DMC707

- after a lot of bad weather and a crushing work schedule , i finally got the big rig out -- swapping the wheels from my Yeti analog bike to this one to get some use out of the nice Enve's is going to take a couple more rides to form an educated opinion.

My thoughts on those wheels were they were too stiff on a 120 travel bike and felt harsh , so perhaps they would be perfect for a 50 pound 160mm behemoth. Well - they are still harsh. They are probably more at home on a bike with travel in this range, but i am going to have to tinker with tire pressure and suspension a bit more before i give up on the project. The tires are fresh, soft and sticky, but i am likely running too much air admittedly and i am running close to the max pressure range at both ends for fork and shock --- have been told some volume spacers might help , but i am unfamiliar with this black magic. -- might be time to change that

The mullet wheelset is on my Yeti 120 bike as a placeholder, but Shimano XT series 30mm internal wheelsets are around $400 and i thought would be a nice toss on for the bike if those Enve's stayed on the Specialized .

The tinkerer in me wants to get a ride or two in with the mullet wheelset on it though to see what having a burly 2.6 rear tire does for a Downcountry bike. The height difference is only 1.5" , so 3/4" at the end that counts. If it performs, - might be worth further investigation.

Or -- a few more rides might lead me to the conclusion that Specialized and Yeti both probably knew what they were doing when they specce'd their wheel sizes, but what the hey, i'm having fun

rosefarts

My mother in law has an ebike MTB and a very nice analog bike. I think they both are Liv. She’s sub 5’ and not very heavy.

The regular bike is probably 27-28lbs for a full suspension 120ish type of rig. I haven’t seen the ebike but she told me it’s 55lbs. Or half her body weight.

Last spring while visiting she rented a Juliana and did a shuttle ride. The whole time she was raving about just how light it was and how much easier it is to handle. I guess it had been a while since she’d been on the analog one.

She actually came home with new resolve to ride the regular one more and try more interesting things with it.

Then she broke her ankle skiing very early season this year, so I suppose that in about three weeks, she’s going to be really happy on that ebike.

But the point of my story is that regular bikes are actually pretty cool.

I just assembled a cargo Yuba into a ebike and kid carrier. Totally fun and definitely feels like cheating.

DMC707

hope she gets better soon!

my "analog" bike is nice -- definitely want to get it out soon and check strava times in comparison on some favorite trails when it warms up a little.

A cargo bike or trike even is actually the sort of thing i think would be the most useful application for a bit of electrical assist.

Darth Lefty 

Kind of amazing you can still sense "harsh" wheels through all that suspension and tires.

On my commuter I have the headlight battery in little top tube bag. Blackburn makes a triangular bag (below) that might fit in where you have the light battery now. I think it's kind of amazing that you still have room for a bottle despite the main battery and the mid-mounted piggyback shock. My Tilt (coming soon!) is non-e and even so the entire triangle is blocked up by the shock. I'll be lucky if it can use that same triangle bag.
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I was looking at other bikes for what has clearance within the triangle and Salsa was the outright winner, allowing two large bottles and a little bag. They have a big S curve to the down tube and the inline shock is tucked under the pretty high top tube.