Photodump

So far this summer...

Broke my Pro 2. Broke my Pike. Learned pretty much nothing. Duran's learned to grind. We made a video. Fuck me sideways.

Whoa

We slacked a bit. I've got a picture backlog, so I might as well do one a day, drag it out a bit.

And for the hell of it, a few photos from a looooooong day back in the day. Check the weather.

Riding a bit

Went on the West end drag looking for spots.

Visited the legends....

And some of the less-known, hidden gems.

Essentially started at one ICC spot, and went West for a bit, stopped at Dufferin for a bit to get my sesh on (get it?!!), bombed south to Wallace Emerson (another ICC spot I guess you could say), then southwest to another ICC jam locale, one of my favourite spots in the city. As you may be able to tell, it took me several hours, and I ran out of daylight before I ran out of energy.

Although I was running out of energy, mainly because I chose to run singlespeed. I realized that gears and fakie tricks really don't mesh well, and that riding singlespeed everywhere just sucks. but tearing my bike half apart every Wednesday wasn't too much fun either, so I had to come up with some kind of compromise....how do I make the gears work for me, or at least how do I cut a good hour or so out of my swapping downtime? I figured it out.

Now I have a freecoaster with two gears and 48 engagement points. I haven't had to service it in over a year, and it only weighs 400 or so grams.

Speaking of energy, Arizona can hit me up any time they want to get some product flowing, would save me god knows how much money.

Team Bike: Phase 1

So bright it hurts (pics do no justice)



Hopefully to be rebuilt to it's original form as seen here:
vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/4015253

More to come...

Vishneviy is on Black Market

About time he starts getting some recognition.

fun winter edit from Vishneviy on Vimeo.

Lite park riding from Vishneviy on Vimeo.

К10 - Эпизод Шестой и заключительный from kaunet roxx on Vimeo.

Review – Rockshox Pike 426 Air U-Turn

The product that can survive my riding for a year and keep begging for more is rare; the product that can survive my scale is even rarer. We’ve all read a review of the this fork somewhere, maybe ridden our buddy’s Pike around a parking lot, and we’ve all seen Pikes bolted onto the front ends of decidedly not all-mountain bikes. Which brings us to my Pike.

Having broken my Dirt Jam, I was casting about for replacements, and the Pike seemed like an obvious choice: burly, 20mm through-axle, adjustable, light. Perfect for a street/cross-country (strange mix, I know) rider in Toronto. Wading through the options, the choice was fairly simple: Take the weight penalty for the solid crown and strength of the 426, keep the weight low with an air spring, and keep it all adjustable with the U-Turn travel adjust feature. So on she went. After a quick bit of fiddling around with a shock pump, I had it dialled in for my mix of urban and trail riding. I may be in the minority, but I think that air is the way forward in fork applications like this – 5 minutes with a pump is infinitely preferable to about an hour swapping our springs.

Does it do its job? Yes and no. Technically speaking, the Pike more than fulfills its responsibilities as an all-mountain fork. The bump sensitivity was up to expectations for a smaller fork; with air removed it ate up the bumps and ruts and held a line fairly well, with no harsh bottoming during low-speed compression no matter how little air it contained (this probably wasn’t the best idea, but I was curious). When removed from its home environment, with a fair amount of air added and the travel dialled down, the fork did a fantastic job on the pumptracks and streets. No popping or pumping energy wasted, but none of the harshness or stiff, unwilling compression the traditional jump forks (Argyles, Dirt Jumpers, etc.) tend to exhibit. Durability, however, is where this fork hangs up. As Chris Taylor or any “Wednesday Night” regular can attest to, I’m a fairly abusive (I prefer the term “progressive” or “demanding”) rider, and Rockshox obviously did not have me in mind when designing the fork. Structurally, the fork has held up well. I have noticed some flex when preloading and carving into spins aggressively, but there are no cracks or breaks so far, and I’ve never felt afraid for my well-being on this fork, which is pretty damn important when landing backwards from 5 feet up. However I have been blowing through seals at a ridiculous rate. Luckily Terry at Solutions has kept the fork and I plugging, but he really has his work cut out for him – this fork, when the seals go, leaks more oil than the Exxon Valdez. Interestingly it still holds air and performs well for a few months after the seals first go (again, don’t try this), but I can’t deny being disappointed when every few months, the fork starts to glisten. I also somehow broke a Maxle, the amazingly handy 20mm QR system. Through my own stupidity, I snapped the threads off, but the fork amazingly still held the wheel firmly in place.

