I remembered I needed to post on the blog today as the in-house schedule has rotated back to me. Most times my rides to and from work are full of interesting thoughts (at least to me), but of course my mind was pretty blank today, except I needed to hurry to work with the coffee in my bag, the office was fresh out. So rather than force some topic maybe a bit of an update about a few things are in order.

650B
This project is still going. The wheels have been built, with Hope hubs, Velocity rims. Tires came from Kirk Pacenti. Kirk worked with Rock Shox to get us a Pearl 3.3 rear shock which should reduce the travel on a Santa Cruz Heckler enough to keep the larger 650B tire from contacting the seat tube under full compression. We should also see a 650B fork from White Brothers soon. I can’t wait.

For more 650B news: http://650bpalace.blogspot.com/

New Job

I’m climbing the corporate ladder here at Dirt Rag. New Title: Partnerships. What does that mean? Ad sales, sponsorships, partnerships(duh), a bit of marketing, product testing and writing for the magazine. Lotsa new hats to wear, right now it is a black knit cap, as the office is freaking cold, temperature never got above 25 or so today, outside that is.

Custom Frame

I just started working with Todd Ingermanson who is Black Cat Bicycles. I saw his work at NAHBS. He has some very cool ideas, and we plan on a 29er hardtail with his pivoting drop outs. Looks like I should be getting some pretty sweet parts from DT to complete the build, more on that later.

Lance’s Shop

I’ve never been a huge fan of Lance, but this news has me rethinking things.

Stage two of Maurice’s whirlwind tour.

After cold, rainy Macon Georgia, I headed west to cold, rainy San Luis Obispo, California for a combined Rocky Mountain/WTB press camp. The agenda? Face time with WTB and Rocky staff to learn more about the latest tires from WTB and the 2008 Slayer SXC bike from Rocky Mountain. The drill? Presentation of the goods, lunch, then ride.

WTB’s Wolverine is a general-purpose tire for what they call cross-country to all mountain terrain. Whatever, It’s 26 x 2.2 and has a light 60tpi casing for a weight under 600 grams. The tread pattern states its function with short knobs, fairly closely spaced for the widest variety of conditions and styles.

After the presentation, we walked in the rain to chow on BBQ and discussed the option of a nap followed by spending the rest of the day at the bowling alley. Bleak.

Miraculously, a window of opportunity opened up at 3pm. We hopped on some Slayers and rode some sandy, well-draining trails at Montana de Oro State Park, stopping for a photo shoot with shooter Forrest Arakawa. It had actually turned into a fine day and Forrest was able to get some killer shots of us riding as the sun went down.

On day two we spent a good bit of the day changing tires and watching the weather. The What? trail was the order of the day, starting with a major shuttle to some radio towers high up. This time Prowler tires were on tap, bigger, more voluminous, they sure came in handy on the rocks.

As for the bike, the Rocky Mountain Slayer is a 150mm, all-mountain trail bike. What’s that mean? It’s all about balance. Up vs. down. Pedal up hills. Bomb down. A slacker head angle and the long travel kept me on course through baby-head shaggy followed by mud from hell. This is the kind of bike I like to ride. Tech feature is the interrupted seat tube, which keeps all the moving parts down low on the frame to improve maneuverability and quicken handling.

For the Dirt Rag photo gallery from the Rocky Mountain/WTB press camp click here.

We recently scored a bunch of studded tires from Schwalbe, Nokian and Kenda.

Good thing, too, as we’ve just had one of our typical winter ice storms here in the Northeast:

Shorty after their arrival I put on a set of Nokian Gazza Extreme 294 tires in 29er flavor and have had a couple rides on them, one staff ride last week and again this past weekend in my local Frick Park, both with beautiful snowy weather. Unfortunately I neglected to bring a camera. The tires were awesome, though—definitely confidence-inspiring. It’s pretty cool to realize you’re going across some snow-covered ice but not sliding. There were a couple moments of unexpected slippage on rocks, but not much at all, and they seem to dig into frozen tree roots quite well.

Unfortunately I didn’t heed the label’s instructions to break them in by riding 30 miles on pavement, and each tire has lost a couple studs. I mean, come on, you want me to put on some sweet new studded tires while it’s snowing and go ride on the road? At least I’ve got 292 more studs on each tire.

I also grabbed a pair of Nokian Hakkapelittas in 700×35c size for use on my ‘cross commuting bike. They will most likely be getting some use very soon, like tomorrow perhaps. I’d gladly ride all 12 miles of my commute with the slower studs on just to survive the patches like this:

One strange thing about all these tires—they smell really bad!

