebra.

That entire summer passed so quickly, .. it is now like a blur looking back on it. Finally, late August came with only a week until I would be driving hundreds of miles away to a city I had never seen before. It was one of my last days working at my uncle's shop. As the shift was close to ending, he looked at me somewhat seriously and said, "Let's go out back. I'd like to speak with you for a bit."
We walked around to the park bench he had outback and sat down. He looked at me and said, "You sure you got enough money for the first few months?"
I told him I thought I did and that I would spend it sparingly. We talked about a few of the classes I would be taking. He told me that he had been interested in becoming an engineer but ended up disliking math in high school. He told me it would be tough with me gone from the shop on the weekends. I said, "Hey don't worry too much. ... I will try to come back and help you out around the holidays and during the summers."
He looked at me with dead seriousness, "If you ever come back to this town except to visit your mother or us during the holidays, I am going to whip your ass."
He had never spoken to me like this before. I was immediately thrown off-guard. (that and the fact that my uncle is 5'8" and 160 pounds while I am 6'2" tall and 190)
He continued, "I'm serious. If I see you back in this town in three years with no degree and your girlfriend knocked up while you take shifts at Walmart, I am going to kick your ass all over this town. When you get to university, don't you ever look back. You stay in that school and beat every other son-of-a-***** there. If you even think about dropping a class, sleeping in, or not turning in an assignment ... you think about my foot in your ass."
"But Uncle, I was just trying to .... "
"Yeah, I got that, but you need to get something too. Now that your Camaro is finished, what do you really have?"
I looked at him entirely perplexed, "Uhh, ... a pretty cool car that is nicely restored?"
"Wrong. ... The Camaro is immaterial. .... It's a secondary possession. It's a f....... trinket. What you really have is the knowledge behind restoring the car and the thousand little skills that go with it. Everything from MIG welding to upholstery to transmission work. You remember that short story, ... _The Bet_, .. that we read when you were small?"
I remembered and nodded.
"Which would you rather have? The car completed by me in only a few weeks with no involvement from you, or the the knowledge gained from slowly building the Camaro over months but without actually getting the car at the end?"
I thought for a moment, "I'd rather have the knowledge even if I never get to own the car."
He just grinned, "Now you know why I decided to goad you into that experience in the first place. Remember that most things in life that are good, .. take time and hard work to acquire. Little people chase possessions and immediate gratification. Big minds chase paradigms and can delay gratification for months or years. Knowledge is worth far more than material possessions. Any fool can do donuts in a parking lot with a Camaro, but far, far fewer have the mind that can actually sit in front of a computer and understand the math stuff needed to design the Camaro and its components."

I just sat there a bit dazed. All along I had imagined that I had covertly enlisted my kindly uncle in my quest to get a muscle car when in actuality, I had been badly outplayed by a man who wanted me to learn an important lesson. He had served me checkmate right upside my noggin, and I never even saw it coming.

He stood up and smiled, "What are you waiting for Good Will Hunting, ... you still have to get the back quarter panel of that Buick sanded before closing time."

Perhaps now, you the readers can understand why I am stringing this build process out with my son ....

(The second part of this story continues in the next post below .... )


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

(This is primarily for the fathers and mothers out there .... )

In the years after I left the town I grew up in, ... my uncle's comment about delayed gratification and the importance of knowledge over material possessions continued to pop up from time to time. Over the years, several forks in the road came my way where I had the choice of either a quick reward or enduring difficult work to possibly receive a larger award much later. About the time my wife and I were planning to have a child, we came across an interesting experiment that USAToday had conducted where they sent a questionnaire to almost 10,000 American parents across the country asking, "If you could pick traits for your child, which traits would you choose?" Their list had 50 different choices on it including items like, ... extreme intelligence, .... striking good looks, ... pro level athletic ability, ... etc ..... At the same time that USAToday did this, they sent the exact same questionnaire to about 930 child psychiatrists and clinical psychologists that specialized in children across the country. They asked the experts, "If you could pick the traits which best enable a good life, which ones would you pick?"

About ten months later they collected all the replies and tabulated them. The top five responses by the group of American parents were:

1 - Extreme intelligence
2 - Striking good looks
3 - Pro level athletic ability
4 - Well shaped body
5 - Thick hair with no thinning or balding

In contrast to those responses, the child psychiatrists and psychologists listed these as their top five:

1 - An easy and affable, friendly, people personality
2 - The ability to delay gratification
3 - Good-heartedness
4 - Grit
5 - Conscientiousness

As is probably apparent, there was a massive gulf between what the parents thought would be important compared to the experts. The investigative article went further by collecting some quotes from several of the experts. He is a recap of what they said:

Psychiatrist A said, "People that have extreme intelligence often have almost as many hurdles as those that suffer from low intelligence. They are a different type of hurdle to be sure, ... but still hurdles nevertheless. People in the top 0.0001% often find it difficult to integrate with others, as their outlook on life, humor, religion and self worth can be drastically different. When you can see above the treetops out to the ocean, ... it can be difficult to describe that ocean to a person who has never seen one."

