Cannondale Prototype Crossbike in Colorado

Just got to Colorado Cross Classic in Boulder CO. I saw the Cannondale team truck and walked over to see the new Prototype Super X cross bike. 

I talked with the mechanic who was building up Tim Johnson's bike on the spot. He said this was the 1st race for them today!!!  So awesome for Colorado. When asked about weight difference he said its only 1/2 lb difference!!!! They are running mechanical Avid BB7 disc brakes for road bikes. 

Pretty sweet!!! Ok, now I'm going to go watch some racing!!!

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Broken "Leg" Update

A couple days ago I posted a pic of a patient in the office.  Victim of a "rack-cident", this Wound Up fork was done! Here's the new ENVE fork Dr +Peder Horner scrounged up in a jiff.  Gotta say these things are a pretty darn nice.  The only bit of modifying that had to be done was to one of the brake bosses.  It needed a bit of sanding down so the SPOOKY brakes slid on, and moved freely.  

Not a bad 2nd bike for the pits.  

Nice addition. Much better handling fork than the Wound UP

just in case you werent sure...

Primus Mootry Single Speed

Secret Sealant Tip

The conversation I wound up having over on Google+ w/Byron, from Bike Hugger, and Geoff, from New England, about FMB's tires and cyclocross got me thinking some.  Just now there was a question about goatheads...those nasty little thorn-balls from the vine-y ground cover plant out here in Colorado, and I'm sure other parts of the country.  That one really got me thinking about sealant and punctures and how much of a pain in the ass they are during this part of the year.

I ran a shop a few years ago that was very very very into cyclocross.  The owner was from Mass, just outside of Boston and was, probably still is, a cross fanatic.  He is also one of the best mechanics Ive met and was privileged to work for him.  Anyway...

We made our own sealant for the shop and sold it.  I feel safe giving out the "recipe" now that the shop has been sold to new owners and is a totally different place now.  This stuff worked so good, people would come by it from the other side of town.  Now, please don't think I'm going to rewrite the book on anything here or blow your minds.  Sometimes its the simple things that make a HUGE difference.  With that in mind...here's the recipe for the Secret Sealant:

• Sealant of choice: Stans or Caffelatex
• Glitter...that's right Glitter: as fine as you can buy at your local craft store

That's it! Seriously. Glitter is great stuff!  It helps to clog the holes faster, hence using less sealant and not allowing as much air to escape. Caffelatex wasn't around then, but now that its here and doesn't use Ammonia as its anticoagulant, which will degradate latex tubes over time.  Instead they use CO2.  Stans is great stuff, and my personal choice if asked, with the exception of the latex rule.  

Take whatever amount you use for the tire setup, road, cross, mtb...etc and pour it in a cup before you put it into the injector.  Pour in the glitter and give it a good mix, then put into the injector you're using.  Ive found that the syringes used by EMT's/Firefighters that are full of saline and have a screw on/off needle tip, work the best.  The only thing is, you have to have a tire/tube with a removable core.  The Caffelatex injector doesn't require removing the valve core, which for using sealant by itself works great.  You can custom widen the opening/tip so that the glitter moves through easier.  Then gently, and firmly press the injector on, make sure theres a good seal, and plunge away.  This is where you'll know if you found the smallest glitter possible.  There's super fine stuff out there, just ask your local club kid friends!  Once its all in, give the injector a couple of pulls and pushes on the plunger so the sealant doesn't backfire on you when you pull the end off.  Wrapping the coupled valve and injector with a rag while pulling off helps to keep from making any mess as well.  

Give it a try if you're having trouble, or just want to see if it works for you.  Hopefully you'll enjoy the same results so many riders did when we sold it.

Kool-Stop "Cross Pad"...a "review"

We've all heard the sound, that horrible banshee shrill that comes from a nicely dialed in set of cantilever brakes.  Yes, i said "nicely dialed", cuz no matter what, they always start off super sweet, then after the 1st big race and the 1st big cleaning that sound comes out of no where.

