Solar Shields

At first, I told myself I’d only wear them while cycling. They were, after all, ridiculous—cheap, oversized, drugstore sunglasses, the kind with side-wraps. The kind you see being worn only by old, cane-wielding  men in the park. The kind that fit over your actual glasses. They cost $25, my Solar Shields.

Baiyu Superbright Spoke Lights

Got me some cheap Chinese spoke lights for my crap commuter bike. I had been thinking for some time about the need to improve side visibiIity on my daily ride and concluded that some kind of wheel lighting was the way to go. So I ordered these on amazon for $13, shipping included. They arrived remarkably quickly, shipped from China complete with curiously worded “English” instructions, in time to make a little Christmas gift to myself. I see them as an experiment. I know they’re cheap, in every sense. But, hey, 13 bucks.

Freeballing

These are the tattered remains of my MEC Merino T1 wool boxers ($42). They look like they’ve been chewed on by moths for decades and chafed up by thousands of miles of activity. But, in reality, they are only a few months old. I bought them as part of an experiment in cycling attire. This past summer, I decided to give up conventional lycra cycling shorts in favor of wool boxers and regular shorts-shorts.

Tasting Notes: Mr. Brown's Canned Coffee

Western style was prevailing in Taiwanese society in the 1970s. Fashionable ladies dressed themselves with fluffy while the most popular among gentlemen was to hold a cup of mellow coffee to enjoy the elegance of the black beverage.   

Who is Mr. Brown? Why does his canned coffee taste so good in the middle of a bike ride? Why doesn’t he look more Chinese? Why is he so happy? These are the questions that run through my mind every time I see a tin of Mr. Brown’s “Ready to Drink” Iced Canned Coffee, one of my go-to cycling beverages. Fortunately, I recently discovered www.mrbrowncoffee.com, a mischievously translated source of all kinds of fascinating, if not entirely reliable, information about this apparently famous Taiwanese treat. 

Shoulders and Toes: Specialized Defrosters

These boots have changed my life.

I know that sounds dramatic, but, honestly, I can’t think of another piece of cycling gear that has so profoundly improved my cycling experience. I wore them last autumn and now this spring, and on every single ride I look down at my Defrosters and think, Damn! I love these boots! how did I ever live without them?

Tasting Notes: Gu Salted Caramel Gel

For a flavor that I don’t even recall being an actual flavor until about 15 years ago, salted caramel has come a long way in recent times. It’s popping up everywhere—Haagen-Dazs, Starbucks, Nature Valley Granola Bars, Wal-Mart chocolate toffees, that gelato bar I went to in Ottawa last summer—and consumers can’t seem to get enough.

The combination of sweet and salty is an ancient one, but as this 2008 New York Times piece explains, its recent fame can be traced back to France, where salted caramel, like Jerry Lewis, was popular in the 1970s. Foodies in New York and San Francisco gradually caught on, and by the 1990s, salted caramel started showing up in everything from macarons to milkshakes. Next thing you know, Obama proclaimed a thing for salted caramel dark chocolates, and the once obscure combo was bound for the mainstream. 

Review of O2 Cycling Rain Jacket

My O2 cycling jacket is mortally wounded. As you can see, it’s got a huge gash down the back, a bloodless death wound that severely compromises its status as “raingear.” I will attempt to patch it up with duct tape, but I fear the jacket’s days are numbered. Which is too bad because it served me well.

Viva Viscacha

For a while now, I’ve been a man in search of a bag—a commodious seat bag, to be precise. I want something I can attach to my carbon fiber road bike or my fat bike (I want something that is easy to switch back and forth), and which can hold all my rain gear and a couple of other key items essential for long rides. I’m not just looking to stash some squishy little rainshell and a gel pack or two. I want to be able to bring pants, booties, gloves, sweater, etc. My dream bag’s got to have some serious capacity, the potential for some major volume.

So for the past few days I’ve been test-driving a Revelate Viscacha, which I borrowed from Val. (He is a man of many bags. Why? Let’s just say he’s a fellow who takes his on-bike storage seriously.) And I have to say, I like it. It’s a definite contender.