Psychiatrist B said, "People who exhibit strikingly good looks are often noticed for these traits in childhood. They are praised constantly by others for their physical appearance and if that appearance ever degrades due to weight gain, illness, or aging, then the depression that results can often be profound because a large part of their mental net worth was based on their appearance. This hits beautiful women even harder than men, especially if they rely on their appearance for employment. You would also think that strikingly beautiful people are the most fun to be with in the bedroom, but all the evidence points to this usually not being true. Again, due to a mental rigidity that develops around the way they believe a beautiful person should act."

Psychologist C said, "Advanced athletic abilities that enable one to play at a professional level are mainly tied to youth. In some sports like the NFL, .... which actually stands for "Not For Long," ... the average player time in the league is something like 2.8 years. Many other pro sports are similar. And what happens when that person ages? In many cases, their mental self worth deteriorates. In some sports, the toll of playing the sport for years has also taken a real toll on their physical health and their longevity."

Psychiatrist D said, "People who display an easy going personality can be fat, bald, ugly, lazy, and late for work almost every day of the week, and still find that they are never part of any corporate downsizing. They also tend to fair well because they always have a friends network in times of stress."

Psychologist E said, "Go to a two-year-old and ask them this question, "You can have one gummy bear now or I can give you three gummy bears in a few minutes. Which would you like?" The children who opt for the latter are almost always destined for much better outcomes thirty and fifty years later. The ability to delay gratification is critical to success in life, and its lack can be seen by those in prison who are among some of the worst for not being able to delay gratification to some types of physicians, who can delay gratification for years to achieve a better life."

To say that I was a bit surprised by the time I finished the article would be true. I knew a little bit of this information but there was so much more for me to now consider if I was going to have my own little guy or gal coming my way. I immediately thought back to my uncle's comments about delayed gratification and importance of knowledge over material possessions.

After doing a bit of digging, it turns out there is actually a test for delayed gratification. It is called the "marshmallow test" or the "Stanford marshmallow test." It was conducted by psychologists Mischel and Ebbesen in 1970 at Stanford University. It basically tested small children aged three to five with the lure of either an immediate snack or a more preferred snack fifteen minutes later. The psychologists found that the kids who chose to wait the fifteen minutes had better outcomes in most areas of life years later, including within their occupation, with respect to their weight, and in their ability to achieve goals. Since their publication, these results have continued to generate controversy, in part because the children of wealthier parents are found to better delay gratification. The infighting is still going on presently.

Of course to electrical and neural engineers like myself, the area is of interest due the mathematical models that may model the interplay between mid-brain reward structures and frontal cortex connectomes important to inhibition. They also open a can of worms to any future machine sentience that we might develop. But even more important to the readers here, they play in an important role in mountain biking and obtaining the best outcomes for your child.

So, if you've got a three-year-old, ask them if they'd like one gummy bear now or would they be willing to wait three minutes to get three gummy bears? If you have a eight-year-old, ask them if they would like to eat a pizza for dinner in twenty minutes or wait until the weekend to go to the zoo. If you have a teenager, ask them if they would like to have more time throughout the week to meet their friends after school or come home and study hard for four months to receive a new iPhone?

Say that your child does not pass the marshmallow test, .... what to do? Fortunately, the marshmallow test appears to be 0.58 heritable, which is *not* equivalent to saying that 58% of their choice is due to their genetics. By repeated trials and working with them, you can push your child to be better at delaying gratification. In fact, it seems that epigenetics may play an essential role in the marshmallow test. By working with your child to expand their gratification envelope, you are actually putting money in their bank. You're banking on their future in a massive way by allowing them to endure for longer periods to receive larger rewards at a later date.

Give it a shot and see how it turns out for ya. No matter the intelligence level of your child, you can work with them to give them a brighter future.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

AKamp said:


> I have actually kind of enjoyed this thread however I don't see how you can say the torque on the derailleur hanger is increased. The total throw or span of the rear derailleur hasn't changed, you are just shortening the shift between the different gears. The entire throw of the rear derailleur though hasn't changed significantly since bikes were 6 speeds.


Thanks for the question AKamp. The lateral throw has indeed not changed that much, ... I don't have the figures right at hand, but a six speed cassette perhaps has a width of 33 mm or so while a 12 speed cassette is perhaps 43 mm or so. Not a huge difference. What has changed though is the moment arm (the total movement of the upper derailleur body) to reach all the way down under the giant 51 or 52 tooth cog. It must be longer than the same swing to move the pulley cage under a 36 tooth cog (say, for a nine speed cassette). Also, because of the huge size of the 40 + tooth cogs and the resultant problems with chain slap, SRAM and Shimano added the clutch. Engaging that clutch while on the larger cogs induces the chain to pull on the pulley cage more tightly (bc the resistance of the clutch must now be overcome), which in turn induces torsion around the Y axis.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

The fork on my son's Procaliber is probably going to have a wireless remote lock out. My son will be able to press a simple button next to the front (left) disc brake lever and engage or disengage the fork's lockout. For this, I will obviously need a small DC motor, a wireless receiver, a lithium-ion power source and the correct gearing to produce the needed torque to turn the lockout. In this pic (from July), you can see my son and I playing with a small DC motor and some sample gears to get a feel for what we need.











