AndrewMajor profile

There’s more about it here. It was an original Guardian jacket in its first life. Weatherproof vests are awesome.

I like this a lot. I’d have two versions one that’s 4mm/5mm hex and one that’s T25/5mm. 

I had a 4mm/5mm like you describe that came with some furniture but the quality of the bits was crap. I want Bondhus or Wera or whoever to make your tool!

Yeah the pull-to-lift is sweet / was a sweet surprise. It’s also truly simple in the best way. I think it’s safe to say the guys at HMPL look for the simplest way to do stuff rather than the most complicated / feature-forward way some (many?) bag companies try to differentiate themselves. I’ve had it out riding (pavement / uncovered) in proper rain and it works great too.

Make sure to post a photo when you make yours! Always keen on DIY stuff.

Thanks, I’ve never heard of them but I’ll check them out.

I’ve only met them a couple times as a customer but they’re definitely friendly stand up guys. Big smiles and good stories. Hustlers too to be making it, making stuff, in Vancouver.

My wife has a couple of their bags now as part of going by bike and they’re fantastic.

The pump price for our small car is still a bit shocking - but has it been enough to change most folks habits? 

Actually, our buses have been much busier since pricing started galloping but that could also be down to the mask mandate being removed? I will say I’d love to see us investing in transit instead of subsidies for electric luxury cars and billion dollar museums. If the buses were more frequent - even recognizing that they would still take longer with stops - I’d use the car even less. The real time vampire is arriving early enough to be sure we catch a bus and then the time sitting around as part of transfers. 

Anyway, huge aside. But I quite like taking the bus over driving and if the frequency doubled it would be amazing.

Interesting. I’m walking a lot right now for my rehab and it’s boring. Wondering if making something new out if it might be a bit more stimulating. Then I think about all the broken glass in my neighbourhood… haha..ahhhh

It seems to me it ebbs and flows. And then you get companies like Swrve and Mission where they start off producing everything in North America and really cling to that image as more and more of their stuff is sourced overseas. 

Which, look, I get the basics of the global economy but in both those cases, quality absolutely dropped at the same time for the overseas-made products. Swrve is a good example where I have in-house USA-made shorts and knickers that have been through the war and look trashed, and I still used them all the time whereas I had newer stuff that was sourced overseas that essentially disintegrate years ago. But, they still make some really top quality stuff in-house so there's another of digging required when walking about the value they deliver for their high prices. 

But then there's a brand like Kitsbow that is now employee-owned, paying living wages, making everything in-house to order to cut down on waste and any time you mention them half the comments are about the price like everyone who works there is driving a Tacoma TRD and owns two houses. F*** Off, that's the price of making high-quality stuff domestically.

The visual impact is awesome. 

Interesting re. barefoot. Many, many years ago I worked summers coaching swimming and was barefoot hours of the day on the pool deck and my feet were awesome-tough. Now I'm so soft I only go barefoot around the house. How did you start off with the transition? Just start walking about the block?

Yeah, that's fair. I was just thinking from my own perspective that - exactly like a waterproof jacket - if the item isn't reliably doing what it's supposed to do then it's either getting fixed or getting gone.

Posted by: velocipedestrian

The pilot is happy with it.

She managed to get it started solo today. I'm going to look out for a lower stack seatpost - there might be 10-15mm extra, which could mean being able to sit with both feet [toes] down.

Awesome!

And yeah, those RF posts have tall heads. Almost anything should get you at least a cm.

Totally, perfect!

@Niels, "broken in half" in what way? Like the aluminum stanchion was separated from the body of the strut or the carbon strut had broken in half? I have what I'd call an above average number of experiences with Lefty strut systems and I've seen corrosion, leaking (air and oil), and various other issues but I've yet to see a proper broken one. Did he ship his bike to the Cape Epic? How was it packaged? How was it transported? Did it actually break while riding or did it break in shipping and then fail while riding?

I mean, on the one hand, everything breaks. But without context, it just sounds like one of those stories. Like the Fox 40 lowers I've seen that were twisted. I mean, I've seen hundreds of Fox 40s that weren't twisted, and the reason these lowers twisted was an insane crash that also wrote off a wheel and a handlebar. But I can certainly say, without context, that I've seen twisted Fox 40 lowers if that makes sense?

