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Category: cycling

Meiser Accu-Gauge for Fat Bikes

Published January 21, 2013

Today my order of G.H. Meiser Accu-Gauge tire pressure gauges arrived. I’d put in a bulk order of these for a few local folks with fat bikes, as we were all in need of a good low-pressure gauge to let us quantify tire pressures below 10 PSI. This gauge is almost universally recommended by those with lots of fat bike experience, and on initial tests I’m quite happy with it. The brass body has a gasket in it which seals against the body of the Presta valve, and a plug at the end opens the valve. Pressure is then displayed on the dial, and air can be let out (or the gauge itself emptied) by depressing the button on the top.

At ~$15/each after shipping I think these will prove to be worth it. Fat bikes are very pressure sensitive, so after learning exactly what pressures I like for what conditions this’ll do nicely for replicating that. Thus far I’ve been relying on a basic squeeze test to see if the tire feels appropriate. It’ll also be usable for regular mountain bike wheels, but I tend to be a bit above 30 PSI for my rear tire, limiting this gauge’s utility.

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Full Travel at Ray’s

Published January 20, 2013

Small oil and dust marks on one of the stanchions of the El Mariachi’s Reba fork show that I made use of the fork’s full travel when at Ray’s MTB Cleveland yesterday. I was there as part of an IMBA event, having driven down that morning and back in the evening.

I was initially on the fence about going (didn’t want to pay for a hotel or drive that far), but I’m really glad that I did. I met some new people, had a really great take on an espresso con panna made by a guy named trainwreck (who was also riding everything in the place on a rigid 29er with a front fender) at a table at the side of the place, rode a lot, and only crashed once.

The crash was early on and happened when I caught my derailleur (then pedal, then bar) on a short railing and tumbled over the railing down on to the pavement. The only damage was a sore shoulder, bent derailleur hanger, and broken derailleur cable housing, both common and easily solved problems.

The coffee was pretty interesting, made using a handpresso wild hybrid to dispense espresso into a small cup half-full of heavy cream which had been whipped with a small battery-powered whisk similar to the IKEA PRODUKT. This then had chocolate shaved on the top and was drank after the espresso and cream mixed themselves together. It was very tasty, and a quite-welcome afternoon treat after being up since 4:45am.

After leaving I initially headed to the Buckeye Beer Engine with Erik and Kristi, but after finding out that there was a 30-40 minute wait for a table I ended up just heading home. While I would have loved to have eaten there, the wait plus eating time would have put me home about midnight, and driving alone isn’t much fun at those times.

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Falling Into Lake Huron in January

Published January 12, 2013

I can now say that I’ve fallen into Lake Huron, on a bicycle, in January. And it wasn’t a big deal.

Taking advantage of this weekend’s unseasonably warm weather (almost 60°F in mid-January along the lake!), James and I headed out to Lakeport State Park to ride on the beach and generally explore whatever we could find in the area. This was a good time, netting 2:12:16 of moving time poking around on beaches, exploring random trails in the park, and poking around some roads necessary to get around sea walls that people had built straight out to the water line. While we were able to ride around a few of them, many (as seen in this photo) simply extend out across the beach to the water line.

Due to Lakeport being a good ways north, there was also quite a bit of snow to be found both in the woods and along the beach. While poking along the beach we happened across a snow and ice-topped sand bar and decided to ride on it. This generally went well, but at one point my front wheel slipped slightly, and the place where I chose to put my foot was undercut ice, which I immediately broke through. I then tried to put my foot down on the sand below it, but being waterlogged and quicksand-ish I sank in it and toppled over into the lake, submerging most of the left half of my body and soaking my shorts, jersey, shoe, glove, and part of my bag.

The photo of me at the top of the page was taken by James just a few moments before I toppled gracefully into the water.

This was nowhear near as bad as it could have been, as I didn’t really feel cold so we just continued riding. I slowly dried off, and the rest of the ride (roughly another 1.5 hours) was great. The worst part was my left foot which had become completely waterlogged, coupled with my lack of socks due to forgetting them at home. No blisters were formed, and my foot was just starting to wrinkle by the time we were done, so everything was good.

