These are the all new PVD headtubes for the 2011 Gemini bikes. A pair of bikes following Mercury. A road and a mountain. They should be completed prior to NAHBS for all to see. Show bikes made to be ridden hard, put away wet and taken out again and again. Top bearing is Cane Creek … Read more
Named for the NASA Mercury space program. Seriously rad! The 2011 PVD Mercury Trailbike. Tapered head tube, 2×10 designed, DMFD, ISCG05 w/slider, BB92, with clearance for 3.0″ tires. Like all PVD Trailbikes, this bike is designed specifically to completely dominate Marin California singletrack. The time tested and challenged design sets the standard for high speed … Read more
It’s been a few months since I’ve build a bike frame. I needed to update my geared trail bike with a few new updates in my design but one issue was lagging. 1.125″ straight steerers are effectively dead. It’s all tapered now. The light carbon forked folks like it. The burly slopestylists like it. Everyone … Read more
As the proud new owner of a 2011 Fox Vanilla 36 160 fork, I finally got around to give it the TLC that it deserved. I had already swapped the stock ‘blue’ spring (039-05-102, 45 lb/in) for a stiffer ‘green’ spring (039-05-103, 50 lb/in). That’s a pretty simple task and takes about 5 minutes. It … Read more
This past April I moved to the Bernal Heights neighborhood in San Francisco. Quite a culture shock for me to be sure. Fairfax is a very differnt place. This part of SF is about 15 minutes away from one of the major casual DH/Jump locations in the bay area, Pacifica. An odd thing about Pacifica, … Read more
Riding at Northstar this past weekend. My trusty steed the Intense M6 finally had an issue. 2.5 seasons of riding and the pivot link pertch broke off. I was able to get a good day of riding in on Friday, but at the bottom of the last run of the day the snap cracks and … Read more
You don’t know anything unless you’ve measured it. A very wise tuner passed that statemet down to me. I learned a lot from him. Dan Kyle. Look him up. People get pretty spooked about suspension. They get lost. They get confused. I used to. Then I bought a spring scale and everything made much more … Read more
Lately, I’ve been trying to recruit some folks from the city to go ride mountain bikes. Not fire road burns, but honest singletrack trail mountain biking. It’s an amazingly hard thing to do. I ask, “Would you like to go ride mountain bikes with me?” They say, “Maybe, I usually ride over the bridge to … Read more
I ride my mountain bike on single track trails. These trails, I keep assuming, are my friends. I spend time with them. I love them. I fix them when they are hurt. I work hard to keep a quality relationship with them. I forget to think about what the trail thinks about me. What does the … Read more
Anybody that knows me will already know that I am the first to question a person’s equipment choice on a bike ride. I question actively, vocally, and (in my mind) friendly way. One major tenant of mine is that cyclocross bikes are stupid bikes. They excel in only two situations; cyclocross races and mixed terrain … Read more
#1 on my list is, of course, England. Top reason: BSC (60°) thread, special case, 13/32″ x 26 tpi. Let’s just call this the Sturmey-Archer thread from hell. It’s doesn’t conform to SAE, ISO, JIS, DIN or any other modern standard. It’s not even Whitworth (55°), which you might imagine. It’s a special case, used only by … Read more
What is up with Brooks saddles? 1. Heavy as hell – The lightest saddle that they make is the B15 Swallow Ti. 370 grams. Mind you that is the lightest one. Most of their line weighs in at 500 grams or more. Much more if it’s got springs on it. 2. Lame looks – Honestly … Read more
The Pedal Panties party: The Pedal Panties girls threw an even on Union Street. It was fun. The best thing for me, not being their target audience, were the cream puffs. I love creampuffs.
Anybody that knows me can attest to my hatred of the ‘old school’. I’m not talking about doing a massive front-side boneless one or a huge g-turn, a miami hopper or a simple ally oop. I’m talking about old school technology and peoples concepts that this garbage was somehow better than what we have today … Read more
Last night I went to the Soil Saloon race with Michelle at Golden Gate Park. http://soilsaloon.com/ What a great night and great event. The Soil Saloon folks really know how to host a really great time. Since I was again not racing (lamo!) and since Michelle decided not to ride a good bike to the … Read more
I was helpping to prepare Max Houtzager’s Downieville All-Mountain race bike and we came upon a setup issue. A good fork for the race was 25mm shorter than the fork his 2010 Specialized Enduro Carbon was designed for. This created a major problem because as fast as Max is up and down the hill, he … Read more