Location: Syncline Weather: 40s/50s and partly sunny Ride for the day: 2012 Specialized FSR Comp 29er
Had an old college buddy in town for a week for work, which was awesome since most of my friends these days have become the married type that don’t do a damn thing. We spent the week eating, drinking and recreating our way around Portland. After reintroducing him to powder days (apparently they don’t get that many pow days in Charlotte, who knew?) and introducing him to the Outback, I figured for his last day in town I’d show him Hood River.
Hit up the Fat Tire Farm sale, sadly not early enough to get one of the demo bikes they were selling off, and quite frankly the rest of the sale was unimpressive. As we were walking back to the car we were throwing out ideas for the ride, knowing that the snow would probably be a hindrance on most of the trails. John’s rental car guided us to the obvious answer.
Driving out through the Gorge the weather looked as if the ride would be ‘interesting’, but as we turned the last turn into Hood River you could see the sun was shining on Syncline. High-5!
We ended up having a blast, soaking in the weather and the views. Wildflowers starting to do their thing (which means the poison oak and ticks are only a few months away as well…). Trails were in good shape in most places, but muddy and rutted around the new diversion about 1/4 mile below the brown house. We ended up doing two laps, one up the Jeep Trail, past the brown house and down Hidden Canyon, the second up the same trail but cutting off at Little Moab instead. A third lap up to hit Little Maui on the way down got vetoed by the call of the Double Mountain beers. Siiiick.
On the drive back John was looking for jobs in the area and telling his wife it’s time for a move. He wore the GoPro cam for an hour or so to show his lady how the riding is, should have that vid posted later this week once I get it converted over. Hopefully they can make it happen!
These guys were everywhere, and when the sun came out full-time looked insane when backlit
The S.O. wanting to ride can either be a blessing or a buzz kill. However, before they ride you’ve got to make a decision on WHAT they’ll be riding, which leads me to today’s poll
Looks like it’ll be either wet/muddy, or covered in snow, depending on where you ride this weekend. Regardless, have fun!
Thought this sticker was hilarious given the Volagi/Specialized hooplah. Not my bike, but can appreciate the sentiment. I also think it’s funny that people who will talk your ear off about buying local, small, artisan, handcrafted, ‘hate Starbucks because they are big’ blah blah blah will also openly rep the big S like it ain’t no thang. FWIW I’d ride an Enduro or an FSR of some sort if it was free.
In the end all this boycott talk will have zero change on their bottom line given the short term memory of consumers these days (anybody remember the old ‘boycott Burton cuz you can’t patent fun’ movement?), but it’s nice to see a small minority keep the dream alive. Guy is lucky he didn’t use red stickers for that, would have likely been sent a C&D by big S.
I’m currently rolling a low-end build (Rockhopper Comp 29er) as it was a cheap way to get back on the bike after my old MTB was used in one of those ‘guy who doesn’t know you borrows it long-term and without asking and oh yeah I’m borrowing your TV and shit rent to own without paying rent’ scams. Had started to rebuild it as a sort-of-cross hack bike, but have now vetoed that build and am reverting back to OEM so I can sell her to fund a more lustworthy ride. As part of that process am giving her a lube/oil/filter/cable change so the next owner is good to go. As I know a lot of people don’t know how to swap out the cables on their shifters or are afraid they have to disassemble them to get at the cables I figured I’d throw a quick how to up. This process >>should<< be the same for everything X9 and below, but as the bike industry is keen on changing things every year to suck money from the sheeple on their quest for perfection you can look at SRAM’s service manuals if this doesn’t look like it’ll work for your shifters.
Anyways, a good % of you are going to chuckle at this being a how-to, but it’s one of those things that sometimes you just think is going to be far worse than it is, involving cracking open the shifter body and weeding your way through springs and widgets and whatnots, but it’s not like that and if it enables someone to save some money and wrench on their own bike a bit more confidently I’m stoked.
