Thoughts on flex

Yesterday while descending Smith Ravine, I thought I noticed the rear end of the Lunchbox flexing when I was pushing it. Just a vague sort of feeling that the rear was wandering a little bit. Reminiscent of a tire that was a little low.

I was concerned it was frame flex and I was going to have to live with it.

I pulled off the rear wheel today to fix the out of dish problem. Checked spoke tension...BINGO.

Tension was in the 80 lb range and needs to be up towards 120. I put 1.5 turns into the spokes, tightened everything up, re-dished, and hopefully this will cure the flex I felt. I'm nearly certain it will.

In some ways it sucks to be that sensitive to how a bike rides. Maybe I shouldn't be so demanding of professional builds, but I have not generally been over impressed with the wheel building skills of many folks. I don't blame them because it is time consuming to do it right, and if you get paid $20 for the build why take massive amounts of time? Why check tension accurately with and instrument, rather than your fingers? Proves my point about many, but not all mechanics...trust no one. Do it yourself. This applies to your car as well.

Descending Smith ravine is by far the best test around these parts of a bikes handling characteristics by the way. It exposes any flaws that are present.

I have one more issue of headset creaking and I fear it may the the known problem of King incompatibility with big forks. I fiddled with it tonight, and if this doesn't cure it, will need to pop in an FSA or Cane Creek.

Otherwise this bike is dialed.

I can actually ride a very nice wheelie on this thing to impress the kiddos.