cheap CO2 |
cold weather gloves |
reasonable eye protection
the cheapest 1/2-lb you'll ever shave |
the 10-cent carbo-hit |
bike-to-pickup interface
a chain lube that works
A great
article on functional
clothes, courtesy of Dirt Rag.
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that CO2 carts for your Superflate cost about $1 each in the bike world but go for $8 for a box of 25 in the gun & sports section of most discout stores? That's $0.32 each -- cheaper than patches.
My old Cannondale gloves never quite fit. A little too stubby in
the fingers, a little too tight across the knuckles, they always
squeezed me enough that I had to open the vent zipper to bend
into the drops on a road bike or grab GripShifts off-road.
Then I was wandering through the deer-killing section of the local
Sprawl-Mart(tm) and spotted these neoprene jewels --
day-glo orange, roomy, high tops, adjustable velcro, FIT BETTER
THAN MY OLD ONES(!), and all for a big $7.50. How could I go wrong?
Well, the index finger is a little tight (but still looser than my old
pair), and they aren't sewn into a pre-bent easy gripping shape.
Big whoop. They work, cold weather STI shifting is a breeze, and
on GripShifts things are even less critical so they work fine there
too. Buy some today! (assuming it's not August) Tip: stick an old
toilette paper roll core into each one to keep it open for air circulation
between rides. This lets things dry out, keeping the funk-factor down.
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"Thermonuclear Protection"? What, are you planning on riding
the Trinity Test site? Truck down to a gun shop and get some
shooting glasses. They don't all look like welding goggles anymore. Some
are even sorta hip-lookin'-no-lower-frame designs. Clear, high-vis yellow,
smoke gray, all the required outdoors colors. Shooters need function and
don't want to look like dorks either.
No, they're not really
bulletproof, but they're designed to give your eyes a fighting chance
if something goes Badly Wrong in mid-shot. This is enough to
deflect branches on the trail.
My favorites are some high-vis wraparound Remmingtons I found at
at the local mega-mart. They hang tight on and at $14
I don't freak when they get scratched.
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Can't spare the $700 to upgrade Judy to a SID? For about $15 you can
loose half that much weight, and where it counts even more. Get some lightweight
butyl tubes and ditch 100g per wheel, and another 100g for the spare..
I found a deal last year on some at the LBS: 130g each for $5, a net loss
of 300g, or just over a half-pound. Even better, this is mostly unsprung
and rotating mass (unsprung = more responsive suspension;
rotating at the rim = a double-gain (400g!) when accelerating or braking).
So that's 2/3 of a pound in static
mass (i.e., what you have to haul up a hill), or just over a pound in dynamic
mass (i.e., what you have to sweat to accelerate).
These tubes sold so well at the LBS
they've gone up to $10 this year. Still a bargain, when you consider
a SID may save you another half-pound for about 40 times as much. Now if I could lay
off the dark beer and tortilla chips.
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Maybe name-brand energy bars are worth the (way up) difference in price and the (way down) difference in taste from real food. But I really doubt it. The April '98 issue of Bicycling has a short take on a university study that showed no difference in performance an hour after eating a plastic energy bar or a plain old bowl of oatmeal. Maybe it makes a difference if you're tied for #1 or #2 in the World Cup series; I wouldn't know. But I do know that for the price of 3 of these designer-bars I can get a pound of store-brand fig bars and a box of zip-lock baggies. It gets the job done, and without pulling my teeth out in cold weather.
Energy bars do have their place (hopefully in the bottom of swag bags I
get handed at race registration). I've tried and
like very much Balance bars on long rides, mostly for their high protein.
But for day-to-day use $1.50 a pop is ridiculous when there's a $0.10
alternative that works.
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This is an old MX trick: get a couple of come-along straps with plastic coated S-hooks for each bike you want to hold in a truck bed. Stand the bike up, facing forward, with the front wheel against the front of the truck bed. Loop the straps around the headset, stem, or bar-ends (whatever works) on the bikes, and on the front stake holes on the truck bed. Crank down enough to compress the fork a little and keep things in place. At worst, you may have to fiddle things to keep the rear wheel from lifting off (putting the hooks closer to the head tube helps). Ta-da! Bikes are securely held with no unusual stress on the fork drop-outs; didn't even have to remove the front wheels. Price is right too. I've seen this work for three bikes at a time, might be stretched to four.
But if you've just got a car, sorry -- give up the trunk or spring for a rack.
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This is an extremist's wet lube, so brace yourself. Mix 90 wt gear grease (outboard motor "foot grease" is even better) in 50-50 proportions with Slick 50 (or similar "restore your old engine" product). You can do this a little at a time and reuse an old chain lube bottle; less messy that way. Or you can do it all at once and share it with a friend. Either way, it's cheap, about $24 for two quarts, enough to last the average rider well into the next century. To use, dribble it on just like any other wet lube. Put some old newspapers on the floor and between your wheel and drivetrain. You really don't want this slop getting on your rims. Backpedal a few times to work it in, the wipe it all off. Every stinkin' (and it does) bit of it. Use a terrycloth scrap for the final wipe-down, it gets even more lube off the outside parts that don't need it. And that's it, go ride.
Or maybe not quite. If the drivetrain looks wet and caked after a normal ride, you're not wiping enough off (you'll need a good degreaser about now). If you're doing it just right, you'll be able to brush off the chain and cogs after an average dry-ish ride, maybe scrape off a little crud, but only a little. If you're doing a lot of deep sand rides, consider something dryer anyway. If you want to know why, go read this. Even if you don't want to know, go read it anyway. Under average riding conditions, I get about 20 to 40 miles off road from one application. This is the stuff for epic rides.
Don't use it on cables. They don't take the kind of pressure chain bearing surfaces
take and they don't need something this heavy. Use a good dry or semi-dry
lube there. They take so little of it anyway that one of those 4oz bottles will
last a good while, so it's not that big of an expense. Works OK on pedals, but
as with chains, wipe all you can off before using,
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