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Entries in Equipment (39)

Dear Giro - Um, in what decade did you design the Prolight?

OK, so everyone heard the hype that Giro was going to unveil a new skid lid at this years Tour. They have a record of doing this having unveiled truly bleeding edge helmets like the Boreas and the Pneumo and later the Atmos and now the sexy Ionos in Tours past. Rabobank and Postal would give the public first-looks with these plastic and styrofoam works of art. Those helmets were like looking at the future. Super ventilated, unbelievably light for their time.

So back to this announcement.

WTF Giro? Truth: Whoever gave the thumbs up to release this thing needs their aesthetic licensce snatched from their wallet and shred...post haste. Please tell me: What is the difference visually between this helmet worn days ago (and yes, this is 2009)...

Photo from http://redkite.giro.com/

...to this helmet...released, oh I suspect 1996. Maybe 1997 (actually it's a new member of their line, the Stylus, at the lower end of the price spectrum):

I just don't get it. The sick 175g light weight of this helmet notwithstanding (compare it to Specialized's 225g for the S Works), the helmet is a giant step backwards in aesthetic design. What happened?

 

My new project | Kelly Roshambo 29’er 1 x 1

Ahhhhh ringk gingk gingk!” That was the sound of the ‘chant’ my buds and I used to make as we threw our paper, rock or scissor on the 3rd and last ‘gingk’. You ALWAYS throw on the 3rd gingk. So many rounds of beers, shotgun seats or general slave-like tasks were won and lost over rounds of Ro Sham Bo amongst my crew…so when I saw this little number for sale on the Pros Closet, and then focused-in on the name of the frame, she had to be mine. It was destiny.

The Kelly Roshambo is a steel singlespeed frame, made of True Temper OX Platinum Steel. She’s old school with V-Brakes, but irresistible nonetheless. I am selling my old 26” Dean singlespeed as I just can’t justify riding on 26” wheels any longer. My 2 years on my Ahrens Revolver 29’er has converted me to big wheels without a need to look back. Seeing what Specialized and Gary Fisher are doing with their full suspension 29’er bikes has also effectively blown up this image in my brain that 9’ers would simply not have a place in the FS market. All that has changed too…

So to the bike, I am building it slowly. Transferring parts from the old Dean including a (I think) 1st generation Chris King headset (bomber!!), 2007 XTR V-Brakes, Time ATAC pedals, Syncros seat post circa 96 and ultra-bomber and stiff Race Face DH cranks. New stuff will include a Thomson 110/0° rise stem, flat bars and bar ends. The wheels will be built up on a set of 1998 Chris King MTB hubs with new Stans ZTR 355’s (for rim brakes) and likely DT spokes. Not 100% sure on rubber yet but those Geax Saguaro’s tread pattern is delicious in their 2.2 and likely I’ll stick with those which I tested on the Edge Composites carbon wheels.

imageAnyways, the project is fun and being done on the super-cheap as a 1 x 1 should! I’ll report back once I get this thing to a completed state and have ridden around on it. And yes, this is what I’ll be rocking in Durango come September

Nothing goes unnoticed | Phillipe's custom Sidis

Money Shoes - Photo Graham Watson

So breakaway specialist Philippe Gilbert got himself a Giro stage yesterday. And while I'm stoked for the Belgian, nothing slipped past me as the sex that donned his little piggies caught my eye more than his stylish win putting out the watts to stay ahead of Voeckler.

The grainy images on Universal Sports were not good enough for me to see until I saw Graham's photo on Velonews. Validated. Oh God. These are 'the ones'. Boing!

I guess I will need to win a couple of cycling monuments before I get my fully custom Sidis. Hmm. Sidi, you'd KILL IT like Oakley or Nike of you had a 'Customize my Italian Kicks' feature on your site. Charge an extra hundy and rich dudes would for SURE lay out $600 bucks for custom Ergos.

Edge Composites Wheels Update

Just a little somethin' somethin' about the most excellent Edge Composites carbon 29'er wheels on test thus far. 100's of miles on them and I am more and more impressed....

Edge Composites XC Carbon 29’er Wheels | Plus 5 Questions with Jason Sager!

