Bike & Jeep

I had a Reba Race 29er Fork on my hardtail when I first built it up… but I was constantly wrecking from the front wheel washing out and eventually the front wheel failed and the rim got a serious S bend and it was useless. So I dropped the front wheel off at the LBS to get it repaired. But before the wreck I had not been too pleased with the Reba and had told the guys I ride with that I felt it was a poorly designed fork… it was too flexy and did not track well. But after the front wheel got damaged I began to think the flexy and tracking issues where related to the wheelset possibly having some issues and the Reba had nothing to do with it.

But buy the time I got my new front wheel back, I had already gotten a RST M-29 fork and had it installed. It did a great job and I just hung the Reba up on the garage wall. I rode the Padrino with the RST M-29 for about 2 months. Then I got a Fox F29 and rode the Padrino with the F29 for about another 2 months. I then stripped the F29 off the Padrino and installed it on my Full Sus. El Rey and I spent the next 2 months riding the El Rey and began stripping a few parts off the Padrino so I could work on it. The Padrino (hardtail) sat on my bike stand for a while… waiting for some attention.

So, two weeks ago I was in the garage, it was raining out and I wasn’t going to be riding at least for a few days. I stood there staring at my hardtail and finally decided I’d take advantage of the down time and pull the wheelset from my full suspension and change the configuration of my hardtail’s drive train. While I was at it, I decided to re-install my Reba Race 29er fork. I wanted to give the Reba another chance and see if I was just being bias in my displeasure of the Reba during the first two months I had it on my hardtail. So I got the Reba installed, and the bike dialed back in.

A few days later the trails where dry and I was out riding. I didn’t really notice any serious issues with the Reba and things where going well, I was having a great ride. 9 miles in the trail got a bit more technical and challenging. As I was rounding an off camber corner and hammering through it at a nice clip… the front washed right out from underneath me and I had a nasty wreck. I got up and got right back in the saddle. Not even a mile later the front washed again and then a third time. I figured… maybe I’m just tired and my lines are getting sloppy. A week later I’m back at the same trail and as I entered this same technical area I wrecked twice. The first wreck was almost in the same location as before, but this time I had insured I picked a good line, yet down I went. I decided to take a look at the trail and see what I could see. All I found was a slight offset in the trail, maybe about an inch in difference in the offset where other bikers had carve a slight 1 inch rut, but I already knew about this offset, I had always taken the high line to avoid the rut time and time before… and never had any issues. I checked my skewer, my wheelset, the tire pressure, the bike and everything seemed fine. I climbed back on my bike and hit the trail. About another half mile further up the trail the front washed again and down I went.

The following day I took the hardtail, Reba installed out to another tail… Sherman Branch. I ride this trail about once or twice a week. I know every aspect of this trail, every corner, rock garden, log, how to hit it and get the best out of the trail’s features. So as I’m railing through one of my favorite corners, I notice my line drift from the usual tight inside corner outwards, coming out of the corner and going right into another I notice my line drift again… not much, but just enough to change my expected line of attack, just enough to change what I have come to expect out of my bike.

So I’ve come to the conclusion that what I expected originally… the Reba Race 29er fork just isn’t right for me, it’s too flexy and does not instill confidence. It’s unpredictable and it is the source of my wrecks. And considering I’ve had zero wrecks in these same areas with the RST M-29 and the Fox F29 installed on the Padrino, I feel very confident that I have given the Reba all the chances to receive and un-bias conclusion of it’s performance. I’ve had not tracking issues with the RST M-29 and the Fox F29… they track great and hold their lines.

Simply said, “the Reba Race 29er fork does not track well, it’s flexy and does not build confidence in it’s predictability”. I’ll be stripping the Reba off my bike as soon as I can and re-installing the RST M-29.

Well, I picked up a Fox F29 and installed it on the El Rey. I’m glad I dropped the cash on it too! The F29 really does handle everything I through at it. It tracks great, goes exactly where I point it, rails through corners and holds it’s line perfectly, there’s no flex that I’ve experienced and it soaks up all the rough stuff. It handles climbs great too, just lock it out and it performs like a charm! The F29 Stanchion’s action are liquid smooth and really feel great. I only wish it had a remote lock-out.

The F29 is a solid fork and well worth every penny. As for my RST, I’ve got it installed on my El Padrino now and it’s doing a fine job.

I have drop $600 - $700 on Fox forks before and as expected I had a really great fork. Fox is the benchmark I compare all forks to. I had a Reba on my El Rey to begin with, but hated it… it was so flexy that I didn’t trust it not to fold up on me and I felt the front constantly drifting off my line because of the flex in the Reba. I decided I needed to get another fork ASAP and the F-29 wasn’t available at the time and was out of my budget too. That’s when the RST M-29 came to my attention.

