The “old” ’08 Reba Race on the Eriksen has seen better days.  I’ve rebuilt it a few times, but it had been leaky and a bit disappointing for a while.  The Poploc, which never really worked, started seeping oil a while ago, and had started blowing oil out of the adjuster on rides.  While a little messy, this wasn’t a huge issue until I started riding the rigid 29er more– it just made the “flexyness” and other issue more noticeable and annoying.  In the end, the Reba lasted through four years of riding (down to the month), with more than three and half of those years being pretty good.

Fork number 1: I looked around and thought I found a good deal on a Fox F100 RLC FIT QR15.  Although I hadn’t ridden Fox forks much, I had heard mostly good things about them.  On top of that, the QR15 seemed to be a good option to stiffen up the front end.  However, it wasn’t to be.  I had a pricing disagreement with a surprisingly rude Fox distributor, so I gave it back.  Not wanting to deal with Fox anymore, I looked elsewhere.

Fork number 2: Thanks to the friendly staff at Upfront Bikes, the same day I returned the Fox, I went back to Rock Shox and got a SID Team at a very good price.  It’s lighter than the Fox, stiffer than the Reba, and a huge improvement over the last two 28mm SID forks I’ve had.  On the down side, it isn’t QR15, Maxle or anything of the thru-axle variety.  It’s plain-old QR, but it still feels fairly stiff.  Apparently, the Reba was a little saggy as well.  The angle makes it look worse than it was, but the Reba was sagging 15-20mm with no load and proper inflation.

I took the Eriksen and new fork out for a night ride from Flinders Uni through Sturt Gorge,  into Craigburn, back through Sturt and Flinders and back to Glenelg.  I was surprised that the SID actually felt stiffer that the Reba, so it was off to a good start.  The ride was great, and aside from some air pressure adjustments, I’m happy.  The SID cut about 250g off of the weight of the fornt end, but I’ll be putting most of that back on shortly with my winter tyre swap.

I took the Eriksen out for a Sunday morning ride with a couple friends.  Four hours, 65km, 20° and sunny. Pushing a pair of 770g 2.35 Ignitors around for four hours is a ‘job of work‘.

If you recall, I swapped the 2.1″ Ignitors on the Eriksen with some rather heavy 2.35s. A few weeks ago I raced the Ignitors (with Eriksen attached) at the AMTBC MT. Torrens enduro. Overall, the 2.35″ Ignitors performed well. More specifically, the 2.35s were noticeably slower on the climbs (it wasn’t me, really), but more than made up for any shortcomings on the way back down.

The downhills at Mt. Torrens are a lot of fun with fast rocky sections, several ramps, berms and other potentially painful features. With my new monster-truck tyres I was able to catch other riders on the downhills and have a lot of fun doing it. So, the 2.35s are staying and I’ll just have to deal with the climbs.

Also of interest may be my new lights. The Mt. Torrens enduro was held in the afternoon with approximately three hours of daylight and three hours of night riding. Prior to this race I had been using a NiteRider MiNewt Mini USB, a 115 lumen light. For this race I used a new bar-mounted NiteRider TriNewt, which comes in at just under 500 lumens.

I ran the TriNewt in the reduced brightness mode for a reported seven-hour battery life during the night portion of the race. Prior to the race I hadn’t noticed much diffrence between the full and reduced brightness modes, and found the light in this mode more than adequate for the race.

I brought the MiNewt Mini USB as a backup light, but I never felt a need to use it. Since the race, I’ve purchased a helmet-mount kit for the MiNewt Mini USB. I haven’t had a chance to use it yet, but I’m curious to see if it is a worthwhile addition to the TriNewt.

If you’re interested I ended up finishing in the middle of the men’s solo class, even with an unscheduled coffee and photo break– full results over at AMTBC.

Prior to the Mt. Torrens enduro I converted the ’08 Reba Race from 100mm to 115mm. I wasn’t convinced this is what I wanted long term, but I wanted to give it a try. Well, after a few rides and the enduro I converted the Reba back to 100mm. Why? The fork went from fairly stiff and generally nice to noticeably flexy and generally frustrating.

During the conversion back to 100mm I replaced the fork oil (again) and the dirt/oil/foam seals on the fork lowers. Thanks again to BMCR for having the parts in stock. Anyway, replacing the seals is fairly easy, and the now that the fork is back to the “right” height everything feels a lot better. In any case, my rebuild proved a lot cheaper than some others I’ve recently heard about.

Want more? I’ve been getting the Gunnar in shape for the next cyclocross race and had the bottom bracket faced, thanks to Brian at Road Rage Cycles. This may seem like an odd thing to do to a 10-year-old frame, but I noticed my external-bottom-bracketed FSA cyclocross crankset didn’t spin nearly as freely as the more road-friendly 105 Octalink crankset I had been using. Instead of going nuts with a White Industries VBC crankset, I tried the cheaper option of fixing what I already had. I’m happy to report that the FSA crankset now spins nicely and all is ready for the upcoming race.