There will also be some machining of the Rock Shox fork down the road. Stay tuned ....


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## Eric F (May 25, 2021)

~ Aurelius ~ said:


> It increases with respect to the Y axis as you pack on more and larger cogs. Any time independent three space system will have six degrees of freedom. If the X axis is the line running through the rear hub axle (so motion of the rear wheel would be rotation around the X axis), and the Z axis is the line almost running from the bottom bracket up through the seatpost (so adjustment of the saddle to the right or left would be rotation around the Z axis), then the Y axis is perpendicular to the X axis (if you're entire bike leans to the right a bit, then you are rotating clockwise around the Y axis to the right a bit). (If our bike suddenly became an airplane, then rotation about the X axis is pitch, " " the Y axis is roll, and " " the Z axis is yaw.) As the effective lever of the rear derailleur (the moment arm) increases in length to deal with the wider cassettes and the clutch increases tension to keep the chain from slapping the chainstay, torque about the Y axis increases. This torque is directly related to positioning the rear derailleur correctly for the huge 45 to 52 tooth cogs.
> 
> (There is also torque about the X axis (this also increases with respect to say, a nine cog setup) and the Z axis (but Shimano and SRAM negate this by increasing the distance where the shift cable enters the derailleur with respect to the B knuckle).)


Okay. It seems to me that it's really only a concern if the design of the system cannot handle the additional torque over the lifespan of the bike under typical operating conditions. I haven't seen anything that indicates a significant increase in derailleur or derailleur hanger failures with the increase in 1x systems in use.


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## uintah (Apr 21, 2020)

driver bob said:


> @uintah : This is a weight-weenie subforum and *is* the appropriate place for more detailed posts about "custom" builds.


And obviously family vacation pics/stories and Italian health system commentary, coupled with reminiscing on one's childhood. Sounds more like a blog to me.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Speaking of Italy, ... only Italians could come up with something like this:









(This is a limited edition saddle made by Selle Italia to honor the achievements
of Marco Pantani, a legendary road racer and climbing specialist who struggled with drug addiction.)

I know many would find that saddle to be garish but to me, that design rocks. So, in that same vein, my son and I decided to find (or design) a good saddle that will match with our overall theme. Partly because I like their styling and partly because I have toured their factory, I have usually purchased Selle Italia saddles for my bikes. After a bit of searching, we decided to order this saddle (which matches our overall color theme):










Once it came, we tested it on the Specialized that my son is riding this summer. Overall, he thought it was fine but perhaps not the most comfortable. It was also a bit heavy at 295 grams, and we decided to keep looking. A few weeks later, we found this Chinese carbon fiber model:










It only cost $40, and we figured it would be poorly laid up carbon fiber that would be both uncomfortable and lacking in durability. So far though, we have been pleasantly surprised. Not only is this saddle super light at about 125 grams, but it flexes only as it needs to. It is much more comfortable than the X3 above. After riding it for a few weeks, my son said, "Dad, I think I can improve on this design."
I looked at him, "Okay, but whatever you are thinking, know that it has probably been tried before."
He looked back and smiled, "Yeah, ... maybe so, .. but not with my twist."

His twist will appear here once the patent application is fully in the pipeline ....


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

I got a good question about removing only some of an anodizing layer but not all of it. The reader wishes to know if it is possible to end up with a dull silver finish instead of a chromed appearance.

The answer is that sure it is possible. If you follow the directions I posted from page 2 of this thread, you can set the item you wish to de-anodize down into your sodium hydroxide solution for intervals of three minutes or so. After the first three minutes, remove the item and clean it under cold water. Then take your aluminum polish and do a rough polish. What you will have is a dark dull silver appearance that is certainly not chromed. If that is what you want, ... then stop. If it is not, do another three minutes and repeat. By doing this, you can end up with a de-anodized aluminum piece that is anywhere on the scale from dark matte silver (trending dark gray) to a highly polished chrome appearance.


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## joeadnan (Oct 21, 2003)

I’m interested to see the hub that you made using machine learning 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

joeadnan said:


> I’m interested to see the hub that you made using machine learning
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Joe, the freehub designs that I am testing right now are sufficiently different from anything by Shimano, DT Swiss, Chris King, Industry Nine, etc ... that they will likely qualify for patents. That means licensing fees in my pocket to put towards my son's university and grad school education. If I post detailed photos showing up close views, others from say, Trek, ... or perhaps Specialized, .. or perhaps Shimano, will see them and beat me to the punch. (All of which also have legal departments that would make sure I never recover them.) I would then be locked out of my own neural network's invention (notice I did not say _my_ invention). For this reason, I have to be careful about anything that my son and I invent and then release pics of. That said, I will try to release what I can.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Out of the many hydraulic disc brakes I have tried, I would rate Shimano's XT 8100/8000 stuff at about 6 or 7 out of ten. The main reasons are the on/off contact with the rotor, the somewhat annoying bleed process and the worthless Servo-Wave adjustment screw. In an effort to mitigate some of these problems once and for all, I have decided to do a bit of experimenting and micro-machining. First up is the Servo-Wave adjustment screw which requires, ..... wtf?! .... a phillips screwdriver?