We even found a bit of beach treasure (a Made in the USA stainless steel spoon for James and three quarters, two pennies, and one nickel all in a single pile for me) while riding along! Despite this, I think I’ll seek out a different destination for the next beach ride. This was a lot of fun, but I’d rather find a place where the beach can be ridden much further in a given direction.

The route ridden today can be seen here on Strava, and here’s some photos:

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FS1330 – Salsa Alternator Dropout Set 12×142 w/Maxle

Published January 4, 2013

In preparation for building up a new bike that I have on order I purchased QBP #FS1330, the Salsa Alternator Dropout Set 12×142 w/Maxle. This is a set of swing plates for Alternator dropouts which allows a 142mm x 12mm rear axle to be used instead of the standard 10mm quick release. While the wheel set coming with the bike won’t work with this, I hope to eventually get a through axle rear wheel so I wanted to order the plates and axle before I needed them.

I was not able to find photos of this item online before I ordered it, so now that I have the set I wanted to post some photos for others. So, here they are: FS1330 – Salsa Alternator Dropout Set 12×142 w/Maxle

Looking at this in person I can see why it’s so much more expensive than the normal replacement swing plates. Beyond the inclusion of the Rock Shox-branded Maxle these are machined instead of cast, with lots of small details. These probably aren’t produced in nearly the quantity that the normal swing plates are.

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Cold Ride with a Cold

Published January 4, 2013

This morning I woke to find myself with a cold, but Dominic convinced me to go anyway, saying that during his rides on days when he is sick the ride has made him feel better. I’m glad I did, as getting out for a full lap of River Bends (regular+seasonal+pavement+two track+newest segment) just before the sun set really felt nice. I only saw two other people during the whole ride; a couple who seems to be out there walking their dogs almost every day.

The photo above (or here, slightly larger) was taken after riding the S turn, a series of banked curves out in the Seasonal Loops that appear to have built (or formed) by some motorcycle riders in previous years. Due to the inches of powdery snow I wasn’t able to get up enough speed and actually ride the berms, but it was still fun. The trail leading off to the right is a good example of how nicely packed most of the other single track is now.

Here is another photo, this one showing powdery snow stuck to the Big Fat Larry. I love how riding in snow cleans all traces of dirt from one’s tires.

And yes, I did feel better after the ride.

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2012 Outdoor Riding Statistics

Published January 1, 2013

Shown above (full size image here) are my outdoor cycling statistics for 2012, as compiled using a Garmin Edge 500 and Ascent. Due to aliasing issues on rides that were done without a wheel sensor and a small handful of rides where I didn’t have my GPS there’s likely a small bit of under recording here, but it’s probably pretty close. By wearing a heart rate monitor while riding the tools are also able to estimate the number of calories burned.

The big, most notable stats are as follows:

Total Distance: 4217.31 miles
Total Ride Duration (Clock Running): 462:09:23
Moving Time: 363:55:11
Distance Climbed (Elevation Gain): 133,326′
Calories Burned: 289,802

More interestingly my ride duration can be seen ramping up to May, which is right was the end of getting ready to attempt Lumberjack 100 (LJ). Things settled down in June likely as I ramped down for then was disappointed by LJ, but then the next three months had far more distance likely due to the great weather and my having half of each August and September off of work. November and December dropped off dramatically, likely due to the poor / wet weather we’ve had and drastically shortening days.

My average moving speed was also highest in March, which I attribute to that being a month of mostly dirt road riding as trails weren’t in good shape for riding. September was also fairly high with some long distances, likely attributable to more riding to and from trails. My cadence was also a good 10 RPM lower than what I see on the trainer (70s to 80s outdoors vs. 80-90), which I suspect to be a combination of outdoor riding for me being much more interrupted pedaling versus the trainer’s constant spinning. Most outdoor rides lasting longer than trainer sessions and on the trainer I don’t have to worry about bike handling, so I’m probably more willing to spin quickly when indoors.

Beyond these numbers I also spent 41:53:31 on the trainer, burning an additional 31,114 calories. (I don’t do anything with distance or speed on the trainer as it’s not really like riding on outdoor surfaces.) This was all done from January through May, then in November and December.

