Show "Bicycle"

My motivation has taken a precipitous dive. My bicycle riding dropped quite a bit in December, down to 5 or 6 rides, and only two of those were more than 10 miles. We had a run of gloomy but warm weather in late December, with a lot of light rain, and I spent those days with the garage doors open, doing a lot of wood cutting and sanding. Tomorrow will be my first ride of 2022. It's supposed to be cold but sunny. I'll take a camera, but I haven't been very inspired photographically, either.
 
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Spent this Sunday grinding uphill in the mountains with perfect 70 degree weather. Hot enough not be cold, cool enough not to be burnt toast! I cramped on the way home, but I now carry pickle juice when doing serious climbing. Within seconds the cramps go away instantly!

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Hill Climber - Los Angeles, California USA by inhousephoto, on Flickr

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Hill Climber - Los Angeles, California USA by inhousephoto, on Flickr

I came down this steep hill in the background, I could smell my brake pads like a semi-truck going down a mountain:
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Hill Climber - Los Angeles, California USA by inhousephoto, on Flickr

The whole point of climbing is to enjoy the fruits of your labor:
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Hill Climber - Los Angeles, California USA by inhousephoto, on Flickr
 
Interesting things afoot… so a page back, when we went to collect the prizes for a good cyclocross season, we entered a raffle you could only enter if you were there in person to collect prizes. NOT MANY PEOPLE SHOWED UP. It was disgusting out, raining and cold, so I’m guessing fewere than 30 people came out. Thus, we won one of the 3 big prizes: a set of Chris King gravel wheels. When I say “big” I mean “they retail for $2,600.” A set of effing wheels… that is two and a half grand. And people snap them up – they’re totally sold out at the moment. This is not the sort of thing we’d ever buy for ourselves, no least of which because they don’t fit any bike we have… 12mm through axles and center lock disc mounts, oh my!

The wheels: Chris King GRD23 R45D 24/24

Essentially, someone has given us 1/3 of a spaceship. And I aspire to spaceship ownership someday – I really, really do - but I can’t plop down another $2k for a frame that’s suitable for this, plus another grand for a drivetrain and brakes. So they’re hanging in the garage while we think. And yet I don’t want to sell them… it would be lovely to have a set of wheels this nice on a bike. Spaceship stuff. So now, what to do? I can afford some steel frames, like the Soma Wolverine, which I’ve always had a crush on. Those frames are solidly under a grand, and well regarded.



That bike: Wolverine (v.4.0) Type-A (Adventure/Monstercross) | SOMA Fabrications



We went to pick the wheels up this weekend from the race official, who met us halfway in a small town. We brought bikes (took the regional bus instead of driving) and did a very quick ride / hike, but the road turned snowy so we had to walk the bikes a good bit. Snapped a few pics, XT1 and rokinon 12…


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Interesting things afoot… so a page back, when we went to collect the prizes for a good cyclocross season, we entered a raffle you could only enter if you were there in person to collect prizes. NOT MANY PEOPLE SHOWED UP. It was disgusting out, raining and cold, so I’m guessing fewere than 30 people came out. Thus, we won one of the 3 big prizes: a set of Chris King gravel wheels. When I say “big” I mean “they retail for $2,600.” A set of effing wheels… that is two and a half grand. And people snap them up – they’re totally sold out at the moment. This is not the sort of thing we’d ever buy for ourselves, no least of which because they don’t fit any bike we have… 12mm through axles and center lock disc mounts, oh my!

The wheels: Chris King GRD23 R45D 24/24

Essentially, someone has given us 1/3 of a spaceship. And I aspire to spaceship ownership someday – I really, really do - but I can’t plop down another $2k for a frame that’s suitable for this, plus another grand for a drivetrain and brakes. So they’re hanging in the garage while we think. And yet I don’t want to sell them… it would be lovely to have a set of wheels this nice on a bike. Spaceship stuff. So now, what to do? I can afford some steel frames, like the Soma Wolverine, which I’ve always had a crush on. Those frames are solidly under a grand, and well regarded.



That bike: Wolverine (v.4.0) Type-A (Adventure/Monstercross) | SOMA Fabrications



We went to pick the wheels up this weekend from the race official, who met us halfway in a small town. We brought bikes (took the regional bus instead of driving) and did a very quick ride / hike, but the road turned snowy so we had to walk the bikes a good bit. Snapped a few pics, XT1 and rokinon 12…

Interesting things afoot… so a page back, when we went to collect the prizes for a good cyclocross season, we entered a raffle you could only enter if you were there in person to collect prizes. NOT MANY PEOPLE SHOWED UP. It was disgusting out, raining and cold, so I’m guessing fewere than 30 people came out. Thus, we won one of the 3 big prizes: a set of Chris King gravel wheels. When I say “big” I mean “they retail for $2,600.” A set of effing wheels… that is two and a half grand. And people snap them up – they’re totally sold out at the moment. This is not the sort of thing we’d ever buy for ourselves, no least of which because they don’t fit any bike we have… 12mm through axles and center lock disc mounts, oh my!

