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For touring cyclists, or people who just want to be prepared for anything, anytime, a portable cassette removal tool has always been an issue. Break a driveside spoke and you may need to remove the cassette just to extricate the broken spoke, let alone replace it. Carrying a chainwhip and cassette tool is a bit overkill, but a pocket removal tool is not. There have been a few of them over the years, but this one from European tool maker Unior is pretty interesting and very compact. To use it you remove the wheel, engage the tool in the cassette lockring, replace the wheel with the tool’s square edge pressing on the frame, and just turn the pedals forward to loosen the lockring. I wouldn’t use this tool on a delicate carbon or other thin-tubed frame, and you might want to place a piece of plastic or wood between it and the frame to save your paint. An admittedly rarely used tool, but when you need it you need it.
Ok, that title is, admittedly, a little Americanized. Still, I remember my experience with training wheels as if it was yesterday, probably because I’m so emotionally scarred from the experience. Thanks a lot Dad! I remember impatiently waiting for my dad to install the trainers so I could jump on my bike and speed towards freedom, so when he gave me the all clear I did just that, but instead of riding off into the sunset of maturity and self-reliance, I made it about 4 feet and instantly fell over sideways. After getting over my shock and dissapointment of the training wheel safety net that was SUPPOSED to prevent something like that happening, I ran to my mom screaming and crying and basically hating my dad for tricking me. Turns out, the training wheels weren’t the right size and so my comfort with trying to balance on my over-sized bike was delayed for months until I was ready to try again. Not a good start to bike riding.
Then somewhere along the trajectory of human evolution we did something akin to discovering fire. We abandoned the training wheels…and the pedals…and started relying on kick bikes to get comfortable with the precariousness of balancing on a couple inches of rubber. And it worked! I came across this article on Slate.com, which details the science and skill of bike balance and does an equally fine job of explaining why balance bikes are infinitely better than training wheels.
Oddly enough, it seems we’ve had to regress to the VERY FIRST BIKE design in order to learn to ride again, once again proving that the bike was pretty much perfect from the get-go.
Do your kids a favor. Spare them the lifelong therapy sessions and leave the training wheels on the shelf. Their self-esteem will thank you endlessly. Happy Bike Month!
Budnitz Bicycles are made in the USA, and come from an urban riding upbringing. Their latest high end offering in the pictured No. 4, a gloss black finished steel frame featuring large volume 24″ wheels, disc brakes and a belt drive with either a single speed or 11-speed internal drivetrain. The split top tube and swooping lines give it a certain amount of class, the smaller wheels and short wheelbase the ability to fit into smaller city living spaces. Other parts spec is high end—think Chris King, Paul Components and custom Budnitz titanium bars. As shown the bike is $2800, see more at www.budnitzbicycles.com
Super7.com is celebrating National Bike Month by offering a 25% discount to OMG Posters readers (or anyone who uses the “OMG” promo code – that’s you!) for the entire month of May. Super7 is a clearinghouse of “Toys, Art, Design & Culture” and they have a number of awesome bike-themed designs. The posters usually run $40.00, so take advantage of this deal while it lasts.
Here’s a short video that tells the story behind the Giro ad in Urban Velo #31. It’s a profile of artist Chris McNally, who has done work for Puma, Levi’s, Ibis Cycles and more.
Knog was one of the first on the scene with soft-bodied blinkie lights, and have been pushing USB rechargeable lights since the technology first came out. Their latest product is the $45 Knog Blinder, a USB rechargeable LED light featuring an anodized aluminum body, single button switch and quick release mount. The pictured Blinder 4 has four LEDs housed in an aluminum and polycarbonate body, with a silicone strap compatible with 22-35 mm bars or seatposts. Hidden under the strap is a fold out USB plug for recharging.
In use the Blinder is quite bright—Knog claims 80 Lumens of front white output and 44 Lumens from the rear red LED set. The rear is too bright to comfortably ride behind at night, a good thing as far as I’m concerned for being seen riding solo in traffic. I wouldn’t say you can see on a dark trail with the front or anything, but I may be guilty of doing some urban exploring with the Blinder as my guide though it is certainly a “be seen” type of light. The light itself is fully waterproof—I let mine blink through a complete charge submerged in a glass of water—and gets a claimed 3 hours of runtime on steady, with a claimed up to 40 hours blinking. Even for daily use, most people will find recharging it once or twice per week plenty.
The switch require a 2 second press to turn on, preventing finding it blinking in the bottom of your bag. You can click through a few different blink modes, and turn off the light my holding the button for another 2 seconds. The Blinder even remembers the blink mode you left on, a minor but mentionable nicety. The button also has a small LED indicator—red when the battery is low or charging, green when fully charged. When it comes to charging, just flip out the USB plug and insert into an open computer or charging port. I found that in some circumstances I needed a USB extension cord to easily plug the light in either due to the shape next to a laptop, or because it blocked the USB port next to it.
