andy-eunson profile

Levi’s 541 maybe? Athletic fit with the stretch of a little Lycra. When I was a kid these were called Husky fit. Athletic fit is a much more commercially- viable name that fat kid jeans. 40% off at Marks last week too.

I really like the Farside pants. The length is a touch long for me in the small but the cuff stays put up the ankle well. And I forego the waist adjusters most of the time for a narrow belt. I was disappointed with the belt on the Grit. And no belt loops mean no real belt. Also way too long. I wear a 30 x 30 in Levi’s for comparison. I roll them up for now but I’m going to have them shortened in the spring. I also wear suspenders with them now too. Works well for me. Other than that the review matches my findings too.

I went through all that. Now  might shave the legs in spring mud season with a hair razor. Easier to wash off mud and knee pads don’t yard out the hairs when I get sweaty and sticky. I think at some point in my 50s I decided that training, actual structured training was no longer dignified. Dude, what are you trying to prove at this age? 

I have noticed that at 66 that I cannot ride like I used to. I have to slow down, go on fewer epic rides. I need the recovery more than ever. If you’ve ever had a dog that lived to be old you notice that they are like a lithium ion battery. The battery is good for a long time than suddenly loses the ability to hold a charge and it dies. I’m like that now. I need a fair bit more time to recharge and I run out of juice more quickly now. It is more healthy to accept that truth than to deny reality and keep training like fool. That said, I’m not sitting on the rocking chair out front yelling at kids. Nor am I the retro grouch pining for that Stumpjumper Team from 1988 that was the best bike ever. What those people are pining for in reality is not the equipment of that day, but the lithe strong body they had then.

What? No chapstick?

When I see tots on bikes I have hope for the future. I see small groups here in Whistler in the summer. The kids all seem super happy. There will come a time when you and A will be riding at the same pace. That time will last two weeks. Then he won’t want to be caught dead riding with dad.

My friend Pete would say: "the worst day on your bike, is still better than your best day at work."  Sometimes you make choices and you don’t make the best ones but you make the best of it. I’ve driven all the way up to Hollyburn to cross country ski and arrive in rain instead of the snow the website said they had. Drove home. Went for a ride yesterday because alpine skiing is dodging bad skiers, gravel patches, rocks on slush or ice. Nordic isn’t much better. Wet and too soft to groom to thin snow base. We made the best choice. Yeah we walked a bit but the trails were surprisingly non snowy most of the way. Sometimes it’s time for the Southpark line, "you know, I learned something today" check the weather next time. Or we learned about stoicism today. We survived our adventure just fine and laugh about it after.

The bigger point here is that a new fork that costs $1500 or more should not need burnishing or as with my last fork new bushings because it had an audible knock. I’ve had loose bushing more than once and I would guess maybe bushing that required a burnish but didn’t notice or figured they’d break in with use.

Maybe along the top tube  "seat stay". But then you’ll get a moving loop. I hate to say it, but electric might be the way. I have this theory that when you curve a shift housing too much the housing ovalizes a bit. The narrow dimension can become smaller than the cable dimension. So if one is using a Shimano cable at 1.2 mm and Jagwire housing which presumably is smaller for Jagwire’s 1.1 cable you get an increase in friction. I recently put a new cable and housing (Shimano cable and Jagwire housing) on my Fuel ex. Shifting stunk. I soon replaced the housing with Shimano sp41 and it improved immediately.

That cable routing though. More curves than a contour line in canyon country. That blue is spectacular.

Rider weight is one of the biggest factors in deciding whether or not an insert will be a good thing. Plus riding style, trail conditions. For me at 65 kg I can run EXO or equivalent tires at as low as 15 -17 psi, and not roll a tire or ding a rim too badly. I haven’t damaged a tire or rim from a harsh bottom out in years. I tried the Tannus inserts but at the pressures I could run I was rolling the tires. I needed pretty close to the same psi as no inserts so there was no real benefit for me. I tried them for about a month and decided there was no benefit for me.

Posted by: Ride.DMC

Mine was their more traditional riser bar and it broke right at the edge of the stem...  It is entirely possible it was all my fault - I did not know what a torque wrench was back in those days, let alone use one.  I most likely overtightened the stem.

Even with proper even torque there can be a lot of stress concentrated at that spot. Think of a hard crash with the leverage a wide bar has. Leuscher Tech is a carbon repair guy from Australia with a YouTube channel. He examines broken carbon bikes that are too damaged to be cost effectively repaired. He also cut up a bunch of broken carbon bars. Most cracked at the stem from crashes. https://youtu.be/EFUTFmZHq_4?si=mkjHrLs0XlrS_pcC

Play the video at 1.25 speed. He talks slowly.

Posted by: TristanC

I have never changed bars because of a concern about failure, but I am a chronic bar swapper, trying to find a perfect fit.

