Stupid Car for Babies

The face of a literal man-child

There is literally no reason to portray a vehicular macho image in this day and age. Doing so is an act of willful ignorance, unless you are literally ignorant. For a brand so prominent in the cycling community as Speedvagen, I am totally in favor of shaming them over the choice of an armored vehicle for transporting fucking bicycles.

Reasons:

1. There are many other vehicular options which yield more storage space, more passenger space, and better fuel mileage compared to a tarted up armored car.

2. You can make a normal cargo van secure by adding certain security features. Omitting windows into the cargo area help with this, too. How do you think every other company on the earth accomplishes this? By buying an armored car? No, dipshit!

3. A bicycle brand doesn't need to macho its image up unless it's awful and needs more attention. I don't think Speedvagen needs more attention. Their bikes are plenty good, and the price for a frame garners enough attention without being shoved into an armored car.

4. Running around in a tarted-up armored car is effectively throwing shit into the face of whatever climate-friendly image Speedvagen might have harbored. Don't talk back to me. Human-caused climate change is a thing and you are a dumb, ignorant baby if you disagree.

Done.

Terrible Idea

Here's an idea for securing bar tape:

30mm heat shrink tubing

Run a short ring of that shit over your bars, wrap 'em up, and then position the tubing over the end and apply heat. Easy! Electrical tape sucks. The finishing tape that comes with bar tape sucks.

Oh, you'll have to remove your brifters when you want to rewrap? Don't cry, little one. Just add an extra section of tubing and let it hang out near your stem or something. Don't accidentally apply heat to that piece though! Done correctly, you've got a trashy handlebar bangle bracelet.

Conversely, come to terms with the fact that you screw with your bike so often you'll have the brifters off around the time you need new bar tape, at which point you can slide a new piece of heat shrink on and re-wrap those sweet drops.

Innovation score: 6/10

Bike to Work Week

It's May in San Diego. More specifically, it's the week of the 11th of May. Which means Bike to Work Week! Time to dust off the ol'....wait, you've been riding your bike almost every day? There's no rain or inclement weather to keep you off your bike?

Thank heavens San Diego is literally classified as a coastal desert, or we'd be kept off our bikes due to rain and snow. Forget droughts. I'm just happy the sun is always shining and my faucet is directly connected to the Colorado River's ever dwindling supply. Fuck you, got mine!

Despite your mentality about San Diego's disturbingly sunny weather, it's still bike to work week. Lots of hashtags regarding this even permeate my Twitter feed. More attention-grabbing opportunities for me, I guess. Take this photo, for instance:

Got some Mountain Bike Radio action right there! Heck yeah! Looks like I'm just parking my bike in a fiberglass box. But no, it's also #biketoworkweek. Exciting, no?

Yeah, it's really not, unless you're the person who just rode in. And I didn't even ride in all the way! I actually parked my vehicle at a Park & Ride just outside the engineer's sphere of influence (Qualcomm et al) and rode my bike in. Saved me a lot of stop & go hastle hassle. Yeah, I had to look that word up for some reason.

My work is kind enough to have installed some bike lockers. They're pretty roomy, actually. I could fit two bikes in each one. They're also full of itchy fiberglass which is terrible. So I won't be setting up a satellite office/hideout in mine, even though I like to escape from work now and then.

Right, so, tomorrow's plans: Drive to work. Because I want to go climbing afterwards and avoid traffic. Wednesday? Drive to work, because I have a meeting at 7:30AM. Thursday? Drive to work, probably...

But Friday? You're goddamn right I'm biking to work! Check this shit out:

Yep, each one of those little blue bicyle persons is a pit stop unto which an actual human will be standing around waiting for your lyrca-clad behind to show up. Added bonus: Many of them will have free things to give you, including an ill-fitting "Bike to Work 2016" t-shirt that office dwellers so hotly covet for their casual Friday ensemblé. Bonus is being able to wear the shirt on the day of acquirement, such that you can wander around the office with baited breath hoping an unobservant coworker will comment "SO DID YOU RIDE YOUR BIKE TO WORK TODAY!?"

And you'll say "yes" and feel pretty darn good.

And at 5:30 you'll drive home because you parked your car at the office so you wouldn't have to ride 20 miles back home through angry San Diegan traffic. Because 90% of San Diego cycling is shit.

That's my usual experience, at least. And maybe this time will be different. But the takeaway is that even though I don't foresee accomplishing a fully-fledged #biketoworkweek, if I can replicate this pitiful attempt for the other 51 weeks of the year, perhaps there will be a net-positive impact.

Sit down time

Giro d'Italia is about to begin. I've actually never sat down to watch this event. Bicycle racing is hard to find on television in the US. Especially when it's not the Tour de France. But that's no excuse if one is a true cycling aficionado. But I'm not. No, I'm pretty much scrub-tier when it comes to competitive cycling enthusiasm.

Q: If I don't follow the teams, athletes and drama, then why watch it?

A: It's therapeutic.