After about a year of use, I started to modify it. I had Terry drop it from 110-140mm to 80-110, to better suit my frame (the fork has at time of press outlasted 2 frames), and the fact that I can retain the travel adjust even with the fork dropped is a godsend. I shaved the gawd-awful PopLoc mount off the crown (every Pike comes with an unsightly cable guide for the optional handle-bar mounted lockout system), and put a sticker over the resulting silver patch, to prevent further wear and cable rub. I have noticed a bit of “King scoring” on the steerer (from my Chris King headset, no doubt), but nothing major.

For the pure all-mountain rider wanting a bombproof fork to shred the mountain up and down, the Pike will be absolutely perfect. Freestyle riders, street and dirt jump alike, know what you’re getting into when you buy this fork and you will not have any cause for regret. Although RockShox has supplanted it on the freestyle side with the Argyle, on the freeride side with the Lyrik and Totem, and on the all-mountain side with the Revelation and Reba, the Pike still has a place on my bike, and I suspect it will outlive many more frames, even if I end up putting Terry’s kids through college in the process.Some visuals:

The bike the Pike is hanging off of. Like the Pike, burly and light at 26.8 pounds.

Nice and light at 5.1 pounds (lowered, steerer cut)

Nice and low: 80mm travel, 12" BB height, 1" bars compared to 2" bars, 140mm travel, and a 13.5" BB height.

Thanks for reading,

CR

And introducing....

....TS team rider Gabor Szalay. Our budget unfortunately doesn't cover haircuts.

Bikecheck

Alright, so here's a FULL bikecheck.


Frame: 2009 Specialized P.3. I got this on warranty after breaking a previous warranty frame. Specialized, for such a corporate company, has awesome warranty, and the frame rides great and looks awesome. Very light, hopefully this one holds up.
Fork: 2008 Rockshox Pike 426 Air U-Turn. Got this piece after breaking my previous fork. Since then I lowered it from 110-140mm to 80-110mm, to better suit the frame. I also shaved the poploc mount. Great fork, currently around 5.2 pounds I think.
Headset: Chris King NoThreadSet 1.125", red. Replaced the Specialized OEM headset two frames ago (Damn! that long?!). Since then, I flipped the cups so the text is upside-down....because I can.
Stem: Black Market Underboss, polished. Impulse buy, when CORE couldn't get me an Atomlab Pimplite. I flipped it to get my bars lower. Hardware is a bit soft but it looks good, especially with a polished King topcap up top.
Handlebar: Answer Pro-Taper, ti Satin, 1" x 26". Pro-Tapers are the best handlebar out there. I have plowed into posts, and this thing is fine. Scarily light. Perfect angles.
Grips: ODI Rogue. Only grip I'll run. I replaced the lockrings with some red ano ones.
Front wheel: Sun S-Type laced to Novatec 20mm, MEC 26x1.1" tube, Kenda Small Block 8 1.95" Kevlar folding tire. S-Type is heavy as hell and prebuilt, but it does its job I guess. The tire and tube keep the weight low.
Cranks: Primo Powerbite. Fantastic crank. I might get some ti bits for it.
Pedals: Blackspire Maggy, black. Just rebadged Wellgo MG-1s, meaning they're amazing.
Sprocket: Profile Imperial, 33t, polished. Only sprocket that fits a 22mm spindle and a 9-speed chain. Looks awesome.
Chainguide: E13 LG-1. I may weight-tune it, maybe not.
Chain: KMC X9SL Ti-N. KMC, best chains out there.
Rear wheel: Hope Pro 2 Trials/SingleSpeed, 32 Atomlab red spokes, Mavic 729 rim, MEC 26x1" tube, Kenda Small Block 8 1.95" Kevlar folding tire. The Hope hub is incredible, steel freehub body keeps it tough, and after replacing the stock female axle bolts with steel items, I have no complaints. Hope also has great customer service. The res tof the wheel, a 729 and A-Lab straight-gauge spokes, puts up with my shit and looks good. The spokes were an impulse buy (thanks Chris) because they look awesome. Put a CORE sticker on the rim for that factory look. Chris at CORE built the wheel for me, and it holds up as well as any wheel under me could. Kenda SB8 to keep things light and rolling fast.
Cassette: Shimano HG80 Saint/SLX cassette, reduced to 6-speed (11-18). Reduced to fit the singlespeed hub. The top 3 cogs are on a common carrier, and silver, so when I ditched them I was left with 6 Ti-N coated cogs. Awesome.
Brake: Avid BB7. For street I only trust mechanical brakes, and BB7s are the last word in mechanical calipers. I'm currently running Shimano cable, which sucks but works, linked up to an Odyssey Monolever (rootbeer!!) that I got for 25 cents. Monolever stays out the way and is super tough, can't catch the lever on the ground. I run it in a few inches because I have big hands and so that there's no overlap with the grip. Out back there's a Hope 140mm rotor and Hope ti rotor bolts to keep the weight nice and low.
Post: 2009 Specialized
Seat: 2009 Specialized Fuse SL. Specialized gave both of these to me, so I figured why not run them. Interestingly, I have a stripped 2005 seat and a chopped 2005 post from Specialized, and they are heavier than this full-length combo.
Derailleur: SRAM X.0 short cage. I replaced the limit screws with bolts scavenged from an E13 chainguide, for looks, performance, and weight reasons.
Shifter: SRAM X.9

