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Bicycles!

Eye-Q said:
Swapped SRAM Rival crankset for one including powermeter
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I’m still amazed by the fact that SRAM was willing to put out a really rather good (from an accuracy standpoint, even if only left side) PM at that price point. Only comparable thing would be stages/4iiii shimano left cranks…
If you can get it on sale that really is a no-brainer imo, provided you can actually do anything with the data.

Eye-Q said:
a saddle mount for the Garmin Varia rear light/radar
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Ohhh I may have to invest in one two of those as well… out of curiosity, what „GoPro to Garmin“ adapter do you use with that? Or does the varia come with one in the box and I’ve just lost it somewhere? :|
 
eizbaer said:
I’m still amazed by the fact that SRAM was willing to put out a really rather good (from an accuracy standpoint, even if only left side) PM at that price point.
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I actually got the whole crankset for less than half the sticker price so it was indeed a no-brainer.

eizbaer said:
out of curiosity, what „GoPro to Garmin“ adapter do you use with that? Or does the varia come with one in the box and I’ve just lost it somewhere? :|
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No, Garmin doesn't provide such an adapter, I actually bought the mount including the quarter turn adapter used. There are offers including the adapter out there, of course with that style of mounting you can use standard GoPro extensions to make space for a saddle mounted bag.
 
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Y’all think I got enough valve cores?
 
eizbaer said:
I’d probably use one and then lose the rest in my chaos basement until the exact moment I give up and order another 100-pack :|
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I just need them to last me until I switch to Fillmores! 😂
 
With the last days activities (visiting FIL for his birthday) over, these are my official (it didn’t happen if it’s not on Strava) year stats. Fell short of a bunch of yearly goals I had set (but not by too much) and only managed 360 of the festive 500 km - but more than made up for the remainder (rf500 as well as full-year) in time spent teaching my daughter to get along with her tricycle and, more recently, her pushbike (ie walking on Strava). Won’t be long until we’ll move her on to her first actual bicycle 🥳
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Onto the New Year’s resolutions: none. Same procedure as last year, James!
 
WHELP.

Figured I’d do a tiny bit of climbing today to close out the year, and maybe go on a flat long distance adventure tomorrow to start the new one, but a piece of glass disagreed: Glass Sucks.

I crested a hill, and right as it faced downward I rode over a piece of glass right in the middle of the road. Sealant—the very sealant I just replenished after the last ride—sprayed everywhere and then suddenly there was no air in the front tire. My fat ass on the bike was heading downhill and gaining speed, so I’m a little bit astonished that I had the presence of mind to rely on the rear brake to stop, as the front was swerving pretty wildly. It was an interesting few seconds.

I was able to plug the hole with a dart and get a decent enough seal, but the tire had already unseated itself from the rim, so air was leaking all over the place. With nothing but a truly tiny mini pump left after using up my one CO2 cartridge, I called the wife to pick up my deflated—literally and metaphorically—self. At least I was past nearly all the climbing I’d planned, so it was still a workout and not a wasted effort!

I haven’t fully inspected the final results yet, but it’s possible I also bent the rim. Hopefully not, and hopefully I can get the tire to reseat, so I can get some more use out of it. If not, I’m considering getting road tires for the winter, possibly Continental GP 5000 AS TR. I’m not excited to go riding in all the mud that our off-road routes seem to turn into when it rains, so maybe I should prioritize road for the next few months? Some food for thought.

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No bent rim, and the tire re-seated mostly fine, so I went back out yesterday to ring in the new year, or something like that. Nothing too wild, just a token sunset stroll: Strava link.

The plug worked like a charm once I was able to get some air in there. I actually used CO2 to seat the tire, as my pump doesn’t put out nearly enough volume for that. Some day I’ll have a garage and an air compressor in it… I need to re-seat the tire again, as it didn’t fully pop in one place, so it looks a bit squiggly and rides a bit wobbly, but it was fine enough for yesterday.

I feel like a total winner, to be honest. I really thought I’d have to buy new rubber this time, but this setup is proving quite resilient.

