Gravel Bike Reviews, Ride Experiences, Calendar, Resources & More!
One thousand most humble apologies for the delay in posting this entry. I sorted out these photos at the Charlotte, NC airport early this morning, during the last of my red eye flights from Las Vegas. I had the best intentions of posting the article as soon as I arrived home today, but a power nap, a longish bike ride, another power nap and errands, all took precedence. Excuses over, enjoy these photos. Now, it’s time to sleep, East Coast time.
During day three of Interbike 2014, I had a few moments to play with the Shimano XTR Di2 system. The system is officially known as Shimano XTR Di2 M9050, and continues the trend of Shimano’s naming standards. Simply put, the system is mind blowing! The shifter buttons offer the same tactile feedback you expect with the equivalent mechanical shifter, but with zero delay from button push, to derailleur actuation.
I didn’t try out the synchro mode of the system. Rather, I pushed the rear derailleur through it’s regular incremental steps, one click of the shifter after the other. The derailleur shifted as fast as I could push the buttons, or at a determined speed (customizable multi-shift) if I held down a shifter button. The front derailleur functioned flawlessly as expected.
Greetings from Interbike 2014, day two. During today’s downtime, I photographed several bikes and parts of interest. Enjoy!
Yes, velcro tire (tyre).
Definition: A wheel sucking road surface, typically consisting of sand and water, akin to wet concrete. The surface is so power robbing, it is like riding velcro tires (tyres) on your bicycle. Tyres from 1.8″ to 2.0″ (Specialized Renegade or Schwalbe Furious Fred) fare no better.
Suggestion: Stay home, or borrow K-Dogg’s lawn mower, which has 14″ wide tyres. From K-Dogg, “I could drop you bitches on any surface you can throw at me. Provided you don’t go faster than 9mph”.
Or, shut up and ride bitch.
For those who don’t know me, I’m a bit of an equipment nut. I source the parts and assemble most of my bikes myself. Not a fan of out of the box, pre-assembled bikes. This ensures I know what’s going into the bike, and have myself to blame when something screws up on the bike. I also hate riding the same stuff as everybody else; it’s cool to have a unique bike.
I’ve yet to learn how to build my own wheels, because I’m lazy, but in most instances, I am using American Classic wheels, which are virtually handbuilt wheels any. I eschew proprietary spokes and that sort of rubbish. I choose reliable equipment, with parts I can easily replace. I tote along spare parts (or a spare bike) to most races, so no worries there. Onto the bike…
How much stuff do you take on a cycling road trip?
Before I began my recent gravel grinding road trip, which would encompass North Carolina, Washington D.C., Vermont, and every between, I figured I need to shoot for maximum petrol (or gas if you prefer) mileage efficiency. Not counting my hotel fee split with K-Dogg and Dr Pain in Marion, NC for Savage CX, I would be traveling solo.
I purchased a Toyota Prius recently, which thus far has proven stellar for being lean on the gasoline consumption. Jokes about Prius owners are welcome, so submit your cheeky comments! Apologies to anyone on Facebook who is sick of hearing me talk about the Prius, or posting photos of my dashboard mileage gauges 🙂