Big ups to Chris at Core for the hook-ups and keep this machine running for the past year or so, friends for putting up with me always putting the bikes first (Arden and Fluder, ahem), and I guess Specialized for giving me new frames.

See you all on Wednesday.

This is cool

Nice edit and I like his spins.

Tom Silins / spring '09 from Toms Silins on Vimeo.

Bike riding.

Gotta find the spots somewhere, since Streat is always hiding.



Expect interviews with bikechecks soonish.

More Belevskiy..

...Skip the first 10-odd minutes of Russians partying with Chinese hookers.

Untitled from alexander belevskiy on Vimeo.

Way too good.

Belevskiy

I wish I was this smooth throwing bangers this...bangin'.


LS майка и Саша Белевский типерь вместе))) from LSMmax on Vimeo.

The WEDNESDAY NIGHT RIDES will be back soon...after some heated conferencing, it has been decided. Get stoked and bring ya skillz.

24" Trials video

....No, not that one.


разминка 2009 ch.k. from ch.k. on Vimeo.

We are going to try taking TS in a different direction, post non-original content. We'll keep going with the Toronto news, ride postings, our own content, but also post cool videos like this, just to keep things moving.

Hiatus

How could we have nothing to write about in the first weeks of spring? Pretty simple....sick for a week and a half, sprained wrist for two weeks, shit adds up. Kenneth is done fiddling with his Cove and has nothing cool to write about on the tech department, and our so-called team apparently does not know what their responsibilities...responsibility, singular, that should be. Anyways. Maybe they'll figure it out.

Anyways since they've been slacking, my injured ass has had to step up, and Kenneth's working ass and olddd camera have had to help. Fooling around with a sprained wrist:

Cassette progress, V1-V2.5

So you saw cassette V1.0 ages ago -A SRAM PG-950 (used), 11-34t, weighing in at a pound clean.

V1.5 came fairly quickly, and with it came some positive results -160g with a steel lockring, 6 gears and an 11-23t stack. Competitive against road cassettes in both spread and weight. I rode it for a bit, and found I wasn't using the easiest gear, so I proceeded to V1.75 -

110g with a steel lockring, presumably around 103g with an aluminum item. Very competitive weight. 11-20 spread, 5 gears at this point. But it shifted like utter crap, spitting my chain around at will. So I bought another cassette, a Shimano and a road unit at that, because presumably this would improve the shift quality. Cassette V2.0, 213g with steel lockring. 12-24t spread or something like that.
However obviously to fit my SingleSpeed hub, at least 3 gears need to go.
I opted to keep 6 gears as the stack would be harder - 12-17t. 116g with a steel lockring. Not satisfied yet, but hopefully it will shift well. My ultimate plan would be a new chain and a reduced Shimano 11-28 cassette with an aluminum lockring.

Gears...again

Long time no posts. I put my gears back on today, considering I'm the technically inept half of TSS I think I did an OK job for my first time. Instead of limiting the derailleur the classic way, with the limit screws, I used the shifter to limit the derailleur. Say 1 is the hardest gear and 9 is the easiest...I only run 5 gears so I only want the derailleur to move from 1-5, or rather 5-1, in terms of cable tension. So I set my shifter to be in gear 9, all of the cable slack pulled in, and mated it to the derailleur which was sittin' at 5. Done.

Three noteworthy things...It doesn't shift very accurately, although I have yet to ride it. This is probably a combination of an old, still kinda rusty, cheap cassette, and my mostly nonexistent mechanical skills. The derailleur I'm running (thanks Rob), a shortcage 20th anniversary X.0, is bent (courtesy Mr. Fraser racing Worlds DH on it), so I remedied that by throwing a washer from my female axle between the hanger and the derailleur. The derailleur still makes all vital contact with the hanger, and it'll finally reach the 11t. Perfect. Finally, the one issue NOT related to the cheapness of my set-up (derailleur + cassette....$30) involves the b-tension adjustment. When it's dialled into an optimum position, the cage rides the dropout a bit. I suspect this has a bit to do with my frame, which is mostly intended for singlespeed use, and a bit to do with the afore-mentioned washer, bumping the derailleur out by a few mm. I'll see how it affects things while riding.