So when I purchased a M-29 for my 29er I had planned for it to be a temporary fork to hold me over for a few months until I could afford to get a Fox F-29. Then I would install the M-29 on my wife’s 29er to replace her Reba. But after riding my El Rey with the RST M-29 I think I’ll probably forget about getting an F-29 for the time being.

The RST M-29 is an awesome fork! I really put it through the wringer and it performed great, no flex, tracked perfectly, soaked up everything I threw at it and rebounded perfectly. I am completely impressed with this fork and how great it performs!!! It was so easy to dial in too and with a few minor trail adjustments I had it perfectly dialed in and in sync with my rear suspension. I recently moved the RST M-29 to the Padrino and it is performing amazingly well with this fork and I couldn’t be more pleased with it and considering it didn’t cost me $700.00 like an F-29 I am even more pleased with the results of this fork and the purchase.

If you’re looking for a good 29er fork for a great price, you should definitely check out RST’s M-29.

Considering I’ve been hit in the rear by other vehicles on 5 occasions over the years, the idea of carrying my bike on the rear of my vehicle is not something I’m too interested in. So about 3 years ago I started carrying my bike on the front of my Jeep using a hitch rack I made. It works good and has done a fine job. I never tailgate people and I’d consider myself a safe driver, so I feel that the bike is fairly safe from a collision… but there is always things that are unavoidable.

The unavoidable just about happened a month ago. I had the Wife’s Padrino on the front of my Jeep. We where going down a the road and a deer ran right out in front of us. I swerved and the deer ran like hell and somehow we where able to get around each other with out colliding. It was so close that when I got home our dog started sniffing the left side of my bumper… she could smell the deer on it. There’s been a lot of deer hit by vehicles on this same stretch of road lately… about 2 hit each week. And considering that I have to drive this road every time I leave home, I decided to start carrying my bike on the roof rack for awhile, until I didn’t see deer laying by the road side.

Bad mistake, within the week I had driven one of my bikes right into the garage while pulling in. So in the end, it was my own efforts to keep my bike safe that actually ruined it. Go figure.

So, the rear was out of the question, the roof turned out to be a costly mistake and the front was the only choice for now. But there was one more option that I had seen before that I thought may be the right solution for my bike rack. I had seen a photo of another guy’s Jeep rack about a year earlier and thought it may be something I should look in to. So I dug through a folder on my hard drive to find the pictures of this guy’s Jeep rack and found them, spent about a week searching for a Jeep Swing Away Tire Carrier like his and that would work with a bike rack installed and I finally found one that fit the bill. The swing away tire carrier this guy is using is way out of my budget. So I decided to get a “Dirt Worx” Jeep bumper swing away tire carrier. The price was right, the features are a perfect fit for what I’m trying to achieve and it looked stout enough to take the kind of abuse I’ll be throwing at it. So I bought one and took it to Drake Powder Coating to get it covered in a Flux black powder coat. I got the bumper/swing back from Drake just this week. Drake did a fine job with the powder coating. They paint bike frames too if anyone is interested.

Today I decided to skip my Saturday ride so I could get my bumper/swing installed. It took a few hours, but was not too difficult. I’m really impressed with how stout it is. The Dirt Worx bumper/swing is solid and I’m very pleased with the results. I still need to figure out the rack assembly for the bike and how I’ll be mounting it to my bumper swing away tire carrier. I’ll probably go the same route that this guy did for his Jeep, but I would like to get the rear bike tire down lower so I can completely clear the garage when entering and exiting. I tested my rack today using a Yakima rack just to see if I could clear the garage, but the bike’s saddle was a few inches too high. I could always drop my saddle and this would let me in and out of the garage with no problem. But I’d prefer not to mess with the saddle, because I like where it is positioned and never care much for quick release seat post collars.

So I think I’ll be doing a little welding tomorrow and fab a bike rack of my own out of 1.5″ metal tubing. I plan to let it run across the top of the swing away tire carrier as seen in the guy’s Jeep photos. But for the rear wheel, I’ll cut the 1.5″ tubing and bend it down on the rear wheel side and weld it back together. This should drop the saddle height just enough to clear the garage with room to spare. I may do the same for the fork side too. I think this is going to be the perfect solution for carrying my bike and will free up the front Jeep hitch for carrying other things, which will be nice. Once I get it finished I’ll post some photos of the results.