If you break a carbon frame you would have fatally dented an aluminum frame. Carbon can be repaired. I think aluminum is a wonderful bike material because of price, but carbon isn’t more delicate. The only downside to carbon is it can be harder to tell if it’s damaged.
1 Like
Exactly! Especially if the bike is muddy and you did not care to wash the bike and just go on one of those stupid rides you shouldn’t do. Talking about a friend 
Late to the party, but where science will fail you here is people’s bodies are different, fingers, hands, arms, etc. Basses are not built to fit people, they are standard sizes. So what is comfy from one to the next is highly subjective.
And if you put on a pair of shoes that are a couple mm too tight you will know it. And your hands are much more sensitive than your feet.
1 Like
Mountain biking is a sport that you start on easier trails and build up your skill level to ride more advanced features.
Fear is a good thing. It’s the part of your brain that’s telling you to pay attention.
I still have a little fear if I drop anything bigger than 10ft. But that’s because I’ve crashed enough to know the consequences. I also have 2 compressed vertebrae from a big climbing fall and my doctors have said no more big jumps.
What you’re describing is riding stuff that’s beyond your current ability. That will eventually kick your ass.
For reference I’ve been riding 20+ years and I’ve been over the bars only two or three times. But I’ve broken lots of other bones.
Fear can be positive, you just have to manage it. I smile when I’m pedaling in to a big jump. I don’t know why, but it works.
I had a long hard look at this jump when I lived in Whistler but man it’s a biggie.
2 Likes
The reason I said this was overthinking things for no gain is that his question boils down to “Why does it feel different to grip things of different shape and dimensions?”, which has an obvious answer to it, and doesn’t address the more subjective followup question of “And why do people’s preferences differ here?”, to which a quantifying approach only makes limited (if any) sense.
4 Likes
This is essentially the summary of my looooooooooooong journey to find the perfect bass for my body - this is a current picture of me:
The ergonomics of the new bass are absolutely perfect for me, and I am astound of the little details that “just fit”…
2 Likes
It’s awesome you found an instrument that fits just right for you. This trumps everything else by orders of magnitude. Little else matters in comparison to feel fit.
2 Likes
Yeah - I had my first MTB around 1990/1992. I didn’t live in locations where we could do extreme stuff (also we didn’t know about all the stuff you could do - same for skateboarding. That happened in the US), and biking parks were non existent in those days.
There was a military training area, so I could ride following tank tracks - which was great after it had rained, being all muddy and dirty and fun.
We had some higher hills (not mountains) with nice downhill tracks, and I remember not being able to open my hand after an exciting downhill, as I was so tensed.
My MTB peak is long behind me, and of course I always did everything beyond my ability, as I was young and stupid first and then old and stupid.
There is a theme here
2 Likes
Bridge installed (only with 5 screws, should be sufficient for now), copper foil covers cavities, ground cables prepared.
Next step: solder and install pickups…
3 Likes
Puh … takes longer than I thought.
Drilled new hole for output jack on a better position. Now three holes free for pots on control plate.
Back to soldering…
3 Likes
Intermezzo from my modding session: Thomann just contacted me with an apology - in fact they did put the incorrect strings on my bass and were quite happy to find out so early, as in German law having incorrect product descriptions can get them into all kinds of trouble.
Will get new strings now, everybody happy!
5 Likes
All hail EMG for making things easy and small. But this is Dimarzio
All soldering done (except output jack) … aaaaand … very funny … the left/bridge pot is too large to fit in the cavity, so I cannot fit the control plate in the correct position.
That means: either I dremel the cavity a little or use a different pot. This is a decision for future Chris…
Now onto fitting 14mm Tuners in 17mm holes…
PS And yes, that is a scratch on the control plate. Good thing I will foil the pickguard and control plate, otherwise I would be very frustrated now!
2 Likes
Regarding the subjective playing feel of different nut widths, I can attest that the differences are very tactilely real in my case.
I absolutely prefer 38mm nut widths. All of my basses are 38mm, except for one very notable outlier: my 40.3mm EBMM Cutlass Modern Classic (P). I can definitely feel the difference when I play my Cutlass: not so much added difficulty as much as a minute difference in feel. In short, my hands’ muscle memory requires recalibration.
There are so many build variables from bass to bass that each instrument feels marginally different than any other: frets size/height, body size/shape/contouring, pickup(s) placement, number of frets to body, neck profile, and, yes nut width. All of these aspects, and more, contribute to how a bass feels to a player.
Personally, a bass must feel right to be a keeper, regardless of whether anyone else might or might not prefer the same things that work for me.
5 Likes
Since this week I also pefer 38mm!
As soon as my Pink’s Hot wants to talk to me again, I will enjoy my small nut
(For today I paused the modding project as my bushing do not fit 100%. Need to get a bigger boat, ehm, better tools!).
PS Anyone knows how to get rid of the little scratches on the control plate?
Some say, that you can use flour? Or natron?
Next week the control plate will be foiled anyway, but the bass should look good until then too…
1 Like
How do you quantify it scientifically ? Please develop a purely objective biomecanic reason.
4 Likes
Hahaha! You didn’t get the point!
1 Like
Sure, obvioulsy it’s me, I’m wrong, I was sure about this.
3 Likes
I didn’t want to be impolite, sorry!
I never doubted that it can feel different. I just asked myself, how this is possible, given the small differences … and if this has any effect for playing (again, given the small differences).
Everybody says, yes, it feels different. And I agree. For everything else I still have no factual explanation.
But I have a feeling that we will never find out
2 Likes