Then there's the "chatter", or "shudder", from those stupid things.  You know, you've taken it to your mechanic 12 times, or you've tried to adjust it on your own 50, and no matter what you've tried, whether its pads or toeing or different brakes...etc...theres still that ever resounding vibration that drives you crazy going into the 1st corner of the next cross race,  you loose focus and BAM, wash out in front of 100 of your newest, closest friends.  

At this point I'm going to pause for a little Disclaimer:  There are always LOTS of variables that go into dialing in canti brakes for a cross bike.  Theres the distance from the hanger to the yoke, widely spaced or narrower spaced brake arms, long pads, short pads, thick pads, thin pads, threaded(adj angle pads), solid post pads(usually can adj the toe on the brake...or not) so on and so forth.  The Only, knock on wood and to date, set up from the factor I've seen that works GREAT with any type of brake and shoe, came on a Stevens frame.  They created a bolt on hanger that attaches to the fork, thus lowering the distance between the hanger and yoke.  Now TRP has come up with their own retrofit version of this, but you have to have a fork that allows for this thing to be bolted on.  Braking with that set up was awesome, and felt as safe and secure as any road caliper does.  So...the following "solution" is one I came across based on my own "philosophy" of how things work.  There are plenty of other ways to do it, and the aim is the same in the end, NO NOISE/CHATTER, so continue to read on with an open mind...and heart.

my new best friend...the pad, not the dude

I run Paul's canti brakes and on one i had the stock "Slim Line" pad, which was long and narrow, on the front, on the rear I ran an Avid Std Mtb threaded post pad.  With the Paul's brakes they come "front and rear", which I switched up, putting the narrower armed rear brake arms in the front and wider spaced ones in the rear.  The reason for this is since the front brake is the one that mostly gets all the bad press with noise and chatter, by putting the "shorter pull" of the 2 up front, you decrease cable length across the yoke which in turn should reduce the amount of flex the cable can have which in turn again can create all the problems of chatter and noise.  

No matter how much I toed the pads, or cleaned them, I either had some noise come from them both wet and dry, and when they got the slightest bit of moisture on them, the shudder was damn near unbearable.  I bought these Kool-Stop Cross Pads at my old shop before I left after looking at lots of pads out there.  I knew what I didn't want, something long and without grooves, or channels, since its like taking a blade of grass in between your hands and blowing hard on it, similar to braking.  You get lots of loud noise from the harmonics produced.  So, I knew i wanted something shorter, i also knew i wanted something with replaceable pads.  Shorter pads mostly cause as a mechanic i HATE working on my own stuff and going through the motions of setting up new shoes every time wasn't fun and took too damn long.

sssshhhh...do you hear that?  Me either!

 I saw these guys in a couple places and thought id give the a whirl.  They matched all my criteria, shorter, replaceable pads and channeled.  They also have a compound that is broken up into, hard-soft-hard, which makes sense in my head due to the fact that it doesn't grab "evenly" at once, meaning that the forces and harmonics wouldn't have a chance to settle in and create the "noise".

Last week Id finally worn thru my old pads to the point where any normal person would've changed them out a while ago.  Like I said, being a mechanic and working on everyone elses' stuff, I rarely wanted to work on mine, and I've got enough tricks up my sleeve to limp stuff along for quite a while.

just so you know you got the right thing, here's the pertinent info

 The pads went on and adjusted just fine in the Paul's brake arms.  Side note, just to let you know what I'm running wheel wise, Campy Eurus Alloy clinchers.  I went out on a ride the other day, the inaugural ride with these new pads.  The first time I went to stop, I was waiting to be let down...again...as most stuff out there doesn't impress me much anymore.  That sounds like a completely elitist statement, and apologies if it does, but Ive seen enough "disco ball" "whiz bang" stuff out there, and then watch it fail after a few rides, that my skepticism is a bit deeper than most.

Thus I digress...

