Author Archives: Justin Fox

Hills? What hills?!

Nascence. I’ve seen the light. Mind blown, hype is real. I’m converted.

So much to like, so little to dislike, but if I had to list the negatives:

– The bike is speed limited to 25km/hr and you’re always going 25km/hr so the on again off again is a major drag.

– It’s light for an e-MTB but it’s heavy to load and offload.

– Not sure I’d swap the rear wheel to a 27.5 as even with the 29″ rear wheel and 155mm crankarms I had some pedal strikes on techy uphills. I thought the weight would make for a sluggish bike in switchbacks but nope, changes direction amazingly well!

– Grips are a bit thin, will swap them out for something chunkier ASAP.

If you can’t beat ’em, join em?! 120Nm of torque and 1,000W of peak power in boost mode. Cheat code enabled!

Much thanks to PedL for getting the bike to me so quickly. Cant wait to hit the trails!

Shot on film (!) by Nick!

God & Famous Ti top cap and PNW Loam carbon bars.

Surprised that SRAM MTB cranksets are super light much like their road cranksets.

Love how thin these HT pedals are.

Re-used the existing DUB BB so it was an easy swap.

Massive 203mm Galfer rotors, Chaser 6-bolt to centrelock adapters and CRW lockrings.

Shot to compare width of the old alloy bars to the new carbon ones.

As much as I love ODI Ruffians I felt they were too thin last time out so I’m now trying out ESI chunky grips on my new PNW Loam carbon bars. Despite insanely wide bars being the norm these days I still found 760mm (which is on the shorter end of today’s standards) too wide so I’ve cut down these carbon bars (might regret it later, we’ll see!).

Always good hangs with Sam. I needed him to bleed my front brake on the Kona (I still don’t have the tools to bleed brakes, yet!), and got to meet Noah (rad dude!), who runs Harbour Luxe Auto Detailing. Noah was applying Ceramic Coating to Sam’s Factor.

Was looking to buy a cheap lightweight BTLOS set from China, but then spotted these DT Swiss 1200 Spline wheels on FB Marketplace. DT Swiss 180 hubs, tubeless with a liner in the rear wheel too. Super light at 1500g for the set. 650g tyres too. Got a good haggle in, now they’re mine!

Just need to bleed the front brake and we’re there!