Commuting

This week has been icy and snowy. In fact this week has sucked for bike commuting. It has taken an extra 30% of time to get to work. While in that picture it might look like a regular slush ride, you'd be wrong. That shit is straight up frozen ice ruts. God damn this sucked. The only thing that kept me upright was the kenda studded tires.

Cold

Following along with the rest of PGH bike riders I rode this weekend in the cold and will now cover what I wore to stay warm in 17F.

Bottom
Bike shorts
Bellwether Windfront Tights
Wool socks
Shimano winter bike shoes
Sidetrak shoe covers

Top
Giordana Winter jersey
Castelli Softshell jacket
Patagonia fleece neck gator
Nike winter hat
Craft lobster claw gloves
Outdoor Research goretex shell gloves

I was warm. My hands got pretty cold at one point, but then they warmed up again. Frick park had 2 inches of thick nasty ice on all the main trails. It really sucked. But I caught up with the 24 minutes of slag heap and that was a crazy sketchy fun time. I wrecked pretty hard on my preride so I rode the course like a baby.

Bikes From my Past Part III - The road bike chronicles

I didn't really start road riding until college. Where I started off with a Specialized Epic.
The epic was a carbon frame with aluminum lugs. It was the flexiest bike I ever rode, you could watch the "bonded" aluminum fork flex when ever you would turn. But for my first road bike, the bike was super nice.

The next bike I had was a Paramount Series 5 PDG. It was a really nice riding bike and I can't think of anything to complain about. But then the Waterford walked in to my life.



Here is the Waterford 531. I worked at a bike shop that sold TONS of waterfords and this was an insane deal. This was my road bike from 1997 until 2006. It was a great bike, I had no complaints. But, when I replaced it with the Seven, it really was night and day. The seven just felt so much lighter, snappier...

I think I sold the frame for more than I paid for it new.

The Seven Odonata is a carbon/ti bike that rides better than any bike I have ever owned. It has been on epic rides and never let me down.

You might notice the one thing that all these bikes have in common? A flite ti saddle. Maybe I'll see if I can pick up a NOS one.

Bikes from my past part II

This is the second installment of bikes I have owned, the mountain bike edition. I realized I left my first mountain bike out. In 1990 I was given a Puch Chapparal 18 speed mtn bike. And I started mountain biking on that. I left off yesterday with the Spooky.

In 2004 I purchased a Klein Palomino used from my good friend John.

The palomino was a great bike. It climbed and descended well. The Palomino is based on the Maverick design. The palomino originally came with bushings in the pivots which would wear out every 6 months. Maverick released an upgraded linkage that really worked well. I never had to replace it in two years until I sold it.
I sold it because of an incredible deal from Dave @ Redstone in November of 08' for a Turner Flux. The flux works really well.


This bike climbs really well and it's slightly smaller wheel base makes it handle nicely on the east coast single track. I can't wait till the snow disappears to take it on some epic rides. Like the new Raystown Lake trails, 32 miles opening in May!!

Bikes from my past

Someone over on the iBob list started talking about all the bikes from their past, and that has prompted me to go down the list of bikes I have owned since I started riding.

I'll skip freestyle bikes.

Bike #1 1994 Kona AA
This was a full Alcoa Aluminum frame with a really sloping top tube, Marzocchi 45mm travel shock, sugino impact cranks, a ton of "joe murray" parts, and the weirdest thing was this gorilla nut style lock ring on the headset that I kept breaking.

I rode this bike for 3 years until I got my Spooky Darkside. I had no reason to get rid of it, except that the darkside was made by spooky, a straight edge bike company.

Bike #2 1996 Spooky Darkside


This bike was amazing. I rode it all the time, raced on it, jumped off tons of crap on campus on it, "toured" on the c & o canal on it.

It had a 2.8 pound frame, really high bottom bracket, steep geometry and the manitou fork with englund air cartridges in it. XTR V-Brakes, Cooks Cranks, Cooks Ti BB, Bontrager 118 Ti bars, syncros seat post, SDG ARC saddle, Tioga hub that used straight pull spokes and cartridge bearings - amazing hub.

A superb hard tail. Nothing finer.

Tune in tomorrow for the next installment.

Review: EVO Waterproof Backpack

I saw this EVO dry backpack when I was at Divers Direct in Key Largo a few years ago. It was $15 on sale. In fact its always on sale. It filled a need for sea kayaking that day but I have been using it for commuting occasionally and its really nice.

If you don't have to bring a laptop, but need to carry a couple of things on a wet bike commute this bag is great. Fine for a change of clothes and bike tools.

It has plenty of padding on it and very adjustable straps. It is essentially a dry bag with shoulder and waist straps. It's not the highest of quality but I like it and it was definitely worth the $15. I have had it for a few years now.
You can get it at Divers Direct.