Initial Hammerhead One review

Warning! This review is long. You've been warned.

I finally received my Hammerhead One a week or two ago. This thing's been a long time in the making, starting as a kickstarter (or one of those crowdfunding sites, I'm too lazy to go back and look it up) that I was really excited about. If you're not familiar with a Hammerhead One, it's a bicycle navigation device - here's the manufacturer's own video:

Hammerhead One demo video

It's a really, really cool concept, so I was more than happy to back them.

The process took a while. I knew this from the start, but it certainly seemed to go on quite some time. They were good with updates to the process, but I quickly learned that "we think we'll be shipping it by {insert some point in the near future}" statements were not terribly likely. Eventually, I decided "okay, it'll happen at some point, and it'll be a pleasant surprise when it does". Finally, about a month ago I received an update message that said they'd be shipping out soon. It showed up on my porch one day, and I was pretty stoked!

Initial thoughts

• It's a clean design
  The final shipped design is awfully close to the initial designs, and is really clean. Non-cycling friends can (and have) made jokes about the new sex toy, but aside from that it's a pretty cool looking gadget.
  
  
• No documentation at all in the box?
  The box looks pretty good, but one thing I noticed right away is there's no documentation either in the box or on it. If you're going to ship a device with no form of instructions included, you'd better make damn sure it's super intuitive to use and has no gotchas. Turns out, this isn't the case.
  
  There was, however, a nice thank-you card which lists the names of all the initial supporters. Yep, I'm on there, along with two friends that I know supported it. Cool.
  
  The only instructions that I received with the unit came in the shipping email:
  
  "Once you have unboxed your Hammerhead we suggest you connect it to the app and update the Firmware immediately: This video will show you how to update the firmware, and here is an initial turn instruction guide."
  
  As this was the shipping email, I initially missed it, and as we'll see, that turns out to be not quite enough.
  
  
• Reusing the Garmin mount is a clever approach
  The mount on the Hammerhead uses a standard Garmin bike computer half-turn mount. It's simple, it works, and opens up the ability to use a bunch of other mounts.
  
  
• Sparse documentation online
  After some initial setup issues, I hit the "Help" link in the app which leads to their online FAQ. They've bolstered it quite a bit since I got mine, but at the time, it was really sparse. The only other thing I managed to find were the videos which we've already discussed.
  
  
• Setup video says iOS, no separate video for Android
  Although the app looks almost exactly the same between the two platforms, the setup video that they linked to in the shipping email clearly says "iOS" in the title. So I look for the Android version, and I don't find it. Good thing I know Android and iOS well enough to be able to translate what they're trying to do in the video. It's not hugely different (beyond it actually working in iOS - but more on that in the next section) but it's still different.
  
  
• No GPX import?
  Playing around with the app, it looks like a fairly basic navigation app. I find I get the best results planning rides using a computer and web-based tools instead of an app on the phone - and then being able to import that route into an app on the phone when it comes time to follow it. This doesn't appear to be an option, and it doesn't even look like I can use another tool and then import that path. I understand that this could lead to issues - if I give it a route that's not on its map, how will it know where to turn, and if I go off-route, how will it figure out how to re-route me? It's probably not a trivial solution, but I sure hope that they figure it out.
  
  

Android problems

I have two phones - my own Android (first gen Moto X) and an iPhone 6 from work. This turns out to be a good thing, because about two weeks into having my Hammerhead, I've still yet to get it working with the Android phone. I've discovered a bunch of fun things, and have been seriously frustrated up to this point, but so far their customer support has been pretty good. Here's a rundown of the problems I've discovered and not yet surmounted:

• You don't pair it with your phone like a normal Bluetooth device.
  If there were instructions, I might have known that before I started using it. Having missed the one paragraph of instructions in the shipping email, I figured "Okay, it's bluetooth. Let's get it paired up and see what this thing can do." So, I went to the phone's Bluetooth setup menu, just like I've done for all the other Bluetooth things that I have, and tried to set it up. This failed with an "invalid PIN" error. I checked the instructions I received for what to do in that situation and oh wait - I didn't get any. Hah.
  
  Turns out you have to do the pairing in the app. Why? Fucked if I know. I've got theories.
  
  
• If you manage to lock it up, the only way to reset it is leave it alone and let the battery run out.
  In the process of trying to figure out how to get it to talk to the phone (remembering that I missed the one paragraph of instructions with links to videos for a mobile OS that I was not using) I managed to lock it up. The device has one button which is ringed by light when it's on, and at some point this went solid greenish-blue and the device stopped responding at all. The phone wasn't able to see it anymore - it was locked up. With no troubleshooting instructions and nothing of use I could find on the FAQ (which was much less populated than it is now and had almost nothing about connectivity issues) I was left to my own troubleshooting steps. I'm a computer guy, I've got decent troubleshooting skills. The first thing I tried was to press and hold the button, as many electronic devices honor that as a "turn off regardless" indicator. Holding the button down for well over a minute made me think that wasn't the case. Tapping the button did nothing. There are screws on the back of the unit and I considered opening it up - they're just T-6 Torx, which I have - but at this point the thing is brand new and I decided I didn't really want to do that.
  
  Ultimately, I left it alone and let the battery die off. Once that happened, I could start trying to use it again, until I locked it up again and had to let it die all over again. Speaking with support, I was told that I could reset the unit by "Plug in the USB cable and hold the main button for 6 seconds. Then remove the USB cable and hold the main button for 3 seconds." This procedure kinda sucks since I need to have a USB cable on hand and leaves a bunch of questions unanswered:
• Do I keep holding the button when I unplug the USB or do I let it go?
• Does the USB cable have to be plugged into the wall, or would a cable by itself do the trick?
• Most importantly, why didn't it work with any variation of the procedure that I could think of?
  
  
• Removing the charging port cover isn't intuitive or documented
  The charging port cover is easy to find, at the bottom of the unit on the back. Getting it off is another matter. It looks like it should just slide off away from the bottom of the unit, but trying to do that by hand without forcing it wasn't resulting in anything. There's a tab on the back of the device that looked like maybe it needed to be depressed in order to let the cover slide off, and I tried that. Turns out that's exactly what you don't want to do as it keeps the cover in place and pressing on it increases the lock, not decreases it. I see the FAQ entry has been updated to state this now - but that wasn't there the other day when I tried it. Also, the FAQ entry had one single photo with an arrow on it pointing to the charging port. The problem here is that the photo looks like a quick shot with a cell phone camera in crappy lighting so the arrow points to an area on the phone you could have found on your own (I did) and the relevant point on the unit is a featureless blob of black, so you really don't get any information from the photo which isn't already obvious. See what I mean?

  

  Crappy white balance and exposure make this photo useless.

