Posts Tagged ‘Co-Motion Divide Rohloff’

Dude, where’s my column?

August 24, 2017

The homebound leg.

Whew. Finally, chucked another Bicycle Retailer column and cartoon over the transom, just in the nick of time, too.

This fake-news bidness isn’t as easy as some folks would have you believe.

Yesterday the brain-lock was so severe that I had to resort to vigorous outdoor exercise to shake the nickel loose and set the music to playing.

Apparently I wasn’t the only sufferer. The trails were alive with folks running, riding, or simply enjoying a beautiful day in the Duke City.

Today — not so much. Gray, cool and damp, which is to say fine weather for making up stuff indoors and enjoying a rare cup of afternoon coffee.

A fella who’s not making it up is my old comrade Hal Walter. Check out MotivRunning for one of Hal’s stories about his neurodiverse son, Harrison.

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Posted in Bicycle Retailer and Industry News | 10 Comments »

Fleet readiness

July 22, 2017

A quick loop around the cul-de-sac to check the capabilities of a Canon camcorder.

It’s been Ride Your Own Damn Bike Week around here, and what a trip down memory lane that has been.

The Nobilette has been getting a lot of road time, but on Thursday I gave it a rest and broke out the old DBR Prevail TT road bike for a 90-minute spin.

The DBR Prevail TT, with a fresh set of goopy tubes to repel the goatheads.

One reason I haven’t been riding this relic is that it didn’t have sealant-filled tubes, a shortcoming I remedied before leaving aboard it. Another is the low end of 34×25, which is a tad tall for Your Humble Narrator these days.

But as it turns out, 34×25 is pretty OK when the bike only weighs 20.7 pounds, as opposed to, say, the 32.2-pound Soma Saga Disc, which I rode Friday.

Today the Co-Motion Divide Rohloff gets its moment in the sun. It, too, lacked goopy tubes, until yesterday, when I reacquainted myself with the joys of rear-wheel removal and replacement, that Rohloff hub adding a few additional steps to the process.

All these little chores make a fine distraction from the news, which is all bad. A choking shit-mist has descended upon the nation’s capital and the doings therein seem likely to make “Game of Thrones” look like “Survivor: Canyon Ranch Spa.”

This is assuming, of course, that the Republicans in Congress grow a functional pair, which seems a very wild assumption indeed. What a motley clot of harem guards that lot has turned out to be.

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Posted in Bike stuff, Deep political thought | 26 Comments »

O, wholly night

December 26, 2015
My rigid Jones 29er plays a lovely moonlight sonata.

My rigid Jones 29er plays a lovely moonlight sonata.

A neighbor couple had invited us to join them for a full-moon Christmas ride on the Sandia foothills trails (.pdf), and while the field was halved by start time last night — his wife was recovering from a cold, and mine thought her headlight gravely underpowered — Phil and I soldiered on.

Alas, the moon likewise declined to participate, and my lighting system also proved less than illuminating (an elderly, AAA-powered trinity of Cateye Opticube HL-EL450, Princeton Tec EOS, and Princeton Tec Remix). Happily, Phil was content to lead the way with his new Cygolite, so we got around and about without issue.

My "lighting system." Not pictured: The Princeton Tec Remix I wore as a headlamp.

My “lighting system.” Not pictured: The Princeton Tec Remix I wore as a headlamp.

I was reminded how much fun it is to do something different, and how good this can be for the bike industry, because you discover how woefully clapped out your equipment is.

There was the lighting issue, for starters. Also, my old Pearl Izumi winter gloves seem to have gone walkabout in the move, I have no clear lenses for my prescription Rudy Project Rb-3 cycling glasses, and my decrepit Kucharik toe covers no longer cover all 10 toes.

And which bike to ride? I ride these trails on a cyclo-cross bike in the daylight, but that seemed unwise in the dark, with old snow and ice likely to be lurking in any north-facing bits. The old DBR Axis TT mountain bike seemed an ideal choice, until I found a big hop in the rear tire that no amount of inflation, deflation, removal, replacement, and yanking this way and that could resolve.

