High on this years Christmas list was a new helmet, something that will offer me a lot more protection when out trail riding than say my old Giro which I'll now use for commuting.

Having checked out several models and their online reviews, I wanted something sub $75 with lots of protection, ventilation and adjustability for that perfect fit.  There were a few that seemed to check the boxes in that list such as Giro Feature, which is also a very nice helmet.  However for sheer comfort the bell stoker seemed perfectly molded for the shape of my head.

Check out the YouTube video from the Bell team:



The Stoker comes neatly boxed, nothing too fancy here other than a sliding tray and a thin plastic cover sheet with a brief safety manual.

There are 13 vents in total in the helmet which utilizes an In-Mold Polycarbonate shell to make it a relatively light weight 316 grams.

13 Vents in the helmet, along with an adjustable blade visor.

Inside of the helmet there's plenty of padding and a simple wheel adjustment which can be done one handed and fits perfectly to my head.

Overall I'm very impressed by the look and feel of the helmet and can't wait for the trails to dry so I can test it out!

Having ordered the EA70 XCT wheelset the UPS man rang the doorbell a few days later, leaving behind a rather large cardboard box.

The eagerly awaited wheelset looked great they arrived tensioned nicely and completely true.  The rear was set up out of the box for 10x135mm however it included the end caps to convert to 12x142mm if required.  The front was set for 15mm through axle.  The hubs run incredibly smooth and in fitting with the stealth look the rear runs quietly when coasting.

The front wheel weighed 800g out of the box

Pleasingly the combined weight was exactly as claimed with the wheelset weighing in at 1750g.

Rear weighing in at 950g for a combined weight of 1750g

The wheels look great, the rim is on the thinner side however they come tubeless ready without the need for any rim tape.  The only downside is that if you want to run the rims with sealant as I will due to some of my tires being non UST, the supplied valve does not come with a removable core to allow the sealant to be topped up.  This is easy to overcome though as you can pop the sealant into the tire before you mount the final bead section.  I opted to replace the valves with some Stans valves I had lying around.

Tubeless set up was straight forward with no major hiccups, I use a floor pump so always throw a tube in first to mount one side of the bead correctly.  For the winter season I have chosen Maxxis Ardent front and rear with the front being 2.4 and the rear 2.25.  I will likely go with something a little faster rolling for the summer, possibly putting an Ikon or Crossmark on the rear.

Outside of a quick spin around the neighborhood I've not had chance to put the wheels through a true test but so far so good!

Here's a quick before and after:

Lurcher with Sun Ringle Charger Comps

Lurcher with Easton EA70 XCT

I love the way they have transformed the look of the bike!  I'll update back after they have been put to use and completed some solid miles.

What's happening to the charger comp's I hear you say?  They are earmarked for my commuting, back up and all round bike...watch this space.

Motobecane Fantom 29er in need of some new wheels

A few months back I picked up a vintage Giant Cadex on my local craigslist with the intention of fixing it up and passing it along to my wife to use.  Unfortunately the 55cm frame was just a little too big for her to ride it comfortably so it sat sad for a while until I found the time to give it an overhaul.  The Cadex is a really nice lugged aluminum carbon fiber frame.

The bike needed work, cables were rusted through and the bars seemed to be wrapped in electrical tape.

Unfortunately I got a little carried away on this one and as such there's not any pics of the work in progress.  I started by completely stripping the frame, cleaning everything, right down to the bolts then re-greasing and building everything back using the good parts.

New cables were required throughout along with a new seat and a desperate need for some decent bar tape.  Thankfully the wheels were reasonably true and the tires fairly recent.  The 105 groupdet was in pretty good shape and was completely reused with the exception of the downtube shifters as I wanted to bring the bike a little more up to date and switch out the down-tube shifters for more modern brifters.  A few hours searching online led me to the following parts.

Shimano Sora 3x7 brifters

Downtube cable stops

The shifters needed a little adjustment with the help of the high/low stops on the front derailleur to only make two shifts rather than three, but the install was painless and there was minimal adjustment required for the shifters to index correctly.

I also added a WTB Speed V saddle from the parts bin and went with my tried and trusted black color bar tape.