  
  
  With a T-shirt providing a dark background so it doesn't throw off the auto exposure and sunlight from the window by my desk, I managed to get this photo:

  

  Less than a minute of work and a much more useful photo.

  I didn't include the cover because I took that off and just left it off.
  
  I eventually managed to get the cover off by sticking the point of a screwdriver in the space around the tab that holds it in place and pushing it away in the direction I guessed was right.
  
  
• The charging light is hard to see
  When I first let it die off because it was locked up, and then plugged it in, no lights came on. Considering the thing is covered with LEDs, I was kinda surprised about that. No form of indication if it's charging or done? Fail.
  
  Well, turns out I was wrong. There's a small green LED on the side of the unit which shows when it's plugged in. I had initially missed it. Let's see why:

  

  The charging light is on. Can you see it?

  

  See it now? The viewing angle is quite shallow.

  I also don't think the light changes based on the charge level. It's just an indication that it's plugged in. So, is it fully charged? Well, the app can tell you that, but a simple flashing during charge, solid when fully charged would remove the need for the app.
  
  
• The firmware process isn't well documented or intuitive
  The only instructions for upgrading the firmware are on the iOS video. It just shows the procedure happening once and leaves out pretty important details. I managed to assemble the proper procedure from the video, the light sequence demo video, and other information I managed to find online.
  
  
• Lack of information on firmware versions
  Since the only place you can update the firmware is through the phone app, you never have to manually download it, and that's nice. However, there's no way to see what the current released version of firmware might be - or changelogs, or anything like that. As a computer guy, I'm used to things like this. For the general user, not a huge problem, but since they recently uploaded a video mentioning firmware 1.5, and I'm at 1.3.x, I have to assume that it hasn't been released because "Update firmware" is greyed out in the app. Or maybe something's broken. I can't tell.
  
  
• The Android app won't actually talk to my phone
  After finally managing to update the firmware on my device, I tried to use it with my Android phone. I can create route instructions, but when I try to ride it, I get the following error:

  

  "wait for some time." ?? Dafug?

  Despite "waiting for some time" - it never sees my Hammerhead.
  
  
• The Android app crashes repeatedly
  Related to the above point, when I click "Skip" on the "Connecting to Hammerhead" prompt above, the app closes and I get this:

  

  Yay, crashed!

  
  
  
• All of this works on my iPhone
  I guess we know where they spent all their development effort and QA testing.

Test drive on my commute to work

So yes, I know that my first test with this thing should be on a bike, not driving in a car, but time constraints combined with curiosity/impatience led my first test to be my driving commute to work. It's actually not awful because I know the roads between home and work pretty well so should be able to follow pretty close to the route the app suggests, and it'd be interesting to see how it handles things. The key, however, with anything that gives you directions is you should get familiar with it on roads and paths that you _know_ so you learn its quirks - you don't want to find these out blindly following it where you have no idea where you _should_ be going.

For this test,  I had the hammerhead propped up in front of my speedometer so I could see the lights out of my peripheral vision, and the iPhone was in my phone holder so I could see the route it had planned out for me.

• It really prefers bike paths to streets
  This isn't too surprising, since it's designed first and foremost for giving directions to road bikers. Still, the roads around my house are quite nice and cyclist friendly. Here's the way it suggested I start my ride:

  

  It's pretty, but a circuitous 2.8 miles.

  
  

  

  Perfectly valid route that's a full mile shorter.

  While the route it suggested is pretty and almost completely avoids any roads, the way I usually go is perfectly fine for cyclists and takes 1 mile off the ride before I've even gotten to Route 202.
  
  
• It prefers a shared-use path to a marked bike lane.
  Similar to above, Route 202 has a shared-use path that runs along side the road, separated by a fence. It's a nice way to go - but 202 also has marked bike paths on the road. If you chose to do that (admittedly, few cyclists do, but I have) it will confuse the app, frequently telling you to turn around and head back when the shared use path goes away from the road too far.

  

  Route 202 has bike lanes and a separate shared-use path. gmaps

  
  If you don't already know where you're going, the indication for a U-turn while you're heading the right way on a marked bike lane could be confusing as hell.
  
  If you do already know where you're going, then you don't really need a blinky thing on your handlebars telling you where to go, do you?
  
  
• The routing was pretty good for a cyclist in the area
  Ignoring wanting to use bike paths over roads and insisting on a U-turn when you don't follow it exactly, the routing was pretty good. There are some tricky areas for bikes on my commute, and it managed to avoid those pretty effectively.
  
  
• It tried to direct me over a bridge that has been closed for a month or two
  I use the Waze app for driving. It's a community-supported app that allows you to report problems on the road, including road closures. One of the routes I take to work has a bridge which is currently closed for repairs. I was able to tag the bridge as unavailable in the Waze app so that other folks knew to not go that way.
  
  Unfortunately, Hammerhead's map doesn't know this, and tried to direct me over the same bridge. When I took my usual detour around the closed bridge, the Hammerhead was diligently instructing me to make a U-turn for well over a half mile before it finally figured out the way I was actually going.
  
  
• The amount of pre-turn warning that you get seems to be based on distance from the turn
  Okay, this is kinda a bullshit observation since I was in a car, going far faster than the app was designed for, but the turn notifications I was getting happened *very* close to the turn. At bike speed, that'd be just fine, but adjusting the amount of warning based on the speed doesn't seem like it'd be terribly difficult. More of an observation than a real issue.
  
  
• Several indicated turns that weren't actual turns.
  Driving down a section of road where I had well over a mile to the next turn, it kept indicating left turns. Sometimes those turns seemed to be nothing more than a bend in the road. Sometimes it indicated a left turn on a straight stretch of road where there was nothing beyond a driveway on the left. If I didn't know where I was going and didn't have the map up, that would have been confusing as HELL. Problem is, not knowing where I'm going and not having a map up is exactly the targeted use case for this device.
  
  I should note that these were indicated left turns - not the slight turns shown in the video. I did see one slight right on my route, which was accurate.
  
  

Conclusion - so far

I still think the Hammerhead is a great idea and a slick design. It shows real promise. However, I can't help but wonder what the hell they did with 20 months of development time. I can't imagine they offered these to too many folks for beta testing... or is that us, the initial backers? I can't imagine how they managed to go 20 months of development without writing any type of useful doc, or taking more than a single crappy cell phone camera when a simple lightbox setup with a good SLR would have been so much more effective. It's just been a really frustrating first experience with the device.

Given some time, I think that it still shows huge promise, and I'm not giving up on it yet, but I certainly don't think it's ready for the big time, and I sure won't be using it alone to figure out how to get somewhere. It needs a bunch of work before I'll be ready to trust it that far.

