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Thursday, August 16

I have come here to bury Garvel...

not to praise it.

Two topics, one post.

I forgot to mention one thing about the Pisgah Enduro™.  You should do it.

If a weekend of good times, big rides on marked courses, and convenient (and cheap) lodging in the Pisgah sounds like your kinda thing, come get some.  I still can't believe that so few people take up the bunkhouse option.  $40 for two nights gets you a front row seat to the pavilion, a full-on kitchen, private rooms, clean bathrooms, and a bunch of showers (albeit designed for a human 3.5 apples tall).  It reminds me a lot of a two day version of the Trans-Sylvania Epic stage race, minus the racing up hills and fewer (none?) people riding in spandex super hero kits.

And the other totally unrelated item?

I think I accidentally built myself a garvel bike.

It was not technically my intention to do so.  Mostly, I wanted to get the Industry Nine/NOX Carbon wheels off of the bike that I was using to get beer and ride around town.  Wearing out perfectly good knobs and spinning around on 32X18 is no buenos, but I just didn't wanna put too much effort into making a change.  So, I put out a half-assed feeler...

So nothing decent at first, but then some Hope hubs on Stans Arch EX rims at a great price... but all the way over in Lincolnton.... but the guy comes uptown for work sometimes...

I did end up having to carry them home from work one-handed, which made for an interesting ride on the tarck bike.  Upon inspection, I did find that the rear wheel had a little hop, a little wobble, and mebbe one rounded nipple, but the bearings were smooth and the price was totally right.  I then had 9/10 of the problem solved.  I coulda just dug some half-worn tires out from my downstairs murder room, but I wanted to roll around on something faster.  I placed my order with Maxxis, and a week later...

I went with the Re-Fuse 700 X 40 with TR casing.  I don't want tubes in my life if I can avoid them.  I coulda got something narrower, but I have to admit to being slightly intimidated by setting up tubeless shit higher than 50PSI.  Anyways, comfort wins.

Also...

quick releases instead of bolt-ons...

700 X whatever tube with a tire lever...

and a pump.  I doubt I'll ever flat, but at least I can go out into the night with nothing in my pockets other than money, my phone, and a copious amount of lint.

Yeth, mebbe this would be a good garvel bike, once the pedals are swapped to SPDs.  With Pisgah Monster Cross looming, I have a few things to consider:

Gearing.  I have no clue how to gear a 700 X 40 bike for climbing gravel roads in Pisgah.  I've done Monster Cross on 32 X18 with (mebbe) Ikon 2.2 tires in the past, but that was just the best I had without spending money.

I wished I wouldn't have given away the matching stainless steel cage.  An easy problem to resolve, aside from dealing with the regret.

That high post.  Sure the Moots post provides comfort, but riding without a drooper feels dumb.  I rode in to work this morning, and just pulling up to a red light undrooped feels trbl.  I can only imagine descending down a washed out garvel road at almost 40MPH would feel even worse.

All that, and I'm not wasting a trip to the mountains to shake it out.  If I can get out there in the next few weeks, it's with a "mountain bike" to ride "mountain bike trails" in the "mountains."

And then Watts also reminded me this past weekend that we talked about doing Monster Cross on a tandem, although we're always drinking beer when we have this discussion.  I've never ridden a tandem (other than a whippy clunker), and the idea of stoking and not seeing anything other than Watts's ass and also being terrified because I have nothing to do with controlling the machine?

Gads.

This bike also means that I'd have an almost reasonable option for the "road day" of the 2019 Tour de Burg.  "Reasonable" meaning the best option that I've had since I owned an actual road bike... which was a very long time ago.

At this point, the only thing I'd really like for the bike would be a Wart Fork™, so I can put a basket on it for beer fetching, but tracking down a steel fork with 15mm front axle and warts, the right headset lower (or bearing race), and a rack sounds paralyzing and prolly cost-prohibitive.

So this is it for now.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

no warts:
http://www.jbi.bike/site/product_details.php?part_number=90202

I loved having a 2nd wheelset for my rigid mtb with 70x40 tires on it. 1 bike 2 purposes!!

dicky said...

I can't imagine loading that with 12 beers, and I don't come home from the store with a six.

I want three bikes, all single purpose. Zero crossover.

Two wheelsets for the Vertigo Meatplow V.7. One for smashing things and one for go fast moments.

Assuming I'll do the latter again... someday.

Skidmark said...

No tubes, can’t ride w/o drooper, 3B-no crossover max., buddy you’re j
riding off an leaving me. Just turn the 18pack on-end.
—much love ❤️

Matt Jenkins said...

I have the same rims and same tires. What pressure did you decide to go with? My rims said scary things on the side about max pressure this, tire size that...

dicky said...

Matt,

I went with 40 or so PSI.