review: Ratchetting Allen Wrench

I am a sucker for a slick new tool to make working on the bike more enjoyable. I got the folding hex key set from Garret Wade. A nice set of folding allen keys from 1.5-6mm.

It is handy to have around as its just a regular set of folding allen keys that happens to ratchet. You'll probably not ratchet to much stuff with it. Its handy on seat bolts, crank bolts and.... well not that much else on the bike. It came in incredibly handy when putting together some flat pack furniture from ikea though!

For $14 its not bad to have in your tool kit, but its not essential.

Spring break

I had been putting in a lot of miles this April. We had really nice weather. But I took a much needed break down to the keys.

sorry

Its been a while, but the weather has been really nice so I have been riding...

I hit up a pre-work mtn bike ride the other day. Got in 1.5 hours of singletrack before hitting the job. Left my laptop at work the night before and got in some nice riding.

Where'd the barrel adjuster go?

When I built the seven mudhoney I put a new XTR rear derailleur on it, much to my surprise the new XTR does not have a barrel adjuster any more .

Lame.

So now that is out in the open we gots to deal with it. I tried these crappy inline barrel adjusters that had come on my cannondale, but they were worthless.

Ritchey has designed these barrel adjusters that fit in an STI lever

They are also sold under the Jagwire brand, which is good since only excel sells the ritchey ones. I like excel a whole lot, but ordering an $11 part from Colorado seemed goofy... I'd end up buying some other stuff I don't need to make the order big enough to justify shipping. I picked up these for $11 from Speedgoat. They work like a champ, problem solved. It would easily work placed in the rear XTR derailleur, but it might be one more spot for mud to creep in to the cable.

Review: Showers Pass Elite 2.0 Cycling Jacket

I used to do a lot of mountaineering, and a sign like that meant something to me. I would routinely solo up mountains on the weekend. As such every time I bought a jacket or pair of gloves I applied the filter of "Will this work above treeline, with gloves on and a hat? Will it save my skin if its -20°F and I'm at 14,000'? Will it stand up to the abuses of mountaineering?"

Well those days are gone. I'm in pittsburgh now. And my days look like this:

But we have cool roads in the city like this:

So its all about the rain. It either snows or rains from December through April. I wanted a new cycling rain jacket, and I did not want to get one that would double as a mountaineering coat.
I had read nothing but great things about the Showers Pass Elite 2.0 rain jacket made out of eVent fabric. Here I am in it:

It is a well thought out cycling jacket. It has an available hood, which I am glad comes off, since you don't always want to ride in a hood or have one flapping around on your back for the rest of the ride when you are not wearing it. There is a draw cord on the bottom, nice velcro enclosures on the sleeves, a vent in the back and a spot to attach a blinky light.

I really like that it has pit zips, most cycling jackets have stopped using these:


It has a napoleon pocket in the front with a port in the inside to run your ipod headphones through:

It has a long back to cover your butt from water spraying off the tire. It also has a nice pocket right down on the bottom that can hold a pump and a few things no problem.


The size is good, I got a medium, which is what I wear in Pearl Izumi, but the arms are crazy long. Which I only point out, because in 6 months when this thing is no longer water proof, the water will pool up in the bunched up arms and soak in:


But check this, 1 hour in the rain and the water is still beading up and rolling off the coat. Notice the reflective material on the arm, there is reflective material on the back too, nice touches.
You gotta ride with a light on when you are riding in the city in the rain:

Overall its a nice coat, I don't know if its really any more breathable than any other high quality pearl cycling coat. But with the vent in the back, pit zips and adjustable shock cord at the bottom you can regulate the air flow and stay dry from sweat that way.

I have a 2001 pearl izumi jacket made out of eVent frabric that has lost all of its waterproofness. But maybe thats just a part of it being old now... only time will tell.

Riding in DC for the business traveller part 2

I was back in DC this week for work. It really is an easy city to ride in if you are visiting for work. I stayed in the Westin Arlington Gateway, which was 2 blocks from 2 different bike paths.

The weather was so nice, I rode before work and after work. The Custis trail goes west next to a stream the whole way. You can jut off on short singletrack too.... very short, but dirt is dirt.

The trail in the morning was pretty empty. And you had to do one pretty deep stream crossing.


The hotel was nice, the gym was nice, 1 bike, 1 elliptical and 5 treadmills. Two benches and weights... The room was nice, had a big flat panel tv, nice view, wireless and wired internet. No soda machines though...

Snow is getting old...

Snow is getting old... snow riding is getting old. I took the dog for some runs to get out of riding in this crap...

I used to run all the time. That pic is of my girl running the saddle rock trail in Chautaqua in Boulder. I think that is one of the harder trails to run anywhere. Running is like riding, its just that running is harder and is less fun.

Review: Light and Motion Vega

Light and Motion Vega


The Light and Motion Vega is a 4W LED/85 Lumen lightweight headlight. It is very bright for its size, very well built and great for commuting.