Lance's Fisting Technique

Even with ice in his beard, his fingers are warm.

It's getting into the cold season, but that doesn't mean you should stop riding.   With the right equipment, you can continue riding all the way through the winter, and don't have to subject yourself to the horrors of indoor stationary riding.

That said, even with the proper equipment, many folks have trouble with cold hands and feet, myself included, even with thick, heavy gloves.  Thick gloves can make controlling the bike more difficult, and if even thick gloves aren't keeping your fingers warm, then the call of the indoor trainer may be getting stronger.  However, one of my riding buddies (Lance) has shared a trick with me that allows me to ride through the winter with nothing more than ordinary full-finger gloves!

 

Here's how it works:

1. Start your cold ride.  You may be warm from the house (or car) but you were resting, so you're not "warmed up".  Ride for a little while until you start to warm up, you should be breathing hard.  This usually coincides with your fingers starting to get cold.  
2. At this point, stop riding, and pull your fingers back into your glove, making a fist inside the glove.  The heat from your palm will warm your fingers.  (On the road or a non-challenging MTB trail, you may also be able to do this while still riding, but if you try it and hurt yourself, I will point and laugh.)  
3. This shouldn't take long, just long enough to get your fingers to stop being really cold.  Don't stop long enough that you cool down, either.  It's just a quick stop, if you're stopped for more than a minute you're probably doing it wrong. 
4. Once your fingers are warm-ish, you can put them back in the glove like normal, and resume riding.  
5.  Your fingers should stay warm for the rest of the ride!

Since your core temp is up and you're properly warmed up, the blood is flowing, and it's carrying heat from the exercise.  Since your fingers aren't brutal cold anymore, the blood is able to get to them, and keep them warm.  I've been doing this for a couple years now, and have been able to ride through sub-freezing temps using the same full-finger gloves that I rode in the summer.  Last year I was halfway through the winter when I realized that the 661 gloves I was using had an open mesh on the side of the fingers.  Even with the open mesh (I could see the skin of my fingers!) my fingers never got cold past that initial warm-up period.

Give it a try!

Now for toes, this trick doesn't work as well -- you can't make a fist with your feet!  I'm still working on this one, but for me, the trick seems to be having shoes that are big enough to have thicker socks and still leave room for your feet.  That seems to be the key - if your feet are too snug in the shoes, you won't get circulation, and you'll have the same problem as your fingers above. If your shoes are not quite big enough, you can cheat it out a little bit by loosening the straps, especially the ones towards the front of the foot.  I've found that helps a bit.  Wind can still be an issue, and I've heard that clipless pedals can actually act as a heat sink - a larger aluminum clipless pedal can draw heat out of your foot.  I dunno how legit that claim is since there is a plastic sole, and usually, a plastic cleat between your foot and the pedal, but I do run thicker insoles in the winter.  The big thing is don't restrict your feet, and I often try to wiggle my toes to make sure they're still getting circulation.

Full list of the Strava segments in Nockamixon

Most of the Strava segments in Nockamixon are my work.  After seeing the awful mess that is segments in Wissahickon, I decided to create what I thought were the key segments for Nockamixon and hopefully that would prevent everyone and their mom creating new, conflicting segments.  The only problem is sometimes I have trouble keeping track of all of them!  Plus, there are a couple good segments that were created by other folks.  Just creating this post so that I have a list of all the Nox segments, and can refer to it if I need.

Full Lap Segments:

Nox Full Loop (S/F at Tower Rd trail split) (http://app.strava.com/segments/2214794)

Originally, someone else created "Full Nox Loop" and it was good, except Strava's segment matching is kinda crappy, and if you left out the Hammer trail, you'd get a match, which is why Bob Eichlin isn't the KOM.  Someone else created Nox short loop CCW which cuts off the Hammer trail, but this doesn't fix the Strava matching problem, and so still matches both types of laps.  Someone else created Nox Full loop S/F at lot entrance tower rd sign, but that one starts at the trailhead of the lot.  I'm not a fan of that, since there is a bunch of two-way traffic on this part, and as such I prefer to roll in on that bit of trail easy, and then get going once I hit the trail split about 1/4 mile from the parking lot.  One thing that would be nice to add is a segment that matches if folks start at the 563 entrance, but since I don't do that, I probably won't bother.

North segments:

The north section of the park includes the Cold Spot and Hammer trails.

Cold Spot CCW (http://app.strava.com/segments/1079674)
Cold Spot CW (http://app.strava.com/segments/1172770)

Hammer CCW (http://app.strava.com/segments/1079793)
Hammer CW (http://app.strava.com/segments/1292643)

Cold Spot and Hammer CCW (http://app.strava.com/segments/1172780)
needed - Cold Spot and Hammer CW ( )

Central segments:

Since these two loops (Haycock Run and EWR) are rarely ridden as loops, I split them into upper and lower segments to improve matches.

Haycock Run uphill (http://app.strava.com/segments/1267108)
Haycock Run downhill (http://app.strava.com/segments/2200638)
Haycock Lower SB (http://app.strava.com/segments/2118401)
Haycock Lower NB (http://app.strava.com/segments/2119306)

EWR lower (connector) NB (http://app.strava.com/segments/1079884)
EWR lower (connector) SB (http://app.strava.com/segments/1079866)
EWR upper NB (http://app.strava.com/segments/1204480)
EWR upper SB (http://app.strava.com/segments/1247461)

South segments:

Since this is a loop that starts and finishes in close to the same area, it matches in either direction, so there's no point for CW and CCW segments.


Jaywalk and South Park: (http://app.strava.com/segments/1181277)

These two are little mini-segments starting from South Park Rd and climbing away in each direction.
South Park Rd climb (http://app.strava.com/segments/1254148)
S Park to Dam (http://app.strava.com/segments/1886087)

Strava guide to a full lap of the MTB trails at Lake Nockamixon.

A proper full lap of Nockamixon involves going all the way around in a clockwise direction, making right turns most everywhere there is an option. No crossover or duplicated riding.  (one exception, noted below)

The trail map at ridenox.com helps greatly in following these lap directions.

Start off from the Tower Rd parking lot, do the Cold Spot and Hammer loops by staying to the right at the first split. Early on, you'll come to a four-way intersection with another trail -- keep going straight, that other trail is just access to the lake for the fishermen/fisherwomen.  Soon after that, the trail comes to something like a "T", where you need to make a right turn.  Making the left skips the 1.4 mile Hammer trail -- see the Caveats below.

Coming across the stream at the end of the north trails, take the right and do the short section of trail that does not have a Strava segment.  (I informally call this one the "DMZ", although it's technically the lower part of the Haycock Run loop.)  This puts you onto the connector trail southbound, which dumps you out onto the "Sidewalk" stream crossing with the big flat rocks.

