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Terrene: Griswold Winter Road Tires

Radar

Terrene: Griswold Winter Road Tires

First, what a name. Who doesn’t love watching Christmas Vacation? Second, black ice is sketchy, so if you’re commuting or riding icy roads in the winter, studded tires make all the difference. These 700×38 tires have 120 studs and will allow for up to 240 to be installed to keep your rubber side down. They’re $95 a piece, so head to your local dealer for ordering and over to Terrene for more information.

Stephanie’s Surly Wednesday With Studs and SimWorks

Reportage

Stephanie’s Surly Wednesday With Studs and SimWorks

Stephanie’s Surly Wednesday represents layers of history, each meaningful and useful in their own right. When studying architecture and art history, I learned that such layers of history are referred to as a palimpsest. Rome is the classic example of a palimpsest, a city in which successive generations have built on top of what came before. New additions have been built on top of existing infrastructure, though the original shape and character still shines through.

Stephanie’s Wednesday has been successively repurposed over the past couple of years, moving away from its original life as a fat bike with trail geometry, to where you see it currently as a cold-weather commuter with signs of its enjoyment along the way. Used and adapted, used some more, collecting nicks and character throughout. Our bikes are where we layer our history: through experience, they become greater than the sum of their parts.

My Retrotec Funduro is Rollin’ Again with SRAM GX, Level ULT Brakes and Terrene Chunk Tires

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My Retrotec Funduro is Rollin’ Again with SRAM GX, Level ULT Brakes and Terrene Chunk Tires

It’s a damn shame. Yeah, it really is. It’s a shame that this bike sat in my storage room, with no drivetrain or brake parts for so long. After reviewing this Retrotec Funduro 27.5+ hardtail a few months back, I couldn’t send the frame back to Curtis. I just loved it so much. After some emailing, he agreed I could buy the frame, but I had to send the Shimano parts back to Retrotec HQ in Napa and buy him a new Chris King 40th group.

Months later, Chris King asked to have the bike for their 40th Anniversary show, so I cobbled together a partially working build with a new SRAM Eagle group and sent it to Portland for display purposes only. Partially working? Huh? You see, SRAM and Shimano do chainring offset very differently and SRAM’s Eagle ring isn’t available in 0mm offset, like their other drivetrain systems are and like Shimano’s XTR cranks are designed, so even though it looked damn fine with all that glistening gold on it, the chainring wouldn’t clear the stay…