Pressure is Building

As of now, I'm taking the Wahoo data acquisition device mounts off my mountain bikes until next year.  I've had enough with numbers and maps and buttons for now.  I bought it back in July '19, and it's been a nice distraction, tool, mileage/effort shamer, and beer calories burnt counter.  Enough for now.

But for someone who is trying to get away from anally compulsing over numbers, my bike life just got more "informed."

Tallest to shortest, the JOEBLOW® TUBI 2STAGE floor pump, the POCKETSHOCK DIGITAL shock pump, and the SMARTGAUGE D2X pressure gauge.

Firstly and secondly, let's focus on the little things.

Just as Apple recently decided to stop supplying all the accessories with new iPhones because you probably own plenty of headphones and charging blocks (but still need Apple stickers?), there was once a time when new forks and full suspension frames came with shock pumps... and then one day... they didn't.  My remaining shock pump is one of many that have come into my life and is probably from my Santa Cruz Tallboy (if I had to guess).  All the other ones (save for the Marzocchi one in the junk closet that I used to inflate balls back when I had "kids") were either sold or given away.  Dunno.  I just know they're gone, hopefully to a better place.

For someone as hyper-anal as I am about tire pressures on my rigid SS, I've allowed for some sloppy suspension setups.  Don't blame me.  Blame this:

When I've got a suggested fork pressure of 63PSI and rear shock pressure of 146PSI, you tell me that I'm not taking a stab in the dark with those 10PSI increments on the gauge.  It hurts my head that I have the technology available to get my tire pressure correct to .5PSI accuracy, but I gotta settle for "something in the range of ?" when it comes to my high dollar squishing bits.

So now that all the "racing" is over for the year (and hopefully my injuries), I can take the time to dial in my suspension AND write down my ACTUAL settings so I can get it where I want it and keep it there.

Worth noting, this shock pump has the Pressure-Rite connector so when the pump is removed from the valve, I can rest assured that I didn't lose even one of my precious PSIs. 

Oh... and just when I thought I was limited to tire pressure accuracy being in the .5PSI range, the new SmartGauge D2X is accurate to .1PSI.

Yeth, it used to hurt my head that as I was bleeding air slowly to get 11.5PSI, and it goes 13... 12.5... 12... 11.5...

And I'm left wondering if it just displays 11.5 once it gets closer to 11.5 than 12 (like 11.74) or when it's 11.5 on the nose, or if I skip a beat, it could drop to 11.26 without me knowing it.  Mebbe it doesn't matter to you, but these are the things I think about when I'm talking about my turgid frok happiness.  Perhaps it's less than a 3% difference, whatever.  Numbers...

I was previously relying on the Topeak Shuttle, but not using it 100% the way it was meant to be utilized.  It can be hooked inline with the pump hose (which felt a little like putting a hat on a hat), but I was:

* Too lazy to connect/disconnect it every time.
* Too lazy to just leave it connected and take enough care to not drop it to the floor as carelessly as I know I would.

The new D2X feels better in my hand, it's backlit so old people with bad eyes can read it more easily, and unlike the Shuttle Gauge which would shut off after 80 idle seconds, you can shut the D2X off by holding the power button down for 3 seconds (and save your battery, bless).

I would say that I'm kinda picky and also sentimental when it comes to floor pumps.  The pump that lives next to the tarck bike in the spare room is a replacement that Faster Mustache bought for me when mine came up missing after the indoor night criterium that had a LeMans start that involved inflating balloons until they burst before running to your bike. 

It's special to me... well, because it is.

The one I keep handy in my work area that I use for pumping up mountain bike tires has to fill certain requirements:

1. High volume for less pumpings.
2. A gauge I can see with old eyes WITH 1PSI increments up to 30or so PSI.

That's about it.

There is the added bonus that I can swap this new pump from high volume to high pressure so if I'm closer to it than my "sentimental value pump," I don't have to walk all the way across my spacious thousand square foot home to get my tarck bike ready to go to work.

There's also this nifty feature:

Yeth, you can remove the valve core with the Tubihead while the pump is attached so you can get more air flow through the valve with zero air loss... which would be handy for setting up tubeless if you don't have a compressor OR a canister device like a Tubibooster... which I predict someday will come with this Tubihead feature... and I'll make zero dollars for coming up with the idea.

And going back to my laziness (and not my decrepit vision), I found the Tubihead to work nicely when I was inflating a tire with a valve core that probably should be replaced due to being sticky with sealant but now mebbe not as soon as I would normally because I can just move it outta the way short term.  No, not the best idea as far as making a trailside flat repair easier, but it did get me out the door quicker the other day... and I'm sure I'll get around to replacing that $1 valve core before it becomes a real problem in the woods?

Mebbe.

Life is getting more dialed right before I get to spend the next three months going off the rails.

Bless and thank.