Friday News And Views

The Lauf "True Grit" gravel bike Image courtesy of Lauf.

Lauf Suspension Introduces A Gravel Bike:

I heard a story from last Spring's Dirty Kanza 200 about a ride one fellow was getting to be extricated from the course after DNF-ing. He was in a car with the Lauf Suspension company's owner. I heard nothing but good things about the man and his love for gravel events. So, it comes as no surprise to me that Lauf has a complete bike now on offer for gravel grinding.

Of course, it is carbon fiber, since it is aimed at racing, which is also cued by the saddle to bar drop you see here. It also features the second generation of the Grit gravel fork. 30mm of undamped travel are on tap here. There is one thing I really like about this bike and one thing I really do not like while there is another thing that I feel is just aesthetically wrong. (I bet you can guess the last one.)

I've been an advocate for slacker head angles and longer offsets for gravel bikes for years. Just as with mtb designs, this idea has a lot of merit for the rider doing lots of gravel travel. Lauf did use a slacker 70.5° head angle which I think is fantastic, but they stopped short of going long on the offset with a 47mm offset. I suppose they are using the slacker angle to account for a slight steepening of the head angle as the fork sinks into its travel.

I do not like the bottom bracket drop here which is right in line with Euro cyclo cross geometry at 65mm. In fact, for gravel bikes, that height is ridiculous. There really is no benefit to using a high bottom bracket for gravel bikes, and it takes away from stability at high speeds on looser gravel. I'll tell you something- I stop having interest in any bike sporting CX type BB height. It basically seems to me to be a nod to making this bike a possible CX bike choice for those buying in, but to my mind, it takes away a vital facet of stability which, in my opinion, cannot be compromised on. Your mileage may vary, but Lauf made a mistake here and the bike could have been so much better. Too bad.......

Besides, The Duke wouldn't cotton to a bike making compromises that is named "True Grit", now would he? I don't think so.

Gravel World's rig

Gettin' Ready For Worlds:

Ha! How pretentious does that sound? Like I deserve to be in a "worlds"of anything! Well, I cannot help that they call the event "Gravel Worlds", so there! They let me in, so I am going.

And.....I'm taking "Captain America". (Note- My daughter dubbed the bike thus, so I am going with it.) I've done a couple of modifications here which are note worthy. The first is adding the BodyFloat seat post from Cirrus Cycles. I used the same post on my Fargo last year to great effect. The washboard gravel they have down there around Lincoln is no match for this post.

I also added the Redshift Sports ShockStop stem to the Tamland. The stem should also reduce front end induced vibrations and over the course of 150 miles, I should feel fresher than I would without it. In my test run Thursday morning I was pretty happy with how smooth it felt. Together with the BodyFloat, the bike felt much calmer in rougher stuff that would normally have your arms shaking.

Finally, since the Tamland doesn't have an under the down tube bottle mount, I swapped over the B-Rad system from the Otso Warakin and this will allow me to have two easily reached bottles, a third on the seat tube, and one stashed inside the top tube bag. With all the chances at convenience store stops, and oasis stops, I should get by just fine with that amount of water on-board.

I'm choosing to run the excellent WTB Resolute tires for the event on my White Industries, WTB rimmed wheel set all tubeless, of course. I'll have 46T/36T X 11-36T gearing for plenty of low end and good high end ranges without running a wonky chain line. I also will be using the Ritchey Venturemax bar on this attempt at Gravel Worlds.

MONe Bikes El Continente

This Gets Me:

So, I have a few things in cycling that will always get my attention- Plate crown forks, fillet brazed construction, single speed capability, and drop bar specific, non-suspension corrected designs. I also have a fascination with 29+ wheels, as I think the possibilities of that wheel size are mostly misused and misunderstood by most companies that try to use them.

