Wednesday, June 19, 2019

The Dirt Week That Wasn't

[Pssst: if you want to listen to my radio show from this past Monday it's here.  Or, if you want to listen to Carcass, you can do so here.]

Hey, everybody!  I've got some great news!

For me!

Yes, that's right, my new Jones bike has shipped!  Unfortunately I don't know if I'm allowed to tell you what it is yet, but that doesn't make me any less excited.  So in the meantime here's a picture of my current one as a placeholder:


In anticipation of this I had also dubbed this week as "Dirt Week," and had planned to set aside the road riding for a bit and spend as much time as possible on a bicycle with knobby tires instead.  However, it's been raining heavily pretty much every day so far, and so I've been forced to stick to the road instead:


Fortunately I don't mind so much, since I'm still all agog over my new-to-me titanium Forever Bike and relish any opportunity to ride it, even if I'm just making circles in the park:


In addition to the Jones I've also got some new-to-me wheels for this bike headed this way, which will nudge the bike more firmly into the "classic" column and further increase the Campy factor.  Hopefully they'll also help reign in my Fredness just a bit, otherwise before I know it I could find myself getting busted for doping at a Gran Fondo:


Regardless of how you feel about Gran Fondos, you've got to admit they're doing the cycling world a great service by keeping the zany, madcap spirit of doping alive.  In the pro ranks they're all using TUEs, which is like totally boring, but down in the Fondo ranks they're hatching sitcom-quality schemes:


That's why you should always have a pit twin.

21 comments:

  1. I'm not a robot. Or am I?

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  2. I'm not sure what is more stupid, cheating for a Grand Fondo, or having a Grand Fondo "world championships" to begin with. Isn't the whole point of Grand Fondo's is its just you and what you do with it? Like lying during confession....If you feel the need to lie, you just don't get it, and you're gonna burn in hell anyways.

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  3. I'm an Angeleno who just visited NYC and—prompted partly by my regular reading of this blog—arrived with great interest in the bike culture there. One thing disturbed me greatly. Pizza delivery guys seem to run a standard configuration of dumbfounding structural illogic. To whit: Picture a mountain bike with front suspension, and a flattish front rack for the pizza, with said rack attached securely both at the hub and the handlebars. Now, what happens when the suspension compresses?

    Do the rack struts become a de facto rigid fork, despite their 5/16th of an inch diameter? Do they flex happily along with the suspension fork, despite being tubular? Nothing makes sense.

    What is happening? I am having nightmares. Help me understand, BikeSnob!

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  4. Not even in silhouette is the Litespeed's uncomeliness hidden.

    I suppose you're to be commended for embarking on its rehabilitation, starting with wheel replacement (make sure the new ones have their valve caps attached!), but I'm afeared that this bicycle is so egregious an affront to common decency that it may forever be beyond redemption.

    Begrudgingly, one accepts that as a machine it is an exceptional entity, but for the good of society, I implore you to only ride this bicycle in the dead of night in some remote abandoned wasteland.

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  5. My guess would be that they get those suspension forks not because they want them, but because that's what's cheap in the stores. Probably they've either got it locked out or the rack tilts or bends when it does activate.

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  6. What if I want to listen to Anal Cunt?

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  7. Hey Snob, partly because of your glowing recommendations I invested in a set of Jones H bars for my new Ultimate Commuter, A Rohloffed Surly Ogre, the slightly narrower version. And I couldn't help myself, I went for the Ti version. Couldn't be happier. Good luck with the new Jones and your future obsession with the wonder material.

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  8. Anonymous 5:57pm,

    It's weird you're so offended by what's really a pretty ordinary-looking road bike...

    --Tan Tenovo

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  9. Scott B.,

    Uh, they probably locked out the forks or did something with the internals...?

    You didn't spend much time here if that's the most vexing thing you saw.

    --Tan Tenovo

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  10. bad boy of the southJune 19, 2019 at 7:24 PM

    Wow! Jonesing for another Jones. And speaking of fondon'ts...

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  11. The comments section is becoming Face-bookish. Perhaps along with comment moderation, you could ban anon posts. No. That would be Face-bookish...

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  12. Good show - I don't have kids, but everytime I see a kid biking along CPW - even with a parent, I can't believe anyone would allow their kids to ride there

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  13. Some guy from upstateJune 20, 2019 at 12:01 PM

    You could break up the racing in circles in the park with racing around in circles in the dirt. Chain Stretcher is coming up. Peekskill's not that far. Plus there's a couple of single speed cats just in case anyone has a spiffy artisanal single-speed rugged off-road bicycle. Just sayin' ...

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  14. If the captcha required identifying the proper steps in order to repair a flat bicycle tire our anonymous “problem” may well disappear.

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  15. Some guy from upstate,

    Indeed--I will be racing in circles in the dirt this very weekend in fact.

    --Tan Tenovo

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  16. I looked at the Jones site thinking they came out with a gravel bike, you already have an MTB. No gravel bike but Jones now has their own grips. There is a soft density option which is great as the ESI grips are way too hard.

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  17. There are so many versions of MTBs out there. Sometimes it is hard to decide which one is the best for yourself. https://bicycle-accessories.com/mountain-bike/how-to-choose-the-right-mountain-bike/

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