"Rain, Rain Go Away..."

The wintery rains have returned to western Oregon. This morning's commute was an exercise in determination. I was able to install my fenders over the weekend, and good thing too. Though it didn't rain hard, the ground was very wet, which without fenders can be worse than a hard shower. I am using a set of Planet Bike full coverage fenders. They work well, but were cut down a few years ago to fit my road bike. consequently the rear fender doesn't quite reach the bottom bracket area. Oh, well. Not really a big issue. They keep road grime off of me, and that is what is important.

Moustache'd

The rain bike is DONE! This is a 1990-ish Fisher Sphinx. I used this bike over the years as a road bike, mountain bike and commuter. For the last few years it has resided in Utah and has been relegated to child hauling duty. Now it is my rain bike, but with a twist. I removed the old, too long, stem and normal drop bars and in their place put a super short stem and Moustache bars. If you've never seen Moustache bars, check out Rivendell, they are very cool. After tearing down the bike and cleaning it, replacing the cables, housing, brake pads, pedals and tires it rides like new. If I can ever figure out how to post pictures here, I'll post some.

I rode it in this morning and, after some tweaking, decided that I like it. It is a little funky and will take a little getting used to, but it definitely has flare.

Another year, Another InterBike

Well, here I am back in Corvallis after a whirlwind tour of Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho and back to Oregon. Whew! The trip centered around InterBike, the biggest bicycle industry trade show in the world. I spent two days riding bikes, followed by two (of a possible three) days schmoozing folk on the trade show floor. All in all it was a successful show for us. I rode ~15 bikes, or so. Highlights? Giant's new mountain bike lineup, based on their Maestro suspension technology. Very cool. I rode the Reign (6x6 inch travel with the Nixon fork) and the Trance (4x4 inch travel). Both of them rode very, very well. The Reign was the real hit, though. built to a mere 28 lbs, it pedaled really well and had travel to spare.

Cannondale's Prophet was really awesome too. It pedals much better than my Jekyll, has more travel and is lighter. What's not to love about that!

Giant's new road bike line, a revamped OCR, is full carbon. It tops out at $2800 for a Dura Ace equiped model. Very cheap for what you get.

Specialized has some really nice bikes in the new Enduro and Stumpjumper FSR 120.

In the componentry side of things, three words: Hayes and Fox. The 36 is awesome and the El Camino looks to put Hayes back on top of the disc brake market. Look for a review of the Hayes early next year.

I also spent some time with family in Utah and am sleep deprived, but it's good to be back.