The mount gets it up above any cables on your bars, and takes up very little handlebar real estate.
It uses a standard thumbscrew style mount. here you can see it compared to the Shimano Nexus generator light, quite a bit brighter.

Here you can see the mount with no light on it.
And it attaches with this swivel, I had to crank down on that Phillips head to keep the light from swivelling on its own. The light did include a couple of breakaway discs that are supposed to keep the light from breaking in a crash, thats cool.

This is the on off button, easy to use with winter gloves. The light turns on if you tap the button twice, has 3 brightness levels and a blinking mode. The bright mode is good enough for slower night mountain biking and fantastic for commuting on dark roads. I think this light paired with a headlamp is a great combo for mountain biking.
Just a view of the front of the light.

The light charges from the little cover on the bottom there, it charges quickly with the supplied wall wart style charger, last 2 hours on full output or 20 hours on blink mode. I have been using it for blinking mode to commute and I never worry about charging it. Its a great light for commuting.
The nice thing about this is how bright it is compared to how small, it is a self contained package so its easy to take off when you have to lock your bike up outside. The light is also versatile so you could use it for mtn biking in a pinch or as a supplement to your mountain bike light you already use.

My only complaint is how hard it is to get off of the mount when I get in to work, it moves the handlebar mount all around and I always think I am going to break the thing with the force I have to use to get it off of the mount!

I would recommend this to anyone who is looking for a really light commuting light. Prior to using this I was using my Niterider Evolution Smart on blinking mode, but taking off the light, and the battery pack every day was getting old, not to mention the weight and that the burn time on the niterider had gone to crap. I purchased this from Performance on sale for $115.

More on torque wrenches

I figured after all the comparisons I made of torque wrenches in the last post it would make sense to have a pic of them side by side. Here you go:

New Handlebars - Velo Orange Milan Bars

I have been commuting in this crap snow/rain/ice mix all winter and the braking situation is getting tiring.


To try and fix this I put a new set of handlebars of the Bianchi Casto Valley commuter. I wanted something a little more upright and with the ability to use mtn levers, cool old suntours mtn levers...
I opted for the Milan Bar from Velo Orange . It fits mountain bike size levers and shifters. It requires the use of a nitto shim, or a coke can shim.
This is my usual winter commuter glove, a REI Primaloft mitt. My hands get cold... especially leaving my house at 6:30am to head in to work. I was having a problem braking with the road levers and this seems to work much better. Although to be honest it could have been the insane amount of road salt and grime stuck in my cables...
And the maiden voyage included a stop down to the recycling center to drop off the last two months worth of cardboard. It is secured with a generic rear rack cargo net, I got mine from Velo Orange as well. It worked just fine.

Review: GiustaForza Torque Wrench

I am a bit of a nut when it comes to obeying torque specs, especially with carbon stuff everywhere these days.

I already own a big full size torque wrench, 1/4" drive, huge.. but when you put a socket with a 4mm allen head on it you tend to let the bit squirm and you can strip out the nut you are working on. Also with a 14" long lever the low torque limits on bike parts feel like nothing.

Enter the Guistaforza from Effetto Mariposa
It is very small, about the size of regular T-Handle allen wrench.

Because of the small size, it works great on bike size parts, it does not ratchet like almost every other torque wrench I have used. It came out even in my totally non scientific test where I compared it to my Ritchey Torqkey and the full size no name $40 torque wrench and they all seemed to read the same at 5nm.
It comes housed in a little plastic box. The box is sort of pain to fit the ziploc baggy full of bits and one long bit with the torque wrench in. Not a show stopper, but not convenient either.
It looks like they make a pro model now that comes with a $2 injection molded case.
As you can see in the pic above it adjusts by turning the knob at the bottom of the tool to the desired setting between 2-16Nm.

Overall its a very nice tool, it works well, the small size and light weight make it perfect for working on bikes.

Bottom line: It costs $179. Unless you really, really like to work on your bike thats a lot of money. If you are only concerned about your bars and stem just get the Ritchey Torqkey. But if you like to work on your ride and you have lots of carbon parts get this, a cracked seatpost could cost more than this tool.

I imagine with so many parts being carbon and the success of this tool Park will make one for half the price and I bet that it would be great like everything Park tools makes.


UPDATE: I added a pic of all three torque wrenches here.

Should have driven

I left the house and it was 60°F out. It was dark, I was using the Light and Motion Vega headlight. It was awesome. I was warm! There was no ice to speak of on the trails.

But now, it dumping outside and its thundering, yes thundering in February W-T-F is up with this shit?

My ride home is gonna be wet, both because of the rain, and I'll be sweating into my rain gear...

-Joe

such a stud...

