Lighthouse ride…

As I was heading out the gate for a morning ride up Mt. Vision and back down via the fire road into Inverness, I had a change of plan. Ride out to the lighthouse and back – an easy 40 miles. Well, easy if there’s no wind. Or easier if you have a tail wind. […]

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There’s a new sheriff in town…

This was pretty cool news. Campagnolo recently hired my old friend, Tom Kattus, as their new North American general manager. Pretty sweet! Tom, John and I used to ride road early in the mornings when we all lived in the Carlsbad area. Meet at 7:00 and ride for a couple of hours down the coast. […]

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The real reason for steel shortages and price hikes…

In order to make the SRAM OG-1090 Power Dome cassette, a 10 pound ingot of steel is used. That’s ten pounds to make a part that ends up weighing (according to SRAM’s website) 160 grams. That’s about 9.6 pounds of waste when the finished product pops out. Wow! Now, I’m sure that SRAM recycles that […]

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First place…

Mechanics take as much joy out of bikes they work on winning races as do the racers. I know I’m not going to be winning races anytime soon (would probably need to “train” instead of “ride” and actually resume racing), so I might as well make sure bikes I work on perform perfectly for their […]

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Race footage from 1953 – Coppi & Koblet…

Hopefully, you already saw this on Dave Moulton’s blog, but if you didn’t, it’s worth reading Dave’s commentary on the race before watching. Very cool! (What’s playing: Still Jenny Lewis and The Watson Twins)

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Taking matters into your own hands…

It was reported in the news several months ago that the price of beer was expected to increase due to a shortage of hops. Bad news. Especially if your tastes in beer gravitate towards the hoppy beer – like an IPA. Not one to sit idly by and just take it in the shorts, area […]

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New XC race bike build…

A couple of weeks ago, I built up a race bike for a local NorCal high school mountain bike league racer. He grabbed a 2nd a few days later and it looks like he won his race last weekend. He also must have caught the eye of Sean at Soulcraft because Daniel dropped off a […]

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Nacho Libre in a shop rag…

You know how folks see Jesus or the Virgin Mary in various objects like a potato, grilled cheese, maybe a mirror (could happen)? Well, I saw Nacho Libre in a used shop rag. Just finished wiping down the lower leg of a Lefty, opened up the rag and saw this. Obviously a perfect match. I’ll […]

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If carbon is good enough, why…

It strikes me as odd that a lot of the teams in the Paris-Roubaix race opt to change out many of their standard equipment for parts more suited to the cobbles. Basically, carbon road bits are fine for everyday use so long as one of those “everydays” is not a race over cobble stones? Some […]

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Just a rambling photo laden post…

The weather over last weekend was absolutely incredible, hitting the mid-80’s. For the first time in months, I didn’t need to fire up the heater in the shop and my arms actually saw daylight on a ride! I’ve lived in SoCal since 1969 and have had a “farmer’s tan” since then. Wore shorts to work […]

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Weekend racing…

Incredible racing was on tap during the weekend. I mean, you’ve got Paris-Roubaix and the Little 500. I read somewhere that the Little 500 is the only live network broadcast of a bike race in the US. A little embarrassing considering the level of other races held in the states. Maybe it’s because of videos […]

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Celeste trifecta…

Okay, so the Ciocc isn’t technically Celeste, but it’s close. And by virtue if it’s C-Record group, including Delta brakes, qualifies it as the hippest roadie bike in the shop. It’s interesting each of these bikes is totally different from the other. One roadie, one ‘cross, one…uh, one, well, it used to be a mountain […]

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