You are currently browsing the archives for the 'January 2006' category.
16 January »
Tech tips »
Cory
Adding to a good series of articles that focus on night riding, BikeMagic has a new piece that focuses on some of the different bike lighting options available to all you night owls out there. As a supplement up to a thorough entry on batteries and charging systems, the new article discusses the pros and cons of the most popular types of lighting systems, namely halogen, HID, and LED lights. It also covers the ins-and-outs of beam patterns, housings, and system controls.
For most riders, the information contained in this three-part series will be enough to make a well-informed decisions about lighting up their bikes and for those who want more, the series is definitely a good starting point.
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I know, I know. Another Crank Brothers pedal review.
I’m an unabashed fan of Crank Brothers‘ Eggbeater pedal platform. For the type of riding I do most, the Crank Bros Mallet pedals are a great easy-in, easy-out option that don’t pick up mud on the trails. And it doesn’t hurt that there’s a decent all-mountain / cross country option in the Candy SL, which allows me to run the same pair of shoes for every type of riding I do. Don’t get me wrong — I appreciate the designs of other top pedals out there. But I’m most comfortable clipped in to the Eggbeaters.
GoClipless.com posted up a good review of the Crank Brothers Egg Beater pedal. The biggest criticism Graham has of the pedals relates to the need for a shim to create adequate cleat clearance. Unfortunately, he’s not alone in pointing this out, since it’s an issue that has caused others to move away from the platform entirely.
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16 January »
Reviews »
Cory
Finding good cycling shoes is always a challenge. Whether you have wide feet or small feet, it’s not always easy to find a piece of footwear that is comfortable yet versatile and durable yet affordable.
I literally stumbled upon the Cannondale Carve shoes last summer when I was searching for a last-minute set of replacements after my ancient Shimano shoes gave up the ghost. In my area, riding clipped into SPDs or Eggbeaters isn’t the most common practice and it’s sometimes hard to find shoes that are wide enough for my feet and versatile enough to be well suited for cross country rides and freeride-style trails. There are a handful of small shops in my town and I checked out each one, stopping to try on any shoes that weren’t carried elsewhere.
Cannondale’s ‘apparel’ lineup includes lots of different gear, with items like jerseys, shorts, gloves, and shoes being well represented. And, given that Cannondale acquired clothing manufacturer Sugoi in 2005, the company has access to a great team of designers moving forward. Couple that acquisition with a distribution agreement with shoe manufacturer Diadora and Cannondale has a complete clothing lineup for cyclists who demand quality gear.
As I mentioned above, I didn’t go out looking for Cannondale’s Carve shoes – I hadn’t purchased a new pair of SPD-compatible shoes for years and only recently switched back to clips from platform pedals. That being said, I knew what I was looking for: a durable shoe that wasn’t really stiff – riding every section of every trail isn’t always an option out here – but didn’t suck for tough, out-of-the-saddle climbs. I settled on the Cannondale Carve shoes because they fit well, were supposedly compatible with the type of pedals I run, and they were in the price range that I established before I went shopping. Read the rest of this entry »
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15 January »
Site news »
Cory
My review of the Cannondale Carve shoes will soon make its way online and I wanted to say a few words about the structure of the product reviews on The Biking Hub. Dan and I put a good amount of thought into the overall structure that our reviews would take and opted for an approach that would make it easy for our readers (you) to read what we liked about certain products, what we disliked, and who we feel would get the most out of the items under review.
The reviews that were transferred from my old site will not be reformatted, especially since the scoring system used by the two sites is identical. And while the format is a little different, all of the information is in place for you to make an educated decision about a given product.
Review format: The review format that we use on The Biking Hub provides you with the technical information that you need to make an informed decision, and breaks down information into a few simple sections; after the necessary introductory material, we highlight the good, point out the bad, and give our final thoughts. And in case you want to read more about the product, we provide a list of links to reviews on other websites so you can follow up elsewhere.
Scoring / ratings: Those of you coming over from Making It Easier know that I used a weighted scoring system when reviewing products. That scoring system has been inherited by The Biking Hub, partly because it allows us to reward manufacturer’s whose gear performs well and lasts a long time — the two things that are most important to most cyclists. And since our reviews are scored out of 100, our scoring system provides an easy reference that readers can use to gauge our overall impressions of the items and to separate the cream from the rest of the crop.