The bike scrubbed up really well, and despite being too small for me it zipped around the neighborhood nicely.  It will now go on sale, and once gone I'll be on the lookout for my next project.

Here's a few more pics

I've been toying with the idea of switching out my Sun Ringle Charger Comps on my On One Lurcher for something a little lighter for some time now.  I got a great deal on the Sun Ringle's through Nashbar and since then I've never been able to find something to compare until now.

Step in the Easton EA70 XCT 29", Competitive Cyclist had them on sale right now for under $240!  With an MRSP of $850, I've opened my wallet and taken the plunge.

Easton's claimed weight on this wheelset is 1745g compared to Sun Ringle's 2075g on my Charger Comps.  The Easton's utilize a straight pull spoke set up and come tubeless ready.  I'm super excited about fitting these to my Lurcher and the stealthy color scheme should be a perfect fit!

Full review will follow.

Full Specs from the Easton Website.

WHEEL SIZE	29″
WHEELSET WEIGHT	1745G
FINISH	SAND BLASTED / WATER TRANSFER GRAPHICS
TYPE	UST TUBELESS™ ALUMINUM CLINCHER
RIM MATERIAL	EA70 ALLOY / WELDED
RIM DEPTH	21MM
INTERNAL RIM WIDTH	19MM
EXTERNAL RIM WIDTH	24MM
SPOKES	SAPIM STRAIGHT-PULL / DOUBLE-BUTTED
FRONT SPOKE PATTERN	24 / 3X
REAR SPOKE PATTERN	24 / 3X
NIPPLE TYPE	EASTON UST ALLOY
FRONT HUB TYPE	X4 / 15×100*
REAR HUB TYPE	X4 / 12×135/142

I stumbled upon this interesting blog from New York Times recently about the effects of exercising and aging, with particularly strong evidence that we should all keep on cycling.

"Active older people resemble much younger people physiologically, according to a new study of the effects of exercise on aging. The findings suggest that many of our expectations about the inevitability of physical decline with advancing years may be incorrect and that how we age is, to a large degree, up to us." Read the full article

Since I got the On-One Lurcher I'd been eyeing up the parts needed to make the On One Lurcher, single speed.  I've always fancied giving single speed a go with my mountain biking, but never taken the plunge. So when everything I needed arrived at Christmas I couldn't wait to give it a go.

The great the about the lurcher frame is that the dropouts are interchangeable so you can switch out the dropouts set for gears and put track style dropouts on by just changing a few bolts.  Coupled with a simple single speed sprocket and space set and a single speed chain its an easy transition to give it a go and very easy to convert back if I find it doesn't suit my riding style.

I managed to get out over the break and give it a go and can say I'm glad I gave it a try, I'll most likely switch back to gears over the summer and for racing but while the weather is less favorable to simplicity and ease of maintenance is a huge plus.  There were definitely a few moments where I moved my thumb to make a shift and quickly realised that I couldn't, therefore forcing me to exert that extra energy and crank it out.  I'll post back on here from time to time with my progress, the weather is pretty bad here in NOVA right now so I'll take my chances to get on the trail when I can.

Having had the Kona Kapu a couple of weeks now I'm pretty pleased by the way it rides however the way it looked was not the most easy on the eye, and a few simple tweaks could refresh it substantially.  The parts I wanted to switch out were seat post, saddle and bar tape.

Kano Kapu before

Seat post and saddle before

My cousin back in the UK does a lot of road riding and he is constantly raving about the company Planet-X and they ship to the US.  I headed across to their website And picked up their sportive ultra saddle and also an On One seat post (their MTB brand, but fits pretty well with Kona).

Seat post and saddle after

Bars and stem before

The first step was to remove the tired old red bar tape.  When installing new tape I always gravitate towards black as no matter what color your bike it will always look good and not show up dirt easily.  One thing that had been bothering me about the Kapu is that the previous owner had routed the cables at the back of the bars which made it pretty uncomfortable when riding and holding the bars at the top.

Cables routed at the back of the bars

The bars that came with the Kapu had grooves in both the front and back for cable routing, making it easy to switch the cables to the front.  Its always good to be generous with the electrical tape here as it won't be seen once the bars are freshly wrapped and you want to be sure that the cables won't move around.