Look for some more postings about the tires and how they perform for us. Here’s the full list of what we’ve got:

Kenda:
Klondike 26”x1.95”
Klondike XT 26”x1.95”
Klondike 700×35c
Klondike 700×40c

Schwalbe:
Ice Spiker 26”x2.1”

Nokian:
Extreme 294 29”x2.1”
Extreme 294 26”x2.1”
Hakkapelitta W106 700×35c

Drum roll please…

There you have it, sneak peak of my newest test bike. Have to say I’m really looking forward to this one. The Sojourn is a really striking bicycle. The off-white (technically “sand”) with with no decals, save the top tube protector, and leather bar tape and saddle make for a sharp look.

Shot of the studio.

Nice Badge.

Nice wide WTB bars with Brooks leather tape and Brooks aged saddle.

Rode her home last night for the maiden voyage. Still have some fit work to do, but otherwise the Sojourn feels pretty good right out of the box. Time will tell…

Justin

Usually it’s meant as a joke, but this time there was more than a grain of truth to the old saying: Bike testing is a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it. You see, the 2007 edition of the Punk Bike Enduro, was a cold, rainy and muddy affair. But, such is the life of a test pilot—needless to say, I soldiered on.

Did I mention it was muddy? I must admit that the sloppy conditions made my singlespeed quite the attractive arrow in the proverbial quiver. But, damnit, I had a bike to test! Time to suck it up.Fortunately It didn’t take long to rig up some “rider comfort” mods for the Trek Fuel EX9 test bike. In preparation for the quagmire, I attached a quick released fender via the steatpost, added a crud catcher beneath the downtube, and fashioned a front mud flap from a bit of plastic (cut from a blueberry container) and zip-tied it to the fork bridge. That should keep some of the mess off of the pilot. But what about the bike? How would the tires, and all those gears and suspension bits, handle the sloppy conditions?

In the traction department, I was not lacking. The widely spaced, medium-height tread pattern on the Tubeless Ready Bontrager Jones XR tires actually turned out to work quite well in the soup. They did a good job of self-cleaning, except in one particular nasty patch of clay—where any tire would have been overmatched. As I mentioned in a earlier post, I converted these tires/wheels to tubeless, so I was able to run the tires soft enough to give the bike a sure-footed feeling on wet, muddy roots and rocks. This did not surprise me—in the mud I prefer tires with a pattern like the Bontrager Jones XR’s. I’ve never been a fan of those tall-knobbed so-called mud tires—the knobs can squirm over wet roots and send you on your backside in the blink of an eye.

At the end of the day, I was happy to be sporting 27 speeds, and not just one. I resorted to my granny ring on more than one occasion, and kept grinding along—while others pushed. The drivetrain didn’t give me a lick of trouble, despite the harsh conditions. While I normally prefer Gripshift, this was one day that I was happy to be sporting trigger shifters. I went through three different pairs of gloves on Punk day, and my experience is that wet, muddy gloves and Gripshift is not a good combination—when the shifters and/or gloves get a coating of mud, shifting can become difficult to impossible.

Having 110/120mm of front/rear suspension is a definite advantage in technical terrain on a nasty day. Being able to keep my butt in the saddle and put the power to the pedals, while the suspension sucks up the impacts, lets me hammer through some unbelievably bad conditions. It goes without saying that full suspension and disc brakes were the shiznitt on the downhills.

You know what? I’m pretty darned happy that I left the singlespeed hanging on the hook in the basement after all.

After years designing, testing, riding, redesigning, retesting, reriding Surly is just about ready to release their cargo bike, the Big Dummy. It is based around the XtracycleSport Utility Bicycle concept.

We’ve had a pre-production sample in house for a little over a week. Actually it has spent little time here, as I rode it home the day it arrived with my commuter bike strapped to the side. I’ve commuted most days on it since then, and put it to the test on back to back offroad days; a Punk Bike pre-ride and the Punk Bike Enduro itself.

I’ve owned an Xtracycle-converted bike for a few years, but until now I’ve never had a long-tail bike on real off road terrain. It gets around surprisingly well in the woods, but most of my normal instincts are wrong when riding something with the wheelbase of a Mini Cooper. Also, riding off road with a sixth keg of beer is possible, even fun for short distances.

Xtracycle is sending some ads-ons that should further expand the capabilities of this already very functional ride. Stay tuned for more updates.