That leads to the South loop, officially two loops, Jaywalk and South Park. This is the biggest segment.

At the end of the south loop, you re-cross the stream at the "Sidewalk" crossing.  This is the only place that you ride the same trail in both directions, but only to the entrance of the Eastern Woods trail northbound. Eastern Woods takes you to Haycock Run uphill which leads you back to the stream crossing. (watch for the right turn after the stone buildup over the big log)  Cross that, ride to the split before the parking lot, and you've just done a full loop of Nox!  You are now free to revel in your awesomeness.

Have fun, ride fast, but ride safe.  Sightlines at Nox can be very short, and if you run someone over because you're chasing segments, or don't help someone who needs it for the same reason, you're a twatwaffle and should stop riding.

Caveats:

• You have to make sure to stay to the right when you get to the Hammer - otherwise, your lap is bogus and if you get the KOM, you're totally lame. (unless you're just out having fun and happen to accidentally match the full loop segment because Strava's segment matching is pretty crappy, in which case, bummer.)  If you get a bogus KOM because of shortcutting, don't be surprised if Bob Eichlin comes out and scorches the earth trying to beat you. 
• The "Bump Track" on the South Park loop is not a favorite of some, and some shortcut it. Technically you should do it if you want an honest "full lap" but I don't find it particularly interesting, and most GPS units aren't good enough to reliably report if you actually did or not sooooo...
• I've done crossovers to change things up every now and then, such as riding the Hammer trail in the CW direction, then continuing on when you get back to the Cold Spot.  It'll still match, and if anything, it'll make your full lap time slightly slower.  The key is to hit all the trails.
• Going in this direction, you will very likely miss the "Gnome Home" on the South Park loop, unless you know where to look.  It's just after a fairly large log over which is built up on either side with dirt.

Keep your shirt on...

Tonight we went to Nockamixon.  We had talked about going to Wiss, but Grace's concern about my ongoing issues with my left achilles' tendon had her decide Nox was better.  Sure... the place that I know so well that I almost always wind up hammering... the same place that I re-annoyed it on Monday.  Well, we figured we'd start out easy and figure how we felt.

Well, anyhow, we get there and are putting our bikes together and I hear a familiar voice.  I look over and see the EWR jersey and knew his majesty, the King of Nockamixon, Sir Bob of Eichlin, was just about ready to start a ride.  Grace sees him there and simply mutters "oh shit."

Ya see, Bob is fast.  Take a look at any of the Strava segments in Nockamixon, and you'll see Bob's name right up at the top, usually with a pervertedly large buffer over second place.  Bob's also a really cool guy and fun to ride with, when you can keep up.  So, our "let's start out easy and see how we feel" plan suddenly got scrapped for "let's hammer like crazy".  So, we meet Bob's buddy Jason, and the four of us head out.

Almost immediately I'm reminded of my lack of bike handling skills.  Don't get me wrong, I can do okay, but I immediately find myself in a cycle of braking for a corner that they didn't, then having to accelerate to catch up.  They're just zipping along and I'm already spending more than I should in the first mile or two of a ride.  I manage to settle in and catch back up to them, but am starting to realize that they are on a fast pace, and if I stick with it, my achilles will not be happy, so I make the decision to "do the smart thing" (aka preserve my sense of dignity with an excuse) and let them go.  I'm screwed when the tendon is all better, though.

With the evil rabbits out of sight, we settle into a good, enthusiastic pace.  I meter my efforts, keeping the stress off my heel, and manage to move up to third on two segments.  As usual, looking at it after the fact, I'm absolutely convinced that I can do better.  We did the south loop in both directions, with Grace in the lead.  I am firmly convinced that I ride better when chasing her through the twisty sections.  Hell, it was chasing her in Mercer all those years ago where I learned to do the tighter corners out of necessity.  Most importantly, I made it past the "stripper tree" twice and manage to avoid having my jersey torn from my back.  The 2009 EWR jersey lives to see another day.

We finish up with a reverse of the Cold Spot/Hammer loops, and I come to the conclusion that I much prefer the Hammer loop ridden that way.  It just seems to flow so much nicer.  I think it's the first time I've ridden it "backwards" since before it was actually open and we followed Kenny around it.

Running out of light -- and temperature -- we get back to the parking lot just after Bob and Jason, talk to them for a while, then head home for steaks and beer.  All in all, not a bad way to end the week. 

Chasing the Nox full lap KOM

Last night I went out with the specific goal of giving my best go at Bob's ownership of the full Nox loop.

I had no expectations of coming in sub 50, much less challenging his time of 49 minutes dead -- but I figured I could put in something in the low 50s.

I started off with a lap of the Cold Spot loop backwards, to warm up and to check out the downed tree that Bob had warned me about.  Returned to the parking lot, talked to some guys, then headed out for my loop.  The downed tree wasn't too bad, had to get off the bike, hop the tree, and get back on, but I don't think I lost too much time.  On the northern Hammer loop, my phone starts going off.  There was an upgrade happening at work, and the notifications of stuff being unavailable started rolling in.  No big deal except I have my phone set up to keep notifying me until I actually look at the stuff.  Super.  So, I had to pull off my full-fingered glove, dig out the phone, unlock it, view the messages, lock the phone, and stick it back in my jersey.  This happened probably four or five times on the Hammer loop, all while I'm trying to maintain a race pace.  Looking at the results, it did affect my time -- my best there is 7:15, and this lap went down in 7:42.

I kept a steady pace on the connector trail, then got to the south loop.  Was going pretty well until I cut it a little too close to a tree, caught my jersey on the remnants of a branch, and had it quite literally ripped off my back.

 

Click the photo for more pics of my wrecked jersey.

This wouldn't have been much of a problem (except for it being my favorite jersey and favorite base layer) except two of my rear pockets ceased to exist, causing my phone, keys, and multi-tool to fly all over the place.  Had to stop, pick the chunk of jersey off the tree (now hanging in my cubicle) and pick up my stuff.  Then, I had to figure out where to put all this stuff, since I now had significantly less room to put it.  So, I tried what seemed like the best idea... tucked the stuff into the legs of my knickers.  I spent a bit more time looking for my second set of keys, but couldn't remember if I left them behind at the car or not, so I gave up the search for them so I could keep riding.  (more on those keys later)

Well, the legs of my knickers wasn't such a good spot.  As I pedalled, the stuff would migrate down, eventually heading for the spot behind my knee.  I managed to get the phone stuffed into my last remaining pocket once I realized it was still usable, but fought the multi-tool and keys for the remainder of the south loop, all while trying to maintain a "race pace".

