(upbeat music)
- [Seth] This bike is a Liv Hail,
and if you hear me refer to it as a Giant,
it's because it is.
Now, this bike belongs to a local, a mom, a business owner.
She doesn't get a whole lot of free time to ride her bike,
and so when she grabs it to go for a ride,
it'd better be operating smoothly,
and right now, kind of isn't.
Now, she complained to me about a few things.
One of them was the drivetrain.
Now, it seems to shift more or less okay,
but just feels and sounds like garbage.
Now, what happens
is the internals of the chain start to wear out,
and it effectively lengthens the chain a little bit,
and then it doesn't really fit on the drivetrain well.
It's gonna start wearing out the cassette and jockey wheels,
and it looks like it started to do just that.
The other thing she was complaining about
is that the rear shock feels like molasses.
She says she's just fighting it when she's climbing,
fighting it when she's riding.
Rear shock probably needs a full rebuild.
Then there's also the dropper post
which is sort of sagging.
It'll go up and down, but then when she sits down on it,
it sort of squishes the dropper post down,
and so we're gonna address that, too.
There are parts of the bike
that are really hard to get into with a brush or a hose,
and so we're gonna take it apart
and just literally clean the crap out of it.
While we're in there, we'll check the linkage bearings
and make sure they're okay.
I'm gonna start breaking this bike down.
We're gonna clean it up,
and we're gonna make sure mom has a really good bike
the next time she goes for a ride.
(upbeat music)
So quite a few of you have asked me
why don't we do a bike like this on "Flip Bike"
that's a few years old and see if you can flip that,
and the reason is it's really hard to find one
that's so neglected that we can just clean it
and fix it up and make a profit on it,
but I think the sentiment is you want to see us
overhaul some higher end bikes in this channel,
and so that's what this is.
This is a five-year-old bike
that needs a little bit of help,
and so we can give it another 10 years.
(upbeat music continues)
The linkage is a disaster.
This is no good.
This should all feel totally smooth,
and it's just jerks around and indexes.
We're gonna have to replace all these bearings.
(upbeat music)
(disheartened music)
This does not want to come apart.
(hammer whacking)
(tool scraping)
(hammer whacking)
Something terrible has happened.
Occasionally, I break things.
This rocker arm is actually made of carbon.
I had no idea.
This sucks.
This link is very common on a lot of Giant bicycles,
and if you've worked in a bike shop for any amount of time,
you've probably seen it,
and you wouldn't be banging on it the way that I was.
We certainly can't just glue this back together
and keep going.
So it's probably gonna take a couple of weeks
to get this part and we will resume the video at that point.
Hello again, I'm back.
I've got the same shirt on,
but my hair has grown considerably, and I've got a new link.
Doesn't match the old one so we're gonna need to paint it,
and we're gonna need to pop the bearings out first.
(upbeat music)
So this link is used, but it's in great condition,
and we don't want any paint to get on these surfaces
where the bearings press in
so we're gonna take the old cartridge bearings
and just kinda push 'em in enough for them to stay there.
(spray paint blasts) (upbeat music continues)
So, no, we are not painting the link
all fancy the way it was.
It's gonna have to be flat black.
There's tons of other things on the bike that are black,
and so this will match.
(upbeat music continues)
(hammer whacking)
(upbeat music continues)
(bearing crackling)
None of these bearings feel good,
and most of them are completely shot.
This is gonna feel like a completely new bike.
This was long overdue.
This is one of those rare opportunities
to clean all the nooks and crannies in the bike
in a way that's impossible otherwise.
I mean, we have the entire thing apart.
We can get everywhere with a brush and just get it perfect.
(upbeat music)
The paint in our link is dry.
The rest of the frame is all cleaned up.
Now, we can start pressing bearings back into these parts.
I guess there are like 95 of them, was it?
Yeah.
Yeah, let's get to it.
(upbeat music continues)
(components clicking)
(upbeat music continues)
So how do I know where all these spacers and bolts go
that I took apart two and a half months ago?
The way is I took pictures.
In a situation like this,
taking pictures is really gonna help you
because if, at any point, you get interrupted,
and you have to come back to it later,
whatever system you were using to lay 'em out
is not gonna work anymore.
So this air shock, it definitely needs an entire rebuild,
and we're going to do that, but not today.
Today, I've got a new shock.
(upbeat music)
(tube clicks)
This gorgeous shock is a Cane Creek Kitsuma
named after one of my favorite trails.
You've got compression at the top,
and then you've got rebound on the bottom,
and they're just these big dials
that you can turn with your finger.
This is definitely meant to be dialed in
for the type of riding you're doing that day,
and you don't need to carry around tools to do it.
