If you’re a rule breaker who values individualism over warranties, snubs the naysayers, and likes to customize everything they own, read on for how you can strip your entire dropper post, making the whole thing silver, not just the stanchion!
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VIDEO: Silca – Top 5 Biggest Tire and Wheel Mistakes You Shouldn’t Make
Our friends at Silca address the Top 5 Biggest Tire and Wheel Mistakes that you absolutely shouldn’t make. Watch for an informative series of tips to keep your tires and wheels happy!
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Kurt Refsnider Answers Your Questions About Riding Across Alaska on the Iditarod Trail
With its high consequences and steep gear-barrier to entry, winter bikepacking and backcountry travel can be an intimidating pursuit. After touring the complete, nearly 1,000-mile Iditarod Trail across Alaska in early 2023, Kurt Refsnider answers the questions he got from followers along the trail. Read on for a brief history of this legendary trail, Kurt’s complete gear list, and the challenges you can expect to encounter along the way.
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Collect ’em All: Seven Bicycle Tools You Rarely Need but Should Have Anyway
Really, how often are you pressing in a headset cup? Or cutting a steerer tube? The answer is probably just a little more than “never.” But Travis Engel would say that’s still enough to merit having the right tool when the time comes. This list contains some cheap (and some not-so-cheap) additions to your garage that could come in clutch when you’re preparing for a ride or a road trip and suddenly find yourself in greater need than a simple set of open-ended wrenches can satisfy.
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Once Around the Block: A FYXO Surly e-Big Dummy with CYC Photon Motor Review
If it isn’t clear that I’m a fan of e-bikes for UTE-ility purposes, then check here or here or just Google ‘FYXO Tonka’. Carrying cargo, kids, running errands, dinking your partner on date night, commuting—forget the financial benefit. One benefit that cannot be easily quantified is how much fun and hassle-free they are.
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Pump It Down: Why Every Rider Can Benefit From Volume Spacers, and How to Use Them
Before you even hit the parking lot to test ride a suspension bike, most shops will walk you through a careful sag and damping adjustment. But few of them will tell you that there is a whole other dimension of control inside your fork or shock’s air spring. By inserting or removing volume spacers, you can make your suspension more or less resistant to bottom-out. In turn, that may allow you to run more or less preload. This deceptively simple adjustment has gotten a reputation for being only for racers, or nerds, or nerdy racers. But Travis Engel believes everyone can benefit from volume tuning. So, he has this quick explainer on what it can do for you, and how you can try it for yourself.
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Female Hygiene on a Bike: How to Prepare for a Multi-Day Journey
Cyclotourists, bikepackers, and other backcountry travelers love shaving down their gear to just the bare essentials, splitting toothbrushes in half, or rationing the squares of toilet paper with every wipe. But, when it comes to personal hygiene, I feel like I owe it to myself to splurge a little, given how much I put my body through day-in and day-out whilst on a long, multi-day journey.
It wasn’t until recently that I became aware of the lack of information around the topic of personal female hygiene and bikepacking. As I’ve been approached by more women with different questions on the subject over the years, I began to realize that there’s a need for this kind of information sharing, and that actually, there’s no distinctive guidance out there to help.
So, I want to share my knowledge and experience with the hope that it will help other riders better understand what female hygiene on a bike looks like. There’s no universal solution for everyone, and I can only speak from the anatomy that I know about, but perhaps you’ll find good tips and advice to integrate into future trips based on your needs.
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Liquid Gold: How to Find Water on Big Desert Rides
The remote arid lands of the United States’ West have always called strongly to me – the sandstone canyon country of the Colorado Plateau, the broad detritus-filled valleys and formidable ranges of the Great Basin, and the cactus forests of the Sonoran Desert to name a few. These characteristically dry landscapes all exude a unique, powerful beauty and a particularly intimidating shared aura arising from the scarcity of water. Beyond that, broad swaths of these regions are sparsely inhabited, and that remoteness combined with the aridity can be especially challenging for anyone looking to adventure in the backcountry, whether it’s for single- or multiple-day outings. But in many areas, the water is out there if you know where to find it and plan your route with that in mind, and in this article, I am going to walk through my process for planning out trips in the desert.
