The Internet Shit Train is no Place to get your Information

If you haven't noticed, I like NOFX. I've been enjoying their music for a long time. Back when I resided in a dingy basement, I would sit and listen to Truck Stop Blues on cassette for hours. That was until I got a cd player and then I began to amass as many unheard-of bands that I possibly could.
    
At that time in SG, there was a little music store that also did piercings in the back. It was called the Underground. We would go in and peruse all the cds. Stuff we had never heard of, bands that sounded kind of cool. Their big thing was they didn't stock music from any big record labels. Hence, the underground moniker. The small group of friends that I had that were in to punk rock, we reveled in knowing or having music that no one else had ever heard. It was kind of a badge of honor to have a cd that was hard to find. I'm mean, who's ever heard of Link 80? Well, I still have their cd.



The Underground went out of business pretty quick.

This was the time when Punk was quickly becoming a household name. Bands like Offspring, Green Day and Rancid were selling records like hot cakes and you couldn't throw a studded bracelet without hitting someone who was listening to punk on their Discman. I can remember trying to get mosh pits started at church dances to the likes of Self Esteem and Welcome to Paradise. It was the time of the Great Sell Out.

Any band that got remotely popular or could even keep time could score a record deal and most of them did. What these punkers didn't take into consideration was that their appeal to the underground was that they weren't on the radio and people had no clue who they were. It was sort of like a reverse elitism. Find shifty music, claim it as your own, that you "found" it. And the first time you hear anyone else listening to them, throw the music away and tell everyone that "they totally sold out."



If you think about it, it's kind of a fucked up mentality to have. You hold something dear and when it becomes something great, you shit on it. Of course, this has a lot to do with the punk rock ethos, the DIY lifestyle, Nihilism, whatever the fuck you want to call it, it is what it is. I'm not gonna sit here and type out that bands don't sell out. I can't stand any Offspring album past Smash, and Smash is only somewhat bearable due to the teenage nostalgia. Their music changed. And it's hard to wonder what it would have been like if they weren't so widely accepted.

I cannot lie, in many ways, I subscribe to this ideology. Music does change when musicians suddenly have shit tons of money. When they are no longer worried about where their next meal comes from or if anyone is going to listen to their music. Cutting your teeth on desperation, it's hard to suddenly be able to switch to writing without it. And so we hate those who have made it.

Of course, there's the whole DIY part of it as well. Controlling the creative process from start to finish, is a big deal. And punk music is built on that foundation.

One of the reasons I love bikes so much, is the DIY ethos that tends to go along with them. Need to get to the store, pedal. You don't need some gas company to sell you something just to get around. It's the biggest middle finger you can give to the current system that has failed in so many different ways.



It's interesting that right along side that DIY ethos, the same elitism appears. Look at fixed gear bikes. They are the epitomy of DIY. They are simple, require almost no maintenance and as an added bonus, you can run them brakeless to get that "badguy" mojo going. These aren't new, they were around forever, actually since before freewheels, but as soon as they became popular they were hated along side their human counter parts, the hipster.

When it really comes down to it, it's about feeling special. Being elite because you are doing something different and then being pissed when everyone else thinks it's cool.

The tirade that will piss most of you off, continues here.

Here's how to service a Mavic freehub body

Way back in January of 2012, I wrote a little ditty I called Six Things to Remember when Servicing a Mavic Freehub Body. I wrote it, posted it and didn't think much about it. Until the other day when I was running numbers on this website and realized that a shit ton of people are looking for advice on how to service a Mavic freehub body. The poor bastards are showing up here and all I had to offer was advice on what not to do. Not exactly what they were looking for.


This list goes on for a couple of pages and there are three in the top ten.

I found this quite interesting and did my own search for instructions on how to service a Mavic freehub body. The original version of the above linked post was on the front page. I also found that there were no good resources on that front page. No wonder they're showing up here. None of the other sites were worth a shit. Some dude even went so far as to make a video, I wasn't impressed.

So if you showed up here looking for some advice on what to do about your squealing Mavic wheels or why your chain bounces off your chain stay any time you get some speed, this is everything you need to know to take care of the problem. If you happen to own a set of Mavic wheels, they do require maintenance. They're pretty bomb proof until the bushing gets worn out and then, well you don't want to know what happens then.

