Had to use a pair of vice grips to remove the cover of my #Garmin power meter pedals because they were stuck enough that trying to use the hex socket to remove the cover just resulted in it stripping. (Yes, I'm using hex keys that are known to be good.)
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How do #cycling folks feel about the Clik Valve?
The principle of the SCHWALBE CLIK VALVE, winner of the Eurobike Award 2024, is very simple: it works intuitively with a click. What does it need? The valve and the corresponding pump head or pump head adapter. With the Clik Valve, this can be clicked onto the bike valve with minimal force and removed again very easily after successful inflation.It doesn't matter which valve and pump you currently have - thanks to conversion kits for all existing bicycle valves and most pumps. To change the bicycle valve, simply replace the valve insert (Sclaverand, Presta, Dunlop, tubeless valve), for the car valve there is an adapter that is screwed over the valve (and can be easily unscrewed again to be able to use petrol station pumps).
The pump head adapter can be integrated into the pump head of current pumps (by clamping or screwing in), even with hand pumps. The Schwalbe Clik Valve can also be inflated with normal SV (Presta) pumps - thanks to this reverse compatibility, you are never at a loss in any situation. And SKS will already be offering its own CLIK VALVE pump at Eurobike.
Schwalbe will soon be producing the first tubes with the Clik Valve.
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Found these cute old sheds (still in use!) in Woodland Park while exploring a new route with the knobby-ish gravel tires on my Soma Stanyan. (1)
Definitely getting better with the color calibration tool in #Darktable. Having the flexibility to pick any hue for the illuminant is very nice! :)
#photography #photog #photos #photo #mywork #Seattle #seabikes #cycling #bicycle #mastobikes #biketooter
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If breaking the rules is safer than following them, it might be time to change the rules. :/
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Was rewarded for riding my #bicycle for the first time in over a week (due to illness and a mechanical) with a gnat in my windpipe. :( #cycilng #mastobikes #biketooter
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Pretty sure they only made the beads so tight so that they'd form a more effective "seal" with the rim's well to make inflating with a compressor or similar easier. That results in two side-effects:
- The tires are a bear to get on the rim!
- As soon as pressure is lost, the beads want to migrate to the center of the rim's well.
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I've been running 38mm Panaracer GravelKing tires tubeless on my Soma Stanyan for years, but the front tire I just put on has enough wobble to rub in one spot on every rotation. (The wheel itself is true.)
Two shops told me that the tire wasn't seated right, but I checked and remounted multiple times and it's seating fine. Even used some rubbing alcohol to lubricate the tire where it seated, but it always mounts up perfectly fine. The tire is the problem.
The second shop gave the real answer after chatting with the folks there for a bit: I should go down a size. It's a real bummer, but even the Soma website says it can do up to 35mm. :(
The only other realistic alternative is a new frameset, or at least a new fork, but that will have to wait for a while. :(
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Lildude Esquire (@lildude@mastodon.social)
Attached: 1 image Whoops. That would explain why my right brake lever suddenly became loose on my ride last week when I hit a particularly brutal bump I only slightly avoided. #BikeTooterMastodon
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![:'( :'(](https://f.kawa-kun.com/images/smiley-cry.gif)
When @clover and I got to the bottom of a long hill while #cycling yesterday, I heard the tell-tale sign of a #tubeless leak in my front tire, a well-used #Panaracer #GravelKing. She even said it was smoking, but I knew it was just sealant blowing out.
Thankfully, it was at the end of our ride and I didn't have to deal with steering on a floppy tire. I did snap this picture, though.
I tried seating it again today and it just wouldn't hold air because of the same spot. That's when I noticed the bulge in the sidewall near the bead, so I decided to toss the tire and put on a fresh (identical) one I had in reserve. The new tire seated without issue, aside from how I had to do it twice because I put it on the wrong way the first time. :P
This isn't a knock on Panaracer tire quality, of course. The tire's been through a lot and there was only so much tread left anyway.
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@glitter
Good #bicycle fit is really hard if the rider doesn't already have good technique. 🫠
#cycling #biketooter #mastobikes @mastobikes group @biketooter group
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A randonneur-style handlebar bag with a lightweight metal basket frame that uses hinges instead of bends would hold its shape extremely well over the years. 🤔
#cycling #bicycle #mastobikes #biketooter @mastobikes group @biketooter group
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Analog Simplicity: Rene Herse Floating Chain
Now that the Nivex derailleurs have been in production for a while, Rene Herse is taking analog shifting to the next level with the Floating Chain. This system is lighter, has less resistance and costs far less than all derailleur systems available today.Jan Heine, head of R&D at Rene Herse Cycles, explained: “One-by drivetrains have simplified bicycle gearing, but it’s time to go a step further. Most cyclists need only three gears: one for uphills, one for flat roads, and one for downhills. The steps between these gears tend to be relatively large. Large steps between three gears are easiest to accommodate on the front, with a triple crank. So we’ve effectively turned the one-by around and put all the gears on the front.”