The wheels: Chris King GRD23 R45D 24/24

Essentially, someone has given us 1/3 of a spaceship. And I aspire to spaceship ownership someday – I really, really do - but I can’t plop down another $2k for a frame that’s suitable for this, plus another grand for a drivetrain and brakes. So they’re hanging in the garage while we think. And yet I don’t want to sell them… it would be lovely to have a set of wheels this nice on a bike. Spaceship stuff. So now, what to do? I can afford some steel frames, like the Soma Wolverine, which I’ve always had a crush on. Those frames are solidly under a grand, and well regarded.



That bike: Wolverine (v.4.0) Type-A (Adventure/Monstercross) | SOMA Fabrications



We went to pick the wheels up this weekend from the race official, who met us halfway in a small town. We brought bikes (took the regional bus instead of driving) and did a very quick ride / hike, but the road turned snowy so we had to walk the bikes a good bit. Snapped a few pics, XT1 and rokinon 12…
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What a great prize! Honestly I feel wheels make a huge difference in performance. It makes any bike ride that much better. I can't wait to see what bike you build around them! (y)
 
I -think- I have found a suitable frame to use. Being 5'5" is sometimes (SOMETIMES) an advantage...
Good friends have a daughter who is 12, almost my height, and this family spends $ on bikes. When I saw her new ride last year, I told her mom “when she outgrows this, don’t you DARE sell it without talking to me first, please!” She said “ok but we’re going to part it out and sell just the frame and fork, and move all the parts over to the next frame.” At the time, I thought “oh well.” Now… now it makes sense. So I emailed, they’re assessing when it will be time for the frame, but I’m locked in for first dibs.



The bike is a Niner RLT RDO, which is a lot of letters. Carbon gravelly/racey bike, with mounts for adventurous stuff, and geometry between relaxed and racey. Perfect, in other words. Normally a mid-sized build comes out around 21.5 pounds for those, but I’m hoping that in a small, with these ridiculous wheels and these carbon drop bars I have laying around, I might sniff 20. And I don’t CARE care, I’m not really obsessed with weight, I can’t afford to be. But light is cool, when you live somewhere vertical.
 
I -think- I have found a suitable frame to use. Being 5'5" is sometimes (SOMETIMES) an advantage...
Good friends have a daughter who is 12, almost my height, and this family spends $ on bikes. When I saw her new ride last year, I told her mom “when she outgrows this, don’t you DARE sell it without talking to me first, please!” She said “ok but we’re going to part it out and sell just the frame and fork, and move all the parts over to the next frame.” At the time, I thought “oh well.” Now… now it makes sense. So I emailed, they’re assessing when it will be time for the frame, but I’m locked in for first dibs.



The bike is a Niner RLT RDO, which is a lot of letters. Carbon gravelly/racey bike, with mounts for adventurous stuff, and geometry between relaxed and racey. Perfect, in other words. Normally a mid-sized build comes out around 21.5 pounds for those, but I’m hoping that in a small, with these ridiculous wheels and these carbon drop bars I have laying around, I might sniff 20. And I don’t CARE care, I’m not really obsessed with weight, I can’t afford to be. But light is cool, when you live somewhere vertical.

I just looked up that frame, it looks really nice! I'm not a weight weenie, but lightweight wheels actually help when climbing. I found with lighter wheels you can stay in a higher gear much longer and there is less fatigue. Also I notice the material on those wheels are referred to as Fusion Fiber? I'm guessing it's just fancy carbon fiber? ;)
 
I just looked up that frame, it looks really nice! I'm not a weight weenie, but lightweight wheels actually help when climbing. I found with lighter wheels you can stay in a higher gear much longer and there is less fatigue. Also I notice the material on those wheels are referred to as Fusion Fiber? I'm guessing it's just fancy carbon fiber? ;)
Yeah it's recyclable, but also has something mixed in with the usual carbon to change how flexy it is... I think.
 
I've been doing some minor fine tuning on my road bike. I added a full carbon seat post, swapped out to a SRAM chain, install aero stem spacers and some discount bar tape I found off Amazon for $5! I tried carbon drop bars and felt they flexed too much, so for now I'm sticking with alloy bars while most the components are all carbon.

