Reader questions?

Not so much questions, but things people wanna know that I didn't want to take the time to write about, but will.

Mustard packs.

Do they help with cramps?

What's the science behind it all?

I don't know...


I think it works, and lots of smarter people could tell you why. Maybe it's a psychological thing. I was once told if I didn't want to sneeze to look up at a light and think of a watermelon. I think that was a mind game, but it worked. Nowadays I'd rather just sneeze. It's quite cleansing.

Another question hanging out in the air?

What do I think of the new Misfit that's garnered so much attention in the mainstream media yet I haven't talked about it that much?



It's a bike. It holds two 29" wheels approximately 41.5" apart, it keeps my hands and my butt about 39" off the ground, and it is black and white.

It also holds 45 oz of water (24 and 21oz bottles shown) that I can actually take out of the cages and drink WHILE RIDING.

Thad the Specialized Marsupial clued me in on the Zee Cages that allow happy side loading for smaller frames. I was able to get bottles into the old Rib Cages, but not without a struggle. No more struggle, but I haven't tested them in the real world yet. If my shit falls out all over the trail I'll have Thad to blame.

The ride? Pretty much how I intended it to be. I didn't just come up with the numbers out of my butt.

Four years of riding plenty of custom and stock 29'ers went into this frame's design. I fed Thomas some numbers, and he used his choo choo engineer skills to make it into a bike frame... well, at least a two dimensional drawing of a bike frame. If I didn't like it, I'd only have myself to blame. Peter stayed out of the planning and just facilitated the operation to keep from having any blame put on him if it failed. Of course, since the front end dimensions are so similar to his stock medium diSSent, he wants to take all the credit for it's current success. He blames me for not putting it on the podium this weekend since Luke Sagur was able to put a stock diSSent AL on the second step.

Thanks Luke.

That front end is stiff in all the good ways and none of the bad, as a stiff front end should be.

The bike is more point and shoot precise then anything I've ever ridden, hands down. But that was the way it was designed. Sure the fork is stiff, but the fork blades have just as much fore-aft deflection as the non-tapered version. I have absolutely no science to back that up. Just casual observation at high speeds.

There has been some mockery over the low'ish looking top tube. It is actually HIGHER than my small One 9, but it just LOOKS like a step through bike frame. I can fit a water bottle on the seat tube now, so suck it.

The EBB? Not a peep for the first 10+ hours of riding. No, that is not a lot, and no, I have not been in really nasty conditions yet...

Except for this:

I believe it's due to the fact that the EBB shell was reamed to some tight tolerances by the folks at YESS. On my One 9 frames (I've had a medium and a small) the EBB was a slightly looser fit, and I was able to get the suggested two layers of teflon tape around the EBB. Not with this frame. One thin layer barely passed by the shell... I think. It may have dissolved as I pressed the EBB in. Dunno. Anyways, no squeaks, clicks, groans, or movement yet.

Suck that as well.

It's an aluminum bike. It's stiff. My tires are at 18 and 24.5 PSI respectively, and that's a lot of cush. Ample? No. Responsive? Yes.

The rear end is stiff.

Too stiff? Maybe, but maybe not. My first ride had me leaning that way, but I had went out for two hours after eating next to nothing over a eight hour period. I was a mess and in no position to make judgments. The 5:45 I spent on the bike this weekend was pleasant, and the only back pain I experienced was from trying to stay on the bike on the muddy, energy sapping climbs.

Hopefully that's the stuff you wanna know. I can't think of anything else. I could always pull out some back issues of a glossy magazine bike review and plagiarize some quippy quotes if you'd like...

I had something else I wanted to talk about, but now I have to wait until tomorrow.

Thanks for the diversion.

And happy 16th anniversary to The Pie.