Color me impressed, the Blinder is my latest go-to blinkie. It’s initially pricey at $45, but add a year or two worth of batteries to a $30 light and you’re at the same final place. See the whole line of Blinder lights at www.knog.com.au
Running on a treadmill at the Y last week, while watching others spinning like mad on the stationary bikes, I couldn’t help but wonder why they haven’t hooked these machines up to generators and started recycling the energy. It seems like a no-brainer to me. So, imagine my surprise when I found this article the very same day.
An eco-friendly bed and breakfast in the UK has hooked up a stationary bike in one of their rooms to the television, so if you want to watch your favorite shows (let’s assume it’s just raining outside) you have to start pedaling. This may be a sort of novelty experience for the visitor who wants to have as eco-friendly an experience as possible while traveling, but I don’t see why hotels and other such institutions can’t harness this power on a larger basis. Feel free to add comments on places you know that have done just that.
For the past couple of months I’ve been running Kenda Kwick Tendril tires on my polo bike, giving them a pretty abusive run through in the process. I was on the hunt for a larger volume tire with minimal tread and good flat protection that was also available for a 26″ wheel and wasn’t going to break the bank—the $35 Kwick Tendril met the bill. It is not the cheapest tire you can purchase, but one shouldn’t expect a folding bead and effective flat protection for much less. I tend to go through rear tires on my polo bike pretty regularly and these from Kenda were no different as I managed to skid through them in 3 or 4 weeks time on a rough surface heavy on the rear brake. I wouldn’t say the tires were any more prone to wear than usual, just not particularly long lived under the abusive circumstances. More representatively, the front tire has remained unchanged for some time and show no particular signs of premature wear. Even when riding through the ‘hood and on glass strew courts I’ve managed to stay flat-free for months, always a welcome part of a tire review. Overall I’m pleased with them, and would recommend these tires as everyday city tires in a second. They’re not performance tires and neither are they meant to be, I wouldn’t go putting these on your road bike hoping for the next speed record or a supple ride. Available in 26 x 1.5 and 1.75 for mountain bike commuter conversions and 700 x 25-38 from most any shop around, see www.kendausa.com for the complete commuter line.
Let’s kick off the week of Bike To Work Day with this simply awesome video that is what the title says, “How a Bicycle is Made”.
Part of me thinks I’m about to watch a Tom & Jerry cartoon and another part is waiting for the MST3K silhouettes to pop up and start delivering witty snark. But really, it’s just an incredibly fascinating and detailed video from 1945 that shows questionably young workers putting bikes together with “bracket pieces” and makes me wish for ye days of olde when the bike industry necessitated seemingly endless rows of warehouses to keep up with the demand.
Do you think this is how they do it in Taiwan today?
Ernesto Lube is one of those dedicated small-guys that the bike industry is chock full of. Their only product is the pictured 4 oz bottle of soy-based, biodegradable chain lube. Drip it on, wipe off the excess, and don’t worry about the toxicity of your lube. They jokingly claim on the website that you can fry eggs in it, but I kept my use to my bicycle chain. I’ve been using this lube on my ‘cross bike for six months now and don’t have much to report, which is overall a good thing. It was thin enough to penetrate the links but not so thick to seem sticky and a magnet for dirt. I’ll be the first to admit that as long a lube doesn’t seem to wear out too quickly or attract too much dirt I don’t pay much attention to it, and while completely subjective terms, I’ve not thought much about this lube and plan to keep using it as needed. Each bottle is available for $7.50, with refills available for $3.75 each.
I’m not exactly sure what to make of this short film. I don’t quite get it, but perhaps that is part of what makes it what it is.
A clip from The Last Kilometer, an upcoming film following cycling through five characters and five stories. From what I can see and have read, I’m going to like this film.
It is no secret that the bike world has a large underground of craftspeople cranking out all manner of short run, handmade gear and clothing. It’s only natural that more places specializing in sourcing and reselling these pieces are coming along, such as BikeCraft which just launched. Coming from a line of shows going back to 2005 featuring local bike goods, the business has now grown to a full time site. Cycling caps, messengers bags and panniers, jewelry and art prints, all of it made in the USA. See more at www.bikecraftonline.com
Videos about fixed gear bikes are a dime a dozen, so it takes something a little extra to make yours stand out. The folks in Bristol did just that when they put together this beautiful piece of work for a 30 minute documentary about fixed gear riding in the Bristol area called Boikzmoind. Instead of just releasing the video they also crafted a 95 page book to complement it, using screenprint and digital printing processes to bring it all together. The video looks to be shot with equal attention to detail, mixing standard philosophical waxings with a good dose of humor (what’s up with that bunny?!).
The package will run you $47 and you can purchase it here.
More shots of the book are here.
Racing in a parking garage seems like a great time and a terrible idea all at the same time, though this one at least seems to be in a garage without any cars popping up unexpectedly.
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