Well, I saw someone post this frame from a company called MONe Bikes on Facebook and I was like, "Dang it! There is a bike I can get behind! "  It is steel, fillet brazed, uses a plate crown fork, is a drop bar specific design with no provision for suspension, and can be set up single speed. Plus it is a 29+ wheeled rig.

Yep. I sure do like it!

Some Salsa Cycles honches asked me a couple years ago what I would do for a 10th anniversary Fargo. Well, had I seen that MONe Bikes El Continente back then, I would have just handed them the image and said, "Do that!" If I could persuade them to do it now, I would. But as the 2018 stuff will be released September 8th by Salsa, that probably will not happen. I doubt they have the hutzpah to just go with a non-sus corrected deign, for one thing, much less a specific 29+ rendering of a Fargo.

Maybe, (hopefully), I'll be wrong.

Have a great weekend and get some bicycling done!

Friday News And Views

The Lauf "True Grit" gravel bike Image courtesy of Lauf.

Lauf Suspension Introduces A Gravel Bike:

I heard a story from last Spring's Dirty Kanza 200 about a ride one fellow was getting to be extricated from the course after DNF-ing. He was in a car with the Lauf Suspension company's owner. I heard nothing but good things about the man and his love for gravel events. So, it comes as no surprise to me that Lauf has a complete bike now on offer for gravel grinding.

Of course, it is carbon fiber, since it is aimed at racing, which is also cued by the saddle to bar drop you see here. It also features the second generation of the Grit gravel fork. 30mm of undamped travel are on tap here. There is one thing I really like about this bike and one thing I really do not like while there is another thing that I feel is just aesthetically wrong. (I bet you can guess the last one.)

I've been an advocate for slacker head angles and longer offsets for gravel bikes for years. Just as with mtb designs, this idea has a lot of merit for the rider doing lots of gravel travel. Lauf did use a slacker 70.5° head angle which I think is fantastic, but they stopped short of going long on the offset with a 47mm offset. I suppose they are using the slacker angle to account for a slight steepening of the head angle as the fork sinks into its travel.

I do not like the bottom bracket drop here which is right in line with Euro cyclo cross geometry at 65mm. In fact, for gravel bikes, that height is ridiculous. There really is no benefit to using a high bottom bracket for gravel bikes, and it takes away from stability at high speeds on looser gravel. I'll tell you something- I stop having interest in any bike sporting CX type BB height. It basically seems to me to be a nod to making this bike a possible CX bike choice for those buying in, but to my mind, it takes away a vital facet of stability which, in my opinion, cannot be compromised on. Your mileage may vary, but Lauf made a mistake here and the bike could have been so much better. Too bad.......

Besides, The Duke wouldn't cotton to a bike making compromises that is named "True Grit", now would he? I don't think so.

Gravel World's rig

Gettin' Ready For Worlds:

Ha! How pretentious does that sound? Like I deserve to be in a "worlds"of anything! Well, I cannot help that they call the event "Gravel Worlds", so there! They let me in, so I am going.

And.....I'm taking "Captain America". (Note- My daughter dubbed the bike thus, so I am going with it.) I've done a couple of modifications here which are note worthy. The first is adding the BodyFloat seat post from Cirrus Cycles. I used the same post on my Fargo last year to great effect. The washboard gravel they have down there around Lincoln is no match for this post.

I also added the Redshift Sports ShockStop stem to the Tamland. The stem should also reduce front end induced vibrations and over the course of 150 miles, I should feel fresher than I would without it. In my test run Thursday morning I was pretty happy with how smooth it felt. Together with the BodyFloat, the bike felt much calmer in rougher stuff that would normally have your arms shaking.

Finally, since the Tamland doesn't have an under the down tube bottle mount, I swapped over the B-Rad system from the Otso Warakin and this will allow me to have two easily reached bottles, a third on the seat tube, and one stashed inside the top tube bag. With all the chances at convenience store stops, and oasis stops, I should get by just fine with that amount of water on-board.