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Toasty Toes: How to Keep Your Feet Warm on Cold Rides
Do you struggle to keep your feet warm on cold rides? Years ago, I thought that was the norm for winter riding, but it turned out I just didn’t know the best way to deal with the cold. Back in those years, I was a roadie who took pride and legitimately enjoyed training through the snowy winter months chasing that oft-elusive early-season form. In the hills of southern Wisconsin and then the Front Range foothills of Colorado, I hammered around on a ‘cross bike outfitted with studded Nokians and fenders, with my torso and legs layered up for whatever the temperature. But for years on end, my feet absolutely froze, even with oversized shoes, extra socks, and a double layer of neoprene booties on the coldest days. Every long ride would end with my socks soaked in sweat and my toes painfully cold bricks. More often than not, I’d get home with an ironic combination of huge hunger, because I never ate nearly enough on rides, and screaming barfies as my toes started to painfully warm up.
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#crossneverleft: How to Throw a Cyclocross Race
Are you missing cyclocross? Maybe it’s February and you haven’t reached your quota of mud in your eye, or maybe it’s June and doing a gravel race is just 7 hours too long – do they even know what a cowbell is in Kansas? Why rely on your local promoter to line the local park with caution tape when you can easily do the same yourself? Organizing your own race is not only more simple than you think, but a great way to get people together and build community!
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This Simple Bottle Cage Hack Can Save You Time
A while back, I saw Ira Ryan from Breadwinner Cycles at a Cross Crusades race in Portland prepping his bike for his race. He had ridden to the event from his home so he had two cages and two bottles and with less than a quarter rotation of an allen key had removed his bottle cages and was ready for his race.
I review a lot of bikes and tend to put frame bags and bottle cages on and off my bikes that I’ll use for touring, so I adopted his trick. Check out the details below.
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Make Your Own Grips
Thanks to our friends at Rivendell, this how-to video on how to make your own grips exists.
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My Thoughts on Cycling and Weight Loss
Over the past few years – since moving to Austin in 2010 – I’ve been struggling with weight loss. Look, we’re all cyclists. We probably all ride with skinny, fit dudes and as a bigger guy, it’s frustrating. Even now, at the peak of my fitness, I still get dropped by “climbers”. What I found was to take these experiences and use them as part of my motivation. There was one defining moment however. A majority of it came from a ride I did in Australia a few years back…
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Traveling Tip: Dry Your Kit in a Hotel Towel
I spend a lot of time on the road, with my bike and over the past few months, I’ve dialed in just how many kits I need in that time. Say, for instance, I’m going to Santa Cruz for four days. I’ll bring one kit and never have to wear it dirty because of this one trick I’ve learned over the years of life on the road.
Check out the details below!
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Ruckus on the Oregon Outback
With the success of the Bikes and Faces of the Oregon Outback post, I figured diving a little deeper into one bike couldn’t hurt. As I said before, a lot of people were on hardtail or rigid MTBs. While the top two finishers (Ira and Jan) were on drop-bar touring / road bikes, a majority of the field chose the stability and control of a full-on 29r, 27.5 and even 26″.
Shawn from Ruckus took the Oregon Outback as an opportunity to create a bike, specifically for this bikepacking outing and the resulting design is pretty bad ass, not to mention, featherlite!
Read up more below!
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Yonder Journal: An Intro to Bikepacking
If you’ve never bikepacked before and really want to get into it, or you have attempted before and failed miserably, then you NEED to read this post over at Yonder Journal. It’s a break-down on how to pack what, where and lists essentials for long rides / tours / camping trips.
Head over to Yonder Journal for the full article!
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Watch Greg Lemond Fix a Flat
No controversy here… just a drug-free, three time Tour de France champion fixing a flat at NYC Velo in Manhattan!
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How to Make a Sick Edit
Everyone needs a roost sequence! The Canadian minds at NSMB do it again.