Got to the end of the south loop, and had to take a moment to relocate my keys and multi-tool to my already overstuffed seat bag (yes, the one that looks like a racoon) because I wanted a good run on the Eastern Woods northbound trail.  See, a couple days ago I made a run at that trail with two phones recording.  (I've had some issues with great rides getting "lost" due to the GPS getting mental, so now run a backup) At the end of the day, one recorded a time of 5:32, and the other recorded a time of 5:56.  So I was either well faster than Bob on that segment, or two seconds behind.  That's a pretty big gap, so I had to go back and do it again.  I figured if I could do at least a 5:4x time, then my 5:32 was legit. (that phone typically is far more accurate, too)  So, I wanted to have a good run on there.

Well, it was a little wet, but most of the trails were solid.  A handful of spots which were a little slick, but nothing too bad.  My time was slower, but not massively slower, so when I came in with a 6:04 time, I realized my 5:32 was bullshit. Too bad, but beating Bob by 20 seconds anywhere smelled far too much like bullshit, no matter how much I wanted to believe it.  On the upside, his 5:54 is only 2 seconds faster than I've gone, so I can get that.  Will it happen before he's in the 5:40s?  we'll see.

I finished up with the Haycock Run uphill, on which, only an hour or two before -- Bob set the new KOM... and came in only a little bit behind at 2:15 to his 2:09.  Weird that I run that section faster uphill than down.  I think a sub 2 is possible.

So, I was a little disappointed with a 57 minute time, but at least I came in sub 1 hour, and considering my two stops and having to check my phone, it's not too bad.  I figure it would have been a solid 54 minute run, maaaaybe 53 minutes.  Dry trails and luck, I might be able to drop it to 52 minutes.  So Bob's time is pretty much unchallenged, thanks in no small part to his phenomenal bike handling.  The one time I rode with him, I went from right on his wheel to 50-60 feet back in the span of a couple tight downhill S-turns.  That shit just adds up.

All in all, though, it was a fantastic ride.  It's not often I just focus on going hard for an entire MTB ride like that, and the challenge is so much fun.  Thanks to Bob for giving me something to shoot for!  I will get to a 49 minute lap, but I'm pretty sure Bob will be sub 45 by that point. :D

Oh, and I mentioned the second set of keys.  Got back to the car, gave a good search, and discovered that set of keys was not in the car.  So, that meant I did have them, and they were still laying trailside by that tree.  So, I loaded up the bike, and headed for South Park Rd, where you can park on the side of the road and access the trails.  As you can see here, the trail gets really close to South Park Rd, climbs up for a while, then drops back down, getting very close to the trail you just rode.  I took advantage of this, rode cross-country between the two chunks of trail, and got back to the scene of the crime.  Using the light on my phone (it's past sundown and I'm losing light fast) I managed to find my keys about six feet down the trail from the tree.

Ah, the pure, simple joy of singlespeeding.

A while back, while riding in Pennypack park, the gears on my Superlight were acting up. I wound up having to stay in one gear, and did the rest of the ride as a singlespeed. Despite having tried -- and intensely disliked -- singlespeeding in the past, I found myself enjoying it and for the first time, starting to "get" the appeal. I decided to ressurect my Karate Monkey as a singlespeed.

A little while later, I had it back together, and took it out for its inaugural ride, again in Pennypack. (it's one of the best parks in the area for singlespeeding) On that first ride, the bike worked well, but I lost my front brake -- apparently the Marta needed bleeding -- bad. Initially I had some front brake if I pumped the lever, but that went away and I was left with nothing. Managed to finish the ride with only the rear.

So, I pulled off the Martas, and set up my Avid mechanical brakes. No bleeding to be done there, plus they're good brakes. Set them up, and while I was at it, converted the Panaracer Rampages to tubeless using some spare Stan's strips I had on hand. On the next ride, the brakes were great, but I burped the rear tire and lost all the pressure. (turns out the 26er Stan's strips are just a little too narrow for the Salsa Delgado Cross rims) Thankfully Amy had some CO2 so I was able to re-seat the bead and finish the ride.

Bought some proper Stan's 29er strips, which are just that little bit wider, and fixed my rear wheel. Yesterday, I got out to try that, and had no problems with the brakes or tires. But, it was cold - wicked cold - in the single digits. A little ways into the ride, the freehub started to slip, eventually giving out altogether. The grease in the freehub had frozen up, keeping the pawls from moving freely, and they were either damaged, or just plain froze in place. Thankfully there was a paved path so I could head straight back to the car, but without the ability to pedal on my own, I had to rely on getting a tow from Lance and Aaron.

I've been enjoying singlespeeding, and been having good rides, but yeesh! I thought singlespeeds were supposed to be simple, and maintenance free! :D

I wanna ride.

After the past two mountain bike rides being so much fun, I really want to get back on the bike, and ride! However, right now I'm really only able to get out on Fridays, so I'm left for the rest of the week doing nothing but wishing I was riding.

I think it might be time to get the rollers out. I'm not a fan of riding them, but with less and less opportunities to ride, I have to do something to keep strong so the Friday rides are still fun.

I just don't understand.

Went riding with Grace, Amy, and Ed today, and rode Pennypack -- my first time, finally!

Had shifting issues in Wissahickon last week, spent some time on the bike yesterday but apparently not enough -- had shifting issues again today. So, I wound up singlespeeding on the santa cruz- I found one gear in which I could leave it where it wouldn't skip shift on me, or anything.

Well, I spent most of the ride doing the singlespeed thing, and really wondering just WHY some folks do this on PURPOSE. It's not enough gear on the downhills, it's too much gear on the uphills, it's just too much work and so forth and so on.

However, what I REALLY didn't understand was how, after going through a tough ride like that (and having to work so much harder for the same ride than I would have if my gears were working) I came to the conclusion that no, I was not going to sell my Karate Monkey as I planned, but rather build it up again... as a rigid singlespeed.

It makes no bloody sense whatsoever... but I'm still gonna do it. Hey, I might build it up and realize I still don't like it. But, for some reason that I still don't fully understand, I'm gonna go back and try it again.

Cheap bike parts and more MTBing

Saturday morning, Dmitri, Lance, and I went up to the bike swap meet at the Lehigh Valley velodrome. (now called the "Valley Preferred Cycling Center") I brought a bunch of cash, not looking for anything particular past a set of cranks for the road bike. The Dura Ace cranks on the Giant are starting to look pretty rough, with the clear coat starting to crack, and the aluminum oxidizing. They're good cranks, but need to be refinished, and I know a guy who restores bikes who is interested in seeing what he can do with them. (or, I might try my hand at it)

So, early on, I found a pair of Ultegra external bearing cranks for only $75. Was pretty happy with that and bought them, but later realized I didn't bother to consider they didn't have a bottom bracket, and I also discovered they were missing the plastic tensioning cap as well as one of the clamping bolts. So, the price wasn't quite as good as I thought. Oh well, my bad.

