New Teocali and Old Raceline.

[Martin.au]

My new AM rig and my old Hardtail.



Mongoose 2005:
Frame: Teocali
Rear Shock: Fox RP3 with platform
Forks: Fox Talas R
Bars/Stem: Truvativ Team
Brakes: Avid Juicy 7's with Clean Sweep rotors
Grips: Ergon MR1s
Saddle: SDG I-Flex
Seatpost: SDB I-beam 2014
Derailleurs: X-9 rear, Deore front
Cranks: Truvativ Stylo Team
Pedals: Exustar PM25
Cassette: PG990
Wheels: WTB Laserdisc Lite
Tires: WTB Exiwolfs


Raceline 2002
Frame: Raceline Expert
Forks: Marzocchi MX Comp Air 2004
Bars/Stem: Easton EA50
Brakes: XT 4-Pots, Hope floating rotors, Deore levers.
Grips: Ergon
Saddle: Specialized Telluride Comp
Seatpost: Thomson
Derailleurs: XT rear, LX front
Cranks: Truvativ Firex
Pedals: K2 Mag-C's
Cassette: XT
Wheels: Formula hubs, Mavic 223 rims.
Tires: Continental Vapors

[leitch]

nice teocali.. what do they retail for these days? can you give us a bit of a review on how the freedrive feels on them? hurry up and get some clipless pedals on it

[Martin.au]

Will do, in about 3 weeks when my broken elbow is fixed. From my test rides I got the impression it's pretty plush but you don't lose much pedalling power at all. It doesn't bob much either, but I'll need to ride it some more before I give a decent evalluation.

I'm going to be getting clipless for it soon, but I want to play on the flats for a while first.

I bought my for $2650, down from $3700. It was an 05 model being runout.

[yogibear]

I've always loved the look of the teocali's. They just look so clean. i have a balck diamond tripple and I love it. The freedrive works so well it almost unbelievable. I've ridden other bikes and they ust dont compare for pedaling efficiency. I cop the K Mart bike schtick too. oh well their loss.

[Renegade]

Both nice bikes, goodsetups man have fun

[hammer-123]

your bikes are heaps cool

[Martin.au]

I've always loved the look of the teocali's. They just look so clean. i have a balck diamond tripple and I love it. The freedrive works so well it almost unbelievable. I've ridden other bikes and they ust dont compare for pedaling efficiency. I cop the K Mart bike schtick too. oh well their loss.

Haha, So far I've heard clean, ugly, peculiar, cute. They are a funny looking rig, but then, I think most bikes are these days.

[Martin.au]

Well I've done some riding on it, though nothing technical.

OK, early observations:

-It pedals really well in the saddle. My girlfriend road it up some hills out of the saddle and said it climbed better than her hardtail, which is a couple of pounds heavier. It didn't seem to bob under her efforts. I normally use the exact same gear ratio on the Mongoose as I do on the hardtail so I can't be losing much in the way of efficiency due to the suspension. It feels a bit "flat" on the road, but really perks up when you start getting speed up in the scrub. So far I've only done a couple of small rides (25km) but it was a very good pedalling bike, especially as I'm running flats, not spuds. I do get a tiny bit of bob if I get up and stamp. It's not bad though and I think most of it's coming from the fork. The fork is pretty rough. I did one ride for about 10km over braking bumps in a gravel road. Most of the impact I felt was coming through the fork and handlebars. (yeah I've checked sag, it's fine just a standard non broken-in air fork)

-I can feel some minor bump feedback (not chain feedback) over small repetitive bumps. The lack of chain feedback is really nice as I can just concentrate on maintaining a smooth cycle in crappy terrain. The bump feedback isn't harsh. I can't feel the BB moving. It's probably not much different from most FS bikes.

-It really loves the singletrack. Compared to the Raceline hardtail, the 'Goose seems to carve through turns. The Raceline is a lot steeper in angles and feels like it needs steering through turns.

-The bloody Exiwolf tires pick up every bit of dirt and gravel and spray it all over the place. I'll probably replace them with some larger lugged tires that don't gather dirt in the cut outs.

-SRAM X9 is really really nice to use. I think I prefer it to the XT/Rapidfire setup on the Raceline. Very solid and robust. I love not having to disengage a finger (that may be braking) to change gears. It seems picky about the rear derailleur adjustment. Runs fine but is a bit noisy if it's off by a bit.

-It is worth building a mudguard for the back wheel to keep debris from the shock, pivots and derailleur. It is really easy to do this with some black plastic and zip ties. I'll post again when I've built mine. - Done. It's in the DIY bike bits thread.

-WTB Laserdisc Lites have a tiny bit of play in the front hub. Apparently this isn't a problem and is fairly common, but damn it's distracting.

-Running hydraulic hoses down a Talas 05 is a pain in the neck. I found a plastic cable clip that could be fastened with zip ties

-Self extracting cranks are awesome. I love being able to remove cranks without a crank puller.

-There's very little space for the front derailleur. It has to be a low clamp and therefore not Sram. It also can't stick out to far rearwards from the clamp. I could just squeeze a current LX mech in there but there clearance between the mech and the front stay in the rear triangle when the bike was at rest was under a millimetre. I ended up keeping the Deore mech and probably will till it dies now. It's a shame as the new LX front mechs look awesome and solid.

[norco_maniac]

really nice new bike man, looks really good!

[Martin.au]

Almost set up the way I like it. I'd love to lose a couple of inches off the cables but I'm not sure I can be bothered. I possibly might switch to 8" rotors in the future. Now I can start finding out how durable the beastie is.