all purpose gear thread

ah, i suspect i’m just an outlier, irritated by bar weighting. also i’m old and sometimes mtb in lycra and other old tymey stuff, and my old prejudices persist.

I am used to weird handling thanks to the stupid long stem on my current bike.

Also I very much see the bar Bag as old times, however I see rapha make one now so I guess we have gone full circle.

Anyway bike initially will be very vanilla. 700X30 wheels and my current speedplays. I wasn’t quite ready to got 650b right off the bat. Although it is Force 1 AXS which is pretty exiting, also it seems crazy that you can get a 1x with more gears than my first few bikes, more useable gears than many of my bikes and almost more range than triples I’ve had.

Also I’m going to have to learn how do I shot tubeless.

i've gotten pretty acquainted with a local adventure/bike packing frame manufacturer. the chief rides 2x, a few of his buddies ride 1x, and i've told him i can't settle for less than the 640% that i get on my ancient but lovely 3x9. i can do that on a 2x11 now i think, but it requires some fettling and fancying. for a while i'd have needed di2, but i think no longer. the amount of gear specialization that's out there now is so incredible.

btw the chief wrote up his most recent event: https://www.bicycling.com/racing/a32433034/what-its-like-to-do-atlas-mountain-race/?fbclid=IwAR0Z8pX7_dIIw0-4777Vm9K0UfmeeqQmxf-OkmCKeQSpwVstBlbs9qxOWkU.

tubeless is easy and great. if you don't have a compressor, a pressure bottle is helpful when you have to mount up new tires, that's what i have. i think some pumps have integrated ones now, i guess. aside from seating new mounts, the only annoyance of tubeless at all to me, and it's totally not a big deal, is peeling dry latex out if you've left it alone for months, and topping off yr sealant every couple months. i use orange shot, it's fine.

(i seriously wouldn't bother with tubeless at road widths/pressures, it's not that much a benefit imo, but that's not a popular opinion with everyone).

still cycling away but (as ed knows from the slack) I’ve been struggling with shoulder/neck issues, which have recurred following the injury I sustained last august when trying to ride from the bottom of scotland to the top (!) on an ill-fitting bike. sucks. and I can’t even get a bike fit for obvious reasons -
shouldn’t have put it off over winter.

thinking about taking up pilates (and getting physio when I can) AND eventually getting proper fits on all my bikes. can still ride about 35-40 miles but that’s max before it flares and tightens :/

I shot tubeless on my bikepacking gravel bike (christened the goblin) - it is so awesome. fiddly, with a learning curve but once it’s setup... ahhhhh bliss

My bike now has a ship date but not for a couple of weeks (boo). However we did just buy my wife a new electric town bike and boy is it fun. I stole it to visit a rival electric car charging site that is being built across town (and to search for organic parsnips). It’s a lot of fun effortlessly pedalling at 25km.

i toooo have recently acquired a bikepacking bike lol

starting to plan my next bikepacking trip

here's mine last summer, in full splendor
https://i.imgur.com/9GUoZqc.jpg

New bike is here and setup.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CBz7gTTAOO1/?igshid=5mtbm2r95nbp

Learning a bunch of New things: tubeless, electronic shifting, disc brakes hydraulics. It amazes me that the big rear cog is bigger than the big ring on my road bike.

Next is to get myself in the position to bikepack.

should I buy one of these so-called "mountain" bikes

nice Ed. tubeless scares me.

and yes, mountain bikes are fun, get it.

I've solved my biggest tubeless woe which was getting enough sealant into the back tyre to make it seal. I got a Stans syringe doodad to inject the sealant. This seems like a 100% necessary tubeless item.

tubeless is the bommmmmmmmb

puncture the other day on the rear. no worries - keep riding, seals itself, no drama

I inject mine using an old 60ml stans sealant bottles

What do you have in you luggage?

for daily rides, I carry a stupid amount of stuff really (all stuffed into the frame bag) - frame pump, tube, multi-tool, lube, patch kit (with patches, tire boot, painkillers, presta-schrader adaptor), cable ties, etc

for bikepacking, all of the above plus: terra nova wild country zephyros 1; alpkit mattress; decathlon three season down sleeping bag; flip flops; fujifilm X100; etc

top tube bag = battery pack; wallet; sweets/nuts

sleeping bag goes into the handlebar bag. it's only a small 1.5l lomo bag. might upgrade it to the 14l apidura expidition bag.

tent gets stuffed into bottom of the seat pack. mattress, down jacket, some off-bike wear in there too and toiletries

frame bag fit to bursting with spares, tools, etc.

think I'll throw some 43mm bruce gordon rock n' road tyres on for my summer bikepacking... unless I get that mtb

maybe dishy rishi will give us all a 500£ handout on weds I can put towards that

Ed how is yr bike going? Did you see the Petervary vid i threw up, it’s a pretty good take on your “what’s in yr luggage?” q above, eh?

In case you’re gettin ready to ride https://atlasmountainrace.cc/ 👍

Bike is going great. Although I haven’t left the city, because I am not allowed. Just doing loops around town and up and down the bouley at the moment. Planning what my first long rides should be, there’s a nice unsurfaced climb up the back of kinglake which I want to go back to. Originally I was thinking my first overnight would to a B&B, but given the situation wild camping might be the only way to get out of town this year.