Editor’s Choice: When an item receives a rating of 90 or above, it may be awarded our ‘Editor’s Choice’ designation. We reserve the right to withold the title, and only hand it out when we’re sure the product is one of the best in existence.
Comments: I encourage you to add your thoughts to the reviews. If you know something that would be of benefit to other riders or have a question about the product that wasn’t answered inside the review, feel free to type them out and post them on the site. We’ll do what we can to answer your questions and, if we can’t, we will find someone who can get you the information that you’re looking for.
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Our first official week as The Biking Hub is almost in the books and I’m pretty happy with the response so far. I offer special thanks to all of the people who sent in their congratulations — everyone involved in this project appreciates your support.
Entries filed under ‘Weekend Reading’ touch on a bunch of topics that are interesting but don’t necessarily fit into the regular scope of The Biking Hub. They’re intended to keep you going until Monday, when new content makes its way onto the site.
Original content
This week, you were introduced to The Biking Hub’s five contributors — Dan, Ashwin, Greg and Denise, and myself. We have a couple of others who have expressed interest in becoming contributors and we’ll introduce them as they become active with the Hub. Also, there was a bit of fresh content from our contributors too: Dan provided his initial thoughts on the 2006 Canondale Rush and Ashwin gave us some ideas about the importance of goal setting for racers.
Elsewhere on the ‘Net
Personal fave BikeMagic rang in 2006 with a look back at 2005 and the year in links and in photos should keep you going for a while. Surly Bikes got some mainstream press coverage for its Pugsley. Bike Magazine posted up some video footage of the gimmicky Red Bull Road Rage event that went down in December. Specialized Bikes announced that there would be a book commemorating the Stumpjumper at 25. Marla Streb wrote about the ordeal that is Spin Class. There’s a good section on the Easton Bikes website devoted to wheel troubleshooting.
That’s it for Week 1. If you have anything specific that you’d like to see in the Weekend Reading section, drop me a line and I’ll see what I can do.
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13 January »
Site news »
Cory
Now that all of the other active contributors have posted up their introductions on The Biking Hub, I thought I’d wrap up the week with a few words about myself.
I ride a lot, but it’s hard for me to nail down a favorite style of mountain biking. I regularly ride cross country, all mountain, and freeride-type trails and enjoy them all. Most of my bike time is spent on trails that fall between the aggressive xc and freeride categories on the ‘spectrum’ but I do like the climb up as much as the rip down. I hope the contributions I make to The Biking Hub do a decent job of reflecting my cycling interests.
Over the past couple of years, I was an active member of a local trail advocacy group, and in the coming months I’ll be writing about some of the things that I learned while volunteering for the FVMBA. Specifically, some of my writeups will discuss the techniques and ideas that were well received as well as those that were less successful.
Also, I spend a good deal of time building and maintaining mountain bike trails in my area. While I probably won’t provide any ‘how-tos’ or advice for trail builders, mostly because I think that trail building relies on localized techniques and knowledge that can’t always be transferred between regions, I expect that I’ll have a few opportunities to discuss certain building ‘techniques’, flash a few photos, and maybe even post up some video footage of the trails that we ride in southwest BC.
For gear reviews, I’ll be looking primarily at products and services that cater to the ‘all mountain’ crowd. That means I plan on testing gear that is light, but strong and durable enough to handle everything that’s ‘out there’.
Thanks for all of the support and kind words that many of you sent in during our first ‘official’ week. I hope we can keep this thing going and keep people informed about the sport that they’re so enthusiastic about.
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12 January »
Site news »
Greg
I figured my first entry on The Biking Hub should be an introduction.
I started riding a couple of years ago and, while I am not so much into the speed of downhill racing, I do like the skinnies, gaps, and drops made famous by the biking scene in south west British Columbia. I don’t have any championship titles or movie credits, but I do have my Banshee Scream, my truck, and a passion for the sport. And riding with my partner Denise three or four times per week definitely helps me develop solid bike skills.