The Floating Chain system uses a triple crank and just a single-speed freewheel on the rear. As an added benefit, front derailleurs are lighter, more reliable, and less prone to damage when the bike falls over.
In the interest of keeping the system simple and to reduce mechanical resistance to a minimum, there is no chain tensioner. The chain length is selected for the big chainring, and it’s allowed to float freely when it runs on one of the smaller chainrings. There is no need to keep the lower chain run tensioned, as long as you don’t backpedal for more than half a revolution of the cranks.
#cycling #bicycle #biketooter #mastobikes @biketooter group @mastobikes group
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Most cyclists need only 3 gears if they live around flat terrain with some rolling hills.
When you live in foot hills, river valley's, and other more sharp topogrpahy you need more like 7-10 gears and some of them are rather close. So one's milage may vary on the utility of this system.
Plus rear derailleurs are only slightly more fragile than front.
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@InkySchwartz Yes, you can, but you can also putter about in the granny gear all the time.
But unless you have serious constraints, it's not something you should do.
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@dcz
But why would I want to when that isn't even a good enough gear.
Just accept this is a solution looking for a problem.
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@dcz
Eh, most people experiment to some degree by just trying new things. The issue is when you try something new, then claim it fixes X, and then slap specious arguments on it. It's very much like selling snake oil, or a tech bro trying to VC in their project.
Also as anothe person pointed this may all be an April Fools joke.
I always love this little bridge across Ravenna Park and usually try to make it part of the somewhat longer version of my usual loop. (1)
#cycling #bicycle #mastobikes #biketooter #seabikes #seattle
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I give zero fucks about hookless or carbon fiber bicycle rims. :3
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@lopta Once you have carbon wheels, there's no going back. They never go out of true and generally last much longer unless you figure out a way to shatter them. Probably never buying alloy again, unless they come with a bike.
Hookless, sometimes you buy a bike and it comes with hookless rims and then you end up having to care whether you want to or not.
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As someone who's built dozens of wheels in a past life, it's hard to argue when a rim comes out of the box completely true, then one day when you unlace it it's still true. Most alloy rims will not be. That's what I mean by never go out of true.
The ride quality of alloy almost always exceeds carbon unless you have >30mm rims, then I'm not sure I would want those in alloy anyway.
My opinions on carbon wheels is likely skewed by the fact that I ride deeper wheels
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Small Cheap Part....Big Expensive Problem!
Replaceable derailleur hangers and the problems they can pose
Replaceable derailleur hangers Several years ago, I wrote an article called 'Chaos, the new standard'. That article holds so much truth even today that I thought a follow up was in order. So, here it goes. A company that's been around for 51 years, as we have, will tell you the importance of standards. This is a short article detailing one such detour that we took in the 1980's.
What are standards, and why should you care? If you are a person who wants to buy a bicycle that you will ride for 20 years plus, then standards mean a lot to you. For instance, I ride a Rodriguez road bike the we built here in 1999, and I'm still riding it today. I consider myself a Forever Bike person. I will still be able to buy parts for this bike in 20 years too. Any part that needs replacing we will have in stock. That's because it's built around ISO standards (International Standards Organization). ISO standards were settled upon by the bicycle industry in the 1970's in an attempt to make sure that people could get their bicycle fixed in just about any country, and well into the future. It's worked miraculously....until recently.
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Yep. There's a port on the side of the downtube.
To get to the battery, you need to pull the motor out. Definitely a good thing that we store our bikes in our home. :)
Can a Flat-Tread Motorcycle Turn? How Motorbikes Steer
If you ride, your brain knows how motorcycles work intuitively, but we bet you'll struggle to explain it accurately. We're trading opinions for science in a pursuit to understand how motorcycles really steer.
These dynamics also apply to #bicycle riding, obviously.
