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.

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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.