Denise, even though she will never admit it, is a great rider. She’s been riding for 10 years, with much of that time being spent on downhill runs with the boys, and she does not shy away from the gaps and drops that are commonplace on the trails out here. During her time on a bike, she’s won three BC Cup Downhill Championship titles, a World Masters Championship, and a BC SuperCup BMX title. Also, she has done a couple 24 Hour of Adrenaline events. This girl rips, which is why it’s always amusing to hear comments like, “Gonna be waitin’ for the girl.” Of course, these remarks are soon followed by, “I could hardly keep up with her. Then she hit that frickin’ gap and was gone. Unbelievable.” And if that isn’t enough of a pedigree, she’s pretty much the love interest of all of the boys she coaches.
Introductions aside, I hope it’s obvious that our primary interests are in downhill and freeride and our contributions to this site will lean towards that side of the mountain bike spectrum. While we don’t shy away from good, long, uphill rides (or pushes) to get to the top of a hill, we prefer the downhill part of the sport to the leg burning climbs on epic xc trips or races.
We’ll be juggling the time on our bikes with our careers, a fledgling business, some volunteer work, and trail building. The articles we write for this site will touch on most of these things, in addition to documenting our road trips to places like Nelson, Invermere, Golden, Rossland, Kelowna, Kamloops, Whistler, SunPeaks, Williams Lake, and Gibsons.
2006 is going to be an exciting time for us - I hope you’ll enjoy what we have to write and show you.
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I was going to post this entry a few days ago but ended up holding off until Ashwin’s first official piece showed up on the site. Ashwin rides an Iron Horse himself, and I figured that his review of the 2004 Iron Horse Hollowpoint was a good way to give site readers good information about the way the suspension platform works, especially since the 2006 Iron Horse Bikes lineup is now online.
Visually, the new site’s a big improvement on last year’s design, and the only thing that I’d like to see are the full specs for each bike integrated into the site’s content (including geometry and weights). For those you who are interested in those things, you’ll need to download the 2006 Iron Horse catalogue (far left) and look it up that way.
There are lots of good looking mountain bikes in the ‘06 lineup too: the MKIII trail bike models, the cross country Azure bikes, the freeride-oriented 7Point series, and the sick looking Sunday downhill bikes all look fantastic. Even the non DW-Link bikes look solid.
Poke around the site to uncover stuff like downloadable wallpaper, team news, and more information about the technology used in Iron Horse Bikes.
Update (13 January 2005): Iron Horse now has geometry specs available directly on the site. Good to see that the company responded positively to criticism on the Web.
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11 January »
Site news »
Ashwin
I got my first mountain bike in 1987, rode my first mountain bike race in 1988, and have been hooked ever since. I even met my wife at a mountain bike race. Over the years, I’ve gone from spending every day on the bike and going for weekend-long epics to trying to fit cycling in whenever I can – after being a husband, father, and fulltime worker first.
Recently, I started racing after a long hiatus (ie. when the kids were little). The only difference between my pre-kid life and now is that now I’ve got a very limited amount of time available to train. My dreams are still the same but trying to juggle real life with training and racing has made it quite a challenge.
For 2006, I’ll be holding the banner high for the unsung, everyday heroes in the Vet Sport Class. For the most part I stay close to home in the South West part of Virginia, although I do make a few forays into West Virginia. The riding out here is fantastic with single track galore, much of it filled with rocks and roots.
Even though I am one of those XC race geeks obsessed with component weights, intervals, and power meters, I love the whole ‘culture’ and ’soul’ of cycling. I love to tinker and wrench in the garage and have tried to become a student of other areas of cycling like downhill, trials, and road racing. The other great thing about cross country racing is that it draws upon skills from all aspects of cycling.
My posts on The Biking Hub will include my thoughts on XC-related products, racing, and training – all from the perspective of a time and genetically challenged athlete. My blog is a daily view into my obsession with cycling.
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Most mountain bike racers – cross country riders, downhillers, ‘cross racers – tend to focus a lot on things like training, bicycles, and components. And when we do spend time thinking about goals, most of them are based strictly on results – things like winning a certain race or placing top three in a particular series, or even besting our riding buddies.
When it comes to races, sometimes it’s really hard to think of anything other than the ever-elusive podium. Of course, this position is understandable because it is, after all, a race, where the measurement of success is how you placed against others in your class. Nonetheless, there is much more to goal setting than just your results. Over the last year I really changed how I looked at goals and can honestly say that this change had as positive an effect on my cycling as any of the training I’ve been doing during the same time period. In this entry, I’m going to discuss how I planned my cycling-related goals and how they’ve influenced my riding. Read the rest of this entry »
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