With this setup I can easily bomb the downhill at 40mph plus with no problem! (y)

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I've been doing some minor fine tuning on my road bike. I added a full carbon seat post, swapped out to a SRAM chain, install aero stem spacers and some discount bar tape I found off Amazon for $5! I tried carbon drop bars and felt they flexed too much, so for now I'm sticking with alloy bars while most the components are all carbon.

With this setup I can easily bomb the downhill at 40mph plus with no problem! (y)

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Your bike is beautiful!
I thought about carbon drop bars when I had my bike built up (17 years ago!) but read that they don't bend in a crash, they shatter with potentially deadly pointed bits that could do lots of personal damage. I'm not sure how serious the problem might be but I'm happy with my alloy bars.
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Your bike is beautiful!
I thought about carbon drop bars when I had my bike built up (17 years ago!) but read that they don't bend in a crash, they shatter with potentially deadly pointed bits that could do lots of personal damage. I'm not sure how serious the problem might be but I'm happy with my alloy bars.
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Nice bike as well! The carbon bars I was trying were 100g lighter, but the amount of flex and tedious torque screw tensioning wasn't worth it to me. Unlike some of my riding buddies, I don't really sweat from my hands much, so I don't see alloy corrosion being an issue for me either.

Also since you built your bike 17 years ago, how's the frame holding up? I'm hoping I won't have to replace mine for awhile.
 
Nice bike as well! The carbon bars I was trying were 100g lighter, but the amount of flex and tedious torque screw tensioning wasn't worth it to me. Unlike some of my riding buddies, I don't really sweat from my hands much, so I don't see alloy corrosion being an issue for me either.

Also since you built your bike 17 years ago, how's the frame holding up? I'm hoping I won't have to replace mine for awhile.
My frame is fine, as is the fork. This bike is the perfect balance between quick handling and ride comfort. It's just backed off from the twitchy/too quick handling that a lot of high end frames can have.
The only thing that's failed is the 7800 series Dura-Ace front shifter. I bought a set of Microshift drop bar 2x R10 shifters that I'm going to get swapped out. It's literally the only way I can keep the rest of the running gear instead of buying all 11-speed components at a horrendous cost. I'm too old to really hammer it anymore but want something for a daily pleasure ride.
 
My frame is fine, as is the fork. This bike is the perfect balance between quick handling and ride comfort. It's just backed off from the twitchy/too quick handling that a lot of high end frames can have.
The only thing that's failed is the 7800 series Dura-Ace front shifter. I bought a set of Microshift drop bar 2x R10 shifters that I'm going to get swapped out. It's literally the only way I can keep the rest of the running gear instead of buying all 11-speed components at a horrendous cost. I'm too old to really hammer it anymore but want something for a daily pleasure ride.

I have my bike setup for mostly hill climbing and fast descents. My drops are flared gravel bars, so I have better leverage for climbs and downhill stability with the drop flares. I don't really ride long distances (usually under 30mi/50km approx.), but more of intense sessions while dropping the hammer on every climb. I ride with guys 5-10 years younger than me and I'm always pushing myself hard, usually beating them to our ride checkpoints by several minutes. Though I'm wondering how much longer I can maintain that level of riding into my mid-40s. I definitely can feel recovery times taking longer!

On a side note, I've been entertaining the idea of building an ultra lightweight road bike with just discount parts. I tend to feel a closer affinity to cyclists who tinker on their own (with budget in mind) versus the brand name flaunters! If I can build something sub 7kg, I'd be quite happy! :giggle:
 
I have my bike setup for mostly hill climbing and fast descents. My drops are flared gravel bars, so I have better leverage for climbs and downhill stability with the drop flares. I don't really ride long distances (usually under 30mi/50km approx.), but more of intense sessions while dropping the hammer on every climb. I ride with guys 5-10 years younger than me and I'm always pushing myself hard, usually beating them to our ride checkpoints by several minutes. Though I'm wondering how much longer I can maintain that level of riding into my mid-40s. I definitely can feel recovery times taking longer!

On a side note, I've been entertaining the idea of building an ultra lightweight road bike with just discount parts. I tend to feel a closer affinity to cyclists who tinker on their own (with budget in mind) versus the brand name flaunters! If I can build something sub 7kg, I'd be quite happy! :giggle:
My bike is currently 6.9kg including the pedals and 2 bottle cages. I'm retirement age and just want to do a lap of Stanley Park every nice day to get into/stay in shape. Before Covid and Summer forest fire smoke, from home through a loop of the park and back was 35 minutes on the low road and 45-48 minutes if I did the climb to the lookout.
 
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