(hammer whacking)
(metal clanking) (upbeat music)
One day, I will go into detail about why the star nut,
yes, the star nut, is the single part
that changed the course of mountain biking forever,
had a cascading effect, but not today.
Today, we're actually gonna remove the star nut
from this steerer tube
because we're gonna install something in it.
So this is the OneUp EDC.
You've seen it on my channel before.
It's a multi-tool that hides in your steerer tube.
In order to install it, you need to remove the star nut.
You are then left with the challenge
of putting tension on your headset bearings,
and so the solution is you thread
the inside of the steerer tube.
The way this works is pretty simple.
They gave you a tap.
Then they have this guide to make sure
that the tap is running straight,
and then you use an eight millimeter Allen key to turn it.
(upbeat music)
So now, our steerer is threaded, and this little top cap
threads in, and you use a cassette tool to turn it.
OneUp does have a threadless carrier now to do it
without touching your steerer tube,
but this is the old one.
I had it around.
I thought it would be a cool thing for Heather to have
so she always has a multi-tool on her.
So this bike came in with a RockShox Reverb.
You get one in 2022, any model, good seat post.
This vintage is not so good.
They tend to sag after a while, and then you service 'em,
and then they start sagging again,
and yeah, we're gonna swap out this saggy RockShox Reverb.
(tools clatter) (upbeat playful music)
Found a KS LEV with the right diameter,
and actually, it's an upgrade.
This is a 150-millimeter drop, and it doesn't sag
so time to route the cable.
Ha, got it.
(upbeat playful music continues)
This derailleur is working,
and the cassette's a little bit overcooked.
We're gonna install NX Eagle on this bike.
We have one in the parts bin, lightly used.
You guys have actually met Heather.
She's Oscar's dog groomer,
and so we want to take extra good care of her.
Heather is getting Eagle.
I'm really happy with how this is coming together.
I was about to true up these wheels and put 'em back on.
They're fine.
I don't want them to be fine.
I want them to be awesome.
Crankbrothers Synthesis Alloy Wheels
with Industry Nine hubs.
I love these wheels, but I also have a carbon set,
and so I'm realistically never gonna use these.
So let's make this bike even more awesome.
Now, besides these just being good, strong,
lightweight wheels with awesome hubs, they're tuned,
and so the spoke tension is actually adjusted differently
between the front wheel and the back wheel
to add a little compliance around turns,
but after riding them for over a year,
it feels different to me.
It's something I've gotten used to,
and it's something I like.
(upbeat music)
This work order has grown considerably,
but we definitely took care of everything on it,
time's like four.
Time to stare at it.
(rock music) (wheel whirring)
So admittedly, I had never really seen
one of these Liv bikes, and I didn't know much about them.
Turns out, it's not just a Giant Reign
with a different paint job.
That's what a lot of companies do.
They just take their men's bike.
They change the saddle.
They call it a women's bike, and they paint it magenta.
Not the case.
This has a different frame.
They took data from women riders, and they designed a frame,
and it doesn't really matter how drastic or subtle
the difference is from other bikes they sell,
it's a different run.
It's additional costs, and so I commend that
in the strongest possible terms.
So unfortunately, Heather can't take delivery
of this bike this week.
She's sick, but when she's better,
she's gonna be able to shred her all new bike,
but in the meantime,
I have something else interesting to show you.
This is Heather's Hardtail.
She bought it off of us in a "Flip Bike" episode
for towing her son.
She also walks her dog with it
so she's got this attachment on the back.
The reason she dropped it off here
is she's having trouble with the shifting.
It looks like the derailleur got knocked,
and honestly, that derailleur hanger
has probably been put back into alignment several times,
and so we're gonna change it,
but that's not why I wanted to show you this bike.
This bike has the same crankset
we used to upgrade the Kent Trouvaille,
and while we were waiting for the new link on that Liv Hail,
Heather was riding this bike,
and she was not going easy on it.
Meanwhile, this crank set still has
a nice, smooth bottom bracket.
Everything looks good, works good,
and so we sort of have our long-term review on it here.
I think it's decent.
Bikes like this, we can just have fun with
and not really worry about the cost.
Just upgrade 'em.
Put 'em back on the trail better than they came in.
I hope you enjoyed it.
Thanks for riding with me today, and I'll see you next time.
Did I put this rear tire on backwards?
How did I do that? (Heather laughs)
I look, and I stare at it for like 10 minutes
to make sure I'm not doing that.
- Wait, did you on tape? - Yeah.
- What's that? - You did that on video?
- Yeah, I did it on video. (Heather laughs)
I put the rear tire on backwards.