I guess the major revelation is running such a big (30mm) tyre, it makes everything feel much less fraught.

that is a good feeling. I ride a lot of asphalt on a tubeless 2.1” at 25/28psi in between trails and theyre slow but so comfy.

are u in Melb? does it still have all the trolley tracks? those could be deadly i should think, i’d def want like 43mm sneaks.

Life in Melbourne means learning how to deal with tram tracks. I’ve only once stacked on a railroad crossing and that was as a 12 year old coming out of Cherbourg ferry port on a tour, a great lesson in never doing that again.

I’m going to explore some bigger noblier rubber at some point. These wheels can take up to 40mm so I might go there when the slicks wear out.

I think I am coming to the conclusion that the 44T ring is too big for me with the 10 rear cog (and the 12 and the 14). The ghost of Sheldon Brown nuggets I could be happy with a 38T Ring or maybe even smaller.

So you mean that you can _never_ realistically need a gear as big as 44-10.

I was gonna use and link bikecalc, because it’s great for this use and i use it like twice a week these days— aaaand today’s it’s either down or gone and i will die if i can’t have it. *sob* seriously i hope it’s not dead.

Erm so yeah 44 is not small but 1x only gives u one chance.

Not a technological match, but on my nexus 7 commuter i always tried to make gear 5 (which is the1:1) my “low threshhold power-speed,” loaded, on a flat, windless, surface— on that bike. I think that was a 38-16?

I'm pretty unfit right now and I can always switch back, but my desire to totally drill it on the the flat or on descents is pretty minimal right now. The biggest pain is I think SRAM now makes you take off the crank to change the ring now.

I've seen a good price on an S-works tarmac SL6 frameset and it's taking all my willpower not to raid my garden landscaping fund to buy it....

dream bike for me

HI can y'all help us please?

we are not serious Bike People or street racers or anything

but we want to get exercise use out of our bikes even at a time when hauling them down to the street and braving the dangers and hassles of NYC riding is just not viable, for various reasons.

we started to look at indoor "bike trainers" but got a little bit of sticker shock, and overwhelmed by all the features and competing websites with a million different lists. we don't know the market, we don't have our bearings. we were kind of imagining just like, some kind of metal stand that you could set a bike on, and pedal away while you listen to podcasts. but would that work? is all the 'trainer' resistance hardware necessary in order to get a real workout? we can't tell or understand. the review sites don't show you the price until you click through. it's just all very overwhelming. basically we're wondering what name or product category we should even be googling here. any guidance is greatly appreciated.

I need new grips for my single-speed road bike w riser bars (which I p much exclusively use for commuting around the city but once in a v great while I go on like 5-10 mile trail rides with), I am thinking Ergon grips w the palm rests, does anyone have anything to say abt these?

I don't really have any insight on this. I'm def a grip minimalist, I like em sorta skinny and grippy meself. Sorry.

One thing that's great about my ancient Raleigh singlespeed conversion is that I walk into bike shops for parts and they go deep in the bin for the cheapest stuff they can find, and then discount it. Or maybe I just look like I need a hand.

Had four bikes stolen out of my garage on Friday night, including my fancy go-fast carbon di2 road bike. Luckily renter's insurance will cover the loss, and 2 of the 4 I was actually trying to sell. Ironically the only loss that hurts is the one worth the least amount of money: My wife's 1990 aluminum Miyata around-town bike. All the other ones were new and served a purpose, but that one was old and wierd and charming. The first bike my wife ever bought for herself, by herself, and the one she rode to all the protests this summer (it took some tear-gas and pepper-balls to the frame). That one was posted to OfferUP that day, and I made an offer, planning on showing up to the meet with a squad of friends to get it back, but got no response. Eat shit bike thieves.

noooo

damn that sucks asssss

Terrible terrible.

Terrible terrible.

Two of the four stolen bikes recovered! Last week, one (wife's trek/gary fisher presidio gravel bike) by the local bike shop. The guy who works there (a friend) noticed somebody with it trying to put air into the tire with the pump they have sitting out on the sidewalk in front of the shop. He ran out and grabbed it, much to the dismay of the noticeably altered dude who had it. I brought them a bunch of beer and halloween candy to thank them. The other one, my wife's prized Miyata, just today at lunch. One of my close friends noticed a woman holding it in the parking lot of the 7-11 right off the freeway offramp. He ran in there and got it back for $20.00. It's had it's saddle and pedals swapped out with another of the (still missing) bikes but it's otherwise in fine shape. Getting one stolen bike back is a rare stroke of luck, but to have two back is shockingly lucky.

good to hear. hope more horses make it to the barn.

Well the bike theft story ends on a very good note; Insurance gave us a big check to replace what was taken, and my friend coincidentally had a very nice 2019 Pinarello Prince with all the bells and whistles for sale. He is almost exactly my height, so it's a perfect fit. I can't help but be a little embarassed at how well I came out from the whole ordeal. If I were to try and sell my old race bike (which I was planning on doing), it almost certainly wouldn't have been this easy. Thanks thieves, I guess?

https://imgur.com/jkBYAWi

well that's nice!

spoke nipples on my city bike developing a light verdigris patina