slimchances57 profile

Tubolights and Vittoria Airliners are lighter, easier to install and less expensive than Cushcore...on XC bikes I can run down @ 13 psi and on CX/Gravel 40-45's low 20's psi with Tubolights. Stupid traction and great ride quality fro nearly any tire

Frankly, why would I choose these pedals over the Time Speciale 8's?  Crank Brothers seems to be forever trying to make a pedal system as good as the Time ATAC's ...and the chase continues.

Thank you Trevor!

Your great humble, objective and factual review is the kind that is so valuable these days, so RARE in online publications, and SO needed to steer the industry in a less exploitive direction.

A great way [possibly the best] way to "grow" the sport and over time make the world a more hospitable place.

Why choose one? Make more excuses to ride? ; D

Well written and poignant Mike. I remember stroking my {adopted] father's head and telling him it was "okay to go" as he was breathing his last. That was a surreal and profound moment watching someone I knew and loved go from being my dad to an inanimate object before my eyes. That event has led to a different view and appreciation for this thing we call being alive and mortality. And with that as a preamble, age is no excuse for living less than fully - I started and finished the first of my six consecutive Cascade Creampuff's [100 miles/18,000 ft of climbing] @ age 50. You're still young at 47, suck it up buttercup and spend the time you have as the most precious commodity you'll ever be given.

Say things often and loud enough and it becomes the truth.... confirmation bias.

With the "Quiver" marketing scheme, the cycling industry has created and sold the necessity for narrowly focused bikes for every conceivable terrain or cycling discipline [real or imagined] . Basically, a time trial bike for every occasion: Dirt. Dirt uphill. Dirt downhill. Dirt off cliffs. Road. Road climbs. Smooth flat road. Dirt roads. Muddy dirt roads, etc, etc.... And all the bits, baubles and apparel that's required to "optimize" one's performance in whatever discipline one is focusing on @ that moment. An arrow and wardrobe for every kind of hunt. Huzzah!

Human beings are marvelously versatile and adaptable to a given situation, or eventuality with amazing compensatory gifts for managing their body's direction and speed while in motion. On or off a bike. A good/great rider can handle any kind of discipline or terrain with something less than the optimal TT bike for what generally amounts to a minority of a most bike rides. A good hunter can use any number of methods and weapons to subdue their prey.

"Gravel bikes" are both the latest attempt to create yet another discipline and TT bike, and conversely, they're the middle finger at the plethora of different TT bikes in many a "serious" cyclist's "quiver" the industry has hawked as a necessity for a successful ride: A bike that come cover a WIDE range of applications, useful for any hunt.

It's not the quiver, nor the arrow, nor the bow, that make a successful hunt, it's the hunter.

It's a wise man that doesn't offer his opinion from a place of ignorance, and a humble man that knows he still has much to learn. Quit blaming the bars or the bike for the labels and boxes we put them in based on ONE component...especially the HANDLEBARS. Drop bars have strengths and weaknesses on and off road.

https://www.velonews.com/gear/gravel-gear/the-grind-geoff-kabush-races-kokopelli-white-rim-fkts-on-prototype-fox-rad-gravel-fork/

And

https://cyclingmagazine.ca/mtb/kabush-wins-iceman-cometh-on-his-open-gravel-bike/

Going further, these bikes combine many of the advantages of "Gravel" and "Mountain" in a way that is greater than the sum of either individual discipline.

https://bikepacking.com/bikes/knolly-cache-review-ti/

Speaking from 3+ years of experience, on this "style" of bike [undisciplined] the benefits are even more pronounced and the range of application significantly expanded with a 100mm travel suspension fork w/bar mount lock-out, and wheel/tire combinations using foam tire inserts and lower tire pressures....using Salsa Cowbell 46's

So quit blaming the bars

Maybe just buy the calipers Mike?

Echoing others, Magura brake levers are a bit on the fragile side compared to Shimano's....however, the Magura brake calipers are astoundingly great! Having sooner or later chipped or cracked at least one piston on every damn Shimano caliper I've owned over the years [Who's brilliant idea was it to use pottery in disc brake caliper?], may I suggest you join those of us who've embraced skullduggery/blasphemy: Shimano levers married to Magura Calipers. The combination is durable, light, and has that combination of power and modulation we all look , [and pray?] for at the bleeding edge of traction.

Be like Tom ; )

https://youtu.be/l7yuTR8r6QM