I'm choosing to run the excellent WTB Resolute tires for the event on my White Industries, WTB rimmed wheel set all tubeless, of course. I'll have 46T/36T X 11-36T gearing for plenty of low end and good high end ranges without running a wonky chain line. I also will be using the Ritchey Venturemax bar on this attempt at Gravel Worlds.

MONe Bikes El Continente

This Gets Me:

So, I have a few things in cycling that will always get my attention- Plate crown forks, fillet brazed construction, single speed capability, and drop bar specific, non-suspension corrected designs. I also have a fascination with 29+ wheels, as I think the possibilities of that wheel size are mostly misused and misunderstood by most companies that try to use them.

Well, I saw someone post this frame from a company called MONe Bikes on Facebook and I was like, "Dang it! There is a bike I can get behind! "  It is steel, fillet brazed, uses a plate crown fork, is a drop bar specific design with no provision for suspension, and can be set up single speed. Plus it is a 29+ wheeled rig.

Yep. I sure do like it!

Some Salsa Cycles honches asked me a couple years ago what I would do for a 10th anniversary Fargo. Well, had I seen that MONe Bikes El Continente back then, I would have just handed them the image and said, "Do that!" If I could persuade them to do it now, I would. But as the 2018 stuff will be released September 8th by Salsa, that probably will not happen. I doubt they have the hutzpah to just go with a non-sus corrected deign, for one thing, much less a specific 29+ rendering of a Fargo.

Maybe, (hopefully), I'll be wrong.

Have a great weekend and get some bicycling done!

Like, Venture To The Max, Dude

The "Captain America" rig with the Ritchey Venturemax bar

Handle bars that were flared for off road use, and also great for gravel travel, were rare as hen's teeth only a few years ago. I can remember putting On One Midge bars on my Karate Monkey back in '06 or so and thinking how weird that was that you could even do such a thing.

Even before this, getting flared drop bars was no joke. It was really not a very easy thing to find. WTB probably can be blamed for putting flared drop bars on the map, and Specialized/Nitto also helped in that regard, but even those were super rare. Not many folks had a use for such a beast as a flared drop bar.

Compared to those days, you would have to consider thinking about how these days, flared drop bars are almost commonplace. This is the "golden age" of flared drop bars, if you will. There are more companies than ever offering them, and you can even get carbon fiber ones now. I never figured on seeing that happen, by the way.

So, now there are more flared drop bars than you can count with both hands. One of the late comers to the game is Ritchey. They have a "Venturemax" model out, which they have sent me to test for RidingGravel.com. The overall flare, sweep, and drop is probably most like a Cowchipper. That's what I've found the best comparison is. But when you look at the thing, it looks kind of like the cross between a Cowbell and a Bell Lap bar, which were both Salsa Cycles offerings. That "ergo bend" in the drops.......I am not sure about that. 

And I know that now days that everything is trademarked, so coming up with a name for a product is a real pain. Names that are obscure, mythical, ancient cultural things have become names for components and bicycles. It's almost as if you are taking a World History and Ancient Religions classes when you are trying to figure out names for things like tires and forks and the like. So, Ritchey uses a naming convention that is a bit of a uninspired thing in a world of oddball names. Their names are almost campy and hearken back to a time when "valley girls" meant a way that you walked and talked. I mean, "Venturemax"? Like, venture to the max, Dude. 

Well, at least they are consistent with their names. More on the bar to come.....

Ritchey sent the Venturemax drop bar for test and review to RidingGravel.com at no charge. I have not been paid nor bribed for this review and I will strive to give my honest thoughts and opinions throughout.

 

Like, Venture To The Max, Dude

The "Captain America" rig with the Ritchey Venturemax bar

Handle bars that were flared for off road use, and also great for gravel travel, were rare as hen's teeth only a few years ago. I can remember putting On One Midge bars on my Karate Monkey back in '06 or so and thinking how weird that was that you could even do such a thing.