The drone of the announcers. The wonderful scenery. The fancy bikes. All in motion. Like watching a gentle river flowing through a broad valley. Am I some new-age target market for the event organizers? One that will aggravate the purists? Maybe and definitely. But don't worry, I'm not demanding much from any of you. I just want to zone out for 2-3 hours at a time. It's almost like watching public radio. You can tune it out, tune back in, and occasionally exciting things will happen.

Heaven forbid the organizers dress up the sport in an attempt to draw the attention of other yokels like me. Sure, they throw some stats and maps in every now and then, but it's nowhere near the level of pointing arrows, picture in picture, invisible-hand-circling-things, and leaderboard graphics that NASCAR has. And yet, cycling fans are just about as bad as NASCAR fans.

Observe the similarities:

Both like to park RVs along the course, be it in the infield of the oval circuit or along the route.

Both are harboring high blood-alcohol content.

Both have televisions tuned to the event's TV broadcast so as to remain entertained when the racers are not passing by.

Both have fat spectators (though we might assume NASCAR carries this turkey-leg torch).

Of course, there are a few differences:

Spectators can't get in the way of NASCAR drivers, so long as they're in a car on the race course, unless one hurls an empty big gulp container all the way to turn 3.

NASCAR spectators don't pee in the bushes. Not that they wouldn't if they could. But stadiums typically have designated restrooms.

NASCAR spectators spend most of their time seated (unless getting up to refill their big gulp or go pee).

NASCAR spectators get to see the racers whiz by approximately 200 times. A cycling spectator might get to see them twice if they run to the uphill side of a switchback.

I'll stop there.

So maybe dressing up the sport would work really well? With such similarities between their respective fans, I could see it happening. At the very least, this sort of mentality has pushed NASCAR to its current level of popularity.

Granted, I will take a cycling event over a NASCAR event any day of the year. I can safely say I hate NASCAR without feeling guilty (I'm a bit of a redneck) or dishonest. A cycling event, if attended in person, offers a much more wholesome experience. You're not necessarily sitting on your ass the entire time. The air is cleaner by comparison, save for a few clean-diesel emissions from team cars. And you get to feel smug as hell because it's a prestigious cycling event.

But for me? I'm sitting in front of my computer screen, being fat and lazy. I'm just as bad as someone watching NASCAR on television.

2015 Salsa El Mariachi 3: A Revue

Hey folks (not that anyone is listening), I'm here to review the 2015 Salsa El Mariachi 3. The bike that no one else reviews because it seems Salsa never sends anything other than carbon-ti-graphene-fused-silica bikes to their repertoire of reviewers. And I think Guitar Ted either gets lucky or buys the bike himself. Normal bikes that normal people can afford get reviewed by their owners on terrible internet bicycle forums. And that doesn't just apply to Salsa, of course.

On with the review.

I wanted to get into mountain biking, didn't have a ton of money to spend, and was tired of getting beat up by my Salsa Vaya on everything but smooth fire-road and Olympic luge-quality singletrack.

I needed a suspended front fork.

There are too many choices right now. Too many for someone who is trying to get into mountain biking for the first time. I read many internet bicycle forum posts. XC32, shit from Fox with their CTDs, Rebas, PIIIIIIKES!!!!

So now the internet has programmed me to hate Fox. I guess it's not a big deal. Time will tell. I did like their motocross gear before it became trendy and stopped having neon colors. Ah, the '90s.

I started to narrow down on the Recon and Reba. Reba equipped bikes seemed to be placed just out of my price range, because bike companies would usually also place higher end drive train components on the same bike, bringing the price range a bit too high. Or, as in other cases, instead of a Reba there'd be some Fox bullshit on there. Couldn't have that!

Fine, so a Recon it would be. The higher-end Recon Gold with some letters after it, like TK or whatever. Didn't matter at that point. Remote-lockout? Not a common option it seemed. But a lockout on the fork was good to have. Just gotta reach down while coasting and not wad myself up.

A quick aside on used bikes: San Diego is garbage for used bikes. We think our used bikes are worth much more than anyone else on the earth. Because we don't ride them? Because there's no good riding? Probably. But, it's hard to tell in the end. Ultimately, I gave up on Pinkbike, CL, etc and decided to go new.

I came close to getting a new Norco full-sus at the lower end of things. A really nice frame, but 9-speed shit all over it. Yeah, I like triples, too, but give me a damn break. Plus, a measily XC32 pogo stick? Daaaamn....

I popped over to another LBS (record scratch: Yes, I was going with an LBS. I learned my lesson in ordering bikes online. In-store testing seems dishonest/shitty/takes too much of my time for minimal gains in the end). Okay, so they have here a wide selection of Salsa bikes. Despite Salsa's somewhat premium pricing for Taiwan frames, they do kit it out pretty thoroughly. No FSA, Truvativ, Alexrims to be seem here.

Well, the wheels were some WTB whatevers. At least WTB has SOME street cred, right? Ya'll remember the Velociraptor? Is that still around?

Hubs were standard Deore fair. Not terrible, and cup/cone can at least carry some side loads. Better that cheap radial bearings crammed into a bore. Blah!