They were AWESOME!  No chatter, no noise, positive and progressive stopping power, and the beauty of it was, it lasted the entire 3 hour ride!  I like the feeling of that "clank" most people want in a brake feel, when the pads are completely in line with the rim...ie...no toe.  This definitely opens one up to the noise and chatter, but there was none of it!  I was so happy, and the whole ride kept saying how much "I love these damn pads!".

they fit just right on my Paul's

Now i know they're not for everyone, and they re not for every brake, and there's LOTS of other options out there.  I'm simply saying, if you've tried almost everything and you are getting close to throwing your bike down a flight of stairs because it wont shut the hell up, go order a set of these and give them a whirl.  Ive put the packaging and the bar code on the back so when you do order them, you know you're getting the same thing.  Both QBP and JB, national distributors, stock these(click HERE to go to the JB page to see stock at their warehouses).  If they don't work for you, then id love to know why, as I truly believe you learn more from "mistakes" than you do from "successes".

On that note, thanks for listening/reading.  Boots out...

Tech Hint: Many Wheels? One Bike? Let's Do This...

One issue Ive seen come through the doors of shops Ive worked in over the years has to do with 1 bike and multiple wheels.  This is especially prominent during cyclocross season since most people cant afford 2 fully decked out bikes, but can, and do, over time accumulate different sets of wheels.  

Most people think they can just switch wheels out without any problems.  What they find in reality is that wheels are just as different as frames.  Even if they're keeping with road wheels at a 130mm spacing, or mtb wheels at 135mm spacing.  With cross I've had people just get new wheels and expect them to work.  Here are some things you need to keep in mind about wheels.

• Rims are different widths.  Especially the new carbon tubular wheels.  They are getting very very wide.
• Hub spacing is different from the inside measuring area.  In other words, yes, the drop out width is going to match 130mm in order to fit in the frame.  However the flange distance, body, freehub spacing are all different for every manufacturer.  

Now the easy way to "fix" this "problem" is to run the same hubs on all your wheels and to run the same rims, cassettes and chains.  That way you stay with the same spacing that a single manufacturer uses.  

Some companies space their freehub bodies wide, so the limit screws/adjustments are further out than if the spacing was closer to the "center point" of the hub body. This requires that you make adjustments every time you swap wheels out...supposedly.

Rims are the same way.  Many aluminum rims tend to be a bit narrower than carbon rims(either tubular or clincher).  However some companies, such as HED, is making their aluminum rims wider now in response, as well as the fact that it give a more sturdy surface for braking.  Cantilever brakes tend to fit this wider profile a bit easier than road caliper brakes.  My feeling, hope is, that in the near future road calipers will allow for easier spacing of wider rims.

Having 1 rig can make using multiple wheels a bit tricky, but NOT impossible 

Getting all these to work on the Jamis was a piece of cake

Keep a mental note of how this hub is sitting in the frame, you'll see a BIG difference with Matt's new wheel

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His new wheels/hubs, the spacing was much narrower

after swapping out his old pads to some carbon/alloy friendly ones, brake adjustments had to be made 

What you want to do to dial in your braking when using multiple rims is to measure the rims' widths.  Then you want to dial all of your barrel adjusters down to "zero", or the starting point.  Put the widest rim/wheel in the frame and set the brakes to that rim width and pull.  After you're done with that, it "should" be as easy as just dialing in the barrel adjusters on the narrower rims so the brakes will pull the same.  

Make sure you re check your brake pad/brake track heights.  Some rims have a bit more variance in the high/low setting of the pads.  If you have a rim that has a narrow brake track, then I try to split the difference as best as possible.  Just make sure you remember which rims were narrow and which one was wide, so you don't get flustered in the middle of a wheel change with undoing and refastening the cables.  