Even before this, getting flared drop bars was no joke. It was really not a very easy thing to find. WTB probably can be blamed for putting flared drop bars on the map, and Specialized/Nitto also helped in that regard, but even those were super rare. Not many folks had a use for such a beast as a flared drop bar.

Compared to those days, you would have to consider thinking about how these days, flared drop bars are almost commonplace. This is the "golden age" of flared drop bars, if you will. There are more companies than ever offering them, and you can even get carbon fiber ones now. I never figured on seeing that happen, by the way.

So, now there are more flared drop bars than you can count with both hands. One of the late comers to the game is Ritchey. They have a "Venturemax" model out, which they have sent me to test for RidingGravel.com. The overall flare, sweep, and drop is probably most like a Cowchipper. That's what I've found the best comparison is. But when you look at the thing, it looks kind of like the cross between a Cowbell and a Bell Lap bar, which were both Salsa Cycles offerings. That "ergo bend" in the drops.......I am not sure about that. 

And I know that now days that everything is trademarked, so coming up with a name for a product is a real pain. Names that are obscure, mythical, ancient cultural things have become names for components and bicycles. It's almost as if you are taking a World History and Ancient Religions classes when you are trying to figure out names for things like tires and forks and the like. So, Ritchey uses a naming convention that is a bit of a uninspired thing in a world of oddball names. Their names are almost campy and hearken back to a time when "valley girls" meant a way that you walked and talked. I mean, "Venturemax"? Like, venture to the max, Dude. 

Well, at least they are consistent with their names. More on the bar to come.....

Ritchey sent the Venturemax drop bar for test and review to RidingGravel.com at no charge. I have not been paid nor bribed for this review and I will strive to give my honest thoughts and opinions throughout.

 

No Dust Ride

A field of flowers and puffy clouds. A near perfect riding day.

We've had some real gully washers lately around here. Rain at night, generally speaking, has been heavy and persistent, most of the end of last week anyway. It rained once while I was at work so hard that I knew it was raining by the sound I heard on the roof. Where I work it has to rain really hard for me to hear it.

Well, Saturday was sunny, but it was beastly humid. I rode a couple errands on the Big Dummy, and that about wasted me. I think I got a bit of heat stroke last week on my Guitar Ted Death Ride Invitational recon, so the residual effects have stuck with me throughout the week.

I ended up not doing much after the errands so I decided to wait until Sunday afternoon when the weatherman was saying that the humidity was going to start clearing out. Only one thing- there would be a stiff, Northwesterly breeze. I'll take it over no wind and high humidity and heat any day!

So, I set up the Tamland for the ride. By the way, my daughter has named this bike "Captain America", since it is red, white, and blue, and she is in to all the super-hero movie stuff. I'm good with that, so from now on, you'll see the Tamland referred to as "Captain America". Okay, so with that out of the way.....

Yeah, I was ready for a ride after lunch and headed out straight North toward Burton Avenue. There was a wind, sure enough, but it wasn't so bad that I could not just keep grinding away at it. I stopped to take a picture of a field full of flowers and then headed on Northward. I never really knew how far I was going to go. I was just making plans as I went based upon how I felt.

I saw a lot of Monarch Butterflies.they seemed to like these orange flowers.

I ended up going all the way in to Bremer County and then hitching a ride East on the Waverly Rail Trail which then turns into the Readlyn-Grump Trail, (Really! Readlyn-Grump!) Readlyn has a "Legend of The Old Grump" and holds a celebratory "day" every year to observe it's legend. Anyway..... I didn't go to Readlyn Sunday. I turned off before that thinking I'd get a nice tail wind push back to town, (which I did), and get in about 40 miles of riding. I came up short on the mileage by a mile and a quarter. Oh well! My math skills aren't the best.

