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Posts Tagged ‘Cinelli Bootleg Hobo’

A great day to be a Hobo

January 19, 2014

The Bootleg Hobo and I visited one of my former neighborhoods south of downtown today. Turns out my former $75-per-month squat on Mill Street is for sale.

It’s easy to forget how many people ride bikes in this town until we get a sunny, 60-something day in January.

I slipped out for a 90-minute ride at midday and Holy Mary, Mother of God, you’d have thought we’d hit Peak Oil and left it bleeding out at roadside. Everybody and his grandma, from itty-bitty kids to grizzled graybeards, was gaily flogging a two-wheeler from Hither to Yon, no doubt hoping to burn a few calories before ingesting many, many more during the Broncos-Patriots feetsball game.

Despite a short stint as an assistant sports editor at The New Mexican in Santa Fe, I am not a fan of the feetsball, which is the polite way of saying that I don’t give two runny shits about a multibillion-dollar industry that temporarily shifts Americans’ homicidal instincts away from actual warfare and toward commerce by encouraging young gladiators to mutate their bodies with drugs and scramble their brains with high-speed collisions.

Cycling has its own issues in that regard, of course. But not the way I do it.

And at least you can watch televised pro cycling for more than 15 commercial-free seconds at a stretch (on a pirated Belgian feed, anyway). That’s how I spent my morning before throwing a leg over the Bootleg Hobo’s top tube. Plus you can be pretty certain the Organization is selling (and the spectators drinking) a higher-quality beer.

Tags:Cinelli Bootleg Hobo, feetsball
Posted in Bicycle racing, Bike stuff, Sports | 28 Comments »

Sunrise, sunset

January 15, 2014

We had quite the sunset the other night. And tonight brings a micro-moon, in which Luna is at apogee and will appear to be the smallest full moon of 2014, according to National Geographic.

With cyclo-cross nats over and a couple of deadlines beaten into submission, I finally have a bit of downtime, and as nature abhors a vacuum, the to-do list is filling up like an open bar at a press conference.

First and foremost, of course, is cycling. The weatherperson says we have an extended stretch of fitty-sumpin’ ahead of us, so, yeah, time to sweat a little gravy. I have a review of the Cinelli Bootleg Hobo due in a couple weeks, and just got hold of a Kona Sutra, which is next up in the Adventure Cyclist pipeline.

Then there’s grocery shopping — seems some fat bastard has eaten everything in the house — and last but not least, I should perform a spot of computer maintenance.

Anyone out there upgraded their Macs to Mavericks yet? I’m thinking of making The Great Leap Forward with the two Macs that can handle it, the iMac and MacBook Air, but the tales of technological horror I read online give me pause.

Herself has successfully updated her MacBook Pro, but she is beloved of the gods. Me, not so much.

Tags:Cinelli Bootleg Hobo, Kona Sutra, Macbook Air, MacBook Pro, Mavericks, USA Cycling Cyclocross National Championships
Posted in Bike stuff, Computers, Food | 23 Comments »

Chain of fools

November 18, 2013

Riding the Rock Island Trail east, I found this sign, and the temptation proved overwhelming.

New bicycles are like strange dogs. Most are friendly, but occasionally you meet one that wants to bite you in the ass. Or worse.

While planning a minor expedition to inspect the flood-damaged southern end of the Pikes Peak Greenway, as a prelude to logging what the Adventure Cycling Association folks call a “bike overnight” before the snow flies, I put the Bootleg Hobo into the workstand for a quick chain-lube yesterday morning.

Imagine my surprise when I found a link ready to pop. I could’ve broken the chain right there in the stand using the ol’ opposable thumbs and a finger or two, no chain tool required.

I thought I’d heard an occasional clicking sound while riding the Hobo the day before, when I snapped this photo. But the thing was a demo bike that arrived with shifting issues, and I’d been dicking around with the barrel adjuster in hopes of shutting it the fuck up, so I figured it was probably a tight link somewhere. Thus the workstand, and the chain lube.

One of the washouts left over from the summer’s flooding.

So, yeah, duh. Good thing I didn’t pop that bad boy while standing to climb a hill, as I had been doing. I rarely carry a chain tool on rides, and almost never pack an extra set of testicles.

Long story short, back in the garage went the Hobo and out came the Co-Motion Divide Rohloff, which doesn’t have a chain to break. And the ride was swell, though the trail was in pretty poor repair in spots, as you can see in the other photo.

But my nuts are just fine. Thanks for asking.

Tags:Cinelli Bootleg Hobo, Co-Motion Divide Rohloff, Greenway Trail
Posted in Adventure Cyclist, Bibleburg, Bicycle travel, Bike stuff, Flood, Stupidity, Travel | 30 Comments »

Hallelujah, I’m a bum

November 10, 2013

The Cinelli Bootleg Hobo comes ready to ride, with racks, fenders and pedals.

The first review bike of the new year landed at Chez Dog on Friday.

It’s a Cinelli Bootleg Hobo, and the little bugger sorta snuck up on us as Adventure Cyclist editor Mike Deme and I prowled Interbike earlier this fall.