Read the rest here.

Fuck 27.5 and all you fanboy trolls

This post is NSFW, is TBIF and if you are easily offended by tire sizes you should not proceed. Or do, I don't really give a shit if I offend you.

This whole bull shit about a new tire size has my blood boiling. Not because I think a new tire size is unnecessary (which it totally is), but because of the shithead attitude of tire size trolls. You know who you are, you spend more time on MTBR forums and commenting on Bikerumor than you do actually riding bikes. You're the fuckwads who make it impossible for any semblance of an intelligent debate to take place on the internet. Just read the comments at the last site mentioned and you will see any mountain oriented article be drawn in to the never ending bull shit that is internet commentary because by the time you hit the third comment some dipshit has called out every other dip shit on tire size and it just goes down hill from there.

You are the same dipshits that ruined MTBR. I'm old enough to remember the beginnings of that site and the forums. Being totally into cycling, I was all getting signed up and commenting and getting rad on the new internet community for us dirt cyclists. After a few comments on people's genuine tech inquiries and the barrage of bull shit and hate that came after, I stopped existing in that format. What a bunch of fucking idiots. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but the tire that "everyone is riding and loving" in the Northwest is hardly the right tire for riding conditions in the desert. I know that's hard to wrap your little sophomoric mind around, but that's just the way it fucking is.

The rest of my rant is over here...

Anyone remember this shit?

ScRAM

I have a few of these left.

Get 'em here.

The newest of the new

Oh yea, 9 speeds are better than 10 11.

For those of you who don't know what the hell I'm bantering about, that is the cassette from the S-Works Demo. It's a 9 speed 9-20...

Nothing new to see here, just more of the same.

So I hopped on over to the place on the interwebs where all things Rumored about the Bike World are archived. The first thing to assault my vision was the above image. If you're anything like me, when your brain processed the above image, your balls sucked right up into your stomach. Not because of the obviously disgustingly ugly frame, but because of that saddle.

I could be wrong, I've only been doing this for about 18 years, but that saddle angle has been found to cause prostate cancer, at least in the state of California. And this may be the spot where, if you aren't a complete Bike Douchenerd© you stop reading, but seriously. You're going to display your $10,000 bike without consulting the small details? Do you expect me to think you have a fucking clue about what you are doing when the saddle couldn't coddle my backside unless I could kiss my own ass and getting to the hoods might cause some wrist pain? Seriously?

But that's not what I wanted to point out.

After my balls dropped back out of my chest because they realized I wouldn't be mounting this stead, I couldn't think that maybe this fiddle's already been played and it should have been left quiet.
For those of you still reading who aren't Bike Douchenerds©, this frame was designed several years ago and touted at Interbike for a few years. Granted the engineering involved is pretty awesome, but sometimes engineers lack one big thing, and that's the ability to apply real world scenarios. Above you have the second generation of a frame and there aren't any water bottle bosses. So you expect a roadie to drop $3500 on your DNA inspired frame and then wear a camel back? Yea, I don't see that happening.

Read more...

Cantis not Discs

As cyclists, we quickly learn to suffer and to revel in it, bathe in the insanity of wanting your legs to burn and to fall asleep at the end of the day completely done. We have little catch phrases like, "It feels like burning!!!" that may or may not be yelled at the crest of any hill. Even if that means that you are now more out of breath and the burning just got intensified.

Cycling is about suffering.

Every person on a bike must learn to embrace that burn, embrace the fatigue to some extent. I don't care that you aren't a serious cyclist, if you ride a bike, you're pretty damn serious to me. You need to learn to suffer. Oh you just ride for exercise, well you aren't going to lose any weight until you feel that pain. "Serious racer dude" you aren't going to get any faster until you quick eating shit and make it hurt. The suffering is ingrained in cycling. It's why certain rides make my hands sweat and I wonder about my nutrition choices, in the same way that the Flying Monkey used to give me nightmares.

And for those that cared and asked, that is why there is a Making Cycling Difficult section of the Alliance blog. At some point, you may get bored as a cyclist. Sometimes it's called burn out, sometimes you just need a change. And there are other times when you have plateaued and it doesn't hurt any more. That burn that you felt the first 153 times up that hill has finally lessened. You don't drop the gears any more to hump the top or you don't scrub the speed right before you hit the lip of the jump and send it.