The next part is to check the shifting/high/low limit screw adjustments.  Now, let me stop you here.  As a mechanic, if you DO NOT know, or understand high/low limit screws and how to set them...DON'T!  Ive seen it too many times in a shop where someone thought they "knew what I was doing" by setting them, and in the end me, as the mechanic, is the bad guy when I tell them they set them wrong and that's why they ripped their RD off into the frame/wheel and now new parts are in need.  So, if you don't know how to dial them in, take them to your trusted LBS/mechanic(or if you're in Denver, call me, I'm a free agent), and have him/her get it set for you.

IF you do know how to set them, and play with cable tension, then my next step is to measure all the wheels in the frame, with the chain shifted to the outer most cog.  This will show you distance inside the dropouts and which hubs are wider/narrower than others.  

If you look at the pic above of Matt's older wheels in the frame, the spacing is wide.  Now, if you look at the  pic below, with his new wheel/hub in the frame, the spacing is much narrower.  This can lead to a couple issues.  Which hubs do I set first?  Will I throw a chain either to the inside or the outside of the cassette hence damaging either the frame or the wheel?

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First thing to do is undo the cable fixing bolt on the RD so the cable hangs freely and you can manually move it with your hands up and down the cassette while pedaling the bike in the stand.  I personally like to start with the widest of the hubs in the frame.  I set the limits to that cassette first, pedaling and manually "shifting" the RD up and down with some amount of force to make sure it wont ride off the inside of the cassette or the outside.  Setting the limits with a bit more room than normal on the largest cog at this point allows me to compensate(hopefully) for the narrower spaced hubs on the other wheels.  

 

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Once the manual adjustments have been made, and Ive checked all the wheels in the frame separately and without the RD cable fixed to the Derailleur itself, I go back to the "First" wheel, the wider one.  Fix the cable in the RD bolt, and get ready to check shifting while using the shifters now, and not my hand.  At this point I adjust the shifting as I would any other wheel set up, by making sure the FD/chain alignment is right and that it wont jump off while shifting from either big ring to small ring, or vice versa.  

After the first wheel is adjusted, its time to adjust and check the other wheels.  If you're lucky, and you made the correct adjustments with the limit screws in the previous steps, it should just be a matter of some slight cable tension adjustment to dial in the other wheels.  If you run into any shifting problems, then stop what you're doing, and go to your LBS/mechanic and have them go over it.  Take ALL of your wheels in you're using.  It doesnt help the mechanic to guess which ones are wider and which ones are narrower.

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In the end, its all about patience, and I realize there are other methods to achieve the same outcome.  This is the method I use, and hopefully have explained in some sort of coherent manner so that you actually understood what I meant above.  If anyone out there is in the Denver area, and wants to help me get some video shot for this type of stuff, I'm all ears!  I just cant handle a video camera and do the adjustments at the same time, and Im not one for the Go-Pro head-cam set up.  Thats doesnt do justice.  

So, hope you got something out of this post, and I managed to do some good.  Boots out!

Firehouse Fun w/Uncle Neal

This morning I took Neal...aka @true_cycles...his Ibis Mojo that was a "fun" piece of work.  He wanted to swap out his XTR 9spd for XX 10spd, which didnt work due to Ibis' design in their seat-tube.  You need a direct mount adapter for the Front Derailleur, and you CANNOT run anything smaller than a 29t small ring, which is pretty stupid in my opinion.  So, after taking it apart and finding all this lovely information out, I put the XTR back on.

Zach, my youngest, got to go with me to take Uncle Neal his bike back.  Oryn, my oldest, was too busy throwing tantrums so he missed out.  Miss out BIG he did, cuz Zach got the full tour and got to even wear the headphones and sit in the trucks!  He had fun and hasnt stopped saying "coooool" since we left.

Uncle Neal and Mr. Nick let Zach in the Ladder truck and let him turn on the lights

we got to talk to each other with the "coooool" headphones

Zach posing on the Ladder truck while Uncle Neal found him some stickers

Thanks Neal and Nick...Zach had a great little visit.

I Aint Got No Shame...Get Biscuits!

