Tag: Velo-Orange

Gray Christmas?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
If it’s rolling downhill, why, this must be the valley.

The weather wizards have been spot on lately. When they say “a quarter inch of rain,” they do not lie.

In fact, if anything they seem to be hedging their bets a bit, because our widget reports we got something like .39 inch overnight. And it’s still raining.

I will never be smart. But at least I was not stupid yesterday when I decided to go for my first bike ride in 10 days instead of settling for another plodding hike or p’raps daring to risk a short jog.

As I said, the wizards have been batting a thou’ lately, and when yesterday started looking like my only option to ride without mudguards and rain kit for the foreseeable future, I got right after it.

Before the Snotlocker Surprise paid me a visit I’d been planning to check out some upgrades I and the Two Wheel Drive boyos had made to my old Soma Double Cross. After replacing its chain, chainrings, and cassette while trying (and failing) to accurately diagnose and resolve an annoying skipping issue that occurred under load, I finally discovered the actual cause, which was that its ancient Dura-Ace freehub had gone to its ancestors.

Resurrecting the freehub was beyond my limited skillset, and even the pros at TWD shook their heads in disbelief, as though I’d dragged in a pennyfarthing and asked whether they stocked a 53-inch tubeless-ready carbon disc wheel.

While it was possible that some eBay velo-troll might be squatting on a stash of eight-speed D-A hubs, they mused, it might be simpler (and quicker) to rebuild Captain Retro’s wheel with something, uh, newer? Given the choice between cheap and handsome I went with the latter, a stylish Velo-Orange, which goes nicely with the other shiny bits.

What the hell, it’s my second-oldest wheelset, an Excel Sports Cirrus with Mavic Open Pro rims and DT spokes, and it’s been a faithful companion. So we gave it a new heart and it ticked along nicely for a gentle hour in yesterday’s dwindling sunshine.

Speaking of shiny new bits, you may notice that I pulled the ol’ presto-change-o on the blog this morning. I took down the custom header, a scenic photo with the “Mad Dog Media” moniker, and replaced it with a smaller logo and a text header, which makes it possible for me to add a small additional overlay of snark without having to deploy any fancy-schmancy photo-editing software.

iBike 2012: Tools, not toys

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 24 Comments

2013 Bianchi Volpe
The venerable Bianchi Volpe gets another makeover for 2013, including a nifty powder-blue hue and retro decals.

BIBLEBURG, Colo. (MDM) — The times, how they do change.

Once upon a time my bicycle sprang from sound racing stock — first steel, then aluminum and finally carbon fiber and/or titanium — and the gearing was as manly as the showers at Paris-Roubaix. 52/42 and 12-21 constituted the standard until I moved to Santa Fe, where I was informed that 53/39 and 12-23 were better suited to the hillier terrain.

The fabled straight block came out for pan-flat time trials, of course, and for truly insane climbs one kept a cogset with a 25 or even a 27 handy.

Tires, naturally, were 700×25 — sewups for racing, clinchers for training — though I kept a pair of 28s around for one race that involved a half-dozen miles of dirt-road climbing, and for no good reason occasionally used 19s in a race against the clock.

But this was long ago, and that man is no longer with us.

Today if the bike is not steel it’s probably not mine. And the gearing — good Lord, the gearing! — has devolved to 46/34 and 12-28 on some machines. Two sport triple-ring cranks and mountain-bike rear derailleurs.

Tires likewise have ballooned. 700×28 is now a minimum rather than a maximum, and the max has gone all the way to 700×45, though the sweet spot lies somewhere between 32 and 38.

And the coup de grace? Racks and fenders. Got ’em on three bikes. Oh, the humanity.

There were lots of utilitarian machines like mine at this year’s Interbike show, from the likes of Co-Motion, Bruce Gordon, Yuba, Pashley, Velo-Orange, Bianchi, Opus, Volagi and others. And more companies are tooling up to hang useful bits on them, such as racks and fenders, panniers and trunks, bells and whistles.

What’s behind all this? Beats me. Maybe folks are sick of watching unrepentant dopers perform impossible feats on otherworldly machinery. Perhaps someone figured out that the Adventure Cycling Association has 45,000 members. And don’t forget Peak Oil — it might be nice to have something to ride to work when the last well starts farting dust.

All I know is, if this is a trend instead of a blip, I like it. A guy gets tired of staring up at lug nuts while inhaling a snootful of fragrant particulates.