Apparently they do!…I love it…=-)

Note that this isn’t something I’d generally recommend you try at home.  Your are bound to ruin just about every bearing in your bike doing this, but you never know when a tsunami might hit and it’s good to know your fat tire bike might just save your life!

Check out the Coast Rider blog for lots of other fat tire foolishness.

BOOTLEG from Andrew Waldron on Vimeo.

This video is 26 mins long so grab a couple cold ones and put it on full screen while you enjoy it…then start planing that Fall trip to Nevada!

It’s easy to tell if you would like the Kryptonite Modulus [1018S] lock:

1. do you ride with a cable lock wrapped around your bars, top tube or seat post?
2. do you hate to carry a bag when riding?
3. do you end up wishing you had a lock with you, but it’s too much hassle to carry one?

If you answered yes to any of the above you’ll like the Modulus.

This lock is essentially a high end cable lock with a neat bike mount.  The bike mount attaches either to a set of water bottle bolts or to any tube on your bike with the built in mounting strap.  In the photo above I’ve got the Modulus attached to my Surly 1×1 on top of the water bottle bolts, but I’m using the strap.  The bolts offer a really secure mount if you don’t need/want to swap the mounting bracket between bikes while the strap lets you attach it to a bike without any free water bottle bolts.

The lock is a 180cm long 10mm cable [6' x 3/8"] with two ends that plug into a lock head.  You can remove both ends of the cable so it’s really easy to get the lock around all the valuable bits of your bike.  You can even remove the lock head from the mount if you like, but I found leaving it in place was easier and worked just fine.

As you can see in the photo above the cable is more than long enough to secure my 1×1’s wheels and frame to a decent sized tree.  It should work fine with any bike rack, light post or fence.  If you get efficient you can lock up multiple bikes in a pinch.

The whole lock mechanism detaches from the mounting bracket and can be used as a standard cable lock.  The ends of the cable are steel “bullets” which slid through small openings easily.  I’ve used the lock to secure some sit on top kayaks, a lawnmower and a BBQ…basically whatever needs securing on short notice.

The bike mount is low profile and blends in to your bike if you choose to leave the lock at home.  It will easily mount on any tube so you can swap it between bikes in a few seconds.  The whole lock incl two keys weighs 630g [1lbs 6oz].  I don’t weigh my locks so I don’t have exact numbers, but I didn’t feel like the Modulus was significantly lighter or heavier than what I typically use.

I should note that all locks are not equal.  No cable lock is going to be secure as a 15lbs hardened steel chain with 4lbs padlock.  Of course not many people want to bike with 20lbs of lock on their bikes.  I’d use this lock in lower crime areas and for shorter durations.  It would be ideal for an errand bike that gets locked all over town for 20-30mins at a time while the rider gets stuff done or to lock your bike to a patio fence while you have a beer with your friends.  If you need to lock your bike for 8hrs each day outside a downtown subway station you need a lot more lock.

This was me being cocky and stoked that I was carrying two 11′ SUP [stand up paddle] boards + paddles on my Surly Big Dummy.  You just gotta know that sooner or later the universe is going to dish out a smack down when you get too satisfied with yourself.

Sure enough a couple KMs away from the shot at the top I got a rear flat with a mega load on the bike…naturally I had stripped my tools, pump and tube/patches from this bike for another rig.  *sigh*  And it was really hot!

I was close enough to home that I borrowed my GF’s bike and went home to grab a pump and supplies.  Got back and tried just pumping up the tube to see if I could limp home and fix it later…no dice…it wouldn’t hold air at all…*sigh*

So I unloaded the boards and paddles, pulled the wheel, pulled the tire and found a blown tube….rim side…looked like a seam failure in an old tube.  Replaced it with a new tube, pumped the tire…held air!…=-) Reloaded the boards and paddles for the ride home.

Lesson learned [again!] don’t tempt Murphy.  Ride with a pump, levers and a spare tube.  Murphy wasn’t too mean to me.  I could have been miles from home, late at night, in the rain!

One of the best things about riding a bike is the ability to explore at a human pace. You are going fast enough to see a lot of an area, but slow enough to appreciate what you are seeing.  Even better it’s easy to let serendipity steer your course and follow whatever seems interesting.  You can cut across a field, jump a fence, follow a bike path, get on public transit, stop and ask for directions, etc…

My GF and I were cruising around yesterday evening when we saw this art installation off in the distance near a rowing club.  We figured it was worth a look so we cruised down a bike path, walked our bikes across a floating dock and arrived at a cool metal sculpture of a bird chasing a fly.

It was a neat discovery that we wouldn’t have ever found by car. I’m glad I ride a bike…=-)

I like products that just work and seem to have exactly what you need and nothing that you don’t.  The Arkel Shopper falls into this category.  Made in Canada of robust materials and lots of love it’s the nicest shopping bag style pannier I’ve used.