Just two booths later, I found a pair of FSA SL-K carbon fiber road cranks which looked to be take-offs - they showed some scratches but no wear on the rings, and no evidence of pedals ever having been installed - for $90! Right now those same cranks are $450 - on sale - at Colorado Cyclist! That lessened the pain of my hasty purchase on the Ultegras!

After the swap meet, the three of us rode in Ralph Stover/High Rocks park. It's a small park, but very technical, so it's a challenging ride. I didn't ride nearly as well as Friday night's ride, but did decently. Both Lance and Dmitri rode strong, and Dmitri rode some really tough sections -- including one section that Lance tried multiple times without success! (I walked the whole thing)

We then went home, picked up four cases of beer, threw a couple beers in the freezer and worked on Lance's bike.

All in all, I'd call that a Very Good Day. :)

Great ride in Wissahickon

Tonight I got out of work and joined Grace, Amy, Ed, and Dmitri for a ride in Wissahickon. This will have to go down as the best MTB ride I've been on in over a year. We were all riding strong, and riding fast. Had we not lost light, we probably would have kept going, but since only Dmitri had a light, we bailed as it got harder and harder to see the trail.

My back started hurting a little bit at one point, but cleared up. This was also the first time that I felt the power I have on the road available to me on the mountain. Even at that, though, trying to keep up with Dmitri and Grace towards the end had me working, and working HARD. They've both gone and gotten seriously fast! (thank you, Amy!!) Towards the end of the ride, Ed was having problems with his back (oh how I can relate) but somehow still managed to be crazy fast.

Afterwards, Grace and I joined Ed and Amy at a bar in Glenside for beer and wings. Between the four of us, we ordered 100 wings and untold numbers of beers. Much fun was had, and although there were wings left over when we were all full, it wasn't as much as you might think! We all toasted to Amy and Grace... they've become good friends and have made each other far stronger than they had been before.

I just hope that ride is an indication of what's to come for me. Despite what Grace will make you think, I don't hate mountain biking -- when it's that good, I really, really love it!

New bike for Grace

While Grace is still riding and loving her Scott Scale hardtail, we were planning on rebuilding her Santa Cruz Juliana, arguably her first "race grade" bike -- and the bike on which she rode the 2005 and 2006 MTB racing seasons. When I went to assemble it, though, I found a crack in the rear swingarm. I contacted Santa Cruz, sent them the swingarm and some money, and had a replacement. When I mounted that, though, I discovered that there was a fitment problem and while working on that with Santa Cruz, we came to the conclusion that it would just be easier to upgrade to the new frame design, which is said to be lighter and stiffer.

So now, we're shipping back the rest of the frame, and will be getting an all-white 2008 Superlight. Since the new frame is designed around a 100mm fork, not the 80mm fork of the old frame, I had to get her a longer fork, and wound up getting a good deal on a 100mm RockShox REBA. So she'll now have her choice between a lightweight hardtail with an 80mm SID or the Superlight with 100mm travel front and rear. Should be interesting to see what she thinks of riding the Superlight again.

Good riding in CT

Monica and Rich, Grace's sister and her husband, moved to CT a few months ago. I was concerned when I heard they were moving, because there was some *good* mountain biking in Greensboro, NC... but after visiting this weekend, I found my concerns were unfounded. They live just off of the Shenipsit trail, which despite the name which begs for variations, (sheep s**t, snippy s**t, conniption, etc) is pretty awesome. It's very technical, littered with rocks, and you really have to work for it, but it's amazingly fun.

I have to also say that the back issue seems to be completely resolved. I rode yesterday and today, and rode hard enough that I was totally wiped out at the end, but my back was fine. My back hurt a little when I was off the bike Saturday night, but was fine by Sunday and didn't bug me at all on Sunday's ride. I'm VERY happy to be done with that chapter.

We came across several other cyclists, and while thinking about it later, I realized nobody was riding a twenty-niner. Considering the rocky terrain, I was pretty surprised about this. In Wissahickon, niners are just about everywhere and taking over... and the rockiest sections of Wissahickon aren't anywhere near as tough as the average rock gardens on Shenipsit. Mind you, we only saw about 10-12 other cyclists while we were out, but the same selection of riders in our area would have netted at three or more niners.

Speaking of riders we met, we met up with a couple on the trails who were out riding with their dog. We asked about the trails, and they offered for us to ride with them since it was easier to show the trails than describe them. We gladly accepted and rode with them for a while. At one point when we stopped to regroup (and recover) and they mentioned that they are the president and webmaster for a local club, Eastern Bloc. Stuart and Laura were really cool and told us next time we come back to get in touch and we'll meet up to ride again! Gotta love the awesome people you meet while mountain biking!

I also had another first on this ride... I failed to clear a technical climb for a reason I had never thought I would use -- my arms gave out! As strange as it sounds, I realized several times while muscling through the rough stuff, I was REALLY cranking on the bars. On this one climb, I was slightly out of the saddle to give the bike more room to move over the ground, and to keep my position as well as push on the pedals harder, I was pulling back on the bars good and hard. My legs were fine, my lungs were fine, everything seemed good, but I realized that my arms were fatiguing from the effort, and had to stop before I lost my grip! Not having my gloves contributed, no doubt... my hands had gotten sweaty and the ESI grips had started to get a little slick after we started riding with Stuart and Laura.

I also should mention that all the riding Grace has been doing with Amy has been paying off bigtime. Grace has been riding VERY strong, and even having a hardtail with a road cassette didn't slow her down through the gnarly rock gardens. Returning to the house on a road climb, she dropped me like a bad habit. Yes, she's strong, and yes, I'm psyched!

Funny story about that... while we were riding with the Jensens, we were doing a prolonged technical climb, and the day's riding was starting to catch up with me. Stuart was starting to gap me up ahead, and I heard one of the ladies catching up to me. I took a quick glance back, and saw a green jersey, and thought it was Laura. She sat on my wheel for a while as I climbed, and at one point I offered to let her by. She declined, but was stuck to my wheel. I was fading, and figured if I couldn't clear a technical section, I'd get in her way. I considered telling her that it was okay to pass me, I didn't mind being passed by a woman -- since I wouldn't be able to ride with Grace if I did! Didn't actually say it (was gasping for breath anyway) and a little while later realized it wasn't Laura after all, but Grace sitting back there and apparently not even breathing hard!

Push couldn't find this leak...