Anyone who knows me, knows that when i like something, I really REALLY like it, and more often than not will let everyone I come across know about it as well.  Ive become friendly with the owner of a local breakfast nook in Denver.  His name is Seth Rubin, and he's the owner of Rise and Shine Biscuit Kitchen.  He's also a cyclist, CAT 1 here in the state of Colorado, and a fellow transplant from North Carolina.

This morning Seth and I went out for a slow ride, which is funny, cuz I'm about 35lbs over my fighting weight, and he's fast as shite.  The beauty of riding with someone at that level, as has been my experience more often than not, is that they're not out to start "waving their dick" at the drop of a hat.  They're not out to crush a guy like me simply cuz they can, instead they know the opposite is true.  Just riding to ride is a great thing.  So, point number 1, go ride with people way faster than yourself cuz its fun, and it pushes you more than you realize.  Honestly, I'm pooped from the ride!

The main point of this was to tell all you folks out there in the world of the "ether", twitter, and blog-o-sphere, about his businesses!  That's right, plural.  He started the biscuit cafe in Crestmoor(3rd and Holly) and its done awesome.  This morning there was a line out the door!  The second location is up in the Highlands 'Hood on 32nd Ave and Perry St.  He shares both spaces with Basil Docs, a local pizza chain...which rocks BTW!

Anywho...I digress.  He does standard buttermilk biscuits daily and then a Biscuit of The Day, BOD for short.  There's a calendar up on his website that you can download to your Google Calendar, if you're a Google-phile.  You can follow him on Twitter too, @riseandshineden, which will give you daily updates for the BOD and he actually responds to people!  He does the Facebook Page thing as well.

All that being said, I'm not sure if this came off as a total promotion, but I figured Seth deserves it.  Great product, fair price, great guy, great people, great coffee(oh yeah, he serves Pablos! Best stuff in town...IMHO), and killer biscuits.

Go get your biscuit on people!

Boots out...

Das Auto? No...Das Speedvagen

Every once in a while a bike catches your eye.  You think, "id love to tune that thing up!".  This is one such bike.  Yes, its the "factory" made one, but its still awesome.  Vanilla Speedvagen Cross w/matching integrated bar/stem, SRAM Red, Edge rims, DT ceramic hubs and Dugast Flying Doctors as your rubber of choice.

This thing is sweet and the Doc who owns it can ride it to its full potential.  New rubber with fresh Caffelatex are ready to hit the dirt, snow, whatever you want.

Ok...now I have to go glue some more tires...enjoy

Those Wheels I Was Telling You About...

As promised to one of my Google+ peeps, I took pics of the Edge wheels w/custom painted DT Swiss hubs via Vanilla Cycles.  The Andre Dugast "Flying Doctors" are new for @denvercx and the irony of the whole situation is that he plays a Dr in real life!  All thats left is some Caffelatex for some added security.

nice set of carbon and rubber

i think thatll do

awesome touches from Vanilla Cycles

yum

fast tread, and perfect for our Colorado courses

Primus SS Whip

This was a nice little project that just got finished...minus the bar wrap(owner's choice of course).  Primus Mootry SS conversion.  Fresh glue job on the tires, new bars and stem.  Have fun Peder!

Going To USGP Fort Collins CO?

If so and youre looking for some wrench help, pit help, whatever help, feel free to hit me up on twitter, @chandlersnyder.  Ill be in the team area under a CU Tent.  We're paying for the weekend, and all we ask in return are TIPS for "Services Rendered".  Both days should be amazing fun for everyone, whether youre racing or cheering/heckling your favorite racers!

Tubies Made Easy...Needs Help

After the 2 previous posts on tubies, ive run into a bit of a production issue.  Trying to use my camera while doing things like, stretching, cleaning, pulling tires on, doesnt seem to work so good.  Im putting feelers out there if anyone in the Denver area wants to help me make some video "How To" segments hit me up here.  Must have your own equipment, and must be cool with getting tips in soda or beer.

Thanks in advance!!