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There’s little that will encourage a long, hard ride on a cold day like… fear.  Don’t get me wrong- I love riding my bike.  Bikes.  I love the feeling of exhilaration that only a few pedal strokes down the road or trail inevitably brings.  The camaraderie and the community.  The fitness and, of course, the bikes themselves.  Blah blabbedy blah blah.  Still, during the cold, dark days of December and January, there’s little like the thought of an impending 12 hours’ worth of riding- no, racing- to give me that extra boot out the door. So here I am once again, paid up for a duo spot at Tucson’s 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo.  Epic Rides puts on a great event, with a fast but fun 15 mile course out in the middle of nowhere.  It’s not particularly technical, but can be loose and there are plenty of barrel cacti around to encourage riders to stay on the trail.  Over the past several years, I have raced the course on single speed 29ers and 5in trail bikes.  This year, with a potentially competitive partner, I figured that it was time to do things properly and put together my idea of an ideal 24-hour race bike. (more…)

Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong won’t compete in a Blue Lakes multisports festival sprint triathlon next month because of a sore left knee.

In a phone interview with the AP, Armstrong says he has temporarily quit running because his left knee has cartilage damage and eventually will require surgery.

Thankfully the injury won’t prevent all of us fans from seeing him fight the Peloton one last time; Armstrong still plans to compete in the Tour Down Under cycling race in Australia on Jan. 16-23. The triathlon, in New Zealand, is on January 29, but we’ll have to wait to see him return to his first sport a little while longer. Let the battle among race promoters to bring him to their event for his “1st time back” begin.

Photo submitted by Piter Asquini, “Towards the top. Slavnik (Slovenia).” He linked to this Italian mtb forum here.

To see more Pics of the Day, click here, and to submit your own photo to be shown to the world, go here.

The guys from Attleboro, MA have a new bicycle trailer coming in 2011: The Journey Trailer. It looks a whole lot like a B.O.B. trailer at first glance, but there is at least one feature that departs drastically from the B.O.B design — the hitch-mechanism. The Topeak Journey uses innovative SlideLock fittings to connect the trailer to the bike, rather than the cotter pins of the earlier B.O.B. trailers or the pin/retaining rivet system of the later models. As an owner and heavy-user of the original, cotter design B.O.B., I’ll say that the system, for lack of motivation to find a better word: sucked. The cotter pins always popped out, sometimes with catastrophic results. It could often be a chore simply getting the mangled pins in to begin with. That issue was probably eliminated with the second-generation B.O.B. trailers, though I can’t speak from experience. (I’m sure someone out there can set us straight on that point.) The SlideLock system definitely looks to be an improvement over what came before it. Extra SlideLock fittings are available in case you want to switch the Journey Trailer between your bikes.

The trailer body features what Topeak calls a “fully enclosed bathtub.” The custom designed drybag with sonically welded seams and roll top closure can be used as standalone luggage when away from its…fully enclosed bathtub.

The trailer journeys on a single 16″ alloy wheel. It also has a carrying handle, a safety flag with pole, and a fender with a clip for a reflector or tail light.

More details and a bunch of photos after the break… (more…)

When we held our Bikerumor Schwag Toss in Asheville, we met local framebuilder Stephen Stickel. Building under the name By:Stickel (get it?), he had his latest creation there to show us after all the goodies were tossed.

Built with a number of clever features, his steel 29er forms a remarkably compact package, making it something even our shorter friends could hop on and fit comfortably. Beyond the sizing, things like the sterling silver picture frame headbadge and other nifty details make this a frame builder we’ll keep an eye on.

Check out more photos after the break…

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There’s just something about a good, steel hardtail that never goes out of style. British framebuilders Genesis seem to get that. Their latest offering is the Latitude 853. It is comprised of, you guessed it, Reynolds 853 steel. But Genesis isn’t using the same old 853 tubing, this stuff is the new DZB (Dual Zone Butting) triple butted tubing. The top and down tubes have additional wall thickness near the headtube for increased strength. Thinner walls are used in other parts of the tube-set to keep the overall weight down. Reynolds 631 is used in the seat-tube and headtube, keeping the strength high in the areas where it is needed most. Think you’re going to swap all the parts over from your 1998 steel hardtail. Think again. The Latitude 853 is built around the new 44 mm headset standard to accept tapered forks. Genesis claims the frame will handle 100-140 mm forks. Back in the, as they say, day, we would have called something like that a “free-ride” hardtail. The bike is definitely front-heavy as far as strength goes. The larger 631 headtube, combined with a wider-horizontally top tube, provides a stiff steering platform, but the rear end is alleged to retain that cushy steel feel.

Genesis calls this bike “future proof,” and one one way they have “future-proofed” the bike, aside from the 44 mm headtube, is by making it compatible with 2 X 10 cranksets (but what will happen when 1 X 20 comes out?) by using asymmetrical chainstays. The stays are heat-treated Cr-Mo for added strength.

The Latitude is ED coated internally to prevent rust and it has a replaceable derailleur hanger. (Your ’98 steel hardtail probably didn’t have the latter.) The 2011 Latitude has a slightly different geometry from the ’10 version: the headtube is .5° slacker and the front-center is .5″ longer, which makes the bike handle better with a 120 mm fork.

For another view, specs, and geometry, click more… (more…)

As seen in Philadelphia. Not a bad setup, just needs someplace for the feet… Here’s the link for a real Buddy Bike.

To see more Pics of the Day, click here, and to submit your own photo to be shown to the world, go here.

