The old DBR Axis TT still rolls a lot better than I do.
For a change it was the other fella on a cyclocross bike and Your Humble Narrator on a mountain bike.
I was descending a narrow bit of singletrack that he was climbing, so I found a small patch of shoulder and yielded trail.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
“Great, thanks,” he replied with a grin.
Your cyclocrosser is nothing if not a perfect gent at all times. The rest of you lot could learn something from us.
Though now that I think about it, I suppose he could’ve been a gravel rider. I don’t know a thing about those tossers. A special bike for gravel, is it? D’ye also have ones for road and trail and track so? A cyclocrosser rides his machine where he will and devil take the hindmost.
Now you mention it, his tires did look a little plump for ’cross. Not honest 33mms like the ones on my Steelman.
The cheek of the fuckin’ bastards. Trying to pass themselves off as cyclocrossers on the singletrack. First they take our drop bars, then our knobbies, and before you can say Danny De Bie they’ll be making eyes at our daughters.
Thank God I was on a mountain bike. Now he doesn’t know that I know.
Tags: cyclocross, DBR Axis TT
Mad Blog Media 
September 11, 2019 at 7:56 pm |
Jeesh PO’G: If that’s a mountain bike then the Pony Express was an iPhone! 🙂 Too bad it isn’t single-speed and fully rigid too! 🙂 🙂
And not to stir the pot any more than my “stable genius” intellect warrants, but that’s gotta be the largest water bottle I’ve ever seen….and room for it to fit too.
Ride on … whatever you ride that has two or less wheels …. “motors included” are for another response when the bait gets nibbled. 🙂
September 11, 2019 at 8:08 pm |
That’s actually only an 8 oz water bottle, but the bike has 16” wheels.
September 12, 2019 at 5:28 am |
You are admiring the 1995 DBR Axis TT. This one was billed as an 18-inch frame Back in the Day®. Actual top tube length (not virtual) is 57cm. So, yeah, I can get a 21-ounce Camelbak Podium Ice insulated bottle in there. Tall drink of water, innit?
Incidentally, with ice and water in that bottle your drink stays cold for about two hours. Not bad.
September 11, 2019 at 8:07 pm |
I know something that you do not … I am not a left-handed mountain biker.
September 12, 2019 at 5:44 am |
Everybody I know who has kids has seen this movie eleventy-million times. I love a good swordfight. Basil Rathbone and Errol Flynn always put on a fine exhibition.
September 12, 2019 at 6:11 pm |
September 11, 2019 at 9:03 pm |
God bless all elastomer forks that enter here! You need some professional help.
September 12, 2019 at 5:43 am |
Boy, is it ever weird riding a boingy fork when you hardly ever do it. I liked it on the uphills, especially with them itty-bitty 26-inch wheels, but it messes with my mojo on narrow, rocky descents.
One of these days I should try out a modern mountain bike.
Nah. Then I’d want one.
September 12, 2019 at 6:15 am |
Modern mountain bike in the house! You could swing it with Herself if you would thin the herd in the garage a bit. You know, sell 3 old ones and get one new one. Then you could claim you are reducing the number of bikes you have and justify the new 29er with a minimum of bullshit. Here you go. I already picked one for you.
https://www.somafab.com/archives/product/juice29er#
September 11, 2019 at 9:04 pm |
And I bet you have 26″ wheels on that thing, too. Just to be true retro.
I took the 700-32 Speedmax Pros off my LaCruz so no one would confuse me for an actual cyclecrosser(tm) rather than a fat, out of shape poser on a cross bike. At my present girth, the 700-40’s are probably straining.
September 12, 2019 at 5:37 am |
Totally 26-inch wheels duuuuuuuude.
Hutchinson Pythons, very early Mavic tubeless-compatible CrossMax rims, eight-speed XT with GripShift/Sachs twist-shifters, XT V-brakes, Judy SL fork (rebuilt by Hippie Tech) and USE suspension post with (of course) a Selle Italia Flite saddle.