And I think a Silca Gravelero might be my first celebratory purchase when I get a new job. The PDW Ninja I currently have is handy with its built-in CO2 inflator, but it moves about as much volume as my lightest farts. I already have the PDW Tiny Object standalone CO2 inflator.

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altoid said:
And I think a Silca Gravelero might be my first celebratory purchase when I get a new job.
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I quite like the Lezyne Micro Floor Drive since you can flip out a little foot peg so it is effectively a small floor pump. The linked one is a "high volume" pump, there is a "high pressure" variant as well. For tubeless tires the "high volume" pump is better, you don't need high pressure for that application so with the "high volume" variant you can get more air in quicker.
 
Eye-Q said:
I quite like the Lezyne Micro Floor Drive since you can flip out a little foot peg so it is effectively a small floor pump. The linked one is a "high volume" pump, there is a "high pressure" variant as well. For tubeless tires the "high volume" pump is better, you don't need high pressure for that application so with the "high volume" variant you can get more air in quicker.
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That Lezyne looks really great, not gonna lie. I think I still prefer the sleek Gravelero, though. And I’ll likely try designing and 3D printing a top tube mount (below the top tube) for it, since I’ve never been a fan of side mounted pumps, and the other common places are taken (seat tube and top of down tube for bottle cages, bottom of down tube generally nothing and sometimes extra bottle cage).
 
Todays ride in large parts felt more like CX than gravel… admittedly, I’ll happily plan and then ride a bunch of strange tractor tracks, so i may have only myself to blame for that. And all the rain. And the wind. Ugh. Anyway fun!
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Yesterday I watched this video and just had to go out for a ride of my own.

Brought the Fuji X100T this time (in the excellent Route Werks bag), and feel like that’s more effort than I’m willing to invest into ride photos. Plus, my iPhone is a better photo editor than I am, and uploading them is far more convenient. Not super likely to bring it again in the future.

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Well, erm, my bike was about 20% heavier after today's "extended commute" - yes, that's all relatively solid ice... 😬

Surprisingly everything worked pretty normal, I just had to put in more effort. After I scraped off the majority of the ice the chain was frozen though so when I tried to backpedal the chain stayed straight when it should have nestled up against the cassette... 😬

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I watched too many cycling training videos and went for a zone 2 marathon: A Whole Lot of Zone 2 😂 That was a lot, and riding in the dark on unlit paths is…interesting.

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I need to ride more gravel.
 
IMHO a very bright light with a bad pattern doesn't have a place on a bike. The road.cc-test of that light clearly shows just a round dot. This means about half of the emitted light needlessly illuminates the tree tops. Instead the light should have a beam pattern similar to a car's headlight so you see where you're going, but don't blind oncoming people.

If you want to cycle through a forest where low hanging branches could seriously injure you then such lights do have their merits, but with your rides you don't need that. I'd recommend something like the Ravemen CR1000 or, if you can get Busch+Müller lights over there an IXON Rock.
 
Eye-Q said:
IMHO a very bright light with a bad pattern doesn't have a place on a bike.
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100x this.
A few weeks ago I was even blinded, hold onto your seats, by a pair of illuminated shoes! Like the kiddie bling soles but white and permanently on. They were so insanely bright that, coming towards that person on a rather generous 3m shared path, I was close to actually stopping to let them walk past because I couldn’t. See. Shit. From a pair of shoes.
I now also routinely tell people off for biking around with their lights pointed at the sky. Something a defined beam pattern helps very much with, as it gives you a very definite border to play with rather than a random tapering off thing where you never quite know if parts of it won’t still be pointing too far up.

… also I desperately need to replace the light on our cargo bike, because hey, as I’d now expect from Babboe, it’s complete horseshit. Actually no, a literal ball of horseshit lit on fire would probably provide more light.

Edit: To make things complete, I have one of these for the handful of times a year I’ll be running the road/gravel in the dark. A bit cheaper (and less bright) than the other options discussed before, but still plenty bright enough for me.
www.cateye.com

CATEYE [GVOLT70.1]

GVOLT70.1[HL-EL552G-RC]
www.cateye.com www.cateye.com
 
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Those are some excellent points I hadn’t really considered! I don’t think I need a light at all right now, but when I do, I’ll keep the pattern in mind.
 
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