Foreplay

...see what I did there?

Devil's Advocate

I love Toronto's scene. That's why I'm always critical, because I want to see it back at the lofty heights it reached before. If I come off as being overly harsh to Dropmachine or Pinkbike, so be it, I want things to change.

By extension, I want to support Canada's small-time bike scene in any and every way possible. I'm waiting for the day I can proudly say I bought a local frame. As some of you know, all of my life I've been riding Specializeds. I love the feel, and with the most recent iteration, I feel like I'm riding the best street...er....streat frame out there today. But come on, I'm riding a frame designed in California and welded in Taiwan. Hard to be proud of that.

Enter Dobermann bikes. They founded their company on the premise of not being a big guy, like Specialized is. They brought with them the new school of street geo, high BB, tiny back ends, and steep head angles. Really continuing where Norco left off with their Reynolds frames. But front and centre was the idea of customer service. You bust their shit? OK, they'll weld it up. Alain and Gabo prowl Pinkbike, looking for their beloved Dobermann name. They do custom shizz, if you so desire it. This, to be perfectly honest, is the frame I'd like to be riding. Specialized geo made in Canada. Perfect.

Look around online. No, look at Pinkbike. The Dobermann riders are essentiall an army of yes-men, and ANY criticism of the company or frames, no matter how trifling, and you are swarmed with angry Dobermann riders. This is where I come in. It's come to my attention that Alain wants to discuss my Dober-hating. Well then...

I want to see Dobermann progress into more than just "the next .243". I choose to criticize because I want to see them move forward. If no-one lights a fire under their asses, they'll get lazy and stop progressing, only to become stagnant like .243. Are they even still in business? Who knows?! That's my point. Don't want to see another promising Canadian brand go down the tubes. Yes, I am very often hard on them, but someone has to be. Not everyone has the online confidence or online eloquence (if I do say so myself) to speak against them like I do. So obviously I have to be the Devil's Advocate in almost every case.

Alain, ya dig?

Spots!

Bickford, at Christie and Bloor, is a freakin' goldmine. No pics, sorry. I have a massive headache.

Tomorrow 12-1PM Dairy Queen @ Pottery Rd.

Meet there for a downtown ride.

You saw my bike, now check out the progress of team rider Khaled's Riot:


Still waiting on a few parts, but that's the rough essence of it. Black Market Riot, rawed with hints of paint throughout, baby blue bits and pieces, freecoaster and peg. Mounts castrated as needed.

The ride

Done, for now.

I'll do a full bikecheck later, maybe tomorrow.

Putting the gears on was interesting. There are a few tough points. First off, running gears with BMX cranks and a singlespeed hub is never easy. The cranks, Primo Powerbites, run a 22mm spindle, so that made my choices a bit harder. There is only one sprocket on the market that clears a 22mm spindle and will play nice with a 9-speed chain, so that was an easy choice. Profile Imperial. Luckily I got one of the few Imperials that Ten Pack Distribution had left after they dropped Profile, a 33t polished Imperial. Sick! The singlespeed hub really just means it's dishless, so since it has room for a 6-speed cassette, I reduced a SRAM PG-950 that I got for a steal.

What was tricky was the chainguide. Firstly, I had to add some spacers on the driveside, between the BB and crank arm, because otherwise the sprocket bolt would grind against the LG-1 backplate. I also had to run the LG-1 top guide higher than I otherwise would've, because the Primo crank arms would rub against the lower part of it if I ran it as it should be run with a 33t ring.

Next up, limiting the X.0 proved impossible. Because of the design, the easy limiting method, playing with the limit screws, meant that when reduced to 6-speed, it just wouldn't shift down. Impractical to say the least. So now I just have to be vigilant enough not to shift down too much.

More later. So proud of it right now.

Revised Cove Foreplay

This is some unoffical shit right here. TS exclusive, don't think anyone else has even noticed. Check those dropouts. those look like sliding dropouts? Keep your eyes on Cove.

Word of warning

Be very careful about who you let represent you.

Duke's Cycle: Go fuck yourselves. You have done nothing to earn my money, I will never go back. I don't care if every other shop in the city closes, I'll walk to Eastside in K-W. If the topic of your service, screw it your store, should EVER come up in conversation, I will tell people about how you fucked me over. Give me a single good reason not to, please. I held off on publicizing this, when mentioning the situations you put me in to friends, I defended your bullshit until I couldn't possibly justify it to myself.

Specialized: You guys have kept your word and hooked me up with new frames, against all odds (dents, long forks, etc.). For this I am extremely grateful. I'll do my utmost to tell people about the generosity of your warranty. I love the way the frames ride, how the frames are designed (mostly...), and the light weight. But DAMN, Duke's has made me seriously reconsider riding a Specialized.

