all good things must come to an end; that’s not me being negative, it’s a fact of our physical universe. it really is. the fact that my trusty nomad is being sent off to the big flow trail in the sky – or more likely a wall in my study – has more to do with years of aggressive riding taking their toll on thin layers of carbon fibres.
so here is the last photo of my bike before it officially retired. i am very sad to wave goodbye to the amazing gen one enve wheels – they really transform the bike. my one gripe with them is that tyres are a very tight fit, and it requires quite a bit of persuasion (and tough tyre levers) to get them on or off; this makes trailside repairs pretty much impossible. it is also difficult to find a valve stem that fits and because of that i recently had a hard time keeping the air in the tyres. i’ll fix that and then nat can enjoy them on her bike – although she says the dt swiss 240 hubs are not loud enough for her taste.
i also really liked the pike fork: in this day & age it is almost unheard of to have a six year old fork still performing extremely well. the air spring has been updated, not the damper (too expensive), but the coating is still in prime condition, as are the bushes. given how many new fox forks i have seen with loose bushes that’s a testament to the build quality of the 2016 pike. it will be replaced by its newer, burlier sibling, the zeb, which sports 38mm instead of 35mm stanchions.
i will also miss the vivid air shock. i have tried a simpler air shock (what today would be the deluxe) and – for a brief period – a coil shock, but none managed to make the nomad as fun and playful as the vivd air. agreed, servicing the shock is neither fun nor simple, and ever since one shop managed to destroy a vivid i’m not taking any chances and do the work myself. the new frame comes with a fox dh shock, which should work well. we’ll see.
the rest of the parts have now been carefully removed. they will be cleaned, if required serviced, and then installed on the new frame.shouldn’t take too long.