Archive for the 'Biking' Category
Sunday, September 14th, 2008
Fat Tire Festival 08′
I just got back from Nelson’s own Fat Tire Festival, a 3 day event celebrating mountain bikes. Friday is registration day with a costume parade down Baker St, Saturday is the XC race and on Sunday is the 3x downhill on Morning Mountain. The course was dry and dusty and you couldn’t take a berm without sliding all the way through it. Every heat down had a crash with the final heat taking out the 2 top contenders in the last corner proving it’s not about how fast you can get down, its who you can take out to get the win.
Many thanks to the Nelson Cycling Club and all the volunteers who continue to put this great annual event together.
Sunday, May 18th, 2008
Dirt Tours
On Friday Pat from Dirt Tours had a free day of shuttling up Kokanne running trails such as Hitman and Newt Sac. I was lucky enough to be on for every drop and it made for about 12000ft of vertical. Then yesterday I got in a awesome ride down Paper bag making for 2 very awesome days of biking. Just wanted to give a big shout out to Pat for spending his Friday on a long weekend shuttling 18 people asking nothing in return. If you are looking to come ride in Nelson give Pat a call and he will show you the goods.
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008
Bleeding Shimano Disk Brakes
Today we are going to take a look at bringing some life back into your Shimano disk brakes. Chances are your bike has been sitting in the garage over the winter neglected and waiting for a spring tune up. Now is the perfect time to break out your toolbox and start on some maintenance. It is recommended you bleed your brakes at least once a year to flush out any foreign materials that might have worked themselves into the system. Maybe some air is trapped in the lines causing your brakes to feeling spongy. A proper bleed will having them feeling solid again.
With this guide, you’ll learn to bleed your brakes and clean up your brake pads and rotor to remove any contaminates that might have accumulated from oil/brake fluid, road grime, or glazing. After this your brakes will feel much better and will be ready for some serious vertical!
Thursday, February 14th, 2008
Published!
My article on custom cables was published up on NSMB.com, if you didn’t read it on my site before go check it out over at http://www.nsmb.com/gear/customcables_01_08.php
That’s the second time my work has been published. The first time was in Elemental, a art book dedicated to 3d art created with Autodesk software.
Monday, February 4th, 2008
Need more Cowbell, less snow
Last Friday I hiked up to Cowbell to try and ride some nice downhill in the snow. But there was so much snow it made it very difficult to get down, even the steepest parts required a good deal of pedaling to keep momentum up. I ended up off the trail a lot preferring to ride closer to the tree wells where the snow was less deep. Even though all I can think about is long flowy singletrack where the trail isn’t so white, mother nature has other ideas and keeps dumping Nelson in snow. Time to put the ski boots back on…
Friday, February 1st, 2008
How To: Soldering Cable Ends
Another month another guide. This time around I’m going to show you how to solder your cable ends for a nice clean look on your derailleur cables and brake cables.
I have never liked the cable ends that come on bikes. They tend to come off when they get caught on something, most of them are ugly with multiple crimp marks, or are way too big for the cable they were used on, and will fray your cable ends once you try to take them off so you can’t reuse your cable.
Why would you want to reuse a cable when they are so cheap? One would be the environment, why waste more materials? And two, no need to adjust your shifting once installed because the cable has been stretched already. With a quick wipe down and lube your cable will be good as new. So what is the alternative to cable end crimps? Soldering the end of the cable. Here is what you will need to accomplish this:
Monday, January 7th, 2008
Custom Colored Cables
Are you sick of having stock black cables on your bike? Not only is black boring but the hard coating on the outside of the cables can rub through paint and even aluminum. I have seen a Hayes brake cable eat right through the stanchion on a Fox 40. Braided stainless brake lines look nice, but are expensive running over $50 a line and don’t match your derailleur cable. By using the same heat shrink tubing electrician’s use, you can protect your frame and match your cables to any color scheme for your bike.
Thursday, January 3rd, 2008
It’s Here!
My new bike finally arrived on December 28th. After a very lengthy and expensive delay at customs my bike left Grand Forks, North Dakota crossed the border into Canada to Winnipeg. After having a nice Christmas dinner in Winnipeg it traveled to Calgary where after a rough night of partying on Boxing Day must have lost the pieces I need to finish building it. The box arrived with a hole at the bottom where the top cap, headset spacers, and the seatpost clamp escaped into the abyss. I have called Fedex and have started a claim to try and get reimbursed.
I have slowly been building it up in between partying. I sold the brakes and have some new Shimano XT discs coming in from Thailand, and the rims are off getting painted. To highlight the blue and white theme I’m going for I picked up white heat shrink tubing to cover the cables. It helps to accent the theme as well as should provide some protection from cable rub.
Sunday, December 16th, 2007
Tracking the new steed
Thanks to Fedex I’ve been tracking the location of my new bike and due to a customs delay it is now held up in Grand Forks, North Dakota. So far it has traveled more then 2500 km. I wanted to try Google maps and how it embeds on the new site so here is a map plotting it’s course so far:
Sunday, November 25th, 2007
New bike!
Bought a new bike today, that brings my quiver up to 3! (Not my picture since my bike isn’t here yet)