General public: Stay the fuck out of Duke's. There was one employee who was a decent dude, who kept me posted...he left the shop and with him left any customer service. They never told me they got my frame, they never started to build it, you name it. Stay out at all costs.

Core site is up!

Go click that big-ass link over there!

To whom it may concern

Vanderhoof skatepark is good to go. A few puddles but nothing major.Go get rad!

A Microcosm

The cat comes out of the bag, bit by bit. My fork of choice, a Rockshox Pike 426 Air U-turn. Strongest of the Pikes, most adjustable, and lightest of the adjustable. Comes in at a decent weight.
I took the stickers off(OK, I scratched them half off on concrete in a few months and said fuck it, I'll clean this up a bit...), decided to throw on a CORE sticker (just looks so good on there, it's a new trend!). This time around, after killing the second set of seals, I asked Mr. Leimonis to lower it a bit. He did. Then I chopped an inch off the steerer and replaced the stock starnut with a normal one.

Therein lies the funny bit. I really didn't save much weigh with the chopping and starnut. 21g, great. I've seen heavier sneezes. But now, I can run fewer spacers, which is stronger and cleaner-looking, and a chrome Chris King topcap I've had stashed for 6 months, which will match my stem. And speaking of the weight - these things add up!
So saving 21g really let me save another 25g on top of that. Funny how these these work out.

Regrets

I feel like I owe Specialized an apology. The shop I've been dealing with (they'll remain nameless unless they REALLY fuck up) has been thoroughly incompetent and careless, and made it seem like Specialized's fault. When really, despite their reputation as being a corporate monster (which is definitely deserved), they have an awesome warranty policy.

Dented, cracked bike that's 3 years old, that has been running a fork 40mm longer than stock? Sure, we'll warranty it! Matter of fact we'll give you a brand new, 2008 frame, a P3 instead of a P2! Cracked that one? Alright, we'll give you another one, just wait two months.

And sure enough, they did ship it at the end of February, and it was the most desired, popular frame they've released in the P.line yet. Matter of fact if they released it as frame only, it would sell out in days. Anyway, they got it to me as promised, yet I've been chirping them online and in person. You may think 2 months is a while to wait for a frame that's been out since November (Hell how do you think I feel?), but they got it to me right when promised.

So props, Specialized, for having better customer service than certain companies (ahem Dobermann) who built their brand on having awesome, non-corporate, policies.

Pics soon.

Customer Service Tip:

If you make a loyal customer wait 2 months for a frame that's been out since November....












...Make sure it's in one piece when it arrives.

Madness of all kinds

So I dropped by Core bike shop today, while not in class. Still fucked over because of the flood, but Chris still greets with a smile and handshake. Even when the ceiling, floor, and walls are torn up, and the place looks like a biohazard quarantine.

So we're talking, and I mention I am still waiting on a frame from Specialized (Come on, Spez, get it together! You've been shipping 09 frames since November!), so what does Chris do? Grabs his Norco 250, asks me if I want to take it for a spin. Now this isn't just any spin, he tells me to go cruise around for a few hours and get rad, do some long fakies on his freecoaster, hell take the entire afternoon on it. I mention I have class, he asks if I have anywhere safe to put it during class.

Now you're probably missing the full significance of this. Chris lends me his personal bike to someone he KNOWS is hard on wheels (who do you think deals with my wheels? Only the best) at the best of times, who he KNOWS hasn't ridden in a few months, who has no experience with a freecoaster whatsoever. He lends his bike out for a few hours, itending me to ride it like I'd ride my own (but obviously not as well). Amazing or insane, you choose.

I had a blast, rode really fast, rode a new spot (very badly), and when I gave the bike back, my palms were aching for the first time this year. Bam. Can't wait until I've got a bike to ride, and until the Bike show.


Signs the apocalypse is upon us....people are now weighing their clothes. T1's little joke could not have come at a better time.

Custom, part III

On my extensive travels around the internet, I've come across some neat part tuning. Let's forget about Greg Melms, he deserves a post or two unto himself.

First off....Derailleurs. From MTBr:

Just to show how easy it is these days to get a reall light rear derailleur:

DA 7900 standard: 165g
pictured are all standard parts which later get replaced: 45g
tuning parts: 21g
removed cable adjustement bolt. not needed since you still have barrell adjusters on the shifters.
tuned DA7900: 143g

Note that i still use the standad plates. There's lighter carbon plates available but i still have them on my old DA...those should be another 5g lighter or so. i just thought that close to 140 is low enough. I also didn't install the Titanium spring. I would have needed to modify it too much since it didn't fit perfectly...so i still use the almost 2g heavier standard spring instead.

the DA once again fits perfect also with a 11-32 cassette in the back.

