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I took a few days off this week because the weather has been prime (30 celsius), the trails unbelievable, and the family itching for some family time.
Original content
On Tuesday, Guitar Ted wrote about the 29″er single speed bike. For Wednesday, I posted up Ashwin’s detailed initial look at the 2005 Adidas Adistar XC race shoe.
Elsewhere on the ‘net
Bicycle Tech has a cool video that shows how the 2007 Shimano XTR stuff works. BikeMagic shows how to shorten the brake lines on your hydraulic disc brakes; I tried it this week on some Juicy 5s and it worked like a charm. Lee Likes Bikes discusses sizing for dj bikes. NSMB.com offers up a sneak peek at the 2007 Specialized Demo series — even if you’re not interested in the bike, check out the writeup for its photos, which are classic North Shore.
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Another busy week behind the scenes, what with riding and getting all of our biking stuff ready for the season. Most of the racers I know now have their rides all dialled in (or nearly dialled in) and are ready to get out and hit the circuit for the opening events of the season if they haven’t already done so.
Original content
Monday’s post was only sort of ‘original’ since it was more of a compilation of past TBH writeups that discussed getting your ride (and yourself) prepped for the start of the biking season. Next up was Guitar Ted, who finished off his look at the Trans Iowa endurance event with a recap of the hellish 2006 edition of the race. For Wednesday, Ashwin gave us some good ideas about the usefulness of sprint and leadout training for mountain bikers. Yesterday, Adrian recounted what sounds like a wicked biking trip to the Spanish Andalucia.
Elsewhere around the ‘net
Here and there. Guitar Ted showed off his pimped out single speeds, and compares his Surly Karate Monkey with his On One Inbred (parts 2 and 3). TwoRide covers big mountain riding. BikeMagic reviewed the Specialized BG Pro bib shorts and interviewed Jamie Houssian of Collective fame. The lazy person’s idea of the week is about a bike with a petrol-powered front wheel. Because actually getting exercise on a bicycle is lame. Jim Manton discusses how you can do preventative maintenance on your rear Fox air shock.
Sigh. Looks like the freeride effect is spreading across the globe. What is the freeride effect, you ask? Well, it happens when big bike technology allows riders with questionable bike skills to suspend belief in gravity, hurtle through extremely technical terrain, catch serious air, and then crash. Of course, these injuries aren’t blamed on poor judgement from people who bite off more than they can chew. If only more folks would take responsibility for their actions… Sigh.
Podcasts. Are podcasts catching on? Beats me, because I’d rather listen to music or watch the latest episode of Lost on my iPod. But if you’re game, Specialized offers up its fair share of information in the format, a whole range of stuff is available on the Norco team website, and Singletrack released a video podcast looking at some of the stuff in the 2007 SRAM lineup.
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It’s been a busy week for me, what with the weather and general trail conditions improving a whole bunch over the past couple of weeks. For me, that means more time for riding, but only if I can maintain that careful balance between the bike and non-bike. To that end, I’ve been getting up super early (for me), hitting the trails, and making it back home before most people have left for work.
Original content
On Monday, I posted up a review of the Fox 36 TALAS RC2 that’s been mounted on my all mountain bike for the past couple of months. For Tuesday, Guitar Ted recounted the running of the 2005 Trans Iowa endurance event; you’ll have to wait until next week for the recap of this year’s event, but do a little digging and you can find lots of good stuff to tide you over. Ashwin wrote a good article on block ‘training’ — a useful training technique for the Everyman. Dan’s opinion piece on brick-and-mortar retail outlets versus online purchasing went live yesterday, and it has created a good amount of discussion on both sides of the fence.
Elsewhere around the ‘net
Savoldelli, Simoni, Basso — these are names that’ll be familiar to those of you who follow the major road races. And since the Giro D’Italia starts up this weekend chances are pretty good you’ll be hearing a couple of these names in the coming weeks. Congrats to Cadel Evans for stomping the final time trial at the 60th Tour de Romandie and bagging the top podium spot.
New blog Bicycle Tech writes about Shimano’s patent on a hydraulic shifting mechanism. PEDAL is using bicycles to empower and educate people, and to better the environment while they’re at it. asilvertouch reviews the Real Appalache. Whistler’s Bike Park is set to open in the middle of May but be prepared to break out those goggles if you’re heading up early in the season.
There’s also some UCI World Cup action going down this weekend. I’ll post a recap in a few weeks — doh! — days.