A couple posts ago, I mentioned the problems I've been having with the shock on my mountain bike. To quickly summarize, it started leaking, so I sent it to Push for service and to fix the leak. I got it back, and four rides later, it was leaking again, and I missed out on a ride with Grace and BVL. Well, I shipped it out to them, and a couple days later, they shipped it back. Didn't say anything in the email, just sent an invoice marked as $0. I didn't read the invoice in detail, but assumed that they fixed the problem and I was good to go.

So, Thursday I was planning on riding with Grace and BVL again (cue the foreshadowing) and when I went to double check the pressure in the shock, I was a little surprised to find out that there wasn't any. Oh... yay. So I pump it up to 175psi, and before I pull the pump off, I watch the gauge for a couple seconds... and can clearly see the needle dropping. Well, I've already missed a ride with Grace and BVL because of this, and it's now been months since I rode the MTB, so I decide, I'm gonna try to ride this. Thanks to a flexible hose on the pump, I can leave the pump attached to the shock, and ziptie the pump body to the frame, so all I have to do is stop, get off, and pump the shock back up. I even wrapped some electrical tape around the frame where the pump body touched so it wouldn't rub through the finish.

So, we headed off, and did most of a normal ride, but I have to say, it kinda sucked. The bike rode nicely for, oh, say, 30 seconds... at which point the rear end started getting too soft. Soon after that, the rear was noticably sagging, and if I let it go for long enough, I could start to feel the shock bottoming out. When the shock sags, it screws up every single frame dimension... the saddle drops, the pedals move forward compared to the saddle, the nose of the saddle points up (ouch) and the head tube angle slacks out, making the bike handle even more oddly. Still, I managed to get through the ride, and all in all, it was good to be back on the bike. I'd been having problems with my back on the MTB, and have to say that although I felt it was there, it was never a problem -- at least, not compared to the problems with the shock!

Luckily for Push, I did not have their phone number in my phone, nor did I have a signal. Grace was pretty much ready to give them a piece of her mind, since it was the second time we'd seen the same problem!

So, I get home, pull the shock back off, and bring it to the sink. My plan was to take a video of the leaking shock and send it to Push. I had done this before, but didn't bother to send it because I figured they'd be able to find it. I pressurized it, then put it in the full sink, and sure enough, a nice stream of big bubbles came out of it. I opened up the paid invoice from when I sent it back, and discovered that the tech said he couldn't find a leak. Well, I don't know, I managed to, check out this video and tell me if you can find it:

Can you see it? You have to look REALLY closely, or you might miss it. :|

The funniest part is after looking at it more closely, I discovered the leak wasn't from the rebound adjuster knob, as I thought, but from the pressure valve. I pulled it out, cleaned everything up and inspected the parts for problems, and found none. I applied a little bit of pipe dope to the threads and the O-ring, reinstalled it, and repressurized it. Guess what? NO LEAKS. This was all on Thursday. It's now Saturday evening and I checked the pressure an hour ago and it was still where it was supposed to be.

Yikes. This doesn't say good things for Push! I don't know how they didn't find the leak, but all I know is I did, and should be able to have a proper mountain bike ride for the first time in ... jeez, MONTHS.

Bikes looking up again...

Well, biking's been a little rough there for a while, but it's all starting to look up again.

To summarize... in the past month or so:

• The rear shock on my Santa Cruz was leaking so bad it wouldn't hold pressure, even after having sent it to Push Industries a couple months ago for a rebuild. Result: no MTB for me.
• I've been having problems with my saddle on the road bike which I haven't been able to solve. Subsequently, I've been riding very sporadically in the past three weeks.
  
• When I cleaned up the frame on Grace's Santa Cruz, I discovered that the rear triangle had a pretty significant crack.

But now, everything's coming together nicely. I shipped the leaking shock out to Push, who fixed it up at no charge and shipped it back. I reassembled my mountain bike last night, and I'm borrowing a really nice wheelset from Lance, so we're ready to rumble again.

The saddle issue on the road bike is still there, but I'm getting new wheels... and a really swanktastique set, too. I have an old pair of American Classic hubs, and Mike Garcia of Odds and Endos/Speedcific fame just shipped me a pair of his Niobium 30 rims and a full complement of Sapim CX-Ray spokes, possibly the most swanktastique steel spoke available. I've been looking forward to building this very wheelset for at least a year!

Finally, I disassembled Grace's Juliana and shipped the rear triangle out to Santa Cruz, who will be replacing it with a new one, so hopefully soon she'll have her Juliana back together to go with her Scale.

Fun is on the horizon!

My comedy of errors...

This year hasn't been much of a mountain biking year for me, what with it causing me back pain and such. On the flipside, it's been a great year for Grace on the MTB, since she's found some new friends to ride with and she's been getting stronger and stronger. I've been riding the road bike and doing pretty well with it, but we both miss riding together, and since she doesn't really road ride anymore, it would have to be on the mountain.

I finally finished rebuilding her rear wheel (she broke a spoke which was previously damaged from an overshift) so she wasn't using my wheel anymore, and since I was working from home, we could get an early start and get a ride in together. So, we pack up everything, along with some bike parts I've been hanging on to for BVL, and head out. It even looks like we're running ahead of schedule, until we realize that with all the stuff we brought, we forgot both of our helmets. So, we turn around and head back home, adding 25 or so minutes to our trip. Thankfully, Brian got stuck in traffic and we wound up at the parking lot at about the same time.

We get our stuff together, and get ready to ride, and as we go to pull away, I realize the bike sagged WAY too much in the back when I sat on it. I look down, and realize that the rear shock had blown through more than half of its travel when I sat on the bike. Well, okay, it had sat unused for a while, and although I've left it for longer and didn't lose any pressure, whatever, I'd just air it up and we'd be on our way.

So, I pumped it up to 175psi, and we were off. Not even 1/8 mile on the trail, I realize that the bike is feeling soft in the rear again, and look down to see that the shock is sagging way too much again. I hop off, and pop on the pump, and the guage reads only 50psi... a minute or two after I inflated it to 175psi. Not a good sign! So I inflate it back up, and as I'm nearing pressure, I can hear the shock leaking. At this point, I tell Grace and Brian to go on without me, and I'll just head back to the car and wait.

So, I head back to the car, and grab my phone. Dmitri's aware of my MTB issues, and being a rider of a bike with no rear suspension, I thought he'd get a laugh out of the problems I had. But... my phone's battery had died! Well, I was on call, so I had my pager, so I started sending him an email... and the pager reset on me for no apparent reason. At this point, it's starting to seem that everything I touch breaks... and I'm a little worried because I sent Grace out on the trails with a new set of tires that were insanely light. Thankfully, BVL was with her, but I expected to hear stories of woe (and anger) when she got back.