He later on mentions buying his parts at Toronto-Cycles, the weight weenie's paradise. Crazy that he could drop 22g off of Shimano's top road derailleur, crazy that there's more weight to be lost, just plain crazy...I worked out that I could get my X.0 into the 160g range. Such an expensive, addictive game.

Wheels! Still from MTBr:

Ok... looks like the forum seems to be slow these days with un-interesting posts. I just received these pictures from Jeremy over at http://www.alchemybicycleworks.com/

He just finished my latest wheel build and should be shipping them out to me shortly (so don't ask about ride impressions as I haven't received the wheels yet, and it is -9C outside (15.8F for the imperial users)

-"tuned the cassette body by replacing the stock 6902 bearing with a lighter 6802 bearing"
-"replaced the non-drive bearing with a ceramic hybrid"
-"internally butted the rear axle"


The build specification:

Front wheel:
Tune King Hub 28h (tuned)
28x PST TB 1422 Pillar Titanium bladed spokes
28x Aluminum Anodized Gold Nipples
Alex XCR Disc Rim 28h

Rear wheel:
Tune Kong (tuned) w/ Titanium Freehub Body
32x PST TB 1422 Pillar Titanium bladed spokes
32x Aluminum Anodized Gold Nipples
Alex XCR Disc Rim 28h

Total weight = 1185g

Absolutely ridiculous. Tune makes the lightest of the light stuff, and yet he manages to drop 6.5g off the front hub, and 15.7g off the rear hub. Attention to detail, mind-blowing. Just for some perspective...If he put on two Eclipse tubes and two Schwalbe Furious Fred tires, his complete wheel build would weigh 1887g. I weighed my rear wheel with tire, tube, cog, spacers, and chain tugs a while back...2175g. To be fair to myself, chances are he doesn't subject his wheels to what I do, and since then I've learned a bit about wheels and my next build would probably weigh in at around 2kg clean, but....damn.

I could add more, but I won't.

Back at long last

Speaking of stalled-out...

My favourite website ever, Grindstate, had been down for....a year now? Back at long last.

One way to look at it

First off, let me apologize for the distinct lack of content lately. Winter's ending, I have sweet fuck-all to talk about, mainly because I have no (nice, cool) bike to modify and obsess over. I WILL produce this spring, I promise.

Random thoughts: Right now, the status quo for street/park/jump mountain bikes is singlespeed, rear brake only, hardtail. Any deviance is met with questions and/or admonishments, depending on who sees it.

I started of riding with 2 brakes and gears. No good for for the gears, I rode and still ride a lot of XC and commuting, but I found out I can do both without gears. The front brake, I like doing tricks with. As I broke shit, I eventually reverted to the standard singlespeed, wishing I had gears. I took the rear brake off for a summer, that was really cool. Went brakeless for a week, killed my tires and terrified myself, finally reached the balance point. Despite my best ambitions to the contrary, I ended up with a singlespeed mountain bike with only the rear brake. I dabbled in front brakes, never lasted (because I would fuck it up, I still like using them), and so on.

But things change. Time passed, I got used to it. Kept riding trails and street, even tried brakeless again! The weight bug hit me (that's another blog for another day), and I had other shit to worry about. Now I find myself about to put gears on, from a funny situation. I have a singlespeed hub and BMX cranks (Primo cranks, know how hard it is to make that work?). People are asking me why I'm putting gears on (why not? It's a mountain bike and it'll go faster!), rather than the opposite.

I came to the interesting conclusion the other day; people asked me similiar questions whenever I rode brakeless. Why am I really putting gears on? At risk of another autbiography, my riding this season really went in the wrong direction. Spinning is cool, and I learned a lot of that, but I was going in the direction of tech everything, rather than what I'd like to be doing, fast stuff, gaps, no fakie, just balls-out speed and flowing. I put gears on, instantly I'm going faster, and I can't do fakies anymore. Perfect. Now I have to 360 where I would 180, now I clear 15 feet where I was clearing 10 before. To sum up, it's a new challenge. I have to adapt my style, right down the basic way I approach riding my bike (not tricks, just riding it). Much like going brakeless.

tl;dr brakeless is the same thing as gears.

Think about it. Weird, eh?

Onterrible

A new issue of Onterrible has dropped. I'm all for any Ontario footage, and this is particularly well done.

After watching it, I have to say I'm underwhelmed. It's set in an indoor park (and flatground I guess), that just HAPPENS to be in Toronto. If I didn't recognize the ramps from Wallace Emerson, I would have had no way of knowing at all. The first clip of Chijioke (the only rider I could pick out as being "local" was of him donig a 3-tap to fakie to indian giver. Unimpressed. The first Onterrible....now THAT was a banger.

