650B!

Converting Ruth into a rigid commuter has got me interested in singlespeeds (SS) and 29ers. Now, after glimpsing another wheel size option at the 650b, 69er and new wheel trends forum over on MTBR Forums, I think I may have found a new love -- 650B!

650B is a wheel size in between the standard 26" and the now-becoming-popular 29" (it's roughly 27.5"). It reportedly offers the nimble handling and geometry of 26-inchers with the roll-over-ability and traction of 29-inchers.
For more info on this wheel size, check out SheldonBrown.com, and BikeLugs.com.
And now, mid-sized bike company Haro has built, what I think is, the perfect off-the-shelf bike for me, the Beasley SS:

Ain't she (he?) a beaut?

Quick specs:

• Double-butted 4130 chromoly 650B specific frame with eccentric bottom bracket
• Custom full chromoly rigid fork; suspension corrected
• Truvativ Fire-X 1.1G 33T singlespeed/ Truvativ GXP
• On-One Mary bar
• Weinmann Discovery 650B rims with Pacenti Neo-Moto 2.3 650B tires
  
• Avid BB5 mechanical disc brakes

If I decide I don't like SS (or my knees can't handle it), the SS-specific frame will allow me to convert to my dream set-up: Shimano Alfine ;-D

Rigid Ruth (Going rigid part deux)

The December 1 holiday (the "delayed Bonifacio Day") gave me the chance to hop on over to the nearest LBS (Newton) and give Ruth a makeover. I posted about purchasing a rigid fork for her here. Here's how it came out.

Attack mode

The business end

Replacing the Zokes brought down my front end by about 40mm. This was fine since it felt too choppered out before. I adjusted my cockpit some more by flipping my stem (a 10-degree model) and twisting my riser bar so the tips pointed down a bit. These made the handling feel more relaxed for my wrists/hands but more aggressive (based on a quick trip to the store), like I was always in attack mode and could go faster. It felt good =)
Still, I'll have to reserve final judgment 'til I try it out on a full commute.

Stiffy

With the Zokes, I always thought I could pedal quite efficiently, without too much front end bob. Then, on the way home from the LBS, I stood up and mashed, and... Whoa boy! I rocketed forward like I had a motor out back. OK, so the Kinesis lightened up the bike a bit (by maybe a kilo?), but I never realised I was wasting so much energy to front end bob with the suspension fork. Now I understand why most advice on on-line forums say suspension isn't needed on the road. And to quote an overused cliché (isn't that redundant, two times over?), the difference was like night and day ;-)

Spaced out - Holy tire clearance, Batman!
Granted, I've only got a 1.5" there, but I can imagine a full-size (2.2" or more) knobby would fit in there quite nicely.

Normally, a "before" shot would be just that. But I decided to show it last, just for old time's sake...

I don't know what to do with the Zokes; can't get myself to sell it. I'm secretly hoping I'd find an inexpensive 4-inch travel suspension frame so I can transfer all of Ruth's MTB parts to it once I've fully converted her into my urban attack commuter ;-)

Twas the traffic before Christmas...

After not having done so for a while now, I was able to bike-commute again yesterday (yey!). But for some reason, I didn't enjoy it as much as I had expected. The ride to the office was easy enough and took only 36 minutes. The ride home was slower (about 46 minutes), partly because I'd decided to take it easy, but more so because the afternoon rush hour was worse. Then I realised I didn't enjoy the ride because of the traffic. This became more apparent on my way to work this morning while riding the FX (see previous post). The traffic was just so bad, I was glad I didn't drive to work.
It's just disappointing that the advent of the Christmas season brings along with it the frustration of heavy traffic. And that something like this has taken some of the joy away from one of my most favorite things in the world: riding my bike.

Ho-ho-ho...

Going rigid

I got to sneak out to Quiapo the other day (Saturday) and go shop for a replacement of my Marzocchi MX Comp on Ruth. I'm slowly converting Ruth from a mountain hardtail into my full-time commuter.

I'd previously consulted with a fellow mountain biker who'd converted his hardtail into a single speed (SS), changing out his fork to a rigid one in the process. He said he got his fork at King's in Quiapo, one of my favorite bike shops (got Ruth's frame and some drivetrain parts there, as well as Matt's helmet). I found the same fork he got, still for sale at King's, with a minor price increase (surprisingly, not by much, considering he got his fork over 2 years ago).
The "Kristel" (not sure about the spelling) brand rigid fork, is aluminum with a faux carbon finish and is disc-ready (has cantilever studs). I'm not so sure if it's mountain-specific though, as the axle-to-crown (A2C) is very -- and visibly -- short at 360mm (it probably is for MTBs, but for old-school, non-suspension corrected frames). That immediately took it off my list as it would steepen Ruth's head angle too drastically. My current Bomber has an a2c of 478mm. Going by the 1 degree head angle change per 20mm of a2c rule, Ruth's head angle would steepen by almost 6 degrees! That just wouldn't do.