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It was cool seeing the California Superbike School that I attended back in 2022 being mentioned. :3 #motorcycle
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I feel like learning how to ride a #motorcycle made me a much better and more confident #bicycle rider. :3
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Had a great time on this month's Swift Industries Social Ride! There were almost 40 of us on this ride since we all wanted to enjoy the nice weather after so much gloomy rain. The pace was nice because we were able to chat most of the time, but we also were given free reign to climb and descend more significant hills at our own pace. (Album)
Hoping to do more social rides this Summer since I think it's what I really need out of my hobbies (both bicycle and motorcycle riding) now.
#cycling #bicycle #seabikes #Seattle #mastobikes #biketooter
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After over ten wonderful (and challenging!) years, G&O Family Cyclery is shutting down.
Over the years our cost of doing business and the cost of living in our city have only gone up. We have aspired to provide living, professional wages to highly skilled tradespeople. I firmly believe that high wages and more opportunities and entry level positions for more diverse types of mechanics and salespeople are the keys to revising the bike retail model and replacing the exclusive and gatekeeping culture of bike shops and at the same time provide service that is more reliable and better value than riders are typically able to depend on.After years of skirting the edge, depending on tightening margins, and digging for good luck in heaps of bad, we have hit a string of the bad kind; the reality that we cannot support ourselves and at the same time do this work in the manner that we most want has become undeniable.
It is a true thing to say that if your business can’t afford to pay fair wages, your business has no business doing business.
The shop’s closure is happening faster than we would have liked, and the livelihoods of my staff and myself are all at risk, as is our ability to meet all of the obligations we have to our customers. We will be closed for the next few days to organize ourselves, and then in the next few weeks, starting on Wednesday the 17th, we hope that you’ll consider coming in and picking up anything you might need from our shop. We have many high-quality ebikes for sale, as well as accessories like lights and helmets. We have bags of Lego for sale on a sliding scale from $5-500. We have all kinds of lovely things, and any support would be greatly appreciated.
#cycling #bicycle #seabikes #biketooter #mastobikes #Seattle
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Took the opportunity to do some routine maintenance on the bike in the warm comfort of home.
☑ New rear tire (tubeless)
☑ Cleaned the tubeless boogers out of the rear fender
☑ Installed a spring thing (converted from M4 to M5) to make the horizontal dropouts less annoying
☑ New cassette
☑ New chain
Very productive tonight! :D
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Groupsets don't really mean anything when you use friction shifting. 🤔
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But as someone who lived/rode/raced through friction the first time around, I don’t really have any urge to go back. I mean, it’s fine (and it lets your get away with all sorts of hijinx in terms of components) but the utility (for my) of indexing outweighs all that. #BikeTooter
In all my years of #cycling, I've never found a great solution for cold weather. If I bundle up so I'm not chilled, then I soak everything with sweat in short order. If I wear less, then I freeze. I've tried Merino wool, synthetics (Gore, Event, etc.), and so on, but nothing works well enough for me.
Sadly, that means I don't do anything exciting on the #bicycle during the coldest part of the year. Just my daily local loop. :(
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This is interesting.
innicycle Threadless Conversion Headset
innicycle's unique system combines a threadless stem adapter with a sealed cartridge bearing headset. The result: Finally a way to tastefully incorporate modern components with your vintage bicycle.Advantages
- Lower weight & greater rigidity
- Retains stock threaded fork
- Compatible with modern handlebars and stems
- Easily adjusted bearing preload using only a 6mm hex key
- Ultra low stack height (low stem position adjust-ability)
Fitment
The innicycle Threadless Conversion Headset™ is compatible with most road and some MTB bikes that originally came equipped with 1" threaded headsets and quill stems. Forks must be 1"-24 TPI threaded with a 7/8" (22.2mm) inside diameter. Both ISO and JIS* fork crowns are supported.
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I guess I just don’t find 1” threaded headsets that problematic? A good quality one, properly installed and adjusted should be totally fine. And there are a number of meaningful advantages to quill stems (height adjustability, comfort, esthetics). And there are lovely quill stems for 31.8mm bars, so you can run modern stuff.
#BikeTooter
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Why are shorter MTB cranks suddenly all the rage?
"I'm thinking about getting longer cranks", said no one in 2023. It's definitely true that shorter cranks are a trend right now, but why? Is it all nonsense, or is there something to it? Today we'll take a deep dive into crank length and how it affects your performance. You'll get a highly biased take on the subject from someone with very short legs.
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I still like rim brakes, but I don't have any major opposition to disc brakes as long as they're using with thru-axles. (I don't like the pads rubbing after hard braking, which is usually caused by the hubs shifting.)
