I'll admit, there was a period of time there, beginning around fall of 2016, where I had very little to say about anything here on the old blog-space. For lots of reasons. So I mostly didn't. I put up a scant 20 posts from 2016 through 2020. Truth is, it has been quite a while since I really felt inspired to sit down and write... So I am quite pleased to report that the mood to write has resurfaced somewhat, and that a few ideas have popped into my head of late.
For the record: I like the Reba fork that came on the bike and haven't ever felt the need to upgrade it. It's maybe not as supple and active as my Fox forks, but it does the job just fine. Many riders scorned the stock press-fit bottom bracket, said it was of poor quality and made lots of noise, but it's performed well for me, and never did make too much noise. On occasion it would tick like metronome a bit, but a drop of Triflow at the top of the shell/cup interface always stopped it from recurring. In the end, however, it did require replacement with another OEM unit... at about 3000 miles (the nylon cups were fully played out), which I think is a decent duration for any nonserviceable bottom bracket. I put a new chain, cassette, and a chainring on at about 3500 miles (bit of a challenge finding a new ring for the obscure Sram/Specialized cranks that were original spec). Buncha worn-out tire changes over the years, Specialized Butchers and Purgagorys mostly (I'm sold on the handling their proprietary Grid sidewalls provide), always tubeless 3.0s and I've had zero, that's right, zero flats (running at 15/18 psi front/rear) with this setup. And the Avid DB3 brakes have worked consistently and reliably for me, too, with only periodic bleeding, just to keep things fresh. Pretty standard stuff for a bike that gets ridden. Overall, the 2017 Fuse has been a very problem-free bike.
I hear lots of manufacturers are growing disenchanted with the whole mid-fat bike thing. I think that's too bad. There's something kinda Goldilock's porridge about bikes like the Fuse, ya know... I think they're "just right" for a whole lot of riding. I've ridden this bike all over the Colorado Plateau region, on a wide variety of terrain types, rides of all distances, long climbing rides, fast descending rides, ledgy slickrock, loamy singletrack, moondust, chunk. fire road, goopy mud, and even a fair amount of snow and ice. And I can safely say, with the exception of super-steep rubbly ascents, which are always a sufferfest no matter what bike you're riding, but are even moreso on the long-low-slack geo of the Fuse, there's really nothing in the whole wide world (in my experience) that this bike doesn't excel at. It really is that good. And not just for a hardtail. It's a truly great all-around mountain bike, regardless.
