jt profile

My personal best was recently discovered: insufficient grease on one of the pedal threads. This after taking apart both links, post & cradle, and the PF BB. Never have I felt so rookie.

Only a couple comments/questions:

1. Might seem a wee silly, but did you by chance think of trying some carbon paste on the grips? Real question as I haven't had this issue on any carbo bar myself. This may be a point where (the right) grease on grips is good.

2. This may be the first time in ages where I've read someone hyping an Intense. Weird. Saw my first one in well, well over a decade this past weekend, but it was one of the Costco units.

Re: The Elevate knee pads. I have the previous generation and have the same bunching up at the top. I'm not thin o' leg but built more like a sprinter. I attribute it to the length of material above the pad. Having that extension seems like a good idea until they start creeping down. Maybe they're intended to be used in conjunction with shammies? In any case, the important bits are the pads stay in place, they're still comfy enough to pedal in, and they've saved my knees from bad contusions twice so far.

Weird how things change in life. Our 20's and 30's get spent watching new life being brought into the world, our 40s see that taper and we begin to know more lights flashing out of it til one day we notice the scales fully tip to the opposite. It's not good, it's not bad, it's just the path that living puts ahead of most anyone who isn't a hermit. There was a blurb from Brian Vowell in Ride BMX in the 90s. "Life may not be about riding, but it can definitely help you through it." That's been on my mental backburner of words of wisdom soup since. Sorry for your pains, but happy for your graces.

I used to lust after big travel bikes and even owned a few that were too much for my local rolls. Slowly but surely I've been paring down the stable so that each bike is more jack of all, master of none with the outlier being the DJ. The Wolverine makes a fine CX race bike (at Cat5 at least), roadie, gravel, touring, and in the right place a decent singletrack ripper. My Trance X is big enough for most all big bike trails with a wheel swap, and the Seargent sees summer and winter duties with a fork and wheel swap. Each one is a compromise, certainly, and I definitely feel the inequity when I ride with fast friends on more terrain appropriate rigs. But so be it. The Merckx Maxim of it not getting any easier, you just get stronger applies in those times. I've found having a smaller stable allows for more meaningful tinkering and thinking.

Hangover. Dear lord is that an amazing bit of light. The bang:buck ratio is insanely high IME. Batteries can be had at near any battery store and aren't hardwired into the unit for when they need to be replaced nor do they have special circuitry, seems waterproof enough (one deluge doesn't make a good test), and holy light spread. I used to think bucket lights that had a spotlight beam were tops. This kicked the legs out from that thought. I'm sure opinions are varied, but if you want to ride fast in the woods in the dark this really needs to be mounted on top of your noggin. It completely changed my night rides.

Tis the beginning of the season. Pal and I went for a casual loop which happens to have a beer garden near by. Mistakes made, a liter or two had, and darkness falls. On the trail, not our eyelids. No lights, riding by memory, braille, and what little moonlight made its way through the remnants of the fall canopy. Of course one of us had to whack a derailleur (him) and have me figure out how to get things running under the cell phone's glow. Got it so he had 5 of 10, so was OK with the repair done with rock and wood. Our life partners were incredulous that a 2 hr roll somehow turned into 4, but the bent hanger and obvious gouges from the stone in his derailleur did help our cause even as our obvious C2H6O enhanced joviality hindered it. So now a light has permanent residence in my bag, same with a mount for it on the bars, and I always make sure to bring a 6" adjustable wrench for hanger adjustment and for silly little 8mm adapters for 6mm wrenches.

More than a few folx owe you a bevy for that nugget.

As a former bike shop guy, I had convos with customers who thought Trek 800s were too expensive. I listed out the reasons why what we offered was better than what one would get a big box, and it just wasn't in a lot of folx wheelhouses. One guy who actually (partially) took me up on  'buy from Wallyworld but have us assemble it' totally ignored the key part of avoiding anything with suspension but instead find the full rigid bike that costs as much as the suspension bike does. Needless, it was a hunkahunka burning crap.

All that is to say that folx want what they want, and the less insight they have into the how's and why's things are priced the way they are the less they care as long as it has that thing they insist on having at their price point. Ignorance is bliss, and it usually isn't until later that the joy of cheap price is overshadowed by poor quality. At least they're using Suntour, a brand with global reach, decent enough parts availability, and unparalleled ease of service.

Every time a piece like this comes out I remind myself that at a much younger, muchmuch more opinionated jackass age I sat in a meeting and poopoo'ed the idea of tapered steerers and 142 spacing. Nowadays I wait and see how new things will pan out before I comment on em due to how very very wrong I know I can be and instead work on being the farmer from the Chinese proverb We'll See.