Sometimes you need a little nudge to bring back the hurt and make things interesting again.

I love cross bikes. I've made sure there was one in my revolving quiver since 2009. It has always been a singlespeed. And it has always had cantis. With the newest and the best coming out this year with discs on everything, I was forced to sit back and think about this fad. Do disc brakes offer a performance advantage? Absolutely, I don't think you can find someone that will argue the contrary, except that I am going to, right now.

The rest here.

The State of the Industry

27.5, The next big thing, even though it's smaller...

 
This past July, I found myself in Park City on Giant Bicycle's dime. They flew myself and a coworker whose identity will remain anonymous to protect the innocent, to SLC and then as quickly as a tour bus moves, whisked us away to The Chateau Deer Valley. They proceeded to wine and dine us for the next couple of days. Each morning they force fed us the Kool-aid and then they let us ride the bikes.

The bikes were awesome, don't get me wrong. But that is not what this is about.

The number one theme at the Giant Kool-aid feedings was, "In the past we have sucked, but this year, we think we may have knocked it out of the park, but you'll agree we at least hit it into the outfield." Yup, everything was about apologizing for the past and stoking for the future. With a bit of qualifying for the off-chance that they didn't. (I would like to point out the sport reference. I'm sure it's the first here at the Alliance and most likely will be the last. And yes I realize that cycling is a "sport.")

They apologized for past graphics. They apologized for past fill rates. They apologized for the past. And then they put us on the future and everyone had smiles on their faces (if that is even physically possible) and a bright look toward the future. I was among the smiling. I have always been a fan of Giant bikes and in my humble opinion, they are the most underrated bike manufacture.

Read the rest.

They must think we are all fucking stupid

I'm sorry but that's a car, not a bike.

The cycling industry has traditions. Some of them have been going on for centuries and others, just for decades. And some of them probably started this year. For example, the cycling cap. A rather strange accessory, but it's ours and we'll hold on to it. The other obvious example is the self-loathing party known as Interbike. It continues to happen every year in September. Despite the fact that the industry has already released and shipped the next model year. Everything that is shown has already been seen. There isn't any level of surprise left.

So why go? Great question, to which I have no answer. But it did seem that the new venue brought out more manufactures and more attendees. Whatever that means.

But let's get right down to the good stuff, all that new stuff that revolutionized the cycling world this year.

The first noticeable trend was that everything got disc brakes. Road bikes with disc brakes are the new aero bikes which were the new endurance bikes which were the new road bikes and now we have disc road bikes. Every wheel manufacture had at least one set, every frame maker had at least one model and every fork former had something sitting in their booth that would allow the user to attach disc brakes to their skinny tire bicycle.

Read more here.

Aluminum versus Rock

Rock won...

I went all the way to Eurobike and all I brought you back was this lousy post.

Once again, the bike has been completely revolutionized.

Unless you're living under the biggest rock in the known world's history, you know that the bicycle industry has been throwing themselves a big party on the other side of that big thing of water that separates us from them. They are throwing this party, of course, because they have been successful in completely revolutionizing the bicycle.

The design that was revolutionized.

I can say this with all confidence because I didn't see one, nope count 'em, not one bone shaker.   Now that thing is definitely not vertically compliant or laterally stiff. Aero? Forget it. It does however, sport the newest and greatest suspension design and direct brake system. Not to mention the integrated front fender, that did not increase the weight of the bike at all.

Of course, for today's kids the color is a bit drab, you know with the 80s coming back and all.

Read more.

Today is the Last of Days

The coolest of the cool kids will be sporting these at school.

Today is the last day to Preorder your SCRAM T-shirt. I know you want one, so go ahead and do it. Every one who is cool already has.

http://jlukasbrink.fatcow.com/store/index.html

You know what to do...

Do you shave?

You'll be surprised to whom these legs belong

As humans, it is our moral obligation to divide ourselves into the haves and have nots, the doers and the shakers. We must categorize, stereotype and file each person based on our perception of who they truly are. As cyclists, this is amplified. I mean really, what the hell is a gravel bike? I don't own a bike that I can't ride on a gravel road. And all of my bikes have seen dirt at one point or another, but I digress...

