Kevlar Mountain Bike Tires by Specialized or How To Avoid Punctures

Specialized introduces the anti puncture bike tires Armandillo Anti Flat Technology.

Basically the tires have a nylon and Kevlar layer underneath the outer rubber. So you can ride long distances on rough terrain without the worries of getting a flat tire.

Locking Your Bike - Extra Security Tips To Discourage Thieves from Stealing Your Bicycle

This is an update of the previously published article on how to protect your bike from theft without a lock.

However, no method delivers a guarantee against theft as long as you leave your bike in a public space. Thieves are fast, smart, they carry good tools and people, who could presumably stop the thieves, don't care much about your bike.

How To Get a Job at Specialized - The Bike Manufacturer

If you've dreamed about working at one of the best bicycle manufacturers out there then here's what you need to know and have in order to land a job at Specialized:

• An innate understanding about bikes and cycling - If you're not a hard core bike geek, you may struggle a bit to fit in at Specialized...
• Education is of value but it's not an end-all to getting a job.
• A passion for the Specialized brand, for riding, understanding the retail setting. If you've worked in a bike shop and know what the consumer wants that's the equivalent of a PhD. 
• Keep your cover letter short, succinct, catchy, and try to highlight your passion for bike retail and your previous related experience (if that's the case). 
• Be well prepared, get familiar with culture and the athletes. 
• If you're in for a marketing position, be creative and bold - come up with ideas for ads, make your own presentation, send them your YouTube videos (related to biking of course). In other words, go there and dazzle them!

Other reasons to work at Specialized include:

• Incentives if you ride your bike to work.
• A van that allows you to keep your monthly commuting expenses below $40.
• An in-house gym with all the fitness machines you can think of.
• Free bagels on Fridays - a nice environment where you can meet the rest of the team and get social (live, one on one, or one to many - not through a screen like on Facebook).
• You can bring your pet. Wow! Now that's new on the market. If your dog or cat or lizard is well behaved then they can be part of the Specialized team.
• And let's not exclude the Specialized Lunch Ride (watch video below). 

Paolo Bettini - 2008 Specialized Tarmac SL2 Commercial


So, want to have a job at Specialized? Click here to find out more.

How To Protect Your Bike from Thieves without a Cable Lock - 3 Fast & Easy Tricks

How do you protect your bike from thieves when you only enter for a minute in a shop to buy a bottle of water?

While the advice below consists of building psychological barriers against thieves (it's not a guarantee against bike theft), it's definitely worth following. You've got nothing to loose. Oh yes...you have - your bike. 

Here are a few tips that will help you prevent you bike from being stolen (without using a chain or cable lock):

1. Turn your bike upside down. If you enter in a shop for a minute or two and you don't want to lock your bike then you can simply turn it upside down. This may look as your bike is there for repair and thus the owner (you) may be nearby. That's exactly what you want the thief to be thinking: that you may come back unexpectedly and plus if he wants to steal the bike we would have to make an extra effort to put the bike on its wheels. That is precious time when he's basically uncovered. If you appear he'd have to drop the bike and run.

But let's say he managed to turn the bike, got on the saddle and he's ready to roll away with your bike - or let's say that for some reason you thought it's silly to turn your mountain bike upside down so the thief had no barrier in getting up on your bike. Well, he's in for a surprise coz you've been wise enough to...

2. Take the chain off or switch gears (the wrong way). As an extra precaution you can take the chain off the chain rings. Now, the thief won't be able pedal so he'll be in a funny situation... Another thing you can do is to switch the gears from the handlebar levers but without actually having the chain move. This way, when the thief tries to push on the pedals, the chain will jump five sprockets and two chain rings  with a "crank!" noise - the perpetrator may loose his balance or, even better, the chain may get locked between the chain rings.

3. Place a small lock on your brake disk. If your bike is equipped with disk brakes then  you can add extra security with a small door lock which you can insert into the ventilation holes of the disk. The wheel won't rotate much and your man is stuck again. This idea was suggested by a fellow mountain biker, Robert Lazar, the guy behind the Critical Mass movement in my home city.

Of course this does't prevent you to turn the bike upside down. In other words, if you wanna keep your bike take at least any two anti theft measures.

If you do wanna use a lock then have a look at the video below and follow these three rules:

1. Use strong chain locks or horseshoe locks (stiff U shape metal frame) that have the Sold Secure rating. Don't get impressed by thick cable locks - they have a thick housing made of plastic but inside it's just a thin cable...
2. Always use two locks (if you don't have long chain lock) and make sure you lock both wheels and the bike frame.
3. Take off all bike accessories like: front light, rear lamp, pump, water bottle, cycle computer, repair kit under the saddle, the spare tube, even the saddle if it has a quick release lever.