This Colombus Cromor bike is a nifty bit of marketing. The color is dubbed “Railway” and the Hobo motif is extended throughout, including bar tape that sports some of the coded symbols the ’bos used to communicate with each other back in the day. And the spec’ is strictly hit-the-road basic — nine-speed Shimano triple with Microshift bar-ends, Tektro cantilevers, Alex rims, and 700×35 Vittoria Randonneur Trail clinchers.

There are some nifty extras, though. The Hobo comes with bosses for three bottle cages, Tubus racks and fenders, and a pair of Wellgo pedals. When was the last time you bought an $1,850 touring bike that came with all those goodies? You could ride the sonofabitch home from the shop, is what. Check that — you could ride it away from home, which is even better.

I anticipate a steep drop in unauthorized rail traffic as soon as the hobos find out what a steal this thing is.

Tags:Adventure Cyclist, Cinelli Bootleg Hobo
Posted in Adventure Cyclist, Bicycle travel, Bike stuff, Gadget lust, Journalism, Road trips | 20 Comments »

Interbike 2013: Shopping list

September 26, 2013

The Klatch is an all-day endurance machine, made of Reynolds 853 but with a carbon ENVE disc fork.

BIBLEBURG, Colo. (MDM) — Selling shit is what Las Vegas is all about.

There are no drinking fountains, just $6 bottles of water, and the only chairs to be found sit in front of slot machines and gaming tables, or in bars and restaurants, where thunderous “music” discourages unproductive conversation while encouraging speedy consumption and departure, thus clearing a space for the next sucker … er, customer. What stays in Vegas is mostly your money.

If you’re not spending, Sin City has no use for you. Move along, move along.

My room at the Luxor was unexceptional, though I will say that unlike Mike Creed’s squat at the Excalibur it lacked burglars. It also lacked HBO (“Quit watching “Breaking Bad” and buy a ticket to Carrot Top!”) and wireless Internet (“Quit downloading porn and rent a hooker!”).

As befits a shopping-mall food court, the eats were overpriced and underwhelming, and I never got out of Starbutt’s for less than 12 smacks. (that’s the tab for a grande Americano, a fruit cup and a tip, in case you’re wondering). A short chat with Scot Nicol of Ibis Cycles added value to one of those purchases. For me, anyway. I’m never sure how the other side of a chat with me dollars up on the hoof.

But bitching about Vegas is pointless. Anyone stupid enough to bunk in a casino hotel deserves everything he gets and then some, as I learned back in 2006 while rooming at the Riviera on Bicycle Retailer‘s dime. That pushed me over the edge, and I skipped the show for the next four years.

The Cinelli Bootleg Hobo just jumped out at me on the last day of the show. If the price is right, we should all buy at least two of them.

I’ve enjoyed myself more since returning to Interbike under the aegis of the Adventure Cycling Association, mostly because I no longer have to help produce BRAIN’s Show Daily. Instead of cranking out the word count in some windowless concrete cell I get to wander the show floor, ooh-ing and ahh-ing at all the toys and asking may I play with same, please.

And with that longwinded introduction, allow me to present my top three bikes from Interbike 2013: the Co-Motion Klatch (mentioned previously); the Cinelli Bootleg Hobo; and the Chris King Cielo Tanner Goods Edition.

Of my top three, the Klatch may be the bike best suited to the type of riding I do here in Dog Country. It’s a gravel grinder — or as we oldsters might call it, a “bicycle” — with a Shimano drivetrain. The Reynolds 853 frameset is capable of running 40mm rubber, and Co-Motion’s jet-black show model was nicely spec’d; among the goodies was TRP’s dual-piston Spyre mechanical disc brake, a stopper I have yet to try but have heard nothing but good things about, if you happen to like disc brakes, which I don’t, much. Expect to pay $2,195 for frame and fork, $4,460 for a Shimano 105-equipped bike, and $4,995 for an Ultegra machine. Co-Motion is taking orders now, and lead time is six to seven weeks.

The Chris King Cielo Tanner Goods Edition is a lovely bit of bicycle. Total eye candy.

The Bootleg Hobo, meanwhile, looks like just the ticket for the adventure-cycling crowd. You’ve got to love PR copy that draws a pair of Jacks — Kerouac and London — when pitching a product. Columbus Cromor tubes, triple crankset, bar-end shifters, bosses for three bottle cages. Tubus racks, fenders, clearance for 45mm rubber, spare-spokes holder, and (gasp!) cantilever brakes! What’s not to like? Santa Fe’s Bicycle Technologies International (BTI) has ordered the Hobo in limited quantities, and I expect it will be an insanely popular piece of machinery with the go-anywhere, do-anything crowd, if only because of the price: $1,850 complete. Yeah, I don’t believe it either. But that’s what the man said. …

Finally, the Chris King Cielo Tanner Goods Edition (man, is that ever a mouthful) is a beautiful commuter-slash-bikepacker, with Tanner Goods saddlebag, handlebar bag and frame bag, the last of which doubles as a shoulder bag. The $2,895 price includes frame, fork, bags and Honjo fenders; the show bike was tricked out with Chris King headset and hubs (duh), Thomson seatpost and stem, and Paul’s Neo-Retro and Touring canti’ brakes. It’s a goddamn work of American art on wheels, is what.