Backlog Of Stuff!

<==Christmas Eve Treat!

It has been awhile since I could write about the current goings on here what with the Rearview Of '09 going on. Well, plenty of stuff was happening, let me assure you!

A-Lo, my former co-worker and now resident Velocity U.S.A. wonk, was in town and passed off this pimpy set of Velocity wheels for testing on Twenty Nine Inches. They feature Velocity's new hubs and the new P-35 rims. The rims were designed in conjunction with Kirk Pacenti and are a whopping 35mm wide! Velocity is recommending a Stan's rim strip for now, but will have their own system to set these up tubeless in the future, I am told.


<===Check out that wide rim profile!

The hubs are Velocity's newest hubs and I have a 20mm through axle front hub here with a single speed specific rear hub that interfaces with a thread on freewheel. The bearings are really smoooooth!! Disc specific too, by the way.

These will be fitted with some Ardent 2.4 inch rubber tubeless and slammed on the following bike sometime soon................




<===But first, could you please pass the Gray Poupon?

Yeah....those yellowy-green beasts are weird looking, but underneath that Kevlar exterior lies the carbon fiber goodness that is a Ragley Bikes Carnegie's Bar. Oh yeah! It has indicated to me that it has some lovely "give" but still retaining that great feel of control. Directly swapped out without a stem change, the Carnegie's is a really great "alt-bar" for mtb-ing. Look for more words on this cool little bit of componentry coming soon. Oh, by the way, the look of this will be changing, so don't get to hung up on the "phlegm yellow" look, although I know Johnny Rotten would have been proud of it. Ragley's head honch, Brant Richards was kind enough to let me have this pre-production proto-type to play with. Thus the looks.

<===Snow on the Soul.

Bicycling has been on the down low of late. So much snow, ice , and cold make it a lot harder to get out and play, but I have a few rides on this new Soul Cycles Dillinger Gen III frame which is a pretty nice riding frame. The fork is a cro-mo steel unit that is optimized for a 100mm travel suspension correction. It's all been tweaked recently by Chad at Soul Cycles with a total commitment to disc only brakes and a re-routing of the cable guides. All wrapped up in a gorgeous midnight blue color. Soul Cycles really nails it in the looks category, that's for sure. Watch Twenty Nine Inches for the upcoming review to see if the performance can match the high standards set by the good looks.

Notice the white cages on that Dillinger? Well, they are Velocity's new water bottle cages. The long running aluminum anodized ones were discontinued due to the ancient machine that made them and it's propensity for breaking down. Velocity decided to ditch that old design, and now with this new design they have something that is pretty close to a Cat Eye cage in looks and even in bottle retention. Yes- this cage does not like to let go of bottles. It almost works too good. I want to relent on passing judgement until warmer weather, but right now the grip on bottles here is insane.

And the Velocity wheels? Well, after I reduce the travel on my white Rock Shox through axle fork to 100mm, I will be popping it on the Dillinger with these wild, white wheels. Stay tuned!