So I teased a few days ago on Twitter about a set of carbon bling that my main man Jason Sager swung by Boulder for me to test out. Since then, and nearly 200 miles later I have become obsessed with them…

The Edge Composites Carbon XC 29’er wheels!

First some background. For those of you that do not know him, Jason was one of the initial cyclo-bloggers using the primitive social interweb tools available in the day to talk about his antics….but mostly using his words; use pictures as the new words. Visit his Flickr account and you’ll see what I mean. My man snaps pics prolifically. Anyways, his blog I often credit for inspiring me to start my own and we started an ‘internet dating relationship’ over the years commenting back and forth on blogs, sharing emails and thoughts, etc. His diatribes of professional racing life were and still are downright entertaining and we all got to witness him pursue his career as a bike racer, become a new daddy and as of late, take on some new and extremely exciting career responsibilities. More on that in a moment.

So, I thought the best way to cover the review of the Edge Composites wheels I am testing in addition to a little more knowledge about Mr. Sager would be to do it in a ‘5 Questions with’ format as I’ve done in the past.

So first, let’s learn a little about Mr. Sager, his new role at Edge and our common stance on Ankle Panty Socks and our attempt to save Todd Wells from wearing them.

Click to read more ...

Sidi Dragon SRS | Take 'em apart and re-assemble 'em. 

So, you all know I lust Sidi's and for nearly a decade, I've had virtually zero issues with them....save a buckle I broke after a yard sale crash some years ago which I replaced super easily with a buckle from an older pair (although parts are REALLY easy to get at most shops).

What makes Sidis...and the Dragon SRS in particular...so compelling is how they have been built entirely on a modular 'platform'. Last night at the New Belgium Brewery Short Track event as an example, I noticed my cleat felt a bit loose. Not enough to panic, but noticeable. This morning I investigated and low and behold, my second issue in a decade with Sidis (not a bad track record): A cracked 'base' plate...which is the internally housed mounting plate where the screws of the cleat thread into the shoe. I panicked and thought initially: holy crap: how am I going to get this thing fixed? Then I remembered: Sidi's come apart!...

I first took all the components of the sole of the shoe off. And by the way, all these are replaceable so when you wear out the sole components as an example, you can replace 'em easily. eBay has a zillion vendors selling them. Everything from ratchet straps, soles, mid sole grip pads...EVERYTHING is replaceable.

But as I dug in to try and get that base plate out I discovered...d'oh!: The carbon fiber stiffening plate when peeled away actually doesn't release or give access to the plate! Panic again. (In the picture below, I've already extracted the base plate...and it is located where you see the two parallel access holes in the ball of my foot...directly where you mount the cleat)

But the panic was short lived. I recalled in my foggy memory that if you peeled away the inner sole, you could get access to the base plate. So I took out the padded instep to get access the base sole layer. I tried to peel that mo-fo back, but it was tightly glued. So then I took a small allen key and from the outside of the show and pushed slightly on the inner base plate itself in towards the shoe and VOILA! A little trap door opened. It had been pre cut ingeniously by Sidi into the inner base sole layer just for this purpose of replacement. The plate popped right out into my hands. Check it....

I merely then flipped the plate upside down (there are 4 screw holes in the base plate...only 2 of which are ever used) allowing me to use the undamaged threaded side of the plate...the cause of the cleat slippage was that part of the base plat cracked leaving the screw loose and not able to be re-tightened. Presto! Fixed shoes!

Ergon GA1-S Grips | White sex for your hands

So my main man Jeff Kerkove, endurance racer for Topeak/Ergon,  sent me an email a few months back more or less saying: "Keller, white sex is being created and coming your way. You gotta try them!" And low and behold, voila, on my doorstep a few days ago I received a box containing the white, and very sexy, goodness. The Ergon GAS-1 ergonomic 'all mountain' grips.

Ergon is a company that takes two things extremely seriously: Design and Ergonomics. They are tightly coupled however to ensure that style does not compromise use and vice versa. It's fairly unique in fact and it's obvious that their industrial design is rooted in one part beauty, one part science with a huge dose of usability and comfort.

The GA1's came in some very attractive packaging. It made me wonder how profitable for Ergon (or reasonably priced for the customer) the product could be with such magnificent packaging! But alas, the packaging has its own design purposes. Ergon thought through how a consumer could 'feel' the grip before purchase on a make shift 'handlebar' (see exposed white grip in the picture to the left which is mounted to a solid piece of plastic tubing).