I'm also a mechanical engineer, and do a lot of work with aluminum fatigue. I can't guess about how aluminum handlebars are engineered, but aluminum does not have a fatigue limit, so it will eventually fail under very low cyclic loads (e.g. normal riding). That said - I would guess anyone designing bars is running FEA on them and has a life criteria (number of stress cycles to failure). Any reputable bars are also going to pass ISO 4210-5, which is the ISO spec for "bicycle steering equipment." Part of that standard is a fatigue life test on a bar, which is usually to 10 million stress cycles (unloaded -> loaded -> unloaded under the force generated by a "severe user").

Short story: yes, aluminum bars will eventually fail, but it will probably take a long time unless you are riding pro-level DH all day every day. If you want to be safe, replace them once a decade; 3 years seems very short given that there are a lot of older bars out there and they do not fail if you look at them wrong. If you damage the bar in a crash (visible gouges, which are stress risers and will decrease the fatigue life in that spot) or get hit by a car (forces much much higher than the bar is designed for) then I would replace them.

I think this is good advice. The only bar I broke was a Cinelli road bar from the 80s that was drilled for aero brake housing. But the aluminum used for those was maybe a couple steps up from cheap folding beach chairs. It was common to see bikes with bars that had drooped from age. I’ve had a few bent too from crashes. 

Chromag recommend annual replacement of their aluminum bars when used in the bike park. I think that takes into account heavy use as well as crashes that may not seem too bad but it all adds up.

That rock I think is also known as leverite. Too big. Leave her right there.

Posted by: syncro

Posted by: heckler

We need electric commuter trains and last mile bikes.

We need fewer people and better wealth/income distribution.

Yup.

Posted by: velocipedestrian

Posted by: syncro

Posted by: andy-eunson

Exactly. I rinse out a tire when I remove it if I’m keeping the tire. Might wipe dried up sealant off the bead. But there’s no point in making the tire clean enough to eat soup out of.

mmmmm, tire soup.

With Stanimal crackers...

I’m using Bontrager these days. Sparkly Keith Klumps?

Now that it’s wet out, I find that both Squirt and Muc-Off dry are not good enough to prevent rust. I only rinse the mud off the bikes after a ride. Then the bikes are hung in a heated garage to dry. There will be surface rust on the chains after they dry enough to re apply lube. Si I’ve changed to MucOff all conditions lube. I think it may be a similar product to Prolink.

Posted by: XXX_er

My take is why worry about residual if i am just going to put more Stan's in there so I didn't really do anything to remove the old stuff and i reuse whatever Stan's is still liquid in the next mount, i still got tires in the shed with old dryed stans on them

Exactly. I rinse out a tire when I remove it if I’m keeping the tire. Might wipe dried up sealant off the bead. But there’s no point in making the tire clean enough to eat soup out of.

Posted by: martin

Eternal growth is unsustainable and impossible in anything except maybe the universe. Big corporate people know it too well and just try to get as much as they can until they retire. I'd be curious to see 100 years in advance.

Knowing that, it still really sucks for the people who work in "reality" and who have to deal with losing their jobs and closing their stores because their feeling-less parent company decides that they're not profitable enough, or the bike brand did not want to absorb its share of losses in the big picture.

Agreed. I think humans are somewhat hard wired to this more more more thing. Not all of course but it seems pervasive.

Posted by: velocipedestrian

The Radavist has a nice take on the endless seat tube angle discussion.

I very much like the term Bum Reach, can we all use this please? Plumb line from the top of the post, mm back from BB centre. Simple.

That is interesting to read plus the added comments. There are two kinds of efficiency with bike fit. Ergonomic where you want to fit a bike so the rider can make power efficiently and the other type where it’s more mechanical where the fit allows a rider to climb without looping out. Those are two different things too. The article mentioned tall riders liking steeper seat tube angles. I would suggest it wasn’t the steep angle that they liked but they liked where their centre of mass was being ahead of that rear contact patch. It doesn’t really matter on a climb if the rear suspension squats 40% unless that puts the riders weight too far back. One thing I have noticed is that many of steep seat tube bikes caused the effective top tube length to be significantly shorter in a given size which for me will cause my knees with knee pads on the hit my grips in a tight uphill turn. So I size up. That puts the bb further back under my butt which means I need a taller front  to compensate and not feel like I’m leaning so hard on the bars. Like that Aussie physio/bike fitter said, bike fitting is like a spider web. Pull here and it tugs there. Change this and you need to change that. I don’t know if there is a right or wrong but just different. That said I do see riders around here that have bad set ups. Lots of tiny bikes with tall riders. 

I wish people would stop using the word progressive so much. It implies better when it might not be at all.

I went for a Shorty in double down max grip on the front of both my bikes. I actually put them on in September when it was super dry. Corners where you really need grip were super blown out and the dust was centimetres thick. Now that it’s wet they are very good. On the rear I’m running a more aged SE5 on the hardtail and Xynotal 2.4 soft enduro on the Fuel ex. I like a grippy front because a washout there is a crash. If the rear breaks loose I say "woohoo" . It’s about to freeze solid now. -7° C tonight.