Where to start – well, how about at the beginning?
I began riding pretty much since the day I could walk. My first ride was a a red and white Schwinn tricycle. Ok, so not a real bicycle but I can still remember modifying its use by sitting behind the seat between the two rear tires to pedal. Riding like that wasn’t super fast or very comfortable but basically it was my very own unique Big Wheel long before they actually came out.
I went through all kinds of different bikes growing up and was always modding them in one way or another. During the late 60’s and early 70’s we all rode Stingrays with high rise bars and long banana seats. They were cool and pretty good at jumping for the time but they were no match off-road for my sister’s big tank of a girl’s bike with its sweeping super low stand-over, big balloon tires, wide handle bars, and a comparatively extra long wheel base. “Borrowing” her bike, I would race other neighborhood kids down a steep and janky trail into the Niagara River Gorge and it was remarkable how much better that bike was compared to the stingrays… The other kids made fun of me riding a girl’s bike but I always won.
My first real MTB was a Specialized Rockhopper that my parents bought me around 1998. That was when I was living in the PNW and rode with some locals on the trails of Whidbey Island Wa. I rode that bike into the ground until I moved to SoCal where I started riding a Raleigh English racer road bike. I used that to ride along the concrete Santa Ana River trail from Anaheim to NewPort Beach to spend the day bodyboarding.
Anyways, let’s skip forward a bit and get a little more to the point…
I am both addicted to mountain biking and modifying pretty much everything I get my hands on. It drives my wife nuts because I am always looking at how things are designed and 9 out of 10 times I come up with an “improvement” that I am positive is better. I’ve been like this my whole life. In fact, in high school one of my friends nicknamed me “Mr. Modify”.
Not too long ago I picked up a 2021+ Specialized Stumpjumper Evo Alloy and would always be tweaking the 6 available geo options. I like a slack bike for when heading down hill at speed over jank and chunk but a lot of my riding is basic trail and even a little XC at times. When using the Specialized +/- 1.0 degree adjustable headset cup in SLACK it was great when blasting down hills but when riding wooded trails, navigating tight tech, or climbing I felt the front end was a little too floppy and awkward. So that’s how Feral MTB Components came to be and why our first product out of the gate is a +/-0.5 degree headset cup. It splits the difference between +/-1.0 and Neutral…
And you know what?
For me it’s perfect. Now I mostly ride with the flip chip in high and the Feral headcup in 0.5 slack which provides a very capable do it all 64 HTA. Another upgrade on my S3 Evo Alloy that I am proud of is putting S5/S6 Carbon Stays on it. I like the increased stability the longer stays provide and I saved almost 1 pound of unsprung weight by going from alloy to carbon. Again, Perfect.
I guess that’s it for the history lesson. We have lots planned moving forward but what’s most important to me is for Feral to gain a strong reputation for producing high quality mountain bike components that actually perform as promised and at a price that is reasonable. Function, Quality, Looks, and Fair Pricing don’t usually go together but that’s a big part of our mission. Other top priorities include providing excellent customer service and to help people who love to ride, mod, tweak, and tune – do just that.
Thanks for reading and please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, comments, or just want to say hello.
Brian Ball / Owner
Feral MTB Components
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