Alright, so, we've finally reached the actual bike itself. Fit and finish is nice. It's a genuine Salsa. Heavy, though. As much as my Vaya I think. And this is a size small. I do envy your fancy carbon/aluminum models. But actually, my friend's AL bike, because of its shitty components, is actually about the same weight. I'll deal with it.

And what's this? I got a blemish model. Lucky me?! There are some weird scuffs on the bottom bracket and the finish was chipping on the brake levers. Bizarre but inconsequential. And ultimately, the discount I got factors directly into my review take-away, as we'll see later.

Now that I've put a few rides on the bike, I can say that overall, I'm happy with its performance. Of course, I have zero experience with nicer mountain bikes so there's really only my Salsa Vaya 2 to compare against. It pedals, turns, coasts just fine. I think the Alternator drop outs need to be pulled all the way back or something. When I pedal up steep hills I feel like a wheelie machine. I think the chainstays are just a tad too short compared to the ideal effective setback of the seat. So my weight is super far back in the grand scheme of things. As I said, I hope I can just pull the dropouts back a centimeter or two and get some more uphill stability.

The Mariachi is definitely a bit more lumbering. The bars are very wide, perhaps too wide for the small people that ride a small frame. One would perhaps want to cut them down a bit if romping single-track is not in the game. As I understand, this bike isn't really for blasting singletrack rather than for taking the edge off of harsh, slower trails while still being burly enough to bulldoze across a mountain range.

Plenty of cheaper "mountain bikes" exist that would be just as comfortable as the Mariachi but at the same time I wouldn't trust them to not get me stranded in the middle of nowhere. So perhaps you could think of this bike like a Toyota Land Cruiser? I dunno. Something like that. Good comfort, not a speed demon, but you'll get where you're going no matter what.

So you're paying some premium for that very reason. 

But recall that I got a blemish-model discount. Rad.

Worth full price? If you're literally going to bike-pack, endurance race, or just ride super far, yes. If you're trying to go-fast-on-a-hardtail, maybe look at something else. But I don't know what...it might have aluminum or carbon in it, though.

All things considered, it was a reasonable choice for my brand new mountain bike.

A few more points to be made:

1. The rims are really narrow given current wide-rim intents. Why not the WTB i25? It's no more expensive. I get that you only want 2.4" wide tires max, but would the i25 not help even with narrow 2.25" tires that the bike comes with?

2. Resin pads and resin-only 160mm rotors. Diameter is maybe fine, but why resin? I feel like fast downhill fireroads that this bike will see require something more robust. I can feel the fade and I'm definitely not booking it. XT brakes might come later, but maybe I'll just save up for a new bike in a few years.

3. One bottle cage. For the size small frame, does the top tube really need to effectively sit at a 45 degree angle? There's only room for one bottle cage, and forget getting a trendy frame pack from Porcelain Rocket/JPacc/my grandma in there. This bike specifically calls out BIKEPACKING as a main feature. I thought I absolutely had to have a framepack in order to succeed at bikepacking.

4. The fork. Its performance is okay. It works well enough. However, you gave it a damn quick-release version! And don't bullshit me about how QRs are faster than thru-axles. The lawyer tabs on this fork are so goddamn tall that I have to basically unscrew the QR as much as I would have to for a thru-axle. So, don't do that again! Lazy!

5. The blue paint is not very exciting. It's kind of muted. Thanks for trying to jazz it up with orange anodized bits. And what is the deal with a triple-ring version and sky blue paint being created specifically for the ladies? The way I hear it (from my LBS), ladies who came to buy a Mariachi 3 didn't get a shit about triples or sky blue paint. They wanted a double and wanted to shred harder than anyone out there. Consolidate your models so I can get a cheaper product. That said, triples have their place, but maybe not on a bikepacking bike?

Okay, points out of the way, you'd think that with so many lively complaints I would not be happy with this machine. But I am. It's simple, straightforward, does what I want, and got me into mountain biking on a reasonable budget. Plus, I reckon it will last a long time.

Pictures? Alright, here...

I saw this frog in a stream crossing while riding the bike

I drank this cider after riding the bike

The bike is inside that van (it's my van, I bought it with my own money)

As an homage to Guitar Ted: STW bought this bicycle and is not being paid nor bribed for this review by Salsa, or any of the component manufacturers represented on the build. I will strive to give my honest thoughts and opinions throughout.

for fuck's sake...

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/connected-cycle-pedals

forget the GPS, these deter theft by means of being SINGLE SIDED PEDALS! i won't blame the thieves if they can't even get these 1lb monsters flipped over to the proper side before setting off....

get ready for bike to work day, slob lords

IT'S ALMOST BIKE TO WORK DAY. THE ONE DAY WHERE THERE'S ENOUGH INCENTIVE TO BIKE 20 MILES ONE-WAY. If it weren't for all the free stuff, I probably wouldn't do it...

http://icommutesd.com/bike/BTWDpledgeform2015.aspx