Dusssst, Rain, and Heat

This Bootleg Canyon place reminds me a ton of riding in El Paso, Texas, Rocks, rocks, rocks, and sandy stuff, mixed in with rocks, gravel, and dusssssst. (Say it in your best Gollum voice!)

Atlas Cargo Bike

So, you wanted cargo bike news? How about this, from J&B Importers?

It's the Atlas cargo bike. It will come as you see here for about $750-ish complete. It can fit Xtracycle side loaders, and the racks for the included bags come off, if you want.

I rode it, and it is vastly superior to my current set up. It appeals to me, because I can transfer over some of my current Xtracycle stuff, and I'd be good to go.

It features a seven speed drive train with Mega Range gearing system in the back, but I didn't catch if it was a free wheel or cassette hub. The front and rear brakes are linear pull, but I did see front disc tabs on the fork.

Will I be getting one? Well, this is not a Big Dummy, but it handles well, and it cost a lot less. That's hard to ignore, and I have loads of parts to keep this going, should something crap out on it. Hmmm....... Stay tuned!

Origin 8 via Vee Rubber: Fat Bike Tire!

More Fat Bike News: 

Origin 8 also showed this fat bike with fat bike rubber I heard about recently from Vee Rubber. 4.0" wide, and reportedly will be offered through J&B Importers as an Origin 8 tire.

I actually rode this bike, and the tire performed really well in the loose, sandy, gravelly, and rocky environs of Bootleg Canyon.

Downside? I hear it weighs much more than the other offerings. But......it's much, much cheaper. 

Pick yer trade offs, ya know?

This bike also has the Nuvinci hub, variable ratio deal, and it seemed to really work well. I found it really fun to put it in the sweet spot for where ever I was at the time. So, consequently I was twisting the thing back and forth like a mad man choosing different ratios all the time. Yes- there is a down side, and that would be that this hub weighs a metric ton. Really. This bike was well over 40lbs. Still, it rode great for that.

Want more pics? See Twenty Nine Inches. I have one of the complete bike up now there on the Interbike coverage.

Raleigh Furley SS Cross Bike

Cool Bike Alert!

First of all- this bicycle is orange.  I could stop right there, since that is pretty much all a bicycle needs to be very cool for me.

But.......In the interest of having more informed readers out there, I will expound.

The Raleigh rigs called "Furley" and "Roper", (Yes- Three's Company references, for you T.V. nerds out there.), are steel, disc, urban-nized cross bikes with some odd touches.

I like the Furley, since the Roper is grey-ish blue, which isn't a bad color, per se', but it isn't Orange. But back to what else is cool! This bike has an eccentric botton bracket which fits in the PF 30 BB shell and clamps istelf to the outside of said BB shell with two Allen bolts that run through the BB shell and thread into the non-drive side eccentric. Pretty nifty, and Roper buyers could take off the gears and do the same by buying the after market kit from Raleigh.

This orange beauty with disc brakes will retail for about 8 bills. The Roper with the full geared drivetrain is about 1400 or so. Not bad. Dislikes? Heavy wheels and fork make this bike a bit portly. That said, this should be a bomber commuter/gravel rig/dirt bomber for pretty cheap.

Okay, it's late, and I need shut eye. More from this wonky place later..........