How do I ride them all? I take turns
It tends to mean 2 are in pieces at any one point so I can change bits, clean chains, service bushings, etc..
It's also nice to be able to grab one whatever the weather, and a couple are used mainly for commuting, so not set up for off-road (so for me, they are 'gravel bikes' which apparently is a whole "brand new!" type of bike these days...) I have nice shiny modern ones for real serious rides, and the retros for tinkering about & just having those occasional back-breaking knee-shattering rides that remind you how nice air shocks can be!
kingoffootball - I love these forks too.. Have to be careful occasionally as at 80mm they can't soak up some of the bigger hits, but the on-the-fly tunable damping comes into its own quite often. Just stretch down a hand & turn the hi/lo adjuster 1/4 and the perfect compression/rebound balance you had on a washboard surface opens up for bigger hits on a rooty/rocky track. It's not always necessary to tweak it while riding, but the ability to do so is bloody awesome!
Creaking noise is (I think) twofold.. I discovered that 1) the loose crank I had previously was a result of the tapers spreading; so I've filed down the burrs & taped up the BB axle for now to provide more material for the crank to fix to. I've got a nearly-matching set of Middleburns (silver spider instead of black) on my 'other' 450 tho, so going to swap those over & re-fit the granny ring to this one for a better range..
The other more grating part of the noise is the BB tho; which I've always had suspicions about. It was sold as a NOS UN-90, which when I got it seemed suspiciously heavy and was a good deal portlier than any of the UN70/71's I've got. I suspect it's a knock-off and is badly made. No way in 2 years it should sound like it has powdered bearings with the mileage it's done.. Will have another ride with it installed & if it worsens again it'll get swapped for a spare UN72 I found today while tidying!
If you want more (less?) inspiration; I've just finished remodelling my 'other' gravel-spec 450 last weekend too, having practically rebuilt this one too, what with cleaning it & stripping the crank off, BB out, re-aligning the brakes & stopping the seatpost shim slipping (and changing the tyres..)
So now, it's wearing some Intense ITS Series 2 2.1's and it's made a HUGE difference. It now climbs properly, accelerates and is less slippy in the wet stuff that I found last week (a concrete drainage channel covered in leaf litter & hedge trimmings..) I had the ITS's on another bike before, so I was pretty positive about them & knew it should make a difference.. Was either that or the wheels.. much cheaper to find out it's the tyres(!)
Unfortunately they've been round & trimmed back pretty much every hedge along every lane, track, trail etc round here, so I got a puncture about 1/2 mile from home! Never would have happened with the Ignitors of course
Fortunately my LBS is about 1/4 mile away, so quick stop to re-inflate the tube, scoot downhill home on the road & fix puncture after washing off the dirt/dung (it's also post-sileage muck-spreading season).