Video taken from here.

Keep cycling and wear your helmet!

Why You Need a Lockout MTB Suspension Fork

Serious mountain bikers usually choose mountain bikes with a lockout front suspension fork. But then again serious cyclists in general are more into cycling than they are into gear. What I mean is you don't have to own the perfect bike to be a good cyclist.

The lockout is a switch/lever on one of the tubes in your MTB fork that once turned makes your fork rigid. Some forks have what is called remote lockout - the lever is placed on the handlebar and thus you don't need to reach down at the fork to operate it. A cable connects the handlebar lever with the actual lockout switch on the top of the fork tube.

What Are the Benefits of Lockout MTB Fork

Having a rigid fork (suspension locked) is useful when riding uphill on even terrain. In this situation you usually get up from the saddle and push on the pedals using your own weight. If you have a regular suspension fork most of your effort dissipates in the fork itself. Instead of transforming your work on the pedals in covered distance you waste energy by allowing the fork to glide back and forth with each push you make.

A rigid fork allows you to transform your pedaling into traveled distance. When riding out of the saddle you won't bounce (as with the suspension on) and you will gain distance more efficiently.


If you ride in the city and cycle in a soft manner (on the saddle) you may want to leave your suspension on as to decrease the breaking distance. Basically the same thing happens here - the kinetic energy is being absorbed by the fork enabling you to stop faster and keep permanent contact between your bike's wheels and the road.

Remote lockout on MTB fork

Pictures taken from here and here (Cozy Beehive - a technical cycling blog).

Go cycling!

Cycling Banned in America?! - Black Hawk

What we normally know to bring health and physical fitness - cycling - was banned for "health and safety" reasons in Black Hawk, Colorado.

The benefits of cycling seem to be unimportant for the officials of Black Hawk and thus they decided that car traffic is a priority as it brings clients in the local casinos. Profits for a handful of casino owners and loss for thousands of clients who come to gamble are priced higher than fresh air, true health and the well being of sport lovers.

Sadly while the gambling industry creates and concentrates wealth in the hands of few people it also feeds a terrible addiction which often causes despair, divorce, insanity and ultimately poverty. In the long run there's no way this will bring any good...

This is a call to all cyclists and/or bloggers who want to support the movement: I suggest you gather in huge numbers and organize Critical Mass in Black Hawk on 30 July 2010 and prove once again that We Are Traffic!!!

You may want to rehearse flooding the streets with bicycles in Black Hawk before 30 July. I'm sure you want it to be perfect! ;-)

Pro-cycling groups are getting ready to challenge the even bigger danger here than cycling - the precedent of such a ban on bikes. Gist.org

I'm with the cyclists! Are you?

Related articles

• Black Hawk Bicycle Ban: Casino City Not Backing Down, Has Issued Eight Citations So Far (huffingtonpost.com)
• Colorado village of 100 people bans bikes (americablog.com)
• Black Hawk in Colorado bans cyclists (guardian.co.uk)
• Colo. casino city bans riding bikes through town (sfgate.com)
• Kill the bicycle ban before it grows (bjsmith.wordpress.com)
  

Are You a Fat Cyclist?

Coz if you are, fat that is, you're not the only one.

I myself gain and consequently struggle to loose about 2 kilos (4.4 lbs) per week so I feel fat pretty often. :-) That's because I like to indulge myself with pork - as you can see in the MTB video "And Mustard Please..."

What you can do for loosing weight is what the Fat Cyclist did for himself:

I had known I needed to lose weight, but hadn’t really done much about it. As I pushed my bike up the road, I realized I had not tried one very successful diet tactic: humiliation. I resolved to start a blog, embarrassing myself by proclaiming my weight on a daily basis, no matter how bad I was doing.

I urge you to read Fatty's blog here and start getting in shape. You can also bring your contribution to the fight against cancer by riding 100 Miles of Nowhere.





My mountain bike downhill video where I get fat...


Enjoy the bike satire!

Downhill MTB Rider - T Shirt Print Design

These computer graphics were obtained by altering a photo of Janie
- a lady mountain biker from Czech Republic.

Download this drawing in SVG format for your cycling T-shirt

Download this drawing in SVG format for your cycling T-shirt

My suggestion for printing your downhill MTB T-shirts and hoodies

How To Cycle Smart with Heather Higgins

The following advice for cyclists comes from Heather Higgins:

Smart Cycling

I. On The Road

• The same laws that apply to motorists apply to cyclists
  

• Obey all traffic control devices
  

• Use hand signals to indicate stops and turns to other users
  

• Never wear portable music players (cassette players, MP3, etc) while cycling. Your ability to hear motor vehicles and other potential dangers is of utmost importance.
  

