Bicycles!

@altoid yours seems like a bit of overkill though. But I get it, riding where you do I guess there are more potential dangers for tyres in the city.

Not sure what to take out, though? The only true redundancy is having both a spare and a patch kit, but the latter takes up less space than an Altoids Smalls tin. In the end, this stuff sits in the bag and I don't really touch it. The few extra grams isn't a problem—I'm not a delusional weight weenie who's trying to shave off that little when skipping dinner would make more of a difference. :D

And 100% of my riding is in LA, often ending up miles away from home before work—I like standing a chance of getting myself back there. especially since I'm single and haven't felt safe hitching rides until very recently. (And I don't want to be the friend asking someone for a favor early in the morning, ha.)

Plus, we know I like overpacking from my moto adventures. :D
 
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having watched an "emergency road side fixes" video by my trusty parts supplier, it is frankly insane what sort of stuff can actually be fixed by the side of the road if you know of the right bodge :p ... ofc I wouldn't trust the bike anymore for the rest of the way home after most of those, but that's a different story.

I’m sure you can make a bike ‘rideable’ on the side of the road hammering it together with rocks, but 1) I probably can’t without breaking myself and/or my bike, b) I probably won’t trust my bike going up/down a rocky/hilly/muddy/all of these area and III) it’ll won’t be a fun ride home, and decompressing myself is the whole point of the ride….
 
Fuck my life. ?

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Fuck my life. ?
Ah crappppp… anything you screwed up, or just „old age“?

I’m dreading that with my wheels, as they’re fancy tubeless ready minus tubeless tape, i.e. there are no spoke holes in the rim bed (only one level below)! You have to finagle the spoke nut through the valve hole and along the inside of the hollow rim body with a magnet to the right spoke hole. I don’t know who came up with that nightmare…
 
Ah crappppp… anything you screwed up, or just „old age“?

What qualifies as old age? I bought the bike new last May and have put 1,282 Strava miles, which should account for just about all the distance it's done. Maybe I'm just too fat for it? ?
 
Yeah nooo 1 yes definitely is not old age ? and neither is 1300 miles. I’d also think there are probably lots of people heavier than you around on those bikes… so, just bad luck?

Anyway… since tomorrow rain and thunderstorms are supposed to come in, I went for a nice little blast outside through the fields. … the water in the pic looks like it does, because it’s a drainage canal from one of the huge local lignite mines :-( (honestly just take a look at satellite imagery to the west of cologne, I guarantee you’ll find the big hole in the ground)

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Yeah nooo 1 yes definitely is not old age ? and neither is 1300 miles. I’d also think there are probably lots of people heavier than you around on those bikes… so, just bad luck?

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. It's fine, it's all part of the experience! :D

I took both wheels to the shop yesterday. The rear needs that spoke replaced, but I figured I may as well have them true both as needed.

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I took both wheels to the shop yesterday. The rear needs that spoke replaced, but I figured I may as well have them true both as needed.

Wow, the shop is quick: they called this morning to say the wheels are ready for pickup today. I didn't even have time, so I'll get them tomorrow. Possible test ride this weekend, though gym on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday might make that a bit much. ?
 
Here’s a boring picture of two usable wheels:

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Only the rear needed to be trued, and only one spoke was busted. Possible test ride tomorrow.
 
Wait, hold on.
You can get a bicycle with a belt drive? That's interesting.
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Oh oh we picked up my wife’s [insert Borat my wiiiiife] new bike today! Her old bike literally broke in half, but with the situation being as it is, it was hard to find something especially since she wanted to test ride...

In the end, since she commutes on the thing every day 4 km each way, it had to be reliable, comfortable and durable. We ended up with this Liv (giants female brand) with belt drive (interesting stuff, always wanted to try that myself), hydraulic discs - last years model was actually 25% off (wtf? Probably the color and the fact that nobody wanted the higher end model with better hub and brakes), so we got that quite spontaneously. Have a random stock Foto:
View attachment 3560531

Wait, hold on.
You can get a bicycle with a belt drive? That's interesting.

yes… yes, you can ?

it’s quite nice to ride so far, nothing to report… although that’d probably be the same with a chain. Most notable is the silent freewheeling of the alfine hub, but thats also nothing to do with the belt. Dunno - belt thing will probably only get interesting in a few years, when it’s time to exchange it (which is the whole point, longer service intervals).
 
@JVtje and I decided we should cycle more. Madelon got her taste of e-bike earlier this year and liked it, and got a leaseplan bike offered from her work. After a day of finding bike shops with proper e-bikes still in stock, we found one she liked, Giant Explore E+ 2 in Stagger config. This we picked up earlier today.
Since I found a (camouflaged) break in the seat upright last year (probably been there since before I bought it secondhand (scammy seller probably)), I didn't particularly trust the frame of that bike anymore, so I too went on a wild chase for a bike that would spend most of its time on tarmac, but would not be out of shape on dirt tracks. In the end I landed on the Cube Aim SL, and spent the €120 extra for the AllRoad version (mudguards, lights, bike stand and cargo rack). This arrived on Tuesday. Grips came a day later (Cube Natural Fit with Medium bar ends). Stock pedals were shit (plastic "mountainbike" pedals), so they went straight into the bin and I mounted the pedals from my old bike instead (Cube RFR Standard CMPT).

And of course a pic, hers and his:
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Funny enough, most of the gear on either bike is the exact same Shimano SKU. Brakes, shifters, derailleur, chain.
 
As far as I can tell finding E-bikes in stock is easier than decent non-E-bikes. Regarding the same Shimano SKUs on both bikes: well, there aren't that many groupsets so for me it's hardly surprising. Mostly the bike manufacturers buy complete groupsets from Shimano or SRAM so they don't have to worry about compatibility of shifters, brake components, derailleurs and so on.

Today I used my cargo bike as it was intended since I wanted to get rid of the old cat trees and they don't fit in the normal trash bin...

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I know, I just find it funny that even though there is a more than €2000 price difference between the bikes, the Shimano stuff is the same. I'd like to think that that says more about the value for money Cube offers than the value proposition of one of Giant's upper mid tier e-bikes
 
I nearly didn’t go out today, because I was afraid it would be too hot… good thing I managed to get off my ass! This ride was incredible… flying through wheat fields, “now we are free” from the gladiator soundtrack playing in my head. This is why I love cycling! Temperature was perfect actually!

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Once again #carryshitolypmics, this time one with of my other bicycles to the bike shop so I don't have to walk back the 4.3 km after I brought the cargo bike in for repairs.
One of the shifting cables snapped - not even three months after one of the shifting cables on my gravel bike snapped now it's the cargo bike's turn. The thing is that replacing a shifting cable on a Rohloff gearbox is a bit more fiddly than on derailleur gears so I brought the bike to the shop so they'll replace both cables at the same time. When one of the cables snaps the other is bound to snap soon as well since it has the same amount of actuations so it makes sense to replace both cables. Additionally, when I took of the external gear mechanism it was full of oil, two or three weeks ago when I took the mechanism off there wasn't that much oil which means the gasket is leaking. That'll be done at the shop as well as an oil change of course.

The upside is that when that's done then the complicated tasks are done for the next two years or so, I don't think I'll have to do much aside from changing brake pads and chains/sprockets in those two years.

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That.... does not look safe :| But i guess for 4km you should be fine. Also, you seem like the type who's done this before :D

Crazy coincidence with the cables snapping in such short succession. Weird - I've never had one snap on me, and I'm still running around on a 15yo bike as well that has never seen any cable changes. Honestly I'm just waiting for something to crap out so I can re-do the whole thing...
 
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