(Ignore the misspelling of Phillips, bit of a rush ..... )

The first thing you can do if you so choose and want compatibility with your multi-tool, is to replace the phillips screw with a metric M4 x 16 socket head cap bolt (use about one drop of blue Loctite also). Hold the lever in all the way (as if you were braking hard), loosen the phillips screw and replace it with a M4. An M4 x 12 will not be long enough, while an M4 x 20 will be too long.
In the hopes of helping other riders out there, I am working with the machinists over in mechanical engineering to come up with a possible solution to the craptastic plastic pressure fixture. If it were up to me, I would just redesign the entire lever but that would not help you guys out. Fortunately, in our machine shop we have a few guys with 30+ years of experience in all kinds of rare machining, and I was able to meet with a guy I have worked with many times before. We both looked at the lever and he said, "If we are constrained by this design, we will likely have to go with micro-machining to get an acceptable solution."
I said, "What do you mean?"
He looked over the lever a bit more, "We may have to use a dental drill on this this."
"Oh, ... never thought of that."

We will see if perhaps a decent solution exists for all the other Shimano users out there with the Servo-Wave setup. Stay tuned ....


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Mana sometimes falls from the heavens ....

To obtain some lighweight rims for my son's bike I first tried to purchase two DT Swiss X331 rims from R2 bikes in Germany. That package got lost in the USPS distribution center in Los Angeles, ... probably to never be seen again. (Although I hear the package is likely to make an appearance in the fifth installment of Indiana Jones.) I then tried to order some silver Velocity Blunt SS rims from ProWheelBuilder.com. After over a month of waiting, they finally admitted they had none in stock and couldn't get any, and refunded my card. So, I attempted to order some directly from Velocity only to be told that there is a three week "manufacturing" delay. So, I continued to work on other aspects of the build and also to teach my son about the patent process and how to benefit from it.

Then this morning, I get this:

_I'm a civil engineer in the L.A. area who has been reading your thread with interest. (Thanks for mixing engineering topics with your post, ... I love it! And don't let the Debbie Downers drown out your message!) I saw your post about trying to get good rims. I was planning to build up some new 27.5 wheels with high-end carbon rims in the spring in anticipation of the riding season when I injured my back severely. I won't go into the details, but it seems it will be a lengthy recovery, and I would like to donate my wheel components to your son._

So, I sent back to him:

_You realize if I get nice carbon rims, that I may be the only crazy in the history of the MTBR forums to paint over them?_

His reply:

_Yes, knock your socks off. Make his build something unique!_

So, long story short, I've got almost $2000 of carbon rims headed my way for free which I will be incorporating into my son's bike. Very thankful!

Chapeau Bill!


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

My son's Procaliber 9.5 is going to feature asymmetrically painted brake calipers. For many of their parts, including the XT M8100 calipers, Shimano uses an electrostatically applied black paint. Obviously since the calipers are designed to take high temperatures, trying to remove the paint with a heat gun is problematic. For myself, I decided to go with the correct chemical stripper, which in this case is a gasket remover:










(If gasket remover does not work, you can try aircraft paint remover.)

Once the paint is removed, you can then paint your caliper whatever color you wish but remember that you can't use regular paint due to the high temperatures that the caliper endures. That means you want specific caliper paint:










In this case, I am going with an ERA activated paint that combines both the pigment and the hardener together. These paints can be pretty expensive but the results are long lasting and durable.

More pics to come as progress continues ....


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

After reviewing most of the major bike anti-theft devices on the market, like Apple's AirTag and several of the subscription based services, I decided to create something better with my son for his bike. In fact, the more rapidly the thief rides away (or drives away if the bike is in the back of a car or truck), the more he helps us to locate him. In order to do this, I needed to rely on something discovered by Michael Faraday in 1831 and utilized by William Kamkwamba in 2002 to save his family and part of his village:










My son looked at this for a moment. "That is not a regular multiplication sign is it Dad? And what is up with the funny upside down _Delta_?"

I looked at him with a smile, .... "Funny you should ask."

If you like intellectual masturbation, ... some stroking will soon follow.


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## VegasSingleSpeed (May 5, 2005)

~ Aurelius ~ said:


> Joe, the freehub designs that I am testing right now are sufficiently different from anything by Shimano, DT Swiss, Chris King, Industry Nine, etc ... that they will likely qualify for patents. That means licensing fees in my pocket to put towards my son's university and grad school education.


Have you read your university's IP policy?


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

VegasSingleSpeed said:


> Have you read your university's IP policy?