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Beautiful weather in British Columbia this week. It’s a great time of the year for riding.
Original content
For Monday, we posted up Denise’s long-term review of the North Shore Racks hitch mount rack, and followed that with Guitar Ted’s article on the final planning stages for the first Trans Iowa event. On Wednesday, Ashwin discussed finding the right saddle for your bike. Alan let us in on Project Transrockies with a look at the bike he’ll be using for the 2006 Transsrockies event.
Elsewhere around the ‘net
Apple.com interviews Jamie Houssian of The Collective, makers of the highly touted mountain bike film, Roam. Yeti Cycles launches a flashy new website. asilvertouch zine posted up a follow up to their first writeup on mountain biking in Bolivia. The Ellsworth Epiphany wins Outdoor Magazine’s Gear of the Year Award. Bike Magazine reviews the Louis Garneau WindDry F2 jacket. Industry Nine wheels look hot. NSMB.com jump on the podcast train, posting up an interview with Norco’s Pete Stace-Smith. And, finally, I thought about posting up some information on the new Juicy Ultimate, but tonnes of other sites posted up everything you need to know.
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Now that Bruce is officially gone from Survivor, I don’t have to wrestle myself off the couch and onto my bike. Of course, if there’s anything good on the tube and I have a bag of chips for a snack…
Original content
This week was a shortened one but we still snuck in a few updates. Guitar Ted got us rolling again on Tuesday, when he discussed the logistics of planning the first Trans Iowa endurance event. On Wednesday, Ashwin served up a comparison of three Manitou forks — the Black Super, the Black 80 SPV, and the 100mm Minute 2:00 — all ridden on the same bike and then compared to one another. Thursday’s writeup was a guest contribution by Adrian Howard and it looked at the way VPP suspension technologies perform, from the perspective of a graduate student in sports science.
Next week, we’ll have a new review from Denise, a new contributor, and a fresh new way of looking at things. Newness all around!
Elsewhere around the ‘net
Mountain Bike Action has a take on how USA Cycling should go about planning for the 2008 Olympic Games. Wade Simmons, Dave Watson, and Joe Schwartz recently spent some time biking at Alpenrock. Norco and NSMB.com gave back to the trailbuilding community that keeps everybody rolling. Bike Magazine has photos from Hans Rey’s trip to the Phillipines. BikeMagic reviews the Continental Slash 2.3 tires.
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This past week has been a busy one with lots of new visitors still coming in through the Niner Bikes R.I.P.9 piece that we posted up last weekend.
Original content
On Monday, I posted up a mid-term review of the 2005 Giant Trance frameset that I’ve been riding for the past 6 weeks — I’ll add a long-term update after I’ve had some more time on it. On Tuesday, Guitar Ted’s piece on the origins of the first Trans Iowa went online, followed on Wednesday by Ashwin’s suspension tuning tips for Manitou forks. For Thursday, Dan gave us a recap of his first race of the season — the 30km Paris to Ancaster race in Ontario, Canada.
Elsewhere on the ‘net
Sea Otter followup. There was a bunch of good stuff from the Sea Otter Classic this week. Mountain Bike Action image gallery from Sea Otter. Steephill.tv has some great footage of one of the road events — I remember cursing that corkscrew back in the days when I played GranTurismo 2! Pinkbike.com posted up a recap of the cross country event by Leslie Tomlinson. Singletrack had great coverage of the event, including a photo of the upcoming carbon Giant Trance.
Mtbr.com posted up a review of the Turner Flux and BikeMagic.com has a good review of the Santa Cruz Nomad.
Check out the live camera footage of this bald eagle’s nest. Read more about the imaginary city of Urville.
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This week, the 2006 Sea Otter Classic unofficially kickstarted the industry hype machine for the season and we saw Shimano jump on board with the release of information on changes to the XTR lineup for 2007. Expect the news to keep on flowing until Interbike closes its doors in the fall.
Original content
On Monday, Guitar Ted finished off his introductory series on the 29″er, providing a brief summary of some of the 29 inch wheeled bicycle’s downsides. Ashwin provided all of you gear nerds with a new project on Tuesday — a do it yourself saddle setback measuring tool. I came up with writer’s block for Wednesday and bailed on my planned review of the 2005 Giant Trance frameset. Dan bailed me out on Thursday, giving us all a cool writeup about Ray’s Indoor Mountain Bike Park, an 80,000+ square foot indoor riding spot in Cleveland, Ohio.