It’ll be interesting to see how 2013 compares to these numbers. I’d really like to give LJ a go again, but I’m on the fence about it. I really enjoyed the training rides leading up to it, but it did take a bit of time and effort. Registration doesn’t open for a couple more months so I’ve got time to decide and see if I really want to give it another go.

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Melting Snow on the Mukluk

Published December 30, 2012

Danielle was in the garage where I’d put the Mukluk to thaw after today’s ride and noticed that the melting snow on the front wheel looked pretty nifty, so I took a picture of it.

This comes after an afternoon ride at River Bends where Rodney and I set fatbike tracks through most of the trail and smoothed out the trail for other riders. Jeremy met up with us there as well, but with the 4-8″ of snow on the trail he split off from us a bit earlier and we went on to ride a bit more.

Most of our riding was through deep powder, with a couple of deep, partially-frozen puddles in the newest piece of trail. Trekking through the powder and adding the water from the puddles resulted in quite a bit of heavy buildup on the rims, resulting in buildup like this: 1 · 2.

This was really worth it, as Rodney and I making two passes through each bit of trail ridden was the equivalent of 8 bikes passing over, and this left a 12″-ish wide packed path ready for future riders. There’s still a bit of single track which we didn’t ride, but I’m hoping to get out there in the next day or so to finish the job.

Here’s the complete set of photos from today:

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Repacking Cartridge Bearings

Published December 29, 2012

Not long after a recent bike wash I noticed a pedaling-related squeak when riding my Mukluk. I figured it to just be some seal noise, so after today’s wash I removed the cranks and set about investigating the snap-on seals that came with the crankset, figuring it to be one of those. Instead it turns out that the noise was coming from the non-drive side cartridge bearing, which was also feeling a bit rough.

I had two spare bearings from the last time I needed to do bearing work, so I figured I’d try and salvage these. Pulling the seals off I found that they had a bit of creamy (likely water-spoiled) grease inside, but seemed to be in otherwise good shape. I removed the grease and found them to be spinning very smoothly when clean, so I lubed them up with some ProGold EPX Cycling Grease. This is a nice, sticky grease that seems like it’d be good for bearings in harsher environments. (Disclaimer: I received a free tube of this as part of the large set of stuff donated to MMBA Metro North / CRAMBA in 2011.)

Everything went back together nicely, and now the cranks spin smoothly without any irritating squeak. I hope that this new grease will be a bit more weather resistant than whatever came in the eBay special bearings I’d purchased and these bearings will last for a while. They were nice and clean and spinning smooth once cleaned out, so I’m hoping I caught them before any damage was done.

Here is the general process I used for cleaning the bearings:

  1. Use a sharp T pin to carefully remove the seals from the bearings.
  2. Wipe out as much grease as possible with a paper towel.
  3. Soak the bearings in citrus-based degreaser. (I use ZEP, it works just as well as the bike specific stuff.)
  4. Alternate between rinsing the bearings in hot water, brushing them with a degreaser-soaked toothbrush, and swirling them around in the degreaser bath until they are clean.
  5. Once the bearings are very clean, rinse in as hot of water as possible, then shake dry.
  6. Blow dry with a blower or air compressor, if available.
  7. Submerge the bearings in 99% isopropyl alcohol and agitate to get any residual water off of the bearings and dissolved in the alcohol.
  8. Remove the bearings from the alcohol, shake them out, and set them upright to dry. Occasionally spin the bearings to help the process along. (This will only take a few minutes.)
  9. Liberally apply grease into the ball bearings and cage, then spin the bearing a few times to ensure it’s moving freely and grease is evenly distributed.
  10. Lightly grease the seals then snap them back in place with finger pressure. Spin the bearings a few more times to ensure the seals are properly seated.
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Fat vs. 29er Tires

Published December 25, 2012

When out for a ride this afternoon I grabbed this photo which fairly clearly shows fat bike tire prints vs. 29er tire prints. The top fat print is the Big Fat Larry that I mounted up a few days ago, and the lower one is the Larry pointed backward for increased traction while pedaling. Crossing this is some of my friend Jeremy’s tire tracks, a Specialized The Captain followed almost exactly by a WTB Nano Raptor.