The Shopper mounts via two hooks to just about any rear rack. The bag is attractive and the colour scheme I have is nicely understated - although they offer two other brighter colour options - orange and green.

You can easily fit two regular sized shopping bags worth of groceries in this pannier.

There is an extension collar that can be used to over stuff this bag if you’ve got a mega load to carry.  I would recommend only putting light items up that high, but it’s ideal for that 12 pack of TP you need to get home.  One thing I really like is that this collar can be removed using a zipper. Often we  don’t really need these features, but we have them in our way making getting in and out of the bag a pain.  Kudos to Arkel for giving us the choice.

Note the drawstring closure to keep stuff from falling out and the carry handles that make hauling the bag easy.

The shoulder strap is comfortable and lets you wear the bag while you shop. It hides behind that flap at the top of the bag when not needed.  It’s also removable if you don’t want to use it.

The hook system works well and is easy to use. Note that there is no bottom hook.  I don’t find this has any negative impact when using the bag, but I don’t mountain bike single track with a bag like this either!

The flap shown above drops down over the rack hooks to keep them out of your way when carrying the bag.

The Shopper features a stiff plastic back plate and a metal reinforcement strut. You’ll hardly notice these features when using the bag, but they are critical!  I have friends that own shopping panniers without these features and they bulge and sag when used making them less than awesome to load up.

This pocket is handy for small items like keys, coins, cell phone, etc… You can also stash the extension collar or shoulder strap in there if you don’t want them at the moment, but prefer to keep your options open.

Here is the bag in it’s folded up mode.  This keeps the bag up close to your rack for less air resistance.  You can also wrap the velcro tabs that tuck in the bottom of the bag  around your rear rack struts so that it doesn’t bounce around.  One of my few criticisms of the Arkel Shopper is that the folded bag looks untidy at the top and doesn’t fold as flat as I’d like.  A second set of velcro tabs up higher would solve the problem at very little extra cost.  Not a huge deal, but it would be nice.

With the bag folded like this it’s easy to leave it on your bike so you can carry those spur of the moment items you end up needing to carry home and don’t necessarily have any place to put it.  I find about 1/3rd of my loads weren’t planned. I should also point out that this bag isn’t just for shopping.  It could easily be used for bike commuting or light touring.  Just add a removable rain cover if the weather turns ugly.

The bag’s volume [without extension collar maxed out] is 25L [1500 cu inches] and it weighs 1.4kg [2.5lbs].  MSRP is about ~$90CDN.

I just picked up a new folding bike with my Surly Big Dummy and this girl just picked up a new Big Dummy with a folding bike…holy bike geek-fest!…=-)

I was out scouting stand up paddle [SUP] launches on my Surly Big Dummy today when I got the call from the UPS Store that I had a box to pick up.

When you ride a Big Dummy you never need to think twice about hauling stuff.  So I headed right over.

Of course riding a loaded Big Dummy is no problem so I kept scouting for good spots to launch my SUPs.

Securing a large box is easy with a couple tie down straps…

…and an Xtracycle wideloader….=-)

I love the Tour de France, but I don’t own a TV…=-(  So each year I have to struggle to see a few key stages at someone’s house.  Typically I’ll get up at 5am and bike across town to my friends S&D’s place.  They have a coded lock on the back door and give me a code to use.  I go into their basement and watch the tour live while they sleep.  By the time they are getting up the stage is just ending and they watch the last bit with me.  While it works it’s kind of lame!

Anyways this year will be different.  I bought a subscription to Versus Tour Tracker site for $30USD…now I get HD video of the tour streamed to me anywhere I get wifi…sweet!…=-)

Even better I’ve got two computers on my desk…so I can work on one while the tour is running on the other.  That way I can get stuff done and still not miss anything.  I love it!

[photo: NSMB.com]

I’m not really surprised that Santa Cruz is working on a carbon version of their successful downhill rig the V10.  They’ve been working their way through their line up carbon-ating a bevy of great bikes to make them lighter and stiffer:

So far here is Santa Cruz’s carbon bike line up:

• Blur XC [carbon]
• Tall Boy 29er [carbon]
• Blur LT [carbon]
• Nomad [carbon]

The V10 carbon is still a prototype, but it looks like it will be available to us normal folks in 2011.

The photo above is from a test ride article posted over at NSMB.com.  They’ve got some fine DH bike porn of the V10 prototype at the Whistler Bike Park - well worth checking out.

The video below from Santa Cruz goes into some of the details behind the V10 design and gives you an idea of what to expect from the production rig.

Developing the Santa Cruz Carbon V10.4 - More Mountain Bike Videos