You make an excellent point (that many may be unaware of). Under my university's patent policy, I would typically only receive 35% of net licensing income. However, in the particular case of possible freehub patents, I will likely receive 100% of licensing income because the neural network which generated those solutions was not based upon something I developed in connection to my research work (it is not one of the more standard neural network implementations and relies upon some ideas from a branch of mathematics known as differential geometry).


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## VegasSingleSpeed (May 5, 2005)

Except you've already publicly admitted to using university resources for your R&D.

Your grandiosity is off-putting, to say the least. Good luck with your pursuits.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

VegasSingleSpeed said:


> Except you've already publicly admitted to using university resources for your R&D.
> 
> Your grandiosity is off-putting, to say the least. Good luck with your pursuits.


No, you haven't been reading closely. The ideas are mine, and the only part of my freehub work that involved the university, was the machining of it. Big difference.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

After doing some experimenting, it will not be easy for the home user to correct the poor Servo-Wave action of Shimano's higher-end hydraulic brake levers. I was eventually able to machine a fix that I like, but it took some experimentation, and in the process I destroyed one brake lever. (I will show pics of our fix for this at the end.)

One tip that might help is dialing out the Servo-Wave set screw by about three full rotations before you begin bleed. After bleeding is finished, dial the Servo-Wave screw back in until it is almost tight (say a half turn out). This will allow you to have the tightest feeling lever (meaning the least pull to touch the brake pads). Not everyone will want this small pad clearance but it is worth trying out. (I will try to find a video later today that shows this if I can)


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

removed


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

A forum reader (Thomas) liked the details I mentioned about the Camaro I restored and mentioned _Rust Valley Restorers_ to me. This is a reality TV series about a guy named Michael Hall who lives in Tappen, British Columbia, Canada. He restores all manner of older vehicles, ... particularly muscle cars from the 1960s and 70s. You can watch this series on Netflix and here is a pic of Michael Hall and his son Conner and his best friend Avery:









(From Left to Right - Avery, Michael, and Connor)

I gotta say Thomas, thank you for this! I have only watched perhaps one to two hours of reality TV in my entire life, and was expecting this show to be rather poor. I was pleasantly surprised to find I was dead wrong. This show has been a blast so far, and I am only beginning Season 2 now. Although Michael from the show looks nothing like my uncle, they both share the same type of good guy personality along with a sense of kindness and compassion.

You also wanted to know what happened to my 1968 Camaro SS. The answer is that I still own it. Except for a few small changes over the years, I left it pretty much alone until my son was born. My wife said that I could not take our son in it unless I upgraded it to fully modern safety features. So, slowly over eight years, I spent a ton of money and totally re-restored the Camaro again with a new engine, changed out the carb to fuel injection, added a modern suspension system, replaced the disc brakes, and installed airbags and seat belts. It turned out to be a long but rewarding project. It is also where my son first got to handle a welding torch 

I have a few friends who belong to a classic car club in the Bay Area and a few of them were asked if their cars could be used by the music group Train for the music video of their song _Drive By_:






I was not asked as my Camaro was in the early stages of re-restoration, but I did go with my friend who was asked, and got to go meet Pat Monahan, the other band members and Linda Taylor (the pretty woman featured in the video). Turns out that Pat grew up in pretty tough conditions and came west to the Bay Area like me. We had alot to discuss. Good times all around!

Thanks Thomas!


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## uintah (Apr 21, 2020)

Cell phone inside the frame? I'd like to see pics of that.


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## jimmytang (Nov 13, 2020)

slapheadmofo said:


> You should seriously consider changing the title of this thread to the above.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ron Jeremy, maybe.....???


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

In post #120, I mentioned that I would try to find a video where a mechanic shows the correct setup for the Servo-Wave action screw. Here is a video that is not too bad:






I do disagree with this guy though concerning the use of gravity to finish the brake bleed. The reason Shimano recommends using the syringe is because gravity alone will not remove stubborn pockets of air that get trapped in the line. That is why we need to rely on the suction method (that I talked about earlier with Daniel Bernoulli) to forcefully remove any trapped air pockets.


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## uintah (Apr 21, 2020)

Don't you ever attribute words to me that were never written. Post was reported.


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## slapheadmofo (Jun 9, 2006)

~ Aurelius ~ said:


> Hopefully, ... and your welcome.


I was really just hoping for more posts and pictures where you claim some random stranger as your kid.
Will magnetic induction work to prevent stolen photos/identities?


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Jim sent me a question asking about how to increase the durability of paint applied to bike frames or bike parts.

Well, first off Jim, ... I don't consider myself to be an expert when it comes to painting stuff. There are plenty of guys out there that know far more than I do. I can only tell you what has worked for me.