This was taken in the parking lot of Shelby Township’s Whispering Woods Park while en route to meet Jeremy to ride at River Bends. Even though I was turning it still does a fair job of showing that a fatbike’s contact patch is twice as wide (or greater) than that of a typical 29er tire. From beach riding to snow, exploring soft floodplanes to checking out trail conditions in known-soft areas, it’s pretty nifty to see how many riding opportunities tires this wide open up. Sure, they is a big increase in rolling resistance, and most fatbikes are still very much rigid (read: pneumatic dampening with no suspension), but they sure are fun.

There’s a fair bit of snow in the forecast for the next couple of days. I’m really looking forward to some late afternoon (and hopefully evening, via the usual Wednesday Night Ride) excursions in the snow. Maybe this winter won’t be quite as sparse as the last, either. While I didn’t mind all the days of dirt road riding, Michigan is a great state for multiple outdoor activities. I’d rather enjoy having a nice winter for doing winter-y things.

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Big Fat Larry

Published December 22, 2012

This afternoon I picked up a new tire for my fatbike from Trails Edge: an ultralight version of the Surly Big Fat Larry (BFL). While this tire can have chain clearance issues on the rear of some bikes, it’s right at home up front in the Enabler Fork that comes stock on my 2012 Salsa Mukluk 2.

I’d never really cared for the Endomorph tire that came as the stock rear tire on the bike. While it was fine on sand and hard pack, on even marginally slick surfaces it’d unexpectedly jet sideways if even the slightest bit of power was applied, so I wanted to do away with it. As a possible solution to this I decided to try a BFL up front, and move the original Larry tire from the front of the bike to the rear, fitting it backwards for increased traction while pedaling. With this tire acquisition I was able to do so (photo).

One common trick on fatbikes is to put a very knobby rear tire on the bike to ensure that it doesn’t lose traction in the rear. This would be appealing for pure snow and trail riding but I frequently ride this bike on paved and hard pack surfaces, so I’m not sure this would be good for me. The super-grippy Nate would work well for this, but I can only imagine how quickly paved surfaces would wear on it, not to mention the tremendously increased rolling resistance. The Larry tread seems to be good for all around use, so I went with it.

When moving tires around to fit the BFL I was surprised to find that the original tires from the bike were both wire bead. At ~1370g the BFL isn’t a light tire, but the ultralight 120 TPI version with a folding bead ends up being a bit lighter than the narrower wire bead 120 TPI Larry’s ~1430g that had been on the front of the bike. The Endomorph which ended up getting removed from the bike is ~1420g, which makes the overall loss from the bike a whopping 50g, with 10g being transfered from the front to the rear. While it isn’t much (0.3% of the overall mass of the bike), I’m not going to complain about losing mass when going to a much larger tire.

Fitted to the Mukluk’s Rolling Darryl rims I measured the BFL at 4-3/16″ when inflated to 20 PSI just after installation. The BFLs are known to stretch quite a bit as they sit at higher pressures (in three hours it was up to 4-5/16″) so I’m not sure what the final size will be, but this is already quite a bit more than the original Larry’s 3-5/8″. It’ll be interesting to see how much it stretches overnight.

Here’s a few more photos of the bike and Big Fat Larry tire taken today:

· Surly Big Fat Larry tire, ultralight version (folding bead), as shipped from QBP.
· Surly Big Fat Larry on a Rolling Darryl rim at 20psi in a Salsa Enabler fork. There is plenty of room to spare.
· With the Big Fat Larry on the front of the Mukluk I moved the regular Larry to the rear, and reversed it hoping for greater traction in the snow.
· Current state of my Mukluk, with a Big Fat Larry front tire, reversed Larry in the rear, bash guard, trigger shifters, and lights. Weight is 35.38 pounds as shown.

Since I had the scale out I decided to weigh a few parts of the bike and see how it adds up. Here’s what I came up with:

Front Wheel w/ ultralight (folding bead) Big Fat Larry Tire: 7.62 pounds
Rear Wheel w/ wire bead 120 TPI Larry : 9.2 pounds
Tube: ~450g
Larry Tire (120 TPI, wire bead): ~1430g
Big Fat Larry Tire (120 TPI, folding bead): ~1370g
Endomorph Tire (120 TPI, wire bead): ~1420g
Complete bike as seen here with front and rear lights: 35.38 pounds

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