I was at a local trialhead and under the trail map kiosk I spotted a lime green anodized metal cube. I figured it was another vaping device so I picked it up with the intention of either extracting a nice rechargeable battery, or throwing it in the trash. But it wasn't a vape thing. On the side it said Goal Zero and there was a USB female port, but something about it seemed incomplete. Then I…
Not-so-fat Bike Winter was a total bust. We barely had any snow down in town. So little that I questioned whether I should bother with a fat bike any more, if winters were going to be like this. But we also have plenty of sand here. I love riding the shoreline of Washoe Lake in the winter so a bike that can traverse sand does have some value. There are some large sandy areas nearby that I've…
A few months ago, I took my gravel bike apart and put the frame up in the attic. I liked riding it, but I rode it less and less. Earlier in the year I'd been thinking a lot about handlebars, mostly as an aerodynamics thing. My gravel bike was about going fast(er) or at least far(ther) and we all know aero is everything . Seeing some recent hype videos about how higher drops are even faster I…
Dang. Still lagging on getting things written. So here's a flurry of updates that I cranked out in one sitting. It got a little long, so some sections got split out to post separately, and those will get posted as I finish editing them and get the images ready. Housekeeping Skip if you don't care about computers! The little Chromebook I was writing this blog on was giving me update…
I've messed around with alcohol stoves for years since they're fun to mess with. There's no end to new designs. Some have amazing craftsmanship while others are mindboggling simple. The classic Fancy Feast stove is no more than a cat food tin with holes punched around the perimeter. It also serves as its own pot stand. Out of the ones I've tried it's one of my favorites.…
I got seriously into bikes back in high school (Class of 1991, if you're wondering). Or maybe bikes found me - they were the perfect match of not mainstream, yet sort of tough athletically. There was lots of engineering stuff to think about, but also adrenaline and excitement. I also was into photography in high school and ended up the photo editor of the school newspaper. I never got too…
Blog meta I have not fussed with the blog, so we're still on Zola. As site generators go, Zola seems to be gaining popularity for its stability, which is another way to say the developers haven't broken things in the name of "upgrades". The little Chromebook must have a tired battery because it doesn't seem to hold a charge. Or ChromeOS doesn't really sleep when the lid is…
With SC-3 and the Ruby Roubaix behind me, it was time to build a new trail bike to take over from the fat bike's temporary role filling the need. I had really liked the first fat bike as a rigid 29+ trail bike, so I thought I'd use that as a basis but with short crank tweaks. I had also been getting back into singlespeeds, so I was thinking about the best way to approach chain…
Number 3 in the "Short Crank" series is a formal replacement for SC-1. While it rode fine it was meant to be a test mule and there were a few things I wanted to update too. This year I also was planning to ride the 200k "Ruby Roubaix" long loop so I wanted a new whip to take on the challenge. First design change was around wheels. Well actually tires. SC-1 had enough clearance to run 29x2 Thunder…
The first full frame build for the "Short Crank" series was a fat bike frame but being the second project in the series it gets the designation of SC-2. The choice of a fat bike frame was because winter was coming and I felt like my previous fat bike wasn't cutting it around here. It was built around 27.5 x 4" tires because I thought it would be "good enough" for the minor snow we get here in…
Here's a closer look at "SC-1" the first bike in my "short crank" series. I also contrast it to my previous gravel frame which give a bit more context to the geometry changes that are going into the SC series. This frame was originally #14, built in 2019. Progressive mountain bike geometry was starting to be a thing so I was thinking about a gravel frame that would go in similar directions.…
Updated 2025-10-11 with information from Hinault's book Current bike fit trends (both on road and off) have riders moving forwards on the bike. At some point in any online discussion, the topic of the old fit rule "Knee Over Pedal Spindle" (KOPS) will come up, and usually by someone referring to an article written by framebuilder Keith Bontrager. Titled "The Myth of KOPS", it was published in…
If you've spent any time in mountain bike wheel discourse since the 29" tire came out, you've probably heard about "the tractor study". If you haven't, even though 29" wheels are 20 years old and more or less the standard, you'll probably still hear about it since people are still experimenting with even bigger wheels. WTB's recent 750D prototype and the irresistible…
These days crank arm length is a hot topic. I almost avoided it - I've been happily turning over 175s for 35 years and didn't see a need to change. I even did some experiments 20 years ago. But the topic wouldn't disappear, and in the middle of 2023 of course I got curious. So this series of posts covers what I thought I knew before and what I've discovered since then. People…
These days crank arm length is a hot topic. I almost avoided it - I've been happily turning over 175s for 35 years and didn't see a need to change. I even did some experiments 20 years ago. But the topic wouldn't disappear, and in the middle of 2023 of course I got curious. So this series of posts covers what I thought I knew before and what I've discovered since then. The…
Back in the golden age of blogs I started multiple sites on Wordpress.com but they had hometown-specific names and every time I moved I felt obligated to start a new one. Then social media happened and everyone stopped, but these days social media doesn't seem to be cutting it and the blogs are coming back. Many times I've wanted to start one back up except running on my own domain.…