What I think of stuff I've actually used

TIRES
  Nokian Gazzalodi (24x3.0):  Hehehe.  Big ol' beefy tires that scare people.  Hang onto the ground like velcro and weigh more than me.  Got a problem with that?  I'll just pull if off the rim and beat you to death with it.  You wanna race fall line courses.  There is no other tire.

  IRC Mythos XC (2.1):  I liked these tires a lot when I used them.  They were light and the held the trail really good.  If I was only going to ride in the east I might not have ever changed to any others.  Problem, I took them to California.  California ate these guys up and spit them out.  Knobs ripped off right down to the casing.  Not one or two, but about ten.  Pretty bummed I was..

  Intense XC 60 (2.1):  I like these tires a lot since I started using them.  The aren't as light as the IRC's but (and I haven't ridden them in California) they haven't shed any knobs as of yet.  The one drawback is that these puppies are wide.  Wider than some 2.35's out there.  I have them on my FSR which has the offset rear chainstays and had to shave off a good part of the driveside outboard knobs to keep them from rubbing.

  WTB Racing Raptors (2.1):  These are my communting tires.  I can't say how they handle in dirt but on the road they handle pretty decent.  They just can't handle road hazards.  Pretty much anything that wants to get through these gets through.  Finally I resorted to cutting open old inner tubes and using them as liners.  That took care of the problem with the front tire but the damage had already been done on the rear tire and I had to replace it because it was just too shredded.

  Specialized Mt Baldy (2.1):  This is what I replaced the rear tire on my commuter with.  So far so good.  I haven't varied my commuting route to work and what used to result in a flat a month on the rear tire has been ridden for three months with no flats.  My also has these on here commuter front and rear and she hasn't voiced any negatives about them.

  Invert 2K (1.5):  When I first started flatting with the Racing Raptors I bought these as the replacement.  They were faster on the road but they just wouldn't grip well.  Any hard braking and they would break loose.  Not much of a problem on the back, but I washed out front a few times with them and so I went back to the Raptors.  Oh yeah, they also flatted just as often as the Raptors.  So now they sit in the closet of forgotten tires.

  Specialized Team Control (1.9R/2.1F):  These came on mine and my honey's FSRs.  I swapped mine out cause homey don't do 1.9/2.1.  Don't know why, just don't do it.  I did ride them for a couple of months and really don't have anything bad to say about them.  Agnes likes her's fine.  So I guess it's just a personal problem with me.

FORKS
  Manitou X-Vert Carbon:  Oh baby!  Twelve hundred dollars too much for a fork.  Ride it and tell me that.  Indescribable.  I had a chance to ride a bike with a Monster T on it and for my money (and lots of it) the XV-C crushes it.  Okay mostly due to the weight difference.  But like I say below the really expensive one's do it all and weigh about an ounce.  This is that fork.  Somebody take my wallet away from me when the Dorado hits the market.  Manitou has my undying support now (unless they go and screw up like Specialized did).

  RockShox Judy:  Suspension goes bouncy-bouncy.  That's about all I know about them.  On the good ones you can make them go bouncy fast, you can make them go bouncy slow.  The more expensive bounce further.  The really expensive ones do all that and weight about and ounce.  So the Judy's are good.  They are really my only experience with a quality fork.  Three of our four bikes with suspension have Judy's on them.  Are they better than Marzocchi? I dunno.  Are they better than Manitou?  I dunno (12 Feb 2001 - see comments for the Manitou below).  But they work as advertised and don't weight 50lbs, so I'll keep them.

  Manitou SX-R:  This is on Agnes' FSR-XC.  She noted that she likes how it behaves more than the Judy on the FSR Comp.  She says she feels more in control of the bike and the steering is much more responsive.  We are talking about a brand new for compared to a two year old fork so maybe the new Judy's are as good.  But from Agnes' review, a new Manitou SX-R beats a two year old Judy.

  RST-281:  Evil! bad-bad fork.  Like an inch and a half of travel from a six pound fork.  No adjustments.  Just bad.