I have a pair of Zipp/XTR deep-section wheels I can run on this thing, but I need inner tubes with three-foot-long valve stems.
September 12, 2019 at 1:06 pm |
I still have the ancient heap in this blog post https://cycleitalia.blogspot.com/2014/10/a-ride-in-park.html
though it’s not been used in a few years.
Once we get our house organized down here in Sicily we might bring ’em down. If we stay off anything modern we’ll never know what we’re missing without 29″ wheels, disky brakes, ultra-wide handlebars/too-short stems, electronic shifting + no place to put a water bottle, right?
September 13, 2019 at 6:56 am |
Seven-speed. Schweet! I only have the one seven-speed left, the Voodoo Wazoo cyclocross bike with the flat bar/single chainring setup.
The low end of 38×28 is a tad tall for me on steep singletrack and I’ve been thinking about going to a Deore or Altus rear derailleur so’s I can get more teefers in the trunk.
September 13, 2019 at 7:31 am |
I went to the Bisbee Bicycle Brothel yesterday and shot the breeze with Ken. My guitar bud Alan came with and was amazed by it all. Ken had a SOPWAMTOS t shirt hanging in the shop, and I had to explain to Alan what that was about. Then I told him I actually knew somebody with a Golden Toilet Seat award. Patrick, you are once again famous in Bisbee. For a day anyway.
September 13, 2019 at 1:40 am |
Hey I got an MTB bike like that hanging on one of indoor bike racks. Although it says something like Serotta on it. It’s a dream. I can still crank out the singletrack miles on it when I want to… Although just the other night in bed as I was beginning to doze off I heard a loud pop similar to what a spoke might do. I checked the wheels and all was ok. But then I realized I had a Ringle’ Zooka stem on it. I had another Zooka stem on another bike where the handlebar cap of the stem snapped horizontally across the face. Sure enough, this same thing occurred to the Zooka stem on the Serotta bike. and I thought they were guaranteed for 40 thousand miles.
Does anybody have any Ringle bar stem caps hanging around?
September 13, 2019 at 5:25 am |
Reminds me of the same brand’s seatpost. Guy comes into the shop one day and says he was JRA and the thing just snapped off…right at the top of the seat tube.
All he wanted was a replacement under warranty. NFW would I put another one of those things on and gamble that the same thing would by some miracle NOT happen again!
Same thing with an IBIS titanium stem…despite the thing breaking (and the guy crashing) he happily had (by another mechanic, not me) his warranty replacement installed (after he healed up) and went on his merry way.
IMHO CNC’d color-anodized aluminum should not be used in any sort of structural situation if you value your life.
September 13, 2019 at 7:06 pm |
Gimme that Thomson Elite deliciousness every day.
September 14, 2019 at 12:16 am |
Not me, thanks. http://cozybeehive.blogspot.com/2009/03/thomson-elite-seatpost-failure.html
Same s–t, different day it seems.
September 15, 2019 at 2:28 am |
Yeah Larry you are right. I know better than to just ride with the anodized pretty stuff. But forgive because I come from the days of the weight weenies. I’ll have to round me up a good forged steel stem and perhaps paint it with a spray can of that shiny new joker green metallic paint.
September 15, 2019 at 3:05 am |
I was in bike retail during the first go-round of CNC machined, color anodized, aluminum stuff. The vast majority of it was simply junk that failed quickly if used regularly, a classic case of duplicating something’s shape using an inferior material and hoping for the best.
Even Campagnolo got caught up in it once with their titanium BB spindle, though I think they DID tell users it was a special-use only piece rather than something to be used every day.
https://inrng.com/2012/08/1982-fignon/
September 13, 2019 at 8:10 pm |
I think that bike broke a collar bone at Rage in the Sage.
September 14, 2019 at 7:41 am |
That little get-off caused me to abandon forever the racing of the mountain bike. I recommend against riding pillion on a dirt bike over the latter half of the Rage course, with a broken collarbone and one arm slung in a rain jacket, to see the EMTs. That shit hurts.