Four Mountain Cycles

Four Mountain Cycles Bicycle sales and repair shop in Londonderry, VT. Please visit website for current hours.

We'll be open today (Labor Day) from 10-3. We'll be closed Tuesday & Wednesday, then back Thursday.
09/07/2026

We'll be open today (Labor Day) from 10-3. We'll be closed Tuesday & Wednesday, then back Thursday.

Everybody loves a good dog picture. We're having a bike sale this weekend, all new in-stock bicycles are on sale, with ...
09/05/2026

Everybody loves a good dog picture.

We're having a bike sale this weekend, all new in-stock bicycles are on sale, with most E-bikes being over $1,000 off. We'll be open 10-5 Sunday, and 10-3 on Monday for this holiday weekend.

I'm going to be away from the shop for a few days, with luck reopening on Friday. I'll be driving a trailer of stuff ou...
08/31/2026

I'm going to be away from the shop for a few days, with luck reopening on Friday. I'll be driving a trailer of stuff out to Chicago, as dads do. Also, I found my framing hammer. I've no idea why it was under his bed, but now I don't need to buy another one

Another gravel conversion. This one is an agglomeration of my personal parts collection. The Marin frame is a 2014-ish 2...
08/24/2026

Another gravel conversion. This one is an agglomeration of my personal parts collection. The Marin frame is a 2014-ish 26-inch wheel hardtail, and this bike did a few years of service in Vermont as my son's first race bike. The rear derailleur is an 11-speed GRX combined with some take-off Shimano 105 shifters from someone who wanted to convert to hydraulic brakes, crankset is a 2015-ish SRAM XX with a 38T sprocket, an 11-42 Shimano XT cassette and quick-release hubs. The really new bits are the TRP Spyre brakes (one of the best mechanical disk brakes out there), along with 27.5" Stan's Crest MK4 rims and 48mm Panaracer Gravel King SK's. White bar tape is an extra feature known as "get rid of this stale inventory and what was I thinking to have stocked white bar tape in the first place."

A little something we're working on here at the shop. If all goes well, these will be block-printed T-shirts in a few we...
08/19/2026

A little something we're working on here at the shop. If all goes well, these will be block-printed T-shirts in a few weeks. We're sticking with the same Bella & Canvas soft shirts that we used for our Vermont Gravel shirts, and the blocks are being hand carved by a local artist.

Yep, I think this bottom bracket could be replaced.
08/19/2026

Yep, I think this bottom bracket could be replaced.

Over on Cane Creek's website, they offer this nice photo of their crown race offerings. That little blue ring around the...
08/16/2026

Over on Cane Creek's website, they offer this nice photo of their crown race offerings. That little blue ring around the outside of them provides a secondary seal to protect the lower headset bearing. These crown races have been replaced on some new bikes with one of two forms of evil: first, the split crown race, and secondly it's (more) evil twin the Integrated Crown Race.

The split crown race is an easy one to pick off. It's only purpose is faster assembly. It's made from softer material and doesn't include the secondary seal, but it doesn't have to be pressed onto the steerer tube. This saves some a$$embly time, I guess, over at the bike factory. I keep Cane Creek crown races in stock in 1.5" sizes just to replace these abominations. Once an MTB comes in with a shot lower bearing and a split crown race, a press-fit Cane Creek goes back on with a new bearing.

The Integrated Crown Race is just as bad for bearing life, but it has the distinction of being sold as a benefit while being worse overall. It goes one step further than the split crown race by integrating the seat angle right into the fork crown, thereby putting wear surface right on a very expensive part. The downside of this is that it STILL doesn't have the secondary seal to protect the lower bearing, and when the lower bearing DOES fail, it can now damage the fork too!

Have I mentioned I have a new favorite tire? I've been a fan of Pirelli's P-Zero Race for a while; I've got them on my r...
08/15/2026

Have I mentioned I have a new favorite tire? I've been a fan of Pirelli's P-Zero Race for a while; I've got them on my road bike and they've held up really well in mixed Vermont use (combination of pavement and maintained gravel). However, since my road bike is old, I can't fit a tire more than 26mm on it. Since my gravel bike is a converted hardtail I don't have that problem. After seeing that the new Pirelli Scorpion RH tested out at 17.4 Watts of rolling resistance, I thought I'd try the gravel version - the Cinturato Gravel RH, at 50mm width. Now I haven't been able to match the speed of the road bike, but it's been pretty close. The tire rolls almost silently, so it feels almost like my road bike, but I don't have to worry much about the sketchy bits or wide pavement cracks that haunt 26mm tires - I can just roll through.

I'll be giving them a try soon on our local gauntlet, the Class 4 climb of FR279 in Landgrove. This bike had previously had Schwalbe Rocket Ron's on it; they were great lightweight MTB racing tires but had a constant droning hum on pavement.

Simons.Lab has a new replacement fork damper with some really clever features and amazing looking build quality. I've ne...
08/14/2026

Simons.Lab has a new replacement fork damper with some really clever features and amazing looking build quality. I've never touched one, and the Pinkbike article on it just went up on August 12th. In my experience, I regularly have to convince people to do a simple fork lowers oil change, so I might never see one of these wonderous dampers in person. However - I watched the video and got stopped dead in my tracks by this little beauty - a manual vacuum bleeder. I now have a new winter project.

More of my personal old bikes. This one is my daily driver, the bike I ride the most. It is house-brand frame from Perfo...
08/14/2026

More of my personal old bikes. This one is my daily driver, the bike I ride the most. It is house-brand frame from Performance Bike, bought in 2010. Originally built up as my mountain bike with a 100mm travel fork, it served as my mountain bike until 2021. After that it was converted to a gravel bike - and it's first iteration there looked a little silly with the 32mm cyclocross tires. Those were replaced by 54mm mountain bike race tires, and this week those were swapped out for my new favorite tire, the Pirelli Cinturato Gravel RH.

The upgrades were steady on this bike. A few sets of wheels, dropper posts on and off, three or four different cranksets, three different drivetrains. Right now it has lightweight shop-built tubeless wheels, a Rival power meter crank, mechanical disk brakes, a Gevenalle 1x shifter, and Shimano 11 speed gearing. At no point did the expense of the upgrades come anywhere near the cost of a new bike.

Somewhere around 2019-2020, mountain bikes changed a LOT. Wheelbases got longer, head angles got shallower, stems got REALLY short, "1-by" drivetrains, and so on. MTB's are really where bikes have changed the most - I can't imagine riding at speed on a hardtail MTB with a 71-degree head angle and a 120mm long stem. These changes were awesome for mountain biking, but they effectively put a lot of older mountain bikes out to pasture. If you've still got an older MTB though, gravel conversions can give them new life.

Address

5700 Route 100
Londonderry, VT
05148

Telephone

+18022307740

Website

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