Tasting Notes: GU Energy Gel (DIY Chocolate & PB)

GU Energy Gel is the only energy gel maker I know of to produce a peanut-butter-flavored product. And all you have to do is try it to realize why no one else has bothered.

Now, I love ya, peanut butter, but you’re just not a good fit for a gel—at least not on your own. The problem with GU’s pb gel is simple: it’s too damn peanut buttery. After squirting an envelope of the stuff in your gob, you know precisely how that poor dog feels—the one whose owner thought it would be “hilarious” to see how Fido would like peanut butter. The goo adheres to the roof of one’s mouth and initiates a quicksand-like tongue-immobilizer reaction. One’s brain instantly calls for saliva but it’s too late—the pb has contracted the inside of the mouth, glomping up the salivary release points.

Tasting Notes: Idaho Spud

The Idaho Spud is one of my favorite candy bars (or chocolate bars, as we call them in Canada), and it makes for a perfect road snack for bike rides. The catch is that you can only get an Idaho Spud in actual Idaho—or some parts of Montana, Oregon, and Washington State. My pal Penn just returned from a drive down through some of those places on his way to Arizona and he was kind enough to bring me back a sack of spuds, which I’ve been enjoying on bike rides all week.

Dumonde Tech G-10 Bio-Green Chain Lube Review

When the subject of chain lube comes up, I am generally a pure agnostic. A simple Google search will reveal a plethora of heated, perpetual, and simultaneously partisan and inconclusive discussions about which little bottle of oil is the right one.  My position, generally, is that your chain needs oil and as long as that oil shows up regularly, it doesn't really matter which oil you use. As a result of my not particularly caring about what oil I use, a lot of little bottles have come through my garage.  Given that background, I figure the bottle I grabbed for my trip from Vancouver to the Mexican border deserves a little write up.

Tasting Notes: Sharkies vs. Worms

For some reason, I find myself thinking about candy this week. While the kids have been chomping away on Rockets, mini-chocolate bars, and Tootsie Rolls, I have turned my attention to cyclists’ candy.  I’m talking about the latest energy snack sensation: chews, those semi-solid gummy-bear-like confections marketed to athletes who want easily digestible, portable carbs. These days, almost all the big players in the energy snack market produce some version of this product: Stinger’s Energy Chews, CliF’s Shot Bloks, Powerbar’s Gel Blasts, just to name some of the big boys.

Tasting Notes: Honey Stinger Waffle

The website for Honey Stinger Waffles recommends, with a wink, that their waffles be hidden away from children. So tasty and addictive are these wafflettes, the website suggests, that kids won’t be able to keep their little hands off them. In my experience, though, it’s not just little gaffers who love the gaufre Stinger, as it’s known in some parts of this land. Young and old chew back this crack-cocaine of sports snacks at an alarming rate. For the Stinger seems to defy the cardinal rule, the Prime Directive of Energy Snackage—which is that if it’s good for you, it can’t be entirely yummy.

Tasting Notes: CLIF Shot Energy Gel—Vanilla

I have long thought of sports gel packs in much the same way I think of fluoride treatments at the dentist—as disgusting but beneficial semi-fluids. In my experience, most gel packs and fluoride treatments taste awful, like some unholy combination of artificial flavor and rancid yak butter. Both are a cruel tease: you’re offered a misleading array of “flavors” to choose from, as if you’re selecting ice cream, pop, or candy. So you get your hopes up, only to have them dashed when your taste buds get involved.

The Recyclists Extraordinaire

At the risk of sounding like an infomercial, I want to give a hearty shout out to my friends Cindy and Brock Garvin who run RecycledAccessories, a web-based recycled bicycle accessory business in BC’s Okanagan. The Garvins have been making and selling high-end recycled bike trinkets since 2007—chains, spokes, and other high-end components transformed into stylish bracelets, necklaces, belt buckles, tie pins, and cufflinks. 

Hidden Link Bracelet

Spinervals Review

Winter is here.  No question.

We've got big plans for next season, everything is in the big goals/big dreams phase now, but we intend to do more than ride back and forth to the Safeway.  We have Intentions.  So here we are, mid-winter, huddled in our huts and sharpening our knives.