So on I went, scouring the other shops, which, while not as upscale as King's (and whose staff aren't as friendly as Jane, its proprietor), still had the potential to have good, undiscovered merchandise. My patience paid off when, after entering every bike shop along Quezon Boulevard, I ended up in the one just beside King's, a bigger (but not really better) shop. The bike shop, called Sym, had a good selection of both road and mountain rigid forks, and I was pleased to find they had several models by major Taiwanese frame manufacturer, Kinesis (UK site here). After examining a couple of forks, including Kinesis' own X Max (they had both the faux carbon and carbon versions), I settled with the straightforward Maxlight. Strangely, the Maxlight was lighter than the carbon X Max, and much nicer looking to boot. The cool thing is, the Maxlight I got is disc-specific, i.e., it has no canti studs, making for clean, slick lines. For some strange reason, this model isn't listed in either the UK or Taiwan Kinesis websites.

Nevertheless, the Maxlight ticked all the boxes for me: light, cheap, disc-specific, reputable brand. I hope it stands the test of time when I get it mounted on Ruth, hopefully in the next couple of weeks.

Left leg with disc mount


Steerer tube gradations


Heir apparent

Dave, meet Dave

Turner bikes (by Dave Turner) have finally ditched the single pivot TNT suspension design and have opted to go with what is arguably the best suspension design to date, Dave Weagle's DW-Link.

I lusted after the Horst Link Turner 5-Spot before the advent of dw-link-equipped bikes from Iron Horse, and what is now my absolute dream machine, the Ibis Mojo SL Carbon.

Production versions of the Turner-dw-links have yet to turn up, with on-line spy shots of protos aplenty. This pic was culled from a post at MTBR Forums

The new bikes are already up on the Turner website but pricing have yet to be announced.

After Chris Cocalis of Titus Cycles went dw-link with his Pivot line of full sussers (post Scot Nicol remaking the Mojo) , it's great to see another mountain bike legend move towards the same technology. A case of great minds thinking alike? Oh absolutely.

Ibis Cycles in the Philippines

I should've posted this before the Iron Horse one...

Yesterday, a post in a local cycling forum announced the arrival of Ibis Cycles in the Philippines.

Next to the Iron Horse MKIII, the Ibis Mojo Carbon is my absolute dream bike.

You might remember that I wrote my reservations about this bike some time ago. But after reading testimonials from riders and owners (mostly on the Ibis forum at MTBR.com), I've reconsidered. The articles on carbon fiber (and other frame materials) at the Ibis website here, here, and here are also pretty convincing.

Simply put, if a genie came out of a bottle and were to grant me three wishes, two would be non-bike related, and the third would be a Guinness Foam Ibis Mojo Carbon, built to my specs [to be posted later] ;-D

Iron Horse Bikes are here!

On a whim, I decided to check out the Iron Horse website to see if they already had a Philippine distributor. And true enough, I find

Distributor: Cycle Options Trading
Email: sam_estimo@yahoo.com
Street: Unit-8 Fox Square Bldg., 53 Connecticut Street
City: Metro Manila, Philippines
Tel.: (+63)-2-744-0996

I promptly shot "Sam" an e-mail, and got a response today:

Sir,

We regret to inform you but as of now, we are out of stocks (sic) of all 2007 IRON HORSE BIKES. We will be having our 2008 models ready by December this year. I will just email you as soon as our 2008 models are available.

Would you be interested in other 5 inch frame trail bikes?

Thank you for your interest in IRON HORSE BICYCLES.

Best regards,

Sam

*****

='(

It seems the 2007 production run isn't able to keep up with the demand even in North America itself, as evidenced by some posts in the IH forum at MTBR.com. So I really shouldn't be surprised if none of the '07s ever get to our shores (...sniff...).

Marin Mt Vision Pro!

Whoa nelly! I got a chance to pass by my favorite bike shop in Quiapo on Monday, and they have some of the 2007 Marins in stock!

A couple of guys were there, picking up a Palisades Trail hardtail they had the shop do a custom build on. Hanging on the ceiling were a Quake frame (can't remember which model, but it was black) and a Mt Vision Pro frame! I was able to ask one of the sales clerks to bring it down for me, and got a chance to do a hand-heft test... not bad at all!

Here's a pic of the stock bike:


The shop owner told me she could give me a discount on the frame's USD900 sticker price. That original price by itself is not bad. Going even lower would be a screaming deal! Now if only I could afford it...