Weight weeniedom

Sound good to you guys? I have a few more changes in mind before I'm completely happy with the gear set-up (prize to anyone who guesses correctly), but this is a damn good start. Cost me like $160 so far, all I'm waiting on is a chain now.

Adding gears will add 1.3 pounds, less even. That satisfies my curiosity. The modifications I have in mind will hopefully bring the difference down to a pound clean. It's noteworthy that my weights don't include zip ties or the electrical tape I'll be using the keep it all looking clean. However the quoted weight also includes an undrilled chaingu....I've said too much.

Well will you look at that...

I am a hugely enthusiastic amateur weight weenie. Of the many tiers of weight weeniedom (outlined at some point), I'd say I'm around Tier 3. So obviously when it comes time to put gears on, I won't settle for any old Saint shiiiet. Let's take a look at the rear wheel.

I own a Hope Pro II SingleSpeed/Trials. Great little hub, equally spaced flanges for a dishless build (unless you own a Specialized, but that's another story altogether), double the engagement points of the Standard Pro II, and a steel freehub body. Very low weight too, if you care, which I definitely do. You can even cram up to six 9-speed cogs on, should you want to run gears, which I definitely do. So..

Hope Pro II weight: 295g
Hope Pro II weight with steel freehub body: ~370g
Hope Pro II SingleSpeed/Trials weight: 375g, confirmed
SRAM PG-950 cassette weight: 450g, confirmed

Now a pound clean for a cassette is quite a fucking bit, needless to say. And I still need to circumcize it, since it won't fit. So let's circumcize...


So I knock THREE gears off of a NINE-speed cassette, and I lose more than half of the weight right there. I mean that's reason enough to do this modification. 290g is 290g, no matter what hub. As a side note, if I had gotten the normal Pro II hub and not done this modification, the supposed 75g saving would have translated to a 225g gain, a clean half-pound. Another way of looking at that is realizing that the normal Pro 2 weighs 290g. I just dropped the weight of a complete hub.

So now I have a 11-23 spread (mated to a 33t up front) that weighs 160g, on a singlespeed hub. Any questions?

The Masters

When Kenneth pokes his head above ground and makes a post, he makes it count. You'll see more of what I mean when my fork is done. Speaking of thinly-veiled teasers, we have an exclusive interview on the way. Not Cedric Gracia or Bearclaw, but someone who actually has opinions and insight that matter to us.

Core bike shop (Coxwell & Queen) recently renovated, with a beautiful paint job and fantastic set-up courtesy hours and hours of sleepless nights spent painting. Imagine Chris Taylor's surprise upon seeing his ceiling pouring water a few short weeks after the paint fumes dissipated. Wishing him all the best in getting Core back on its feet (again!)

Custom, part II

Tons of photos coming this weekend. Call it the weekend of TS. We're moving into our new digs, the Streatworks. Lots of modifications getting finished up, weighed (you know it!), and maybe painted. Maybe even ridden, who knows...maybe Kenneth or Duran will even post on this blog!

Custom

What does that even mean? If you buy a bunch of components and slap 'em together, is that a custom bike? The word custom is overused in the bike sense these days....changing your tires does NOT make your bike custom, nor does putting on a different set of handlebars.

Hell on the topic of handlebars, I'd argue that immediately going out and buying a set of 3" rise steel bars (with a dropped stem, go figure) or immediately buying a Deity bar/stem combo is actually counter-custom (not a word, I know)...All you're doing is conforming to the street trends of the day. How do these kids know that they like the angles on Deity bars, that they're going to like having silly amounts of rise? Letting the internet build your bike is NOT custom.

Lacing up some hubs, spokes, and rims of your choice? In the ballpark, not quite custom enough for TS yet. Lowering your fork? Now you're playing the game. But why stop there? Let's look at the Rockshox Pike Air U-Turn. Originally built for AM, it has an optional remote lock-out, which is slickly routed through the crown. It has adjustable travel, 110-140mm, and obviously, brake mounts. Now obviously travel is determined by how you ride, but 110mm is the highest you can run on a modern street frame without ruining the geo. Many people don't run front brakes, and almost no-one runs a remote lock-out. So why bother with all of those mounts? 15 minutes with a file and sandpaper, and they're gone. Crack open that fork and lower it if you don't want 140mm of travel.

Now let's look at frames. This is where it gets dicey, because if you're like me, you want a long warranty and you want to take advantage of it. There goes your chance to modify the frame, right there...But if you're the second owner or just don't care, why run what the factory gave you? For starters, the paint is almost guaranteed to be hideous...and many people don't run gears, which leaves you with unnecessary tabs sticking out of the top tube. Hell some people don't even run brakes.