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Finally figured out the process for getting my correct saddle position on a bike!
- Start with the saddle level, a bit low, and slammed all the way back on the rails.
- Raise the saddle in 3-5mm increments until you no longer lift off the saddle or have pain on or around your kneecaps. You may need to move the saddle forward a 3-5mm every now and then so you aren't completely sitting on its nose.
- Once #2 has been taken care of, pedal with the technique of spinning your knees in small, tight, and fast circles. That pedaling technique will cause you to scoot forward to where your saddle should be.
- Move the saddle forward in 3-5mm increments until it feels comfortable with that pedaling technique. Be sure to keep the saddle as level as possible while doing this.
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Saw the aftermath of some sort of traffic incident involving an #Amazon / #Rivian van and a cyclist while I was wrapping up my daily ride. I'm thinking there was another vehicle also involved because I saw a different car's bumper wedged into the Amazon van's rear bumper.
The cyclist was limping, but he said he was okay when I asked. The Amazon driver was calling someone to report the incident.
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Is it reasonable to use an inner tube (installed and inflated inside the tire on the rim) to smooth out tubeless rim tape in the case of leaks? #cycling #bicycle #biketooter #mastobikes
(I'll retape it if it doesn't work out.)
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It's sad how so many people never invest into making their bike comfortable beyond maybe a cushy saddle* and end up thinking "bike riding is supposed to be uncomfortable." #cycling #bicycle #biketooter #mastobikes
*Most cushy saddles that people go for (usually based on the saddles being cheap) aren't shaped or padded the right way and end up causing extreme discomfort in a fairly short while. :/
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I haven't ordered myself, but the first one that came to mind for me was https://www.rodbikes.com/
Had a very tall coworker who bought a bike from them and really liked it
R+E Cycles - Home of Rodriguez and Erickson Custom Bicycles
Rodriguez Bicycles - Custom Bicycles. tandem bicycles hand made in Seattle, WAR+E Cycles
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Pepijn
in reply to Neil E. Hodges • • •I didn't realize the issues they mention were issues.
So I guess I just don't care: eventually we'll just have another type of bicycle valve on the bikes in garage. As long as there's a little converter thingy available it'll be fine.
@tk
#cycling
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Richard K :blobcatverified:
in reply to Neil E. Hodges • • •Neil E. Hodges likes this.
April Wick
in reply to Neil E. Hodges • • •I was prepared to dismiss this as standards proliferation but I actually like it. I appreciate that it's compatible with Presta pumps and the conversion kits seem pretty reasonably priced.
I've seen a lot of people struggle to get pump heads to fit well on both Presta and Schrader valves for a variety of reasons - insufficient hand strength, not knowing which position the locking lever is supposed to start in (it varies between manufacturers), damaged pump head gaskets. This seems to address all of those.
If it works as well as they advertise, I'd really like to see this standard take over.
My biggest concern - and I don't see it addressed anywhere - is that it might not be an open standard, and unless Shwalbe and the inventor are reasonable about licensing fees it might just inspire more competing standards.
Standards
xkcdNeil E. Hodges likes this.
edd
in reply to Neil E. Hodges • • •It'd be nice if it means breaking a valve stem isn't as easy, I guess? Or if it became the new defacto pump so I don't have to worry about breaking cheap plastic Presta converters on cheap emergency mini-pumps for Schrader valves?
I don't necessarily doubt it might be better, but I doubt that it isn't just marginally kinda sorta better.
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Oook
in reply to Neil E. Hodges • • •I am reasonnably curious. It looks cool, however I am not sure I am ready to retrofit all my pumps (1 for each bike + track/home pump) for click adapter + all my bikes valves. I'd have to do the math. I guess it is an easier choice for people who have only one bike.
I've lived with presta valves for decades after all.
dcz
in reply to Neil E. Hodges • • •After reading the article, I'm still having trouble understanding what it does differently.
If the promises are true, then good, Presta is fragile, and a not-fragile option would be nice.
I won't buy it unless my pump already fits, and that was not entirely clear (adapter? do I have to carry it?).
adamrice
in reply to Neil E. Hodges • • •Neil E. Hodges likes this.
crowdotblack
in reply to Neil E. Hodges • • •Not interested until the industry wants to make wholesale changes and mass adoption.
lol I just spent too much money on Fillmore valves too
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Neil E. Hodges
in reply to crowdotblack • •crowdotblack
in reply to Neil E. Hodges • • •Neil E. Hodges likes this.