Step 1: Put your bike in your bike stand. If you don’t have a bike stand and are still using a wall, 2x4s, or some other rigged method of keeping your bike upright for wrenching punch yourself in the nuts (or female equivalent for you ladies out there reading), stop reading and go buy a GOOD one right now – seriously don’t cheap out here, what’s an extra $50 amortized over the 10+ year life of a good repair stand? I went from an old hand me down POS Blackburn to a Spin Doctor Pro G3, pretty much night and day in stability, ability to have the bike at a decent working level (I’m 6’4 so that’s a nice back saving addition), etc. etc. Seriously, just do it and you’ll thank me.
Step 2: Shift into gear 1 (front) or your highest rear gear (8-10) depending on which cable you’re replacing. Remove or cut the cable from the derailleur side. Next, look just behind the backside of your triggers for either a small, uncovered hole or a small screw that is covering the hole. If there’s a small screw, remove it, otherwise proceed to step 3.
Step 3: Push on the cut end of the cable so that it comes out through the newly (or permanently) uncovered hole in shifter. If you’re having trouble getting it out give it a twist while pushing and it should come out.
Step 4: It’s all downhill from here. Insert new cable through the hole the old one just came out of, feed through your housing and back to your derailleur, and tune as usual. Note that it may be a pain in the R’s to get the cable back through the barrel adjuster. Some people remove them for feeding through, I found I was able to feed the cable through by just playing with it for a second. BOOM! You’re done, pat yourself on the back and assume the victory pose
TGIF, awwwwww yeah it’s Friday. Monday thru Thursday bring nothing but love for cycling, today though it’s time to spew some hate!
1. The prices. On everything. You can get this for less than the price of this. As much as I know the R&D costs behind moving a chain with a few rollers and a cage pulled by a cable must take I’ve got to believe that internal combustion takes more.
2. The sheeple that buy the marketing hype. I mean seriously, I think cyclists buy into the marketing machine worse than junior high girls buying into the latest boy band.
3. Companies that switch their manufacturing overseas but still charge US made prices. Seems to be the rage these days, I guess, but I find it ridiculous.
4. Along those lines, companies that buy catalog bikes, slap on their brand, and sell them as something original. Seriously, GTFO with that crap. It’s one thing to so your own R&D and offload your manufacturing to someone else (like Specialized does to Giant, or just about anybody in the biz), it’s a whole ‘nuther level of ridiculous to just pick next year’s models out of a generic catalog and slap your labels on ‘em.
5. The fact that I don’t have enough time to ride as much as I’d like. Between trying to get a new startup off the ground, training muay thai, and just lack of focus/too many hobbies I can NEVER ride as much as I’d like to!
Saw this on Bikeradar today. Worth the quick read as stats like ‘56 percent of cyclists ignoring stop signals or traffic lights compared with just seven percent of motorists‘ are pretty amazing given our vulnerability on the streets. Thoughts?
Was shopping around, looking for a cycling jacket for the ladyfriend. It looks like a lot of the model year changeovers are starting, saw a TON of stuff on sale, now that stuff that is WAAAAY over priced is approaching realistic prices. Check out here, here and here. I’d point out a few of the things I’m looking at, but there are only a few left so want to wait until I’ve bought my Christmas gifts!
Kind of new to me. Who knew that long hairs had to worry about getting it stuck in the helmet doohickeys, certainly not I. Preview of that Kali Protectives Chakra Plus coming soon!
Want one? Ping me with your mailing address. All I want in return is a picture of where you stick ‘em! Oh, and if you’ve pinged me and I haven’t responded yet drop a comment here, my email seems to be a bit wonkified.
(and you have no idea how many times I had to proofread it to avoid one of those ‘free deliverly’ type gaffs)
Playing around today….it’s like one of those projects people start when they are high or something…dunno if I’ll go all the way with this as I’d need either a new RD or new front brifter to make ‘er work (damn 1:1 vs. 1:2 cable pull)….on the bright side it’d be a disc braked ‘cross’ bike
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