The Co-Motion Divide Rohloff? That would have been fun, but I didn’t fancy fixing a rear-wheel flat in the freezing dark (the Rohloff hub and Gates belt drive complicate that chore a bit, and I was out of practice).

Thus, the Jones. It’s the perfect bike for this sort of outing. Big-ass Maxxis Ardent 29×2.4 tires, a Shimano XT drivetrain with a low end of 19.3 gear inches for creeping through icy rockpiles in the inky blackness, and Avid BB7 discs with 200/180mm rotors for knocking down the MPH as necessary. Plus you could hang 12 headlights on that H-bar, if you had ’em, which I did not.

Speaking of which, I’m taking recommendations for a reasonably priced headlight. Sound off in comments if you feel so inclined. And a happy Boxing Day to one and all.

 

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Posted in Bike stuff, Cold, Gadget lust, In the neighborhood, Technology, Winter | 15 Comments »

Chain of fools

November 18, 2013
Hobo crossing

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.

Washout

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.

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Posted in Adventure Cyclist, Bibleburg, Bicycle travel, Bike stuff, Flood, Stupidity, Travel | 30 Comments »

Happy trails

October 10, 2013
The leaves are turning rapidly here in Bibleburg, despite the best efforts of Congress to halt the march of progress.

The leaves are turning rapidly here in Bibleburg, despite the best efforts of Congress to halt the march of progress.

Here’s yesterday’s view from the Co-Motion Divide Rohloff. I rode north on the Greenway trail to the U.S. Air Force Academy and found surprisingly little damage from the recent flooding; either the trail elves have been busy or the south end took the brunt of the storm.

While out and about for the first time in a week I met up with my old pal Dennis the Menace and we rode along for a spell, discussing the parlous state of current affairs.

We agreed that chaos prevails, and while that can be amusing for those of us in the ever-precarious business of rumormongery, we both felt that we little people in the hinterlands would benefit from a prompt extraction of crania from colons on the federal level.

At least the sonsabitches haven’t been able to furlough fall. It proceeds apace, and helps us forget, if only for a while, that we have elevated the least of us into authority over most of us.

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Posted in Bike stuff, Feckin' eejits, Feddle gummint | 10 Comments »

Hi-def’, where is thy sting?

October 8, 2013
I had a little fun shooting the video of the Jones bike. There's plenty of room for gadgetry on that 66cm H-bar; I was going to add a flower vase, but ran out of hose clamps.

I had a little fun shooting the video of the Jones bike. There’s plenty of room for gadgetry on that 66cm H-bar; I was going to add a flower vase, but ran out of hose clamps.

In comments, Patrick O’B. asks whether I’m having trouble deciding which bike to ride since adding a nifty Jones rigid-specific 29er to the Mad Dog fleet.

Nope.

I haven’t been on a bike of any type for a week — a terrorist wasp nailed me in my left ankle during a hike last Wednesday, the sonofabitch swelled up to the size and shade of a ruby-red Texas grapefruit (the ankle, not the terrorist wasp), and I have whiled away the hours since full of Benadryl and bad ideas, trying to get a metric shit-ton of work done with my shoeless left leg propped up on a box.

And the weather has been picture-postcard, Chamber of Commerce, fall-in-Colorado perfect, too.

Gah.

The Co-Motion Divide Rohloff got its closeup today.

The Co-Motion Divide Rohloff got its closeup today.

I did get out for a short while today. The ankle looks more or less like an ankle again, rather than a botulistic bratwurst, and I needed to shoot a bit of HD video for an online review of the Co-Motion Divide Rohloff, having just wrapped production on a Jones video. So I spazzed around in Palmer Park for an hour, playing Quentin Ferrentino with a couple of dusty old Hero 3 Black Editions.

The Adventure Cyclist gang and I met with the GoPro people at Interbike, but only editor Mike Deme walked away with one of the new Hero 3+ dinguses, though I thought I batted my eyelashes most fetchingly at the product guy. Bitch.

So I had to make do with obsolete technology in my latest projects, and as usual it is the little people — you, the viewing public — who must suffer.

