Friday News And Views

REEB Hooptie- Single Speed only, 29" wheels, like it was meant to be.

REEB Hooptie SS Announced:

Oh yeah! A cruiser style frame, MTB wheels, and skinny CrMo frame tubes. Why do we like this sort of thing so much? (Asking those of you that actually do like this sort of thing a lot)

Look, I get it...... Not everyone sees the appeal, but this is the sort of bike I like. I think REEB (Which, if you didn't know, is "BEER" backwards), nailed this in a much more "Surly" way than even that company has managed to do in recent years. (Which begs the question: What the heck, Surly! This is a no-brainer for you!)

Anyway..... Simple track ends, QR wheels because you probably have them or can buy a killer set used cheap, and dedicated to single speed. Now that's the sort of commitment I like to see. None of this geared or single nonsense. One way or ta'other! Even the price is great for either the frame only or complete build.

Don't look at me if you think I'd get one though. I do not need another single speed bike. So, things like little details of aesthetics would have had to have been spot on for me to lose all inhibitions to getting this. That said, I would recommend this one to anyone else. It's the perfect "hooligan" bike and would be a ton of fun.Check out the REEB Hooptie here.

This does not look like it is supposed to be from this month at all.

 Welcome To "Novembruary":

This past week was the end all. I was in full January regalia at one point on a commute, and I looked at the calendar. Lies! No way is it only the second week of November. This must be some parallel universe I am in which has different weather.

I dubbed it "Novembruary".

Fall? HA! What "Fall" What we did have was wet, colder than normal, and dismal for bicycling activities. For the second year in a row, my favorite cycling season gets short-circuited. I felt cheated.

Oh well..... This has the look of last Winter when we had a cold snap in November, a thaw, decent weather for December and early January, (minus the storms and rains), and then the most horrific, snowy February and March ever. Uggh! I hope I am wrong, but this feels like last year's Winter so far.

The short term looks better. Temperatures are supposed to get back closer to normals, and riding on gravel may actually happen again. I hope so as I have some test and review work to get done. (See yesterday's post)

Lots of bikes will fit 650B X 47, so where are the Winter tires?

Looking For Studs:

With the early onset of icy, snowy conditions here, thoughts amongst my cycling friends has turned to studded tires again. This got me to thinking about a certain application for studs that, to my knowledge, doesn't exist. That being the 650B X 47mm size.

My thoughts are that if I want to ride all Winter on my "gravel bike", and that bike can fit a 650B tire, well why wouldn't it make sense to have a studded tire option? The footprint of such a tire would, in my opinion, be better on ice and snow than a 700c X 42mm tire, and I likely can get away with lower pressure in those more voluminous tires than a 700c X 42mm, lending me even more traction.

I actually already have 700c X 40mm Gravdal studded tires which I would use. However; if I had a 650B X 47mm option in a studded tire, I would pick it over the 700c tire every day I needed a studded tire. So, where are these choices? I cannot find even one.

Sure, there are wider, gnarlier, MTB studded tires in 650B, but they won't fit my bike and they have far too aggressive a tread pattern. There are 650B X 38mm options in studded tires, but that is too narrow and too small a diameter. May as well just run my 700c X 40mm Gravdals. Finally, I don't want to have to make my own, but if I did, I'd use the 650B X 47 Sendero tires from WTB. Those at least have knobs meaty enough for studding.

That's it for this week! Hope y'all stay safe, get some riding in, and thanks again for reading the blog!