All the instructions were extremely clear and neatly wrapped inside the clear plastic tube of the packaging....in German (of course) as well as English.

Some data points...

  • Color choice: The GAS-1's come in three colors, white (like mine), green/black team and black and gray.

 

  • Sizes: They come in small and large (mine were small) and even with large hands, they felt perfect. Spongy and filled up my hand well, as opposed to having 'nothing' there. (I wonder what the larges feel like as these 'smalls', bottom line, feel perfect).
  • MSRP is $30
  • Ride: I have a couple of hours on them and thus far the feel is fantastic. It has an ergonomic shape (yet not with the 'palym' support such as their GX series grips have. These are more or less 'straight' but with some contour that you normally do not see on 'traditional' grips. The grip material's feel is somewhere between sponge and hard grip. in other words you get all of the benefits if having your hands sticky to the grip (with or without gloves) yet it provides a comfort beneficial to long haul days where your hands will inevitably suffer exhaustion. 
  • Where to buy: Your local bike shop by this time probably has a connection to Ergon or their main suppliers can easily get them. They are widely distributed now here in the States. Certain online sites like Competative Cyclist now carry them too if you are having trouble sourcing them locally. Or visit their list on line.

So, all in all, I'm loving them. Once I have a few hundred miles on 'em, I'll give a status update as to their longevity, compound breakdown, etc etc.


Stretchy strechy

So as geekdified as it sounds, I set this calendar reminder once a week to head on out into the car hole and go and fill my tubulars up to keep a wee bit inflated during the off season. Especially those that have Stans in them and they get a little turn on the skewer to mix the stuff up a bit...lest the Stans cause the latex tubes to get all stick together whiel sittle idle.

The rack you see here is super trick for wheel storage and inexpensive to throw together. A bunch of hardware store grade hooks staggered in two roes alternating one high and one low (so the skewers don't bump). I drill those into a piece of pine then attach that piece of pine to the studs in the wall. Insta-storage.

I'm going to run a mix of toobies next year. Some Dugast, some Challenge, some clincher...whatever the day brings. I have settled on one fact though that I am in LOVE with 34's....especially on the Colorado crap we have to endure out here. 


6 more months till 'cross.

Tubeless Tires and Cyclocross

So, I've been reading these articles in CX Mag online about the merits of tubeless tires and 'cross. I'm not sold. At least not yet. Over the last season, I had been able to get some ride time on the Hutchinson Bulldog mounted to Dura Ace wheels designed for tubeless applications. I'm a big fan of Hutchinson tires. Their tread patterns are super fast and I've had great success with them on the MTB, but cross is another animal all together. So, some observations...

  • Tubeless tires ARE NOT tubular tires. Do not confuse the two being the same.
  • Tubeless tires do not allow for the same level of suppleness that a tubular is inherently designed with vis-a-vis its materials in use on their sidewalls (cotton, silk, etc).
  • Now, per above, what does 'suppleness' mean? It's the ability for the tire to bend and allow its tread pattern to stay 'glued' to the earth while you and the bike bend into the apex of the turn you're making. Tubeless tire casings are inherently different due to the materials in use on their sidewalls. They are stiffer to support the nature of the tubeless application itself...e.g. keeping the bead tightly sealed to the rim when running 'reasonably' lower pressures. Tubular tires can achieve their bend because of two main factors: 1) the glue keeping the  center line of the tire in place and 2) the material of the casing which allows for varying levels of flexibility allowing for the bend. This ranges from cotton to silk to synthetics...with varying levels of 'bend-ability'.
  • So with the above said, Tubeless tires when run with low(er) PSIs, therefore have an incredible burping problem in 'cross. I've seen it time and time and time again in races. This is mainly due to the issues above (e.g. stiffer sidewalls + lower air to support the casing in the bead of the rim= burp) and the somewhat naiveté of the rider thinking they can get away with 'tubular like performance' and only filling with ~25 PSI. I just don't think the casings are there yet to support this....

So, these are my opinions for what they're worth. I want to see tubeless systems 'progress' as they will be infinitely easier to work with. It's my opinion though that tubeless does not equal tubular yet and riders should serioulsy consider this.

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