The gravel was pretty chunky Sunday. I couldn't find much for smooth lines in either county I rode in. The weird thing was that it wasn't dusty. Usually chunky, fresh gravel equals dust and lots of it. However; those rains I mentioned must have washed all the dust away leaving just rocks. I looked down several times at my WTB Resolutes and they were clean and bluish-black looking. Generally you look down at your tires after riding several miles here and they are off-white. The dust usually coats the tires in a fine gritty mess. Even the cars I saw, which were few, weren't kicking up much dust. That was kind of weird since it wasn't cool and wet or raining.

The ride was good.  I didn't feel anything negative due to last week's rough ride nor did I have any issues, really. It was fun to get away form the town of Waterloo for a bit and enjoy some solitude on the bike. While I did not get any further with the recon for GTDRI, I did get out North on the gravel, which I had not done for a long time. Too long. I like riding up that way a lot. I also thought that it was a nearly perfect riding day. It was so beautiful out, and despite the wind, I had a great time. I likely won't experience a "no dust ride" anytime soon out there, that's for sure!

No Dust Ride

A field of flowers and puffy clouds. A near perfect riding day.

We've had some real gully washers lately around here. Rain at night, generally speaking, has been heavy and persistent, most of the end of last week anyway. It rained once while I was at work so hard that I knew it was raining by the sound I heard on the roof. Where I work it has to rain really hard for me to hear it.

Well, Saturday was sunny, but it was beastly humid. I rode a couple errands on the Big Dummy, and that about wasted me. I think I got a bit of heat stroke last week on my Guitar Ted Death Ride Invitational recon, so the residual effects have stuck with me throughout the week.

I ended up not doing much after the errands so I decided to wait until Sunday afternoon when the weatherman was saying that the humidity was going to start clearing out. Only one thing- there would be a stiff, Northwesterly breeze. I'll take it over no wind and high humidity and heat any day!

So, I set up the Tamland for the ride. By the way, my daughter has named this bike "Captain America", since it is red, white, and blue, and she is in to all the super-hero movie stuff. I'm good with that, so from now on, you'll see the Tamland referred to as "Captain America". Okay, so with that out of the way.....

Yeah, I was ready for a ride after lunch and headed out straight North toward Burton Avenue. There was a wind, sure enough, but it wasn't so bad that I could not just keep grinding away at it. I stopped to take a picture of a field full of flowers and then headed on Northward. I never really knew how far I was going to go. I was just making plans as I went based upon how I felt.

I saw a lot of Monarch Butterflies.they seemed to like these orange flowers.

I ended up going all the way in to Bremer County and then hitching a ride East on the Waverly Rail Trail which then turns into the Readlyn-Grump Trail, (Really! Readlyn-Grump!) Readlyn has a "Legend of The Old Grump" and holds a celebratory "day" every year to observe it's legend. Anyway..... I didn't go to Readlyn Sunday. I turned off before that thinking I'd get a nice tail wind push back to town, (which I did), and get in about 40 miles of riding. I came up short on the mileage by a mile and a quarter. Oh well! My math skills aren't the best.

The gravel was pretty chunky Sunday. I couldn't find much for smooth lines in either county I rode in. The weird thing was that it wasn't dusty. Usually chunky, fresh gravel equals dust and lots of it. However; those rains I mentioned must have washed all the dust away leaving just rocks. I looked down several times at my WTB Resolutes and they were clean and bluish-black looking. Generally you look down at your tires after riding several miles here and they are off-white. The dust usually coats the tires in a fine gritty mess. Even the cars I saw, which were few, weren't kicking up much dust. That was kind of weird since it wasn't cool and wet or raining.

The ride was good.  I didn't feel anything negative due to last week's rough ride nor did I have any issues, really. It was fun to get away form the town of Waterloo for a bit and enjoy some solitude on the bike. While I did not get any further with the recon for GTDRI, I did get out North on the gravel, which I had not done for a long time. Too long. I like riding up that way a lot. I also thought that it was a nearly perfect riding day. It was so beautiful out, and despite the wind, I had a great time. I likely won't experience a "no dust ride" anytime soon out there, that's for sure!