Elsewhere around the ‘net
NSMB.com posted up another Marzocchi release talking about suspension tuning and, while the piece discusses Marzocchi suspension in particular, the concepts can be applied to almost any fork. They also threw out a great gear shot, providing readers a glimpse at Norco’s sexy new Team DH. Dirt Rag has an interesting item looking at the industry’s gradual movement away from International Standard brake mounts towards post mounts. Bike Magazine published an article by Hans Rey about riding in the Phillipines. Bike Magazine also released a good feature on tubeless tires that discusses both the pros and the cons about going tubeless. BikeMagic has a good overview of the 2006 Giant bike lineup and the start of a series showing you how to diagnose worn bike parts. Graham from Go Clipless gave us his thoughts on Shimano’s upcoming releases.
For you 29″er fans, be sure to keep an eye on MTBR.com’s 29″er forum for the next little while — there should be plenty of announcements to keep you happy.
No fancy links for this week — I didn’t spend a whole lot of non-work time in front of the computer.
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There are plenty of press releases coming out in advance of next weekend’s Sea Otter Classic. Expect these releases, along with plenty more product news in the weeks to come.
Original content
On Monday, Dan posted up a brief review of the Louis Garneau Airstream bib shorts followed by Ashwin’s final entry in his skills series, one that focused on the bunny hop. Wednesday saw Guitar Ted’s second-t0-last entry in his introduction to the 29″er and it focused on some of the beneficial ride characteristics the 29 inch wheeled bikes. For Thursday, Dan offered up his thoughts on cycling with music.
Elsewhere around the ‘net
Cannondale announced The Cut, helped along by a tongue-in-cheek writeup from BikeMagic. PinkBike built up a pimped out Iron Horse MKIII. The Haro Werx 5 / VL120 was awarded Mountain Biking’s 2006 Cross Country Bike of the Year. The Transition BottleRocket is a burly slopestyle bike with 5.5″ of travel. NSMB.com interviewed Mark Weir.
Nature published a great series of articles discussing the future of computing. American researchers are using computer generated models to predict the effects of global climate change.
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I know, I know. It’s Thursday. But I’m taking a long weekend so I can attend to some housekeeping. It’s likely that I’ll post a couple of updates over the next few days and we’ll move back into normal rotation for Monday.
Original content
I started testing a Manitou Minute: 04 and on Monday I offered up my initial impressions of the fork. Tuesday saw another entry in Ashwin’s cross country bike skills series, and it focused on getting your bike up and over obstacles. Guitar Ted continued his discussion of the twenty-niner, looking at the special considerations frame makers had to make when laying out the geometry of 29″ frames.
Elsewhere on the ‘net
NSMB.com posted up some info on the 2007 Devinci Ollie and some 661 protective gear. Mountain Bike Action has a snippet on the Intense Spider 29″er. The Rocky Mountain Slayer 70 is the ‘All mountain’ Bike of the Year according to Mountain Bike Magazine. The Shift Tricycle was named one of the top inventions for the year (2006). Will you make the leap?
Update (24 March 2006): Bike Magazine has a good review of the Adidas Marathon mountain biking shoe.
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Things are heating up on the news front as companies start generating the early buzz for the upcoming trade show season. Shimano and SRAM have each seen ‘leaked’ images of 2007 product making its way onto the web and other companies (like Magura) are following up so keep your eyes peeled in the coming weeks for these sort of posts. Our 2007 review schedule will start to fall into place, providing the weather starts to cooperate a little more than it has for the past few weeks.
Original content
On Monday, I posted up some of my initial thoughts on the Cannondale Prophet 4000. Tuesday was a continuation of Ashwin’s cross country skills series and Wednesday saw Guitar Ted delve a little further into the world of the 29″er. On Thursday, Dan posted an update on the activities of IMBA Canada and Denise gave us some information about the 2006 Sugoi Dirt Series.
Elsewhere on the ‘net
The director of Shimano Europe spoke with BikeBiz. Head on over to BikeMagic and post up your questions for Keith Bontrager. Bike Magazine has a review of the Yeti 575 trailbike. Purple Extreme offers a quick how-to on cleaning your bike in a hurry. Good stuff.
Everything you need to know about gyroscopes. Google Maps moves to Mars. If you’ve got some time to spare, try out Iron Sudoku.
Short and sweet roundup for this week — we have house guests for the next few days.
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