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Whenever we veer into the mainstream by covering a bike from The Big Three, we do it because that bike has something special going on. And the Giant Trance 29 2 certainly is special. Travis spent a month aboard the moderate-travel, moderate-price trail bike. He praised its modern features, sophisticated suspension, and thoughtful spec. It does need bigger brake rotors, but that’s kind of a compliment if you think about it.
You can spend $30 on a mountain bike helmet, or you can spend $300. So, Travis aimed for the middle and compared eight budget helmets with boutique swagger.
Sometimes, the bike industry throws cost-conscious consumers a bone, and the 2024 RockShox Psylo Gold RC is a meaty one. Travis has been chewing on it for a couple weeks now, and he’s got a review with almost no flesh-based metaphors.
MicroSHIFT’s new Sword group came into Travis Engel’s life at the perfect moment. He had been noticing that his Ratio-12-speed-converted SRAM Force shift quality would degrade quickly, as the cable housing wore and friction increased. It’s a sad side-effect of the Ratio conversion’s decreased cable pull per-shift. Also, the hydraulic brakes had too much dead stroke for Travis’ discerning index fingers. He was looking for something new. That’s when, like the sexy stranger disrupting a rom-com protagonist’s unhappy European vacation, microSHIFT Sword bumped into Travis with a very timely meet-cute.
It seems like only yesterday that the aggressively capitalized microSHIFT ADVENT group proved there’s a demand for an unpretentious wide-range 9-speed drivetrain. ADVENT X followed, stacking one more gear and two more teeth, while still holding fast to microSHIFT’s commitment to simplicity, serviceability, lower prices and upper cases. Today, they launch the decidedly more mature microSHIFFT Sword group. Aimed at the gravel and adventure road market, Sword is drop-bar only, cable-brake only, and comes in 1x, 2x, and dropper-post-compatible configurations. We cover all the details below…