I will mention this a bit later in the thread when I show how I am going to paint the carbon rims coming to me, but I will cut to the chase:










After you apply an epoxy primer coat and then add your color coats over that, you can seal it fairly well with SprayMax's clear coat. (They make this product in high gloss, gloss, semi-matte, and matte.) Instead of a normal lacquer clear coat, this product is a two stage (activated) clear coat which includes the hardener. You spray a coat, then wait for 30 minutes, then spray another coat. Once you get about three coats on, you will have significantly increased the chip and dent resistance of your paint job. The only downside to this wonderful product is that once you activate it, you only have a window of about eight hours to use it. After that, the spray can is worthless.

More on this and painting coming up soon when I spray the carbon rims ....


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## uintah (Apr 21, 2020)

Jim? Cool story.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

While my son and I had his new XT calipers off the bike, we decided to take a look at the pistons themselves. (For those that are interested, you can blow the pistons out of the caliper by using compressed air.)










We may experiment with machining some alternative pistons out of other materials to test. ... Not sure yet.


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## austink26 (Jun 24, 2019)

This thread is wild. I appreciate op’s passion for the engineering etc. The breakdown of Faraday’s law was fun (I have my masters in physics and taught many students about EM). 

This project is more about trying to work on something cool to inspire/bond with your son vs just changing colors of stuff. Trying to make a wireless xt mech is something only one would do for the sake of tinkering. The rational thing to do would be to just buy a xx1 axs mech. Similarly buying some sram brakes with the rsc would be easier than reinventing shimano brakes. 

I agree throwing 27.5 wheels in seems like a mistake but I will be interested in seeing the finished product. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

Yep, you are right AustinK. We are not even sure what the finished product will be yet bc we keep trading ideas back and forth. Changing the colors is really only ancillary (I actually have mountain bikes which have several black components on them  ), ... the real motive is to teach my son that possessions are just material goods while the knowledge behind them is far more powerful. Part of the reason we are doing the project in the first place is just to push my son to always challenge the status quo. Why accept someone's hydraulic disc brake design if you can do one better? (And even if we can't do one better, instill in him a desire to always keep pushing the boundaries.)

When I first came out here to the Bay Area to attend UC Berkeley for grad school, I ran into a fellow transplant like myself who had grown up in a small Appalachian mountain town in the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee. We traded a great deal of memories and laughed at the outrageous ideas of some of the Bay Area snobs we had run into. I was telling him that back where I grew up, if I wanted to earn money in middle school or high school, I usually needed to mow someone's yard. My friend laughed and said, "Yeah, as a kid, I had to mow a yard too if I wanted some cash. Out here in La-La Land, parents teach their children how to build a website that offers people looking to buy a lawn mower a link to a coupon, with one percent of the price kicking back to them. The kid's university education is paid for before they even enter."

At first, I laughed and considered the sentence a commentary on how incredibly arrogant some of the people in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley are. (There is an excellent episode of South Park where Cartman has to use an environmental suit to move through all the smugness of the San Fran area to rescue his friend. Matt Stone and Trey Parker absolutely nailed the Bay Area attitude in that episode.)

However, as time passed, I saw example after example of parents out here using an entirely different parenting paradigm. It was one of pro-growth, pro-entrepreneurialship (that is not a word btw), pro-science, pro-math, with no room for complaining or bellyaching. Particularly, I encountered several Asian Americans who came over to the States from relatively poor areas but because of their get-up-and-go pro-growth attitude, they had in measures small or large, changed the world. I have one friend who grew up in a relatively poor city in China, came over to San Jose, taught himself computer programming, got a job as a software developer, had some children, decided to let them take violin lessons, and upon realizing that no hand rests existed for small children to learn how to hold their violin correctly, made a few simple models, got a patent, started his own product line, and now, partly because of this one invention, lives in a $4.5 million dollar home near the ocean. He has three children who are all reasonably intelligent although none of them are supra-geniuses, and yet the mindset he has instilled in his children is amazing. His nineteen-year-old daughter attends Stanford and has already started up two online companies. She had a net worth of $380,000 before she even entered Stanford as a senior in high school. (None of this money was given to her by her parents.)

It is the kind of get-up-and-go attitude that almost no one in my hometown as a kid displayed. Does that mean I think the people in the Silicon Valley are smarter or more able? Yes, ... they are more intelligent and more able, ... but only by a small degree. The real difference is not one of intelligence though, ... it is one of mindset. That type of pro-growth attitude that a few of my asian friends display, is something that I hope to pass on to my son. (Btw, that mindset is not confined only to Asian Americans out here. Many of the white, black, and hispanic families out here display the same traits.)

So yes, .. you are definitely right. Far more rational to just buy a XX1 AXS mech than try to build my own. Secretly (although, I am not going to tell my son this), .... I don't really give a hoot if our modified wireless shifting XT derailleur can beat SRAM's model. My goal is not to compete with SRAM. (let Shimano do that) My goal is allow my son to experience several of the techniques and manufacturing methods that enable a wireless derailleur to be made in the first place. Particularly, I want my son to master the mathematics, physics, and engineering principles that go behind making a new derailleur. That is my end goal.

And that is my goal for this bike. It is also the reason I am adding all the commentary to this thread. It is my hope that other pro-growth parents will see this thread and consider committing to similar projects with their children.