There are three types of cyclists. There are those who shave, those who don't and those who shave depending on which bike they ride. As an aspiring professional cyclists, it is important that you choose the appropriate level of leg hair for your chosen discipline.

Does the idea of having tan lines that are perfectly defined on your biceps, thighs and calves appeal to you? Are you willing to suffer through pedaling for hours on ends with some other dude's ass right in front of you? Have you fantasized about having legs smoother than your girlfriend's so you can feel them at night when you are all alone? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you need to shave.

More...

Gatorskin Fail

Check this shit out, http://www.reddit.com/r/bicycling/comments/1k53w7/so_i_destroyed_my_gatorskins_in_one_week_can_you/

Absolutely hilarious.

SCRAM!

So these were made a couple of weeks ago and sold out the first day. We will be reordering on Sept 1st. If you want one, preorder it here.

Fucking eBikes

My new car fits in my drum room.

So I decided it was time to be all "trendy" and what-not and jump on the hybrid band wagon. I thought if I was going to go green, I should go all the way. So I'm trading in the Mooseknuckler-mobile for the car pictured above. No it doesn't get good gas mileage because there isn't any fucking gas.

I was a bit skeptic of jumping on the Ebike thing. Even after testing them in downtown Denver during the US launch. Riding through traffic at 30 mph was a giggle, but I had a hard time justifying a bike that I had to charge. And I still do.

Read more...

$1700 Fucking Pedals

Unless you've been hiding under a rock, or just don't peruse the cycling world like most cyclists, you've heard about Garmin's new pedals. People who have heard of them are broken into two groups. First group, They're super sweet, cost $1700 and can tell you how much power each leg is laying down. Or if you are part of that other crowd, they are $1700 fucking pedals and why would anyone want pedals that cost that much. I've got plastic pedals that have lasted for years and cost me $10...

The first group is going to buy the pedals, they have the money and yes, it is important to them to know how much power each leg can throw down. That way, if they ever need to decide which leg to cut off they can make an informed decision. They also are going to love the fact that they can move them from bike to bike without too much fuss. A lot more convenient than their SRM crankset they've been rocking since Dura Ace 7800 was cool.

Read more...

I fucking hate cutting my fingernails!

The start of the Tour of Utah in Brian Head

I hate cutting my finger nails.

 

Which has nothing to do with the Tour of Utah photo to the left. That has more to do with the fact that I went and watched the Tour on Tuesday and realized that A) the Tour of Utah is really fucking cool. 2) Roadies go way too fast, it's hard to get a good picture.

But back to my dilemma, because I am confident that this will be relevant to all of you, somehow. I hate to cut my fingernails. Not because it's a tedious task that never gets finished, or that it just seems ridiculous that we ever have to do this, but due to the fact that finding a descent set of clippers is nigh impossible. I am a bit of a tool snob, which goes great with everything else in my life. I guess you could really just call me a snob. But I do like tools that are well built and that work. Fingernail clippers are tools and I cannot find a good one.

I could understand this problem if I wasn't willing to spend the appropriate amount of money to procure a quality set of clippers. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places, but I can't find a set of clippers for more than $7. And that version isn't worth a shit.

Read more.

This Industry is Fucked!

Ben Serrota's letter to the cycling community.

A Desperately Needed Dying Breed

Somebody didn 't get some BB love

Joe dropped his bike off.

Joe and the shop go back about a decade. He had purchased a bike from another shop and they could never get the shifting to be dialed in. He brought it into us to see if there was anything we could do. He was frustrated to the point that he was willing to get a new group, if we could make his shit work. A coworker took a look at it. Noticed that the shifter only had 8 clicks when it should have had 9. Disassembled the shifter and moved the plate to make it the right amount of speeds. Shifting worked perfectly.

Joe has come back ever since. And he lives 5 hours away. He dropped his bike off again. He had just had it tuned elsewhere as he couldn't get down to us and needed it to be working. The rear derailleur was ghost shifting.

Read more,

http://mooseknuckleralliance.org/2013/08/a-desperately-needed-dying-breed/