It's like your friend's Lefty struts. What generation? Were they updated? Who worked on them? I've seen so much sh*t come out of bike shops that should be sending suspension products to service centers - locally and from other places - that saying they were serviced before departure doesn't say anything. My Lefty 2.0 had an issue with an air leak but there was an update kit they provided for free that actually significantly improved performance at the same time. But you could only get that upgrade kit if your fork was being serviced at a Lefty service center. Maybe the struts were serviced at a Lefty service center and maybe there were bad seal kits, or the center did poor work, or whatever - not saying it's not possible. But I do think these conversations require more context.

In general - all brands - riders do a sh*t job of looking after their suspension. Like folks will have a fork with so much stiction they're having to under-pressurize it by 10, 15, 20psi to achieve say, and then instead of getting it serviced they'll buy a carbon OneUp bar to dampen vibrations. There are certainly some performance forks and shocks that are less reliable than others but I've read plenty of rants on the internet where I would have loved to jump in with some context because I knew the rider/product in question and folks tend to leave out important details.

For example, more than one rider complaining about their shock blowing up prematurely after a service, where in fact the frame bearings were all semi-seized which puts tons of extra loads into the shock it isn't designed for.

Posted by: taprider

why does that look like a motorcycle chain with wide/extra wide chain ring?

1/8” chains work fine with 3/32” narrow-wide rings. It’s best to combine them with a 1/8” cog or a STEEL 3/32” cog.

I switched back to 3/32” chains as I’m generally using aluminum cogs now (larger sizes available / only available in 3/32”) and the 1/8” chains eat them. But, nice 1/8” chains are much more durable (vs. breakage) and last longer in the #1FG application.

First I’d make the argument that a Lefty is a strut, not a fork.

Then I’d say their relative weirdness is location dependent. There are some places where Cannondale is so strong as a brand Lefty/Ocho aren’t weird at all.

I loved my Lefty 2.0. Wicked stiff, wicked smooth, very light. The one change I would have made is to make the top crown so it could accept a direct mount stem.

Posted by: fartymarty

Frankenclectic??? Thus is definitely Ravavist territory.

For me it's form follows function and it's nice if there is a story (or solid reason) behind a part.

An aside, but I've had a few folks comment lately that I'm in 'Radavist Territory' with some of the stuff I've been doing and as a generalization it doesn't make any sense to me. I read and enjoy the Radavist and there are lots of interesting machines that they showcase but they're all perfectly coordinated with matching anodizing, tire patches, rims, spokes - everything. Hell, if there are two water bottles on a frame they will both be identical and colour coordinated. They're the kind of bikes that need to be (and are) photographed with the tire valves oriented exactly the same way (never mind mismatched rims or tires).

They're eccentric but I wouldn't call them eclectic. At their best they're beautifully thought out modern takes on classic bicycle experiences/aesthetics and at their worst they are like buying new jeans with the holes already in them - but they're rarely well-used jeans that have been patched with an assortment of fabrics that were on hand.

This is cool, but I don't think it's a frankenbike:

Posted by: tashi

I’ll mix and match almost anything but some sort of aesthetic line gets crossed by mixing sidewall colours. I generally rotate tires but I ain’t mixing skinwalls and black walls on the same bike. 

Skinwalls + purple + polished looks so good that I don’t mind the fact that there’s a mint Butcher wasting away in the corner.

HAHAHA. I just imagined the collective reaction of NSMB readers if a bike showed up on the main page with one skinwall and one black wall tire. Especially if the image was a super crisp full-art shot by The Dentizt. The site might crash?!

Going to add that to my to-do list for sure.

Posted by: Vikb

A lot of my frankenbike-ishness comes from buying quality bike components and taking care of them. Some of what's hanging off a frame today is because of a decision I made 5-10 years ago.

There’s a second factor there - which you allude too - that is being okay with parts not matching (which is also an easy identifier of frankenbikes - and maybe where min-maxing and frankenbiking can’t be separated).

If you crack a rim that has been out of production for five years do you replace one or both? Does it have to be the same brand (peel those decals?), same width, same colour, same material.

If you trash one of your Schwalbe tires, the local shop only has Maxxis, and you want to ride do you buy a single or a pair?

If you trash one of your NX crank arms and only a GX replacement is available do you buy a single mod-matched arm or a set?

@Marty, I think you hit the nail there in that it’s even more deliberate than a min-maxed bike. Min-maxing can be straight down to budget or a game of maxing performance/$.

There’s a certain degree of being eclectic/eccentric for the sake of being eclectic/eccentric (and owning it.

———

It occurs to me there should be a single word that should mean a combination of eclectic and eccentric (and maybe erratic too) but I can’t come up with a ‘real’ one.

Eclecticcentric?

Meh, just needs a wipe down. I only clean the chain with a clean dry rag.