In the comments on yesterday’s post, the venerable “Urchin” shared this new product from Odyssey:
Okay, yeah, THAT’S AN INNER TUBE.
Yeah, yeah, I know, there are two different air chambers, it’s got two valves blah blah blah, but let’s get real here, it’s a goddamn tube. You know it, I know it, Odyssey knows it, even MTBro in the video tail-whipping repeatedly down the trail like a cat with a burr stuck to its ass knows it:
And if I sound angry, I’m not. If anything, I’m deeply reassured, for it proves that absolutely everything in the cycling world comes full circle. I predict once hydraulic disc brakes go fully electronic (yes, that’s right) you’ll need some sort of redundancy device in the event of either loss of power or fluid or both. Most likely, this will take the form of a discreet emergency lever:
This would act on a wound steel cable attached to an auxiliary stopper that grips the rim:
I’m not sure what they’d call it, but “Contingency Velocity Retardener” has a nice ring to it.
Meanwhile, yesterday I took to the road on a bicycle with a cutting-edge air-filled tire bladder system as well as front and rear Continency Velocity Retardeners:
Remember how I said the Milwaukee was a fantastic bike but there’s just something special about the Faggin? Well, it probably won’t surprise you that after riding the Faggin for three days in a row then switching back to the Milwaukee I now feel exactly the opposite:
As I’ve mentioned, I’ve officially given up trying to understand bikes. However, I haven’t given up bloviating, so here are my leading theories as to what’s going on:
- Those last three days on the Faggin were cold and rainy, but yesterday was warm and sunny, so naturally I felt better on the Milwaukee
- As the tires very slowly lose air like all tires do I’ve inadvertently found myself in sort of a #whatpressureyourunning Goldilocks Zone. However, by the next ride they’ll be slightly too low, at which point I’ll decide the Milwaukee feels slightly more sluggish than the Faggin, until I finally get around to topping off the tires, at which point I’ll think it’s a little on the stiff side again until they gradually deflate themselves back down to the Goldilocks Zone and the cycle begins a new
- It’s red
All of this obsessing should last until the new tires I ordered from Rivendell for the Roadini finally arrive and I start fixating on that again.
Now where the hell’s that UPS truck?
I’ll also confess I’m experiencing a similar inversion when it comes to the drivetrains: until now I was thinking that the Super Record on the Faggin was nicer than the 105 on the Milwaukee, but now I wonder if it isn’t the other way around. The sorts of people who fancy themselves aficionados and tastemakers generally prefer Campagnolo, and it’s not hard to understand why. At the same time, when it comes to mechanical, Shimano has the edge in one area, and I’m surprised nobody ever seems to mention it: specifically, it’s very easy to brake and downshift at the same time because the brake lever is also the downshiftershifter. As I recall, this was how Lennard Zinn justified Campagnolo electronic back in the early days of EPS:
As absurdly specific as the above passage from Zinn is, in my case all of this is beyond theoretical and even more ridiculous, since not only are my racing days long behind me, but I don’t even have anybody to ride with, which means I have no need to ever try and keep up with anybody–and I can assure you my average speed reflects this, or at least it would if I were still using Strava. Which I’m not anymore.
But yeah, I’m really enjoying the 105 stuff.
Anyway, having established I’m completely unqualified to review go-fast road bike stuff, I’m nevertheless going to update you on the Pearl Izumi shoes I received back in 2022, seen below in their current state:
I will remind you that these are their budget shoes–so budgety in fact that they seem to be marketed as much for indoor spin bike use as for actual cycling. Speaking of which, you’ll see I’m using Look Delta cleats (or their generic equivalent), which have also fallen out of favor among cyclists while at the same time becoming the standard cleat for indoor spinning. So why do I use them?
Well, like many cyclists, I used to use Look Delta pedals back when if you were a “serious” roadie you either used Look or Time, or maybe Speedplay. Then sometime during the 10-speed era Campagnolo introduced the Pro-Fit pedal, and somehow I started using those:
They were very good pedals, though in typical Campagnolo fashion they were completely overdone, right down to the two-piece cleat with a metal part and a plastic part and even a little piece of grip tape for the underside of the cleat.
Then Shimano SPD-SL came out and like seemingly everyone else I switched to those, and I had nary a problem with them. Indeed, I’d still be using them today if it weren’t for the Vengeance Bike:
That bike arrived with the Look pedals (Delta, obviously), and if there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s having two different pedal systems going at the same time. (I make an exception for “road” pedals and “mountain” pedals, but even that I find annoying.) Yet as the official Classic Cycle Old Crap Test Pilot it wouldn’t do for me to ride the Vengeance Bike with modern pedals. So instead I bought some old Shimano Look Delta-compatible pedals off a certain website where people auction stuff. These pedals are very high quality, but generally they look like crap and nobody wants them, so as a result you can often get them for about the price of an inner tube or two. So I bought another pair, and another, and before I knew it I was using Look Delta-compatible Shimano pedals on all my road bikes.
I keep meaning to switch back to the SPD-SLs, but at this point it just feels like a hassle–and speaking of hassles, I just replaced the cleats on those shoes, but because I waited so long even the screws themselves were worn down and I had to Dremel little notches for a screwdriver into them to get them off, but not before first trying to get them off with a pair of needle-nose pliers and badly pinching the pad of my pinkie in the process, leaving a nasty welt that was as painful as it is ugly. So let that be a reminder to go ahead and check your cleats–or, even better, don’t bother with any of this nonsense at all and just ride in sneakers.
As for the shoes, since getting them I’ve worn them for most of my cleated road riding and have been extremely pleased with them. The heel pad thingy that aids walking is not replaceable, but as you can see it’s barely worn. The Velcro (or its generic equivalent) is also as good as new, and overall I can’t find a single thing to complain about, the disastrous pinky welt being 100% my fault. Occasionally I still wear my Sidis, which I will admit do feel a little better, but they’re also pretty beat up, and they don’t feel so much better that I don’t still opt for these most of the time.
So there you go–though again, you really can’t go wrong with sneakers.