Still, that makes two videos in two days. Stick that in your hobbit-pipe and smoke it, Peter Jackson.

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Posted in Arts & letters, Bike stuff, Fall, Illness, Injury, Kvetching, Pissing and moaning, Things that suck, Video | 19 Comments »

Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl

May 16, 2013

What with helping Consigliere Pelkey live-blog the Giro, cranking out the comedy for Bicycle Retailer, logging saddle time on the Jones Steel Diamond and the Co-Motion Divide Rohloff in preparation for reviews thereof, and assisting Herself with a new project — turning our House Back East™ into a vacation rental via airbnb.com — I haven’t had much time to follow the doings in DeeCee.

But now that I’ve had a minute to cast an inquisitive eye about the Innertubes, I have a question for those of you who have been paying closer attention.

Is it time we abandoned our flirtation with representative democracy and begged the Queen to take us back? God save the Queen!

Speaking of limeys, back at the bike racing, Brave, Brave Sir Wiggo’ went from descending like a girl to descending the Giro’s overall standings like a sick girl in a Radio Flyer full of anvils on Mount Doom. Defending champion Ryder Hesjedal has had even worse luck; they’re timing that poor sod with a calendar. I have no idea who’s gonna win the goddamn thing, but it sure is fun to watch. Join Mr. P and me at Live Update Guy for tomorrow’s stage, the Giro’s longest.

In California, meanwhile, it’s Jens Voigt making everyone look sick. The 110-year-old father of 16 crushed Tyler Farrar and Thor Hushovd under his chariot wheels en route to victory in stage 5 of the Amgen Tour. He told VeloNews reporter Matthew Beaudin that when he finally retires, if ever, it will take two people to replace him — “one to do the funny part, and one to be the bike rider.”

And me? I didn’t ride a meter today, in victory or defeat. Work, work, work, that’s all we have around these parts. That, and dinner with friends at Springs Orleans. Somebody had managed to FUBAR the house lights but we couldn’t have cared less, because the food was top notch. We just let our forks follow our noses.

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Posted in Bicycle racing, Bike stuff, Deep political thought | 22 Comments »

Bikes, bikes and more bikes

April 4, 2013
Jeff Jones bikes

The Jones Steel Diamond in its road and off-road configurations. Photo courtesy Jeff Jones

Lately I’ve been enjoying an interlude between bike reviews, which has been nice, as it gave me a chance to get reacquainted with my own fleet of two-wheelers.

In the past week I’ve ridden my trusty Voodoo Nakisi drop-bar 29er, one of my two venerable Steelman Eurocrosses, and the only truly custom bike in the Mad Dog garage, a nifty Nobilette that’s something of an all-rounder, a cyclo-cross-slash-touring bike that’ll take a rear rack and fenders.

This weekend, all that ends with an invasion from Oregon.

Review bikes are en route from Co-Motion (a Divide Rohloff), Jeff Jones Bicycles (Steel Diamond) and Bike Friday (Silk Road Alfine).

I’ve ridden a Bike Friday before — you can read my review of the New World Tourist Select in the archives at Adventure Cyclist — but the Silk Road Alfine is something of a step up, with Shimano’s Alfine hub, Gates belt drive and Avid BB7 disc brakes. Should be a giggle.

The Co-Motion is likewise a belt-drive bike, but with big wheels and the Rohloff hub, which I’ve ridden before on the Van Nicholas Amazon Rohloff (yes, I reviewed that one too). I’ll get to spend a bit more time with the Co-Motion than I did with the Van Nicholas, and I’m very much looking forward to it, as the Co-Motion seems (on the Innertubes, anyway) more or less ideal for the sort of riding I do around Bibleburg.

The Jeff Jones bike, meanwhile, looks like the sort of machinery we all could use come the Apocalypse. That’s it up there at the top of the post, the red bike next to the otherworldly black beast with the tractor tires. I’ll confess to a mild yearning for a fatbike — as in, if somebody gave me one, I’d ride it — but until some product manager loses his or her mind, the Jones bike looks to be about as close as I’m gonna get to that little fantasy.

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Posted in Bike stuff, Gadget lust | 34 Comments »