BRAKES
  Hope Sport Disc:  Woo-hoo!  Ever ride disc brakes?  Try doing a downhill run with V-Brakes then give discs a try.  You will be amazed by the difference.  You will never use the words great modulation and v-brake in the same sentence again.  I want disc brakes on everything now.  I want them on my computer, okay.  A guy at work was looking at bikes and the dude at the shop told him that disc brakes were just for show, v's were just as good.  Heh, put that twit and his v-brakes on the course at Plattekill on a rainy day and see how quickly he cries for his mommy.   The Hope Sports can be adjusted on the fly as well, not that I have the skills to do that.  I'm still trying to stay vertical on the way down.  But it's nice to know that someday I'll be reaching up and spinning that little knob to give myself the little something extra to take the cup from Nico.  A man can dream. 

  Dia-Compe Vc737:  Brakes should be one of those things that just work.  You squeeze, you stop that simple.  Differences in price should mostly reflect weight savings between low-end and high-end.  Most do.  My Avids stop me just fine.  The Tektros on my cruiser work just fine.  The Dia-Compes, they broke.  Literally they broke.  The housing of the tension spring.  Now if this happened on one I would maybe write it off to a fluke.  But it didn't happen to just one.  Both sets, front and back had the same failure.  With the housing broken there is no tension on the brake-arm to force it away from the rim. squeek-squeek-squeek.  So bye-bye Dia-Compe, hello Shimano LX.  Not problems since.

SHIFTERS
  Gripshift vs. Rapid Fire:  Just my two cents worth.  Every bike I ride is Gripshift.  Some came with Rapid Fire but I just never got comfortable with them.  Plus I figure Shimano makes about a bazillion dollars a second, might as well try to help out the little guys as well.  Can't really knock Shimano's stuff.  All the drivetrains on our bikes are big-S and we don't have any complaints.

  Gripshift Halfpipe:  This is a great shifter for a very specific use, downhill racing.  You really don't have to concentrate on your shifting hand position.  Your hand is always on it.  It's kinda like Clint Eastwood in 'Firefox', just think and it happens.  However, this is not a good shifter, in fact it's just plain bad for anything else (read freeriding).  Your hand is always on it, so whenever you do any serious throwing around of the bike you are also doing some serious shifting.  If you race use it, if you don't, don't.

SEATS
  Velo:  Never heard of this company, but they made the seat that came on my Marlin.  The thing was crap.  I was learning to ride trails and one good hit from my butt and the rails bent.  That's about all there is to say.  Ride, bump, bend... game over.

  WTB SST-K: This is the one Sid's sold me to replace the Velo.  It later migrated to the FSR.  At first I didn't believe that this thing could possible be comfortable.  It's so damn hard.  But now I'm a believer.  I've ridden this thing 100 miles in a single stretch and could still feel Capt. Wonderful.  Plus I've had some really great crashes and those side panel skid guards can take a licking.

  Tioga Downhill:  Like riding down the mountain on a Lazyboy.  Big and cushy.  Nice when you are five feet in the air and your feet come off the pedals.  Only problem is that much cushiness means it's ripe for punctures and rips and after a season of my crashes, it got them.

PEDALS
  Ritchey Clipless:  I took these off the FSR and put them on the Marlin.  And in like three years I think I've oiled them twice.  Bad on me.  But hey they are just now starting to bind and rust.  I had a pair knock-offs that I babied and they were wasted after one year.  Ritchey wins the commuter pedal competition.

  Oddyssey Twisted Clips:  For Shimano DX clones I wasn't expecting much.  But I've been pleasantly surprised by the Oddyssey's performance.  Really a decent pedal.  They hold their release settings and other than a little lube I haven't done that much with them.  They still spin great.  They can also take a serious hit.  I like them.

  Shimano DX: If you downhill with clipless, buy these.  Don't ask any questions, just go and buy them.  If you can't afford them the Oddyssey's will get you through in a pinch, but trust me, buy the DX's.