Bike commute 06 March 2007

Yep, I rode my bike to work again today ;-) [pat myself on the back... ;p ]

I almost decided not to, seeing how this morning's sky was pretty overcast, and a cool breeze was blowing. But it's almost quitting time now, and I haven't seen a hint of rain all day.

The ride in was quite uneventful, and I made better time compared to last week's.

I am still amazed by how fast the Nanoraptors roll. And the big size makes for a comfy ride, too. I may hold off getting a new pair of slicks and stay with these for a while. They're pretty awesome on-road, commuting tires!

I hope the ride home goes well...

Bike commute 27 Feb 2007

I finally got to bike to work again yesterday!

The last time I did was so long ago (months!), somebody put away my helmet and I almost didn't find it the night before.

I've been planning to bike-commute for at least a couple of weeks now. But I came down with a bad cough and couldn't risk it getting worse. I'd already prepped my bike, cleaning it, lubing the chain, and changing the tires and tubes.

About 2 weeks ago, I was awakened by a loud Bang! which distinctly sounded like a tire blowing up. I figured, in my half dozed state, that it was most likely my bike's tire, as I had aired them up the night before, hoping to bike to work the next day. True enough, when I went downstairs after breakfast to check on my bike, the rear tire was shot. Bike-commute postponed!

I discovered later that week as I was about to change the tube, that a section of the wire bead somehow broke away from the main bead. The exposed wire tore through the inner tube, creating a long gash. I thought to myself, good thing I have a lot of extra inner tubes... but after having stored them for so long, four of them already had tears/holes in them! Good thing I had a pile of them and finally found a usable one. I had to mount the only spare tires I had (2.1 Nanoraptors) . I just aired them up to 54-58 psi to roll faster on-road.

My body and the weather finally proved cooperative yesterday, so I headed out with much anticipation. I decided I'd take things easy and target a 1-hour travel time (I can do the whole trip in about 35 minutes). But traffic wasn't so bad (why couldn't it be like that when I take the car???), and for some reason, despite my lack of fitness, I was cycling along at a good clip. I also noticed that the Nanos rolled noticeably easier than the unbranded 1.5 slicks they replaced. Go figure...

I rolled down into the office basement and gave a quick nod to the guard, mentioning my company name and sped down to the lower levels. Apparently the guard was caught "off guard," so to speak, and didn't have time to question me further.

Only when I got down to the 3rd basement, when I was locking up my bike, did I find out that the first guard (or the "OIC" manning the security cams) had the 3rd basement guard question me. The security detail this time all looked unfamiliar to me (probably a new agency), so I must've looked unfamiliar to them, too. The guard who approached me asked if I had any sort of proof on my person (a letter or whatever) that allowed me to park where I was parking. I thought to myself, of course not! Why would I bring around something like that when I had already received clearance from the building admin ages ago. I even had to write a letter to them, asking permission to park my bike in the basement. Such heartless creatures!

Anyway, I told the guy I wouldn't dream of parking my bike there if I didn't get prior permission; that I'd submitted the letter a long time ago (2004?) and have been occasionally parking my bike there since.

Apart from the insulting welcome into the building, my ride to work once again proved very rejuvenating.

The ride home was just as enjoyable. Since my headlight wasn't available (no batteries), I had to leave the office earlier than usual so I could still ride with the sun up. My trip was even faster this time (I dunno why that's usually the case. Is Sampaloc generally downhill from Pasig?). But since I am out of shape, I felt the tiredness more.

With my energy sapped, I couldn't wait to go to bed that night. But the fun and exhilaration, endorphins, and muscle-burn-after-a-good-long-workout was well worth it.

Sa uulitin!

Dream Bike(s) Part II

5 or 6? Now that is the question...

I'm torn between 2 bikes that blur the line between XC efficiency and bighit plushness. They're both made by Iron Horse: one is a 3rd generation (thus the model name) machine and the other is brand-spanking new (well, based on another, freeride model).

Enough with the intros!

2007 Iron Horse MKIII Team

Quick specs:

• 5 inches (127 mm) of rear wheel travel
• approx. 6.4-lb frame
• 28.9lb (13.1kg) full bike weight
• 69deg head angle (with RS Pike)

Pros (over 6Point)

• lighter
• better angles for all-around riding
• 127mm may be all I need

2007 Iron Horse 6Point8

Quick specs:

• 6 inches (161 mm) of rear wheel travel
• approx. 7.3-lb frame (8.3lbs for a medium frame according to some sources)
• 34.3lb (15.6kg) full bike weight
• 68deg head angle

Pros (over MKIII):

• 161mm travel ("no replacement for displacement")
• burlier for more aggressive riding
• just plain bad-*ss

Both are available as framesets only, so the stock specs are moot. That said, each of the top-of-the-line models above have very impressive specs. My main beef with the 6Point is the 83mm BB and 150mm rear axle spacing. (And what's with the FSA Gravity Lite crankset???). Both have the same wheelset - DT Swiss EX1750 - sweeeet!