Look at your drivetrain...chainguide, cassette, cranks, the list goes on. Expect something more concrete this weekend.

Use your imagination!

Bike riding at long last

Occasionally, we do ride. My frame has been broken for a few months, but just today I (mostly) built my other bike. Said "Fuck it!" and rode instead of worrying about details.

The Kona you see here isn't in spring shape quite yet...she needs a chain (obviously), but that's waiting until I figure out how I'm maintaining tension, and that's waiting until I decide on a ratio. No sweat! She's also waiting on a front brake. Stay tuned, you'll get a full speclist when she's done.

TS team rider Duran produces with a footjam tailwhip in the grimy, poorly lit garage.

TS team manager and manly man CR takes a break from finding shit to blog about and chucks a tailwhip in the grimy garage. Courageous decision to wear a white shirt. Early snap from Duran, but we'll forgive him this time.

Anticipation

One of my bikes is coming together, at long last. Feeling all tingly, haven't ridden a bike of my own in a few months, haven't ridden this bike since mid-summer. So let's get some history, and pictures.

First off...history. This bike came to be courtesy a "Free Stuff" thread on Dropmachine this summer gone by. She was offered up by the user Stephen, and I quickly snapped her up. Turns out he lives close to me, so I was able to get her before he left for Fort McMurray or somewhere even more rural. Then I slapped on a few of my own parts (seat and pedals) and gaver.

At this point, she was SS, lite trials set-up...22:13 ratio, derailleur tensioner, 2 rim brakes, all fine by me, but the deal-breaker was really up front...a rigid fork, threaded, with a quill-type stem. I cannot ride rigid to save my life, and just looking at that quill-type stem, I just couldn't bring myself to spend money to remedy the problem. So she really got neglected for the most part, I rode some XC on her, rode her when my Specialized was in the shop, but really didn't like it beyond the novelty. The chain would jump all the time, and the rigid fork just killed me.

Then my Specialized frame cracked. Off to Specialized it went, and I was left, mid-summer and mid-stoke, with no street bike. So the Kona got pressed into street duty. I ditched the derailleur tensioner, turns out 22:13 is a perfect ratio with a new chain, which I bought (710SL for the Specialized). Even if I didn't really like the ride, those two weeks are really when I got an emotional attachment to the bike. She kept me riding when I otherwise would've gone crazy. Slow, unwieldy, but I still made it to every Wednesday Night Ride.

Then I got a new frame from Specialized. I haven't ridden the Kona since. That new frame is broken, no replacement for another month at least, and I've got a bike sitting in my basement. I'd really been annoyed at myself for getting this bike and not riding her, Stephen gave her up because he wasn't riding her, and here she was in my basement. Then I discovered the headtube was 1.125, not 1" as I originally thought. The rest is history...


Full specs and a full shot coming soon. Frame is a 2001 Kona Scab. She'll be built for XC and generally versatility. Finally, FINALLY, I'll be able to really ride her and enjoy it.

Here's some art.

I'm still learning to use the calculator as a medium and there's no eraser tool.

In the news

If you read any of Toronto's papers, that partisan clueless bullshit rag the Star in particular, you know Toronto is in the process of mounting a bid for the 2015 Pan-Am Games. I don't know what the hell those are, other than what I've read in afore-mentioned populist rag. I do know that it'll be stupidly expensive, like $1,770,000,000 expensive, presumably because of all of the facilities you have to build. The idea of these games is to showcase Toronto's superiority as a city or something...

• The capital investment made to stage the 2015 Pan/Parapan Am Games represents a legacy investment of close to $1 billion – the largest ever contribution to Ontario’s sport and recreation infrastructure

• Brand new facilities will be developed to host competitions; a combination of existing and renovated facilities will be used for a variety of events, all facilities for the games will meet or exceed international and Olympic standards

• All venues will use green technology, be fully accessible be available to spectators, high performance athletes, community groups and members of the public during and after the Games

So. $1 billion dollars worth of flashy shiny new facilities being built, fully acessible to the public. Can you see where I'm going with this? Build it and we will come.

In other news...expect some original content from our corner in a week or two.

And on the topic of dicking around....keep clicking that CORE link over there, eventually it'll take you to an actual website.

The waiting game

Most of us just play the benches when snow comes, shred the forums, you know the deal. And that's why most of us ride the same old spots year in year out. So get off your ass and explore, who knows what you'll find.

Worse comes to worse, you've seen a new part of the city, experienced some new streetlife. Hardly a day wasted.

We've still got a good month or two of this shit left, but when the season comes it won't be waiting, so find yourself a nice new ledge. These spots won't ride themselves.