The winter has come to stay. With two weeks of steady snow I had to face the facts and put on the studded mountain bike tires for the next two months. I have been using Kena Klondike studded 700c tires on my commuter last winter and this winter so far and it has been great. But wow, these Nokian Mount and Ground studded 26" x 1.9 tires are amazing. Especially riding studs with disc brakes.


It literally makes no difference if its snow covered with this. Okay, you can ride at 90% of normal. But it really just hooks up like nobodies business. Its amazing. You gottaa try it if you live win a place with snow.

Kiawah Island

I went to visit the in-laws in Kiawah Island SC this weekend. Which was a welcome break from
Pittsburgh as the high in PGH was 12F on Sunday. The riding there is great.



Not a hill to be found on the island. Long flat roads with little traffic. You have to watch for parked trucks of the workmen fixing up million dollar homes.



The weather was nice, in the high 40s the first two days, then 60s the last day. On the flight down I finished up Chris Carmicheals' "The Ultimate ride". I have to say, any interest in getting a coach and training for cycling was quashed with that book. Talk about taking the fun out of riding... I'll do what I usuallly do, just ride a lot and then do some intervals in the late spring.

Also we took Zeus for a walk on the beach.

Savannah

I was on the road again last week for work. It was in sunny and warm Savannah. I stayed in a Westin resort that had rooms with weights and a spin bike. It was rad, so convenient for work travel to have stuff like that in your room.



Work travel always has you on weird schedules, especially since it was conference we were putting on, which means you have to be kind of social...

But downtown Savannah was nice. There was a mellow mushroom, I love that place, a Half Moon Outfitters, which is a really nice outdoor store. Like every town though, the roads were littered with tight pants wearing fixed gear bikes. Its cool to see that many people riding though, especially considering its January.

But back in pgh the singletrack trails were a little muddy, so I snuck in a nice cross ride for a few hours Saturday and Sunday.

Bike box

I was linked on Toolmonger



Cause y'all know that shit always breaks in the parking lot... and you have to drive home to get that cone wrench...

Toolmonger is a cool blog too.
-Joe

Yearly Info

Last year for the first time ever I kept track of every single workout I did. Mostly it was riding, but I included weights, hiking, running...

Also I broke this down by what type of riding, do I ride my road bike as much as my cross bike, or do I really ride when it is cold out? (aka should I buy new road wheels or do I need a nice winter riding jacket?)

Enough words, lets get to the pictures:





Now lets get to the numbers:
Mountain rides: 78
Road Rides: 34
Cross Rides: 49
Commuter Rides: 300 ( or 150 days)

Average times:
Mountain: 1 hour 15 minutes
Road: 2 hours
Cross: 1 hour 17 minutes
Commute: 32 minutes (or 1 hour 4 minutes per day)


I really ride the mountain bike a lot huh? Which would make sense, I live 10 feet from some really nice single track. After work I get back from my commute and I don't want to go on a road ride and think about traffic... I can throw on my headphones and head right in to the park.

But this year I think I will try and ride a bit more road.

So I spent 416 hours on the bike last year. If I take a conservative guess of 9mph average speed I would have ridden 3744 miles last year.

Overall I am happy I kept track of my riding and encourage you to try it out. Its a neat experiment. I wrote a program that some friends are using which shows your workout hours along side your friends. It has definitely got me riding more than ever before.

I am also going to track my weight with the same tool this year, you know to help further my eating disorder.

But now it is time to start thinking of my goals for next season. Or as I like to call them "winter day dreams".

-Joe

Mittens

It is time for an update. I posted in 2006 how much I liked the Salsa tostada gloves, yeah they did not hold up to washing at all.

Last winter I purchased a pair of the REI Ridgecrest Mittens They have kept my digits warm down into the single digits. I would really recommend these to anyone.

Equally as nice is a system of layering using OR Goretex shells, over OR Mittens, and then with a thin wool liner.

I talked about this before... But it is difficult to shift with a heavy weight glove on the bottom, but with a thin wool liner you can do ok.




I have also been using these Craft Split Finger gloves, these are really good down to about 20-25F. After that you have to go mitten... But they do let you shift easily and work just as well on a mtn bike or road bike. The liner comes out making them especially easy to wash, preventing the problem the salsa ones encountered.

You can see I am wearing them in this pic here:

Mudhoney

So I went into my local bike shop to see if they could order me up a Seven Mudhoney. But they had one in stock.... If it doesn't fit I can bring it back they said... And I left with it.

Either way it rides so nice. I hope it works out for me.

I built it up with XTR hubs laced to open pro rims with double butted spokes with alloy nipples.

Then Avid BB7 road brakes, Ultegra 9speed STI, Dura Ace Long cage rear derailleur.

Ritchey WCS Cranks, Dura Ace BB.

Ritchey WCS Bars and stem, TRP carbon interrupter levers.


And sticking it to the ground, the best cross tire, the michelin mud 2.

I did have to dremel off the tab on the right disc pad, as it hit the rotor spider on the XTR rotor.

Look at that metalwork.