(I will be discussing the 27.5 wheels in depth later in the thread.)

*Also, I appreciate the input from a fellow scientist. Thanks!*


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## life behind bars (May 24, 2014)

As a reminder, attributing rewritten quotes to users is firmly against the rules. If it continues, offenders will be permabanned. First and last words on that matter. If you guys/gals can't get along, please bow out like adults. Baiting and taunting is grade school level and I'd like to think that collectively we are better than that.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

One of the things that I said I would attempt in this thread, is the tackling of controversies within the mountain biking community. Which type of suspension is best? Rigid vs suspension? Single pivot vs multi-pivot? Is it better to have a wide handlebar or a short one? Are four pot disc brakes better than two pot models? Flat pedals vs clipless? and so on ....

Perhaps no controversy is bigger than the 29 inch vs the 27.5 inch vs the 26 inch wheel. Which one is faster? Which one rolls better? Which one handles better? and so on ....

I've read a very large number of articles on this topic including occasionally those from physicists and engineers. In many cases, the answers arrived at are wrong. Or, even more confusingly, the correct answer is sometimes arrived at but for the wrong reason.

Why is the 29 inch debate such a difficult problem? Because it is a multi-variable problem that requires the correct separation of variables. Those that are important from those that are not. Also of equal importance is that in doing an experiment, only one variable can be allowed to vary (with all the others held equal).

As a starting point, let us consider the question, _*Which is faster on a flat paved road surface, the 29 inch wheel or the 26 inch wheel?*_

In order to pare away all the ancillary variables and focus on the important one, we need to learn something about friction.

Say I take a plastic cube that has a mass of exactly 50 grams and set it on a table:









If I then tap the side of this cube with a known force (measured in Newtons, with one Newton equal to 1 kg . m / sec^2 ), the cube will then slide X distance down the table. Let's say for now that it slid exactly 30 cm.

(Yes, we are using the metric system Americans because base ten is far simpler, and roughly 195 countries around the world also use the metric system. We really don't wish to be paired with Myanmar and Liberia any longer do we?) (And yes, I am American.)

Say, I now take the exact same cube of 50 grams, but using a press, I squash the cube down into a flatter rectangle:









(Important to note that the flattened rectangle still has a mass of exactly 50 grams.) I now place this flattened rectangle on the same table I used for the cube above. I also tap this rectangle with exactly the same force that I applied to the cube above. This time though to my surprise, the cube ends up sliding only 18 cm across the table.

Why?

Due to the amount of friction of course. Both the cube and the flattened rectangle have the same mass, but the flattened rectangle has more of its surface touching the countertop. (Speaking as a physicist, increasing the surface area is the same as increasing the coefficient of friction.) (To imagine the opposite of the flattened rectangle, consider if we had taken the cube in the first example and molded it into the shape of a sphere which had a mass of exactly 50 grams. Now, if I placed it exactly on the same table and tapped it with exactly the same force, it would roll all the way off the table and bounce off onto the floor.)

Now imagine we have two almost identical bikes. The only difference between the bikes is that one has 29 inch wheels (Bike A) while the other has 26 inch wheels (Bike B). Both bikes are using the exact same rider (let's for fun say he was cloned) and both riders are putting out exactly the same constant amount of joules (joules is a measure of work with units kg . m^2 / sec^2). Both bikes have the same frames, drivetrains, hubs, spokes and rims. Both bikes are sporting the exact same tire model and width. The only difference is that the rim on Bike A is bigger to support 29 inch tires, while Bike B has smaller rims to support 26 inch tires.

Now normally, Bike B with the smaller tires would weigh just a little bit less than Bike A. So, to account for this (and so that we are not comparing apples to oranges), we will add the difference to the frame of Bike B.

Now, Bike A and Bike B weigh exactly the same. (They have exactly the same mass.)

Now we fire off our track gun and see how far each bike will have moved after 20 minutes.

It should be apparent that Bike B went further than Bike A. (That means the Bike B is faster.) (My physicist friends out there would say that the velocity (the first derivative of position -> dy/dx) of bike B is higher.)(I had a double major with physics as an undergrad.)

That means that on a flat test surface, the bike with 26 inch wheels is faster. The question is why?

For the same reason that the regular cube above slid further than the flattened rectangle on the table. There is less friction to overcome. Why?









It has to do with the contact patch. The actual amount of rubber that is physically touching the road. A wider 29 inch tire will have a slightly larger contact patch than a 26 inch tire will. This means there is more friction to overcome.

To see this principle illustrated even more clearly, image if we took the 26 inch wheels off Bike B and installed road racing wheels (let' suppose the frame could accommodate them) with tiny narrow tires pumped up to 689 kN/m^2 (which is equivalent to 100 lbs per square inch). We would now find that Bike B is much faster than Bike A. This is because the road racing tires on Bike B have a tiny contact patch. For the same amount of work expended(in joules), Bike B will go much further than Bike A.