Like I said above, even though the 6Point is just plain SICK, having that much travel and having it for all-around use (e.g., double-duty as my road commuter) would be JUST PLAIN SILLY.

But hey, if ever I could afford a 6Point (or even the MKIII), I'd build myself up a fully-decked out, internal-geared commuter. Or maybe just get a Cannondale Vintage 8 Ultra ;-)

Dream Bike(s) Part I

Considering my passion (more like obsession) for mountain bikes, I can't believe my last post about them has been more than a year and a half ago!

I posted previously about the Santa Cruz Nomad as THE bike for me. Well, much has transpired between then and now, and I have to say there's a new full susser that has caught my fancy.

After reading through numerous posts on the pros and cons of Santa Cruz's Virtual Pivot Point (VPP) at MTBR.com, I've finally discovered something, I believe, is more special.

Enter the dw-link, named after its inventor Dave Weagle. For the lowdown, click on the link.

Suffice to say, it was the testimonies on MTBR.com that convinced me of dw-link's superiority over other suspension systems. I'd love to get a chance to test ride a dw-link bike, but alas, none of the bikes that feature it have local dealers. It goes without saying that Dave himself is a pretty cool guy. What I admire most about him are his down-to-earth nature, modesty and overall passion for his work. Click here for one of his more well-known (at least on the web) interviews. It outlines his background and how he started in the bike industry. You'll understand my assessment of him by the way he answers the interviewers questions.

So much for the intro, lets get to the bikes...
Only a couple of bike companies currently license the dw-link technology: Iron Horse and Ibis. Another bike maker, Independent Fabrication, licensed dw-link for their Tungsten Electrode. But they either discontinued it or it never made it to production.

Ibis decided to utilize the dw-link for their flagship "comeback" mountain bike, even naming the bike after one of their legendary models, the Mojo. The new Mojo Carbon has got big shoes to fill...I lusted after this bike for a while, but finally decided I'd wait for carbon fibre tech to develop some more. Although reviews of the first owners show the Mojo Carbon has a lot going for it. Check out the MTBR.com reviews page and the Ibis forum. Look specifically for derby's posts. He's very passionate about his Mojo. (On a side note, derby is one of my favorite posters on MTBR.com).

Next post: by current fave bike(s) ;-)

The Strida

After my post on the A-bike yesterday, I discovered this gem of a folder - the Strida (click the pic on the left for animated folding demo).

I found a video on YouTube, which I can't seem to post here (I keep getting a "Video post failed" message), which compared the Strida with the A-bike. From that vid (an episode of Brit show The Gadget Show -- I wish they'd show it locally!), the Strida proved to be easier to fold, and more importantly, rides better. The more comfortable ride is due primarily to the bigger wheels (41 cm on the Strida versus 15 cm on the A-bike). The Strida is heavier and bigger, but it can accommodate accessories (the performance kit includes front and rear fenders and a folding rack, among others). And that Kevlar belt drivetrain is trés cool.

An overview of the Strida (pronounced "stry-dah") specs:
- single speed
- 7000 series aluminum frame
- weight: 10kg
- greaseless Kevlar belt drive
- injection molded 41-cm wheels
- fits people 5'4" to 6'4"

Click this link for the YouTube vid.

A-Bike video

The A-bike

I just discovered a really cool bike today. It's called, quite simply, the A-bike (can you tell why?)


Here's a photo (click for animated slide show)It's a folding bike invented by a man named Sir Clive Sinclair. He's been credited for inventing the world's first slim-line pocket calculator.

Here's a quick rundown of the specs
- weight: approx. 5.7 kg
- folded size: 67 x 30 x 16 cm
- folds in seconds
- heat-treated aluminum and glass fibre frame
- 15-cm pneumatic tires
- can fit people from 4'9" to 6'3"

It's intended to be used for short distances only (3 km or so); primarily for going from your house to the train/bus station, and from the station to your final destination. It can be folded and carried like an umbrella, or stuffed into the included rucksack

Some guy has started a blog, documenting his experience with the A-bike.

Pretty cool huh?

Santa Cruz Nomad

This bike is absolutely frickin' cool!

I was obsessing about it's younger sibling, the Blur LT, which until today was among my top 3 dream bikes

But now that the I've seen more pics of the Nomad, I think I'm switching ;p

Aint she a beauty? Just look at those curves! And the anodized slate finish is just sahweeeet!

I want one!!! ;D