Anyhow, while Grace and BVL rode, I hiked in the Andorra Natural Area -- bikes aren't allowed, and I had always wanted to check it out, so that much was good. It's a beautiful area, and I only saw one other person, which was nice as the shared main trails can be pretty busy.

When I finally got home, I took the shock off the bike, inflated it yet again, and put it in the sink, filled with water. Sure enough, it's leaking at the rebound adjuster dial, which is exactly where it was leaking before I sent it back to Push this last time. I specifically asked them to pay attention to that! Wound up sending them an email, we'll see what happens with that.

Oh, and Grace got back from the ride and LOVED the tires. *phew*... if there was one thing to touch that didn't break, her tires would definitely be it!

MTB miles vs. road miles

One thing I've heard, and heck -- I've done it -- is comparing miles ridden on a mountain bike to miles ridden on the road. Just this morning, talking with a friend, he mentioned someone who did 14 miles in Wissahickon, and said "the guys say that's like 40 miles on the road". So, this got me wondering. Obviously, there are far too many variables, such as terrain and exertion to come up with a hard and fast number, but we could come up with an estimate, right?

Thankfully, I didn't have to wonder too much. With the Garmin bike computer, I've got detailed information on most of my rides this year. So, I decided to compare a road ride to a mountain bike ride in Wissahickon. I had to keep something consistent, so I looked for two rides which were approximately the same time duration. I wound up with a 11 mile ride in Wissahickon, and a 21 mile road ride from home. For the mountain ride, I covered 11.94 miles in 1:12:23, and burned 1660 calories. For the road ride, I covered 21.32 miles in 1:13:48, and burned 1751 calories. That works out to 139 cal/mile on the MTB, and 82 cal/mile road... but this is exactly what we expect. Riding the MTB is tougher, so you burn more calories per mile than on the road. However, the really interesting math is the calories per minute. The mountain bike burns up 22.93 calories/min, but the road bike burns 22.73 calories per minute. Almost the same!

So, based on these two rides, the conversion from MTB miles to road miles is 1.78x... so a 14 mile MTB ride in Wissahickon is about 25 miles on the road.

However, while I was writing this up, I noticed a couple problems. My Wissahickon ride isn't a round trip -- I forgot to start the computer, so if you look at the map, you can see I started it well into the ride. This way, I was "starting" the Wissahickon ride already warmed up. And, although I had 1000 feet of climbing in the road ride, it's probably the flattest ride in our area. So, I took a look for other comparable length rides and found the PMBA Rally in the Valley and my commute from work to home last week.

	MTB	Road
Time	2:05:40	2:04:25
Distance	15.65	33.44
Calories	2764	3082
Cal/mi	176	92
Cal/min	22.0	24.78

So again we have a calorie per minute number averaging around 23! This would give us a conversion factor of 2.1.

So, based on two far from scientific comparisons, you can ballpark MTB miles as 2x road miles. Funny, too, since I have used 2x in the past.

Problems can be opportunities!

Grace has found a new riding buddy in the form of another woman mountain bike racer, and they've been riding like crazy! They're getting along great, and having a bunch of fun. Just the other day, they went out and rode High Rocks (aka Ralph Stover) and found some new, technical trails. Riding some of these trails, Grace breaks a spoke in her rear wheel. When she tells me about this, I'm a little worried that she's getting into freeriding, something you don't necessarily want to do on an 18lb bike!

Well, turns out the broken spoke wasn't caused by her abuse, but instead by a mistake of mine... when we first got the wheels, her chain overshifted the big cog and wound up between the cassette and the spokes, which chewed up the spokes. The spoke that broke was one of those, and broke at the spot where the chain had chewed it up. So that's good news. Looking at the spokes, I realize I could just replace the damaged spokes, but what's the fun in that?

A little bit of research later, and an email to Larry at Bike Tools Etc., and I decided on the Sapim CX-Ray aero spokes. Aero spokes are ovalized to help them slice through the air, but on a mountain bike, the speeds aren't high enough for that to really be a benefit. No, the real reason for using the CX-Rays is that they are supposed to be incredibly strong, despite being among the lightest spokes out there. I guess the forming process which turns them into an aero spoke strengthens the metal. Either way, they've got a great rep, and will save almost 90 grams over the spokes I pulled out of the wheel!

When I rebuild the wheel, I'm also going to replace the Stan's rubber NoTubes strip with a valve stem and 3M Kapton tape, which should save about 50 grams. I also have a pair of new Kenda Klimax tires ready to go, which I fully expect won't get the Grace seal of approval, as they're only 345g and really have no real tread to speak of. Still, that's another 100g and it's at least worth a try!

With those changes, if I were to do them to the front wheel as well... we're nearing sub 18lbs on her bike... and aside from the Klimax tires, it should still be perfectly usable and reliable, not just a scale queen.

Project 18 - adjustment...

I may have been a little hasty in my initial numbers on Grace's Scale, and I have to adjust the claimed weight of the bike.

I realized that the thick neoprene chainstay guard was still in place, and there was quite a bit of dried mud on the frame. Okay, so that's getting a little crazy -- but after pulling off the chainstay guard and giving the bike a good wash, the weight is now 18.52lbs.

Yeah, I fully realize that I'm taking it a bit too far, but let's be honest, to get it this light, you really kinda have to. I'm enjoying myself and Grace is happy with the results, so no problem!!

Project 18 - success!

Back in March, I mentioned my plans to get Grace's mountain bike down to the 18lb range. While a fully rideable and reliable mountain bike weighing in under 19lbs sounds like an impossibility, it's been done. Of course, she's riding a road cassette and dérailleur, and the front dérailleur has been pulled off and replaced by a very minimalist chain guide -- you can't get to 18lbs without making some compromises (or massive investments) -- but we've succeeded. I still have some work to do and some more parts I'd like to order. Unfortunately we're into the realm of diminishing returns, and to see a sub 18lb weight, we're going to be looking at those massive investments.

At some point I'll detail the work I've done to get the bike down this low. In the meantime, Grace has been absolutely LOVING the bike!

The typical response of the non-weight weenie to the investment of time and money required to accomplish a bike this light is "why not just lose 5lbs from yourself". Sure, that can be done ( and she's been doing that, too) but if you've ever ridden a bike that's 5lbs lighter, you'll know it rides TOTALLY different, and if it's been done right, it's different in a fantastically good way. Ask Grace, she'll attest to it.

What's really sad about this success is that Grace's 18.65lb bike is still equivalent to a 32.6 -- that's thirty two point six -- pound bike for me, based on body weight percentage!! To draw even with the 26.6lb weight of my Santa Cruz, we'll have to get her bike down to 15.2lbs!