The journey continues…
After growing up in Sault Ste. Marie and racing XC way too seriously I moved to Colorado where I picked up an ultra endurance addiction and a habit of climbing to the top of things. I swore I wouldn’t leave but when a company came knocking down my door to offer me a new life designing bikes in Connecticut how could I resist? Life is a journey, not a destination. Enjoy the ride.

Jesse J

Top ten stinkers.
6/17/2009

In the immortal words of Bevis and Butthead, you need things that suck to have things that are cool. I try and do my research to avoid buying lemons but sometimes innovation pushes too hard end up with gimmicks or parts that are flat out a pain in the ass to deal with.

Hear are the Top 10 modern parts I loath.

#10. Shimano Dual Control levers.
Thankfully these are joining the Dodo bird. You remember them right? Shift by moving the brake lever up and down. The down part was fine but the back of your fingers was never meant to push against a lever. End of story.

#9. UST Tires.
Tubeless is awesome and tubeless wheels needed tubeless tires but did they have to make them so damn heavy? To top if off one pin hole in the tire and it was an eighty dollar strip of garbage.

#8. XTR Carbon cage shadow rear derailleur.
Cool part, great cable routing but the damn carbon cage keeps blowing up on me. I shattered 2 in the fall and gave up. Sticks and stones may break my bones and there are a lot on the trails in Connecticut but I grew up in similar terrain in the Sault and in 20 years or riding never broke a rear derailleur. Carbon is cool but not worth it here.

#7. 15mm Thru Axle standard.
Another new standard to deal with? This one bridges the gap between the XC QR and the DH 20mm thru axle. Only problem is the 20mm thru axle is way stiffer and just as light thanks to the new Maxle. If anything I was expecting a fork manufacture to standardize something like a thru 30 front hub for Freeride/DH riding. We will see how far this goes.

#6. Integrated seat masts.
Measure twice, cut one, zero resale. Oh and forget about flying with your bike or getting a bike shop test ride. Even more amusing is most of the mast head stubs are heavier than a high end seat post 350mm long. It does look cool though!

#5. Digital weight scales.
If you cant feel the difference in your hand it really doesn’t matter even though we all want to believe it will. These evil devices have leveraged thousands of dollars out of unsuspecting riders wallets over the years.

#4. 22/32/44 chainring teeth combination.
We can buy 4 different wheel sizes but why do we all have to use the same sized chainrings? The 22x34 is so damn small you’ll be faster walking and as long as you are riding on dirt you don’t really need a 44x11. On the other hand, the 32 is just so perfect in most conditions it’s a hard size to give up. Sram XX is putting a stop to it closely followed by FSA but for years and will offer things like 26/39 and 28/42. No too bad but how about 26/32/39? Riders used to hold their breath every time they changed rings cause they weren’t sure if the chain would fall off when they did. If you make the jump between the teeth not so big I think it could shift as good as the back. Then again, the 1x9 I’ve been running on my AM bike is a lot more useful than I expected.

#3. Straight arm sunglasses.
They are cool and work well on any head but when you add a modern bike helmet to the equation you get things trying to occupy the same space. My glasses hit my retention system and dance around on my nose on bumpy terrain. I’ve tried cutting the arms back but they always leave a sharp edge against my noggin and compromise their holding power. I’m left with running the arms a little higher above my ear so they rest on my helmet bands. Cant we just get a pair of functional glasses with old school arms and get this fixed? Giro made a stab towards this but stopped half way. Any other takers?


#2. Outboard bearing cranks.
I hate to keep throwing Shimano under the bus cause they did the best they could working around standard bike specs to make a large diameter BB spindle fit in a BB shell but it was a band aide solution. Now you have all the frame manufactures disregarding convention and running an optimized standard for a compromised BB design. If they would have just re-evaluated the whole thing from the start you would have ended up with something optimized for both. But I guess that would have been BB30 and someone beat them to it a long time ago.

#1. Stans No Tubes sealant.
It’s a love hate thing with this stuff. Changing tires sucks. You need an air compressor, patients and a lot of time and unless you really have to, you don’t want to mess with it. Gone are the days of picking the right tread for the day, whatever is on my bike will have to do. Maybe that’s better but its nice to have some options but I just cant fathom riding tubes again.