• Always Wear a Properly Fitting Helmet
  

II. Traffic Lights:

• Cyclists, just like motorists, must obey all traffic control devices
  

• It takes longer to travel through an intersection on a bike; plan to stop for yellow lights
  

• Avoid cars that run red lights by waiting for the signal to turn green and scan to make sure it’s clear
  

III. Ride on the Right:

• Always ride in the same direction as traffic
  

• Use the furthest right lane that heads to your destination
  

• Slower moving cyclists and motorists stay to the right
  

• Ride at least 3 feet from parked cars
  

• Do not ride on the sidewalk
  

• Always ride single file with the only single exception being that you're using a mirror, traveling a lightly used road, can easily notice approaching cars, and can quickly return to single file (long before car reaches you). This is the law.
  

IV. Ride Predictably:

• Ride in a straight line
  

• Don't swerve in the road or between parked cars
  

• Check for traffic before entering street or intersection
  

• Anticipate hazards and adjust your position accordingly
  

V. Yield to traffic in busier lanes:

• Always use signals to indicate your intentions to switch lanes
  

• Roads with higher traffic volumes should be given right-of-way
  

• Use a mirror to look behind and make sure that you can switch lanes
  

• Left hand turns are the most dangerous; double check these before turning

Read the rest on her blog and say hi to Heather on Twitter.

Ride on!

Critical Mass - Cycling in The City

It was about time I participated in Critical Mass.

So what's there to be seen in such a bicycling event? Pretty much actually:

• lots of bikes - trial bikes, old school bikes, downhill bikes, BMX bikes - you name it!
  
• lots of bikers - some timid, some show offs, some silent, some outspoken
• lots of drivers along the way - some angry and stupid, some intrigued, some jealous, some sympathetic
• one or two police cars escorting the cyclists - that's impressive really!
• pedestrians scratching their heads or blinking fast in amazement
• and much more (like in teleshopping ads)
  

It's simply a joyful experience and I encourage you all to burn fat not fuel!

Wear your helmets while cycling!

Free Mountain Bike Vector Design for Your T-shirt and Hoodie

Download this drawing in SVG format for your T-shirt

Download this drawing in SVG format for your T-shirt

My suggestion for printing your Dirt Bike MTB T-shirts and hoodies

Ride on!

Adjust V brakes for Your Mountain Bike

For efficient braking one must consider more than just replacing the brake blocks on his/her mountain bike. There are many detail aspects which will lead to better braking:

• softness of rubber in brake blocks - soft rubber (more latex) wears off faster but gives a better friction, thus a more efficient brake; it's the same thing with climbing shoes sole
  
• correct placing of washers
  
• adding a brake booster (horseshoe)
• changing the cable sheaths with ones that have the plastic reinforced with steel wire - this will keep them always open and perfectly cylindrical
  
• oiling the the inner steel cable (runs through the cable sheaths) which pulls the V brakes
  

From my experience, I've seen that not all bike mechanics (ones who work in bike service shops) fully understand the physics behind the V brake system of a mountain bike. For instance, the most common mistake is placing the thicker washer on the outer part of the brake arm. This will lower your leverage as you pull the brakes. See picture below for correct placement of washers.

Original pictures taken from here and here

Another piece that improves your V brakes is the Horseshoe Brake Booster. I adopted this for my bike and even though I cannot feel a real difference, my frame doesn't expand anymore.

Horseshoe on my bike

Other resources for brake performance and brake kits can be found here, here and here.

Be safe!

How To Fix a Flat Bike Tire

I've learned that some bikers don't know how to fix a flat tire on their bike.
Of course, there are many "How to" resources and tutorials out there. This is just one of them.

Also, this video on how to fix a flat bike tire may help.



Tips:

• You don't need the yellow levers the guy uses in this video; any slim pointed object like a a key, a small wrench will do just fine.
• After you remove the tube, pass your fingers along the inner side of the tire as to feel any sharp object that may have created the puncture; you may find small pieces of glass, wire, nails, staples.
• Inspect thoroughly the tread of your tire as you may find objects (sharp pieces of rock, etc.) that only half penetrated the tire - these objects may not have created your current flat but they can cause a future one as they will go deeper into your tire till the tube is reached and punctured. Mountain bike tires tend to gather such sharp objects in their soft and thick rubber.

Stay pumped!