Cables re-routed on the front of the bars

The final step was to wrap the fresh bar tape, this is something that is pretty easy to do however I would always recommend that you take your time, and if something doesn't quite look right, do it again.

I like to start right at the bottom of the bars, overlapping as I go, ensuring that its a tight wrap.  When you get to the levers pretty much all packs of tape will come with 2 small sections that will stick across the back of the levers, this ensures that when you are wrapping this area there's no gaps (you may notice that with the old red tape this hadn't been done and you good see the bars at the levers).  Try to get the tape to end at the same point in the center of the bars on each side and secure with some electrical tape.  The final stage is to pop in the end plugs.  I opted to toss the silver ones that came with my tape and use some black ones I had lying around to keep with the theme.

The final result

Overall I'm really pleased with the new look and for such a minimal spend it really shaves a few years from the look of the bike and sets it up for the next 1000s of miles.

As my last bike (Skyhawk) and current bike (Goblin) are both from Airborne, I'm a big fan of the brand.  They seem to be carving out a definite and solid fan base based on their competitive pricing and direct to the consumer business model.

When operating that type of business model one thing you need to be doubly sure of when building a brand is that your customer is extremely well looked after, you only have to read Airborne's sub forum on mtbr to see lots of positive reports of Airborne going above and beyond to keep customers happy and ensure that they instill the level of trust required from a brand who only sells online.

There's been a lot of excitement around the release of Airborne's latest offering, described as a more trail specific, less out and out XC version of the Goblin, aptly named...Goblin Evolution.

The specs look just as impressive as the pictures and the $1,599.95 price point making this a particularly exciting prospect.

Airborne Describe the new Goblin Evolution on their website:
"Frame optimized for 120mm travel fork

Larger diameter top-tube, downtube, chainstays, and seatstays

Contoured "Round-to-Square" seat-tube with direct FD mount

Pressfit GXP BB shell

Clearance for 2.5inch tires

142x12mm rear Maxle

69 degree HT with 435mm chainstays and 12.5inch BB height

All of the above changes make the Goblin Evolution better suited and dialed in for trail use. When it comes to spec, we've included parts that we knew would make an awesome trail Goblin: 120mm RockShox Revelation fork with 15mm Maxle and lock-out, Hayes Prime Comp hydraulic brakes, X7 2x10 drive train with an X9 Type 2 RD, Sun-Ringle Charger Comp tubeless-ready wheelset with custom matching decals, Maxxis Ardent 2.4 folding bead tires, and a Truvative Stylo T-30 cockpit."

With pre orders being taken for a February Delivery I'm sure they will fly of the shelves.

Source: http://www.airbornebicycles.com/products/137-goblin-evolution.aspx

Like many of us I like to keep up with the latest and greatest tech, even if I don't physically have the means to own items, when I can I like to be an early adopter.  This has meant that I've been closely watching out for new updates and developments around the upcoming Google Glass concept.  In that respect the recent announcements starting to appear in blogs around the Internet that Strava is developing their app for use with Google Glass has me particularity intrigued.

Image: http://www.google.com/glass/start/what-it-does/

I'm an avid Strava user, I've tried numerous different apps and tools for tracking my rides and the occasional jog each with their own strengths and weaknesses but finally discovering Strava I didn't look back.  I generally ride by myself as and when I can squeeze it in.  Despite my lone wolf status, I still have a competitive streak in me and Strava allows me to channel in on that streak and aim to better my times every single ride.

The only thing I find challenging with Strava is not having the ability to monitor my times and progress during a ride.  Strava can give out audible splits but I've never felt it safe or practical to wear earphones while riding.  I've also shelled out on a handlebar mount for my phone but quickly found out that I could only keep my phone display turned on for a limited amount of time leaving this impractical for all but the shortest of rides.  I have to admit I am like a big kid a the prospect of being able to view my times, distance & segment results whilst keeping my hands firmly planted on the handlebars and my mind focused on my ride.  Exciting times are ahead for this tech and I'm sure there will be endless ways we can incorporate the Google glass into more than just cycling as well.  I for one am looking forward to the next round of updates and developments.

Image taken from http://www.google.com/glass/start/

Source: Google Glass