Saturday, January 14, 2012

a review of the bike review

I've still yet to figure out why everything from pics to text is posting up centered in my blog, it only does this when I add photos via my blogger app on my "smarter than me" phone. I played around with the settings on my phone but they were very limited. The only thing it would let me really do was adjust pic size and translate my text to Pirate language but that crap's so yesterday.


Saturday I finally received the Holy Grail of bike reviews, Bike's "Bible". I've been waiting impatiently for this jewel ever since I found out that all the testing was done just over the hill from me in Western NC. My go to, road trip destination source of many many sweet trailheads. I'm not gonna lie that after scanning through the list of trail worthy machines from every category I was a wee bit disappointed that there were no Niner's listed. I wasn't expecting to see the whole fleet or even two or three but I figured the JET RDO would have at least graced the pages. Something else that was lacking were the hardtails, very few of them were shown.

There were several 29er's but a majority of the rides were full squish 26er's. The only thing I didn't miss, hardtail 26er's, not a single one.






The best part about the "Bible" review was what the Bike crew had to say about the Western NC trails, Pisgah, Dupont and Beech Mtn. They showcased many of the local trails with plenty of good things to say and lots of pretty glossy photos. They even did a nice little piece on the town of Brevard and the two local bikes shops. Although the review was not as entertaining as I'd hoped I still thoroughly enjoyed it.






One of the things on my Christmas wish list this year was a new Camelbak Mule. My old one was showing signs of wear, wreaking of stink and missing a few straps. The newish design in my opinion fits much nicer and stays in place better without that top heavy feel like my old one. I've been holding onto a Niner "Pedal Damnit" patch for several months just in case I scored a new pack and today I conned my Mom into sewing it one for me. Thanks Mom!






If it's been a while since you've ridden with us, Melinda and I, then you might wonder why I've been hawking all of Melinda's bike parts on Ebay. No she didn't give up riding, she finally pulled the trigger on a new Niner JET9. The wheelset she had on her BMC were the Mavic Crossmax SLR's, which came with two fancy canvas wheel bags. I never really understood the need for these bags. I understand their purpose but I seriously doubt that half of the folks who own these wheels ever used the bags. They layed around in our basement for several month's before Melinda found a use for them that blew away their original purpose by a mile. A couple of years ago Melinda bought a wreath bag to store the various wreaths we have that adorn our front and back door during the changing seasons/holidays. Not surprising we quickly ran out of room and the two Mavic wheel bags were brought into service. Held up side by side to the "wreath" bag, one might wonder if the idea of the bag was stolen? They are almost identical with the exception of color and the Mavic logos. Now we house all of our many, many wreaths securely in our basement, free from dust and bugs. I just hope the cat who bought the wheelset doesn't hit me up for the wheel bags, Melinda will definitely put up a fight.


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