Bucksaw review

A couple of people have asked about a review of the Bucksaw, this seems like as good a place as any to put it. Sorry I haven't taken it out on a picture tour yet, so no action shots are included. TL;DR: love the bike, some minor changes were necessary.

I've got about 100 miles on the bike so far, a small percentage of that is on snow (which doesn't really count).

I bought this bike sight unseen, which is unusual for me. Obviously if you're going to drop this kind of money on a bike, you really should ride one (or even SEE one in person!). I didn't. I have a couple of friends who had ridden them and I read a lot of public reviews on MTBR and other places. The one constant in every review and discussion I had about this bike was the word "fun". Anyone who knows me knows that is exactly why I ride. I always say that if mountain biking made me fat rather than fit, I'd be enormous.

So after 100 miles, I'll confirm that sentiment, it's a very fun bike to ride. I was hoping for an "aha" moment the first time I rode it, but I will admit that there was no such feeling, it took me a little bit to figure out exactly what this bike is and is not and how to ride it, just like every other new bike I've ever ridden. Perhaps the only "whoa" moment came the first time I pointed it downhill, whew this thing wants to FLY. With the fat tires you can really haul into corners and stick it - that's a pretty awesome feeling, but I also feel that it will get me in trouble at some point.

My two biggest concerns about the bike going in were that the Nates (tires) were going to be really slow - they look like aggressive motorcycle tires, and secondly that the weight of the bike was going to make it painful to climb.

The former ended up being true. Those tires are beasts, they exhibit very little self-steer, but the first time you pedal (forget coasting) on pavement, rock or hard packed surface you can feel the grip. Surprisingly I also found that they were not all that great on rock slabs (we have a fair amount of that around here). I could easily spin out my rear tire if I wasn't really careful with my weight and power.

On the weight. I honestly don't notice that the bike is heavy, I guess it probably weighs around 33 pounds as it stands now.

I put some lower profile tires on it today (Panaracer Fat B Nimbles) and they are noticeably faster. Given that is a fairly inexpensive fat tire, I'm pretty happy. I'll save the Nates for winter excursions. That is one change I would plan on making if you're considering a Bucksaw.

The bike has a fairly short top tube and low front end, so I had to put a 100mm stem on with a bit of rise to compensate for my stupidly long legs. Prior to doing that the handlebars were just too low.

The SRAM Guide brakes are amazing. It's not single finger braking, it's single thought braking. There's a long technical downhill at Racker and I can honestly say this is the first bike where my hands weren't cramping at the bottom, really amazing brakes.

The 1x11 speed transmission is fantastic as well. I love having access to that kind of range with one derailleur. I have had to get used to doing multiple gear jumps at the top of climbs, with a 2x10 set up if you're in granny and the big cog out back, you can just switch the front, it takes 2 or 3 gears to get to that same gear with the 1x11, not a big deal, it just takes some getting used to. The chain is really quiet, no slapping at all, which is great - the entire bike is quiet, way quieter than the Fatboy (obviously), but quieter than my RIP9 too - the RIP doesn't have a clutch derailleur on it, so that is probably the difference.

My only other complaint about the bike is the rear hub. It's fine mechanically, but it's engagement is laggy, it just doesn't have enough engagement points. For a bike that costs this much, it really should have a better rear hub.

The suspension is great - it's not one of those "couchy" type bikes where you can really feel the suspension working. It's always surprising how far the o ring has moved when I look at it. You do have to get the tires to the right PSI to interact with the suspension in the right way. They said 12PSI, but I found that to be way too harsh, I'm at about 8.5PSI now and that seems to be a good spot where the tires are taking care of the small hits and the suspension is taking the bigger ones. It's really cool when you get them set up to interact, I've never had a bike that was this smooth on small and big hits.

So, the big question - would I buy it again? In a heartbeat. It's a great machine that loves to go fast and is no pig on the climbs. It's well matched to the kind of technical riding I do. I expect we'll have many great rides together.

I may look to put a better hub and carbon rims on it next year, I could probably drop a pound or two of rotating weight by doing that. Those are expensive pounds.

Klein Attitude for sale

For sale 1992 or 1993 (can't remember exactly) Klein Attitude.

The bike was bought new by my brother, and ridden as his regular mountain bike for 5 or 6 years. He stripped it down and sent it back to Klein for refurbishing and painting. If I remember correctly it was originally painted like this bike. You can see evidence of the original paint color on the pictures of the fork. After he got the frame back from Klein he added a Marz Bomber fork. Sale includes both the rigid and suspension fork. Unfortunately the original integrated stem/handlebar broke somewhere along the line, so that is not included - I see those come up on Ebay, if you want to bring it back to original you can get one there.

The bike has been used, but it is still in very good condition. I'm not interesting in unhappy buyers, so please ask questions and request close up photos of any areas you want to see.

The bike has the following parts:
Tires: Velociraptor (front and rear specific)
SPD pedals
Marz Bomber fork - fork has some scratches on the lowers, but stanchions are 100% clean and it works well
Gripshift shifters (in this time frame both Shimano and SRAM were using the same shifting ratios)
XT Vee brakes
XT front and rear derailleurs
8 speed drivetrain - looks to be in very good condition, no skipping
XTR rear hub on wienmann rims
Parralax 110 front hub

The frame has some signs of use, I tried to take pictures of all the scratches and wear marks, I will post more as I go through the bike more thoroughly.

Asking $1,000, I've seen these go for as much as $1,400.