Yesterday’s weather was glorious, and I daresay it may not be long before I can resume my search for the Spirit of Gravel:
By this I mean I’ll just keep doing the exact same mixed-terrain rides I’ve always done, only on a bicycle that’s specifically marketed as a gravel bike.
For research purposes.
In the meantime, I’m sticking to the road until the trails have a chance to dry out, and to that end I’ve even fitted this old thing with a brand new pair of tires:
Until yesterday I’d been using a pair of 32mm Paselas:
See, before gravel was invented, if you wanted an all-around multi-surface tire that was reasonably light and rode nicely you just put Paselas on your road bike or your cyclocross bike and that was that. Now people know better, so they purchase gravel bikes and use boutique rebranded Paselas instead. I love the Pasela, but it was bothering me that this particular pair is about 14 years old. Yes, the tread still in good shape (I haven’t been riding them for 14 years straight), but they’ve been on and off a lot of bikes in that time, the sidewalls are doing that flaking thing old tires do when when you take them on and off (sliding the tire lever around them is like grating parmesan), and ever since my crash this past December I’ve begun to ask myself questions such as, “Do I really need to be riding around on tires that are only slightly younger than my eldest child?”
So on Sunday I went to the bike shop and treated the bike to a pair of 30mm road tires:
Perusing the tires hanging on the wall, I chose these because the price was reasonable and they’re not tubeless-compatible, my thinking being that if you’re not going tubeless there’s no reason to deal with a potentially tighter-fitting tire. Now, I’m not anti-tubless. In fact, some of my best friends are tubeless!
And despite getting SPOGged on in a sodid latex-based money shot shortly after setting up the PRJCT GRVL bike I recognize that they do have their merits:
Yes, it was a little messy, but even factoring in the learning curve it took me no longer to seal the tire than it would have too change a tube–plus, I didn’t even have to remove the wheel from the bike.
Still, the skinnier a tire gets the less interested in tubeless I am, and as regular, non-tubeless rims and tires quickly disappear, so too does the quick and easy tube change of yesteryear. Yes, of course you can use tubeless rims and tires with tubes, but everything fits a lot more tightly, and if it’s a tubeless rim you may not even be able too get the tire fully seated without a high-pressure pump or a CO2 inflator. And not being able to change a tube quickly and easily undermines the entire reason for using tubes in the first place:
All of this is to say those are old-fashioned non-tubeless road rims and I want to keep using non-tubeless tires with them for as long as they remain available.
Which I don’t think will be for very long.
Oh, I also bought the bike a bell:
That of course is a Spurcycle, the Chris King headset of bells.
In any case, I did so some trail scouting:
But like a bed in a motel room that hasn’t been turned over yet there were still too many wet spots:
And in both cases I’m more than happy to wait outside:
It’s no sacrifice riding on the road on a day like this, when the weather is springlike but the trees have not yet brought forth their hay fever-inducing blossoms:
The only thing I really mind about riding on the road is that there’s a greater chance you’ll wind up as roadkill:
A hawk was dining on the above as I approached, but there were too many cars, so it took to the power lines and eyed it jealously as it waited for a break in the traffic:
It only occurred to me later that I could have dragged the carcass onto the sidewalk for him, but I’m not sure I could have done that without contracting a disease or throwing up. Anyway, I really hope the hawk managed to finish its lunch without getting hit, because these drivers are terrible. I mean the license plate scammers aren’t even bothering with the pretense of subtlety anymore:
Like, if you get pulled over, what’s your excuse? You were wiping down the car, you hung your chamois cloth on the license plate to dry, and you forgot about it? Oh well, I guess that’s what you have to do when your rear windshield wiper isn’t long enough:
Speaking of dead animals, move over Brooks! Compostable saddles are the future of ass pedestals:
Apparently you grow it yourself out of fungus:
Fungus DIY kit made from hemp shivs
The compostable wooden bicycle seat by designer Ludwig Eder comes through the Grow It Yourself (GIY) kit made by the Dutch biodesign company, Grown.bio. The idea is exactly what it sounds like: users get a kit with a substrate mix made from hemp shives and other agricultural by-products, they add mycelium spores and pack it into a mold, and then they leave it. Over a few days, the mycelium grows and fills the shape. Users dry it, and over time, they have a solid, lightweight, fully natural object made of fungal networks.
I would be extremely wary about letting anything that promotes fungal growth have prolonged contact with that part of my body.