Porsche, the German car company responsible for creating such hybrid-automotive-eye-candy as the 911 GT3 R Hybrid racing car and the concept 918 Spyder supercar, has chosen to completely negate any aesthetic credibility it might have banked by producing this: the Hybrid RS bicycle. Porsche has a long tradition of lending its name to bikes that look like the bicycle equivalent of the Pontiac Aztek, and this model is no exception.

But let’s ignore the aesthetics for a moment and look at the technology behind the Hybrid RS.

The bike isn’t made in-house by Porsche, it is manufactured by the Austrian company, Simplon. The frame is carbon and the electric motor weighs in at about 9 lbs. Subtract the weight of the motor and you’ve got a relatively light full suspension bike with disc brakes. Relatively. The 33 lb bike has a range of about 31 miles and the rear hub-housed motor puts out a very Pro-Tour-worthy 450 watts, but only when you pedal. That’s right, this thing isn’t an electric scooter, it merely assists you when you pedal…with 450 additional watts. (So it turns your grandma into Floyd-Landis-on-dope, but whatever.) Another snazzy feature is the included iphone which serves as not only a bar-mounted navigation system, displaying cyclist-friendly maps, but as a battery-life monitoring system. Another cool feature is the regenerative charging system that recharges the battery as you brake or freewheel downhill.

On the fitness-philosophy behind the Hybrid RS: Professor/Dr. Wolfgang  Grotz, chief physician at the Clinic for Internal Medicine of the Alfried Krupp Hospital, Essen (in Germany) says, “With endurance sport, it is mainly about the cleverly moderated extent of the pulse rate. The basic rule is calculated from the rule of thumb, ‘180 minus age equals training pulse’. A 50-year-old should therefore have a maximum training pulse of 130 beats per minute.”

Not made up.

The Porsche Hybrid RS is only in the concept stage at this point, but if there’s enough consumer interest to push it into production, you may be able to buy one at your favorite Porsche dealer some time in the near future.

More photos of the Hybrid RS along with some photos and very-interestingly-translated words about the classic Porsche Bike FS Evolution after the break… (more…)

Rock The Cariboo! from Solos Productions on Vimeo.

Up late with nothing to watch? Then maybe you should check out this totally sick mini-movie from Solos Productions. It follows riders James Doerfling, Kurt Sorge, Graham Agassiz, Garett Buehler and Geoff Gulevichon on their trip to Rock The Cariboo! up in the Intermontane region of British Colombia. The opening shot demonstrates just how rad footage from a GoPro chest strap mount can be. It captures the burliness of the plummet down a very snowboard-chute-like descent to a river. It doesn’t end all that smoothly.

Still awake? Then you can also go check out Solo Productions contest. If you buy one of their screensaver images, you’ll win a chance to ride with the rider depicted in the photo.

I guess this whole “up late,” “still awake” business only works if you’re on the east coast of the U.S.. If you’re in say, Bend, Oregon, it’s not that late at all. And if you’re in Edinburgh, Scotland, it’s so late that it’s actually really, really early.

For the back story on the filming of  “Rock The Cariboo!” check out Ridemonkey.

The guys at Ignoble are serious about bags. To them black backpacks are not just something to put your ipad in; they are a tool of urban survival.

Ignoble is a men’s brand focused on style-conscious, thoughtfully designed black backpacks. Operating from the belief that a well conceived bag is the essential tool of urban survival, and that the sense of identity imparted by a backpack’s shape and materials is as important as the usefulness of the bag’s features, Ignoble produces high utility, fashion conscious backpacks equally at home on the road and in the workplace.

Ignoble’s Mona Cocoon backpack is constructed from ultra-durable, ultra-sleek materials. With a 230t nylon exterior, YKK zipper, and nylon herringbone trim. The Mona is lined, it has a padded airmesh back, front vertical stash pocket, a small hood stash-pocket, and a large main compartment with internal hanging-pocket and book sleeve.

Ignoble bags are handmade in small runs at a military-grade soft goods production facility. Their tag-line is: “Black. Back Pack. The essential carryall for the modern man.” But it could just as easily be: “Ignoble. It’s what Jack Bauer would use. (To carry his ipad).”

A bunch more photos and specs after the break… (more…)

Perhaps barring the saddle, no other piece of equipment can make or break your enjoyment of a long road ride more than the handlebar, yet you’re stuck with what’s spec’d on the showroom floor unless you’re building something from scratch.

Whether you’re upgrading or building your dream bike, here are a few things to consider when choosing a handlebar.

After spending a couple years riding the handlebar on the left (above) and hating most of it, I finally called up our friends at Ritchey Logic to see what they had based on my perceived preferences. I chose Ritchey simply because a) I know the guys there fairly well and b) because they have a wide range of sizes, shapes and styles to choose from. They also have a stellar reputation in my opinion, but there are a lot of brands that make very good handlebars.

The important thing is to find one that fits you, is comfortable for your hands and allows you to set up your bike’s fit properly, and we’ll show you how to do just that right after the break…

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There is nothing that will bring that ‘new bike feel’ to your well-used ride like a new set of cables and housing.  There is something cathartic about pulling out a pair of beefy cable cutters (used on nothing else), cutting away old cables, wiping down a suddenly uncluttered frame, and stringing up a new set.  When my go-to bike’s shifting was feeling a bit laggy last fall, I took a shop owning friend’s advice and threw on a set of Jagwire’s flagship Ripcord semi-sealed cables.  Read on to find out how they’ve fared on that bike and others over the past 13 months. (more…)