*So, clearly, on flat road, 26 inch wheels are faster than 29 inch wheels*. All that is important if all other variables are held equal is the friction of the contact patch. All the other stuff like momentum of the wheels, flexing of the spokes, friction in the hubs, size of the tire covering more ground with one rotation of the cranks, movement of the rider's weight, ... blah, ... blah, ... is bullshit. All ancillary variables that are not of importance here.

Now, having read this, you might assume that during a regular cross country mountain bike ride, 26 inch tires would be faster overall than 29 inch tires.

*Actually they are not*.

*What? I thought you just proved that 26 inch wheels are faster? Are you trying to confuse us?*

Part II of this answer will appear tomorrow ....

(No doubt some readers are also now wondering why road racers don't ride around on tiny 5 inch wide wheels with tires pumped up to 250 lbs. Stay tuned for the answer tomorrow ..... )


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

This post is reserved for Part II which will come in a few days (need to get in a few Federal grant applications for the lab). Stay tuned ....


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## slapheadmofo (Jun 9, 2006)

life behind bars said:


> As a reminder, attributing rewritten quotes to users is firmly against the rules.


What about rambling on about religion while obviously knowing it's also against the guidelines?

Or is that fine for this OP, but just that no one is allowed to respond or comment?
Or can we only communicate via secret messages, like "Thomas", etc?

LOL


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## uintah (Apr 21, 2020)

slapheadmofo said:


> What about rambling on about religion while obviously knowing it's also against the guidelines?


I'm sure we'll be the ones threatened with bans though. He's proving himself to be the ultimate troll.


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## driver bob (Oct 12, 2005)

uintah said:


> I'm sure we'll be the ones threatened with bans though. He's proving himself to be the ultimate troll.


The post is deleted and a warning point handed out. It was off-topic, unrelated to the thread and inflammatory.


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## slapheadmofo (Jun 9, 2006)

driver bob said:


> The post is deleted and a warning point handed out. It was off-topic, unrelated to the thread and inflammatory.


Are we allowed to respond to the 26 vs 29 post?
Or are the OP and his blog too special?

How about his comments on the supposed superiority of Silicon Valley residents? LOL


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## driver bob (Oct 12, 2005)

slapheadmofo said:


> Are we allowed to respond to the 26 vs 29 post?
> Or are the OP and his blog too special?
> 
> How about his comments on the supposed superiority of Silicon Valley residents? LOL


I dont follow every reply to every post, feel free to report it and any one of the administrators or moderators can take a look


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## life behind bars (May 24, 2014)

slapheadmofo said:


> What about rambling on about religion while obviously knowing it's also against the guidelines?
> 
> Or is that fine for this OP, but just that no one is allowed to respond or comment?
> Or can we only communicate via secret messages, like "Thomas", etc?
> ...




Unless there is a report, I likely won't see the post. I tired of reading this grandstanding thread long ago and am more likely to lock it if I have to winnow through every post in this thread.


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## uintah (Apr 21, 2020)

life behind bars said:


> I tired of reading this grandstanding thread long ago and am more likely to lock it if I have to winnow through every post in this thread.


Don't do that. His "son" will miss out on all of the life lessons that we, I mean he, are being taught. 😉


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## slapheadmofo (Jun 9, 2006)

driver bob said:


> I dont follow every reply to every post, feel free to report it and any one of the administrators or moderators can take a look


It's not that these particular things are breaking any sort of rule, or that I'm a huge 'reporter' in general, but there's a massive pile of keyboard diarrhea being dumped here and it includes no small bit of utter BS, but for some reason it seems that this poster is being treated as if he is actually as 'special' as he obviously believes. Any regular old poster here would be getting pilloried for a self-described 'masturbatory' blog like this by other members, and deservedly so.


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## driver bob (Oct 12, 2005)

slapheadmofo said:


> t there's a massive pile of keyboard diarrhea being dumped here and it includes no small bit of utter BS, but for some reason it seems that this poster is being treated as if he is actually as 'special' as he obviously believes. Any regular old poster here would be getting pilloried for a self-described 'masturbatory' blog like this by other members, and deservedly so.


The "unfollow" option for this thread and the "ignore" option for the OP from their profile. 
Time will tell us all how the project works out.


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## slapheadmofo (Jun 9, 2006)

driver bob said:


> The "unfollow" option for this thread and the "ignore" option for the OP from their profile.
> Time will tell us all how the project works out.


Or maybe just lurk and wait for The Anointed One to put his foot in it again.


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## 943945 (7 mo ago)

After speaking to my son, you won't need to lurk, ... this thread is done. I already know this stuff, and my son is learning it, so not having to type any more entries will free up time to get other things done (like finish these grants). The very fact that there is a guy here who carries the moniker of "slapheadmofo" (you can't make this s### up) and who by his own admission "lurks" around waiting to be argumentative (is that not the very definition of a troll?), ... speaks to the heart of why our time is best spent elsewhere.

*Driver Bob = Thank you for your moderation, and allowing me to post what I have. Best to you.

Final post* from me here, and best to the scientific minded readers who encouraged us along the way.


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