Glove Me Tender

Nicely, excellent news! They lastly heard you! Right here’s that downhill-specific gravel bike you’ve been asking for:

Wait, what? You’re saying you didn’t need a blocky gravity-gravel bike? Nicely, you’re getting one anyway:

What a sublime head tube block.

The Blue Rondo à la Gravel brings “a lot of the spirit of mountain biking to drop bars:”

Which it does by being actually dangerous at climbing apparently:

It appears to me the entire level of placing drop bars on a hybrid or a mountain bike or no matter this factor is can be that you possibly can benefit from all these completely different hand positions by doing stuff like standing up on climbs, however I suppose I don’t perceive gravel bikes:

And in the event you suppose that chunky-looking body is simply advertising and marketing, you’re incorrect. It’s really “daring design” that “stands out in a crowded market:”

So, advertising and marketing.

The body additionally makes a “assertion,” and that assertion is “I simply obtained rear-ended:”

In 2024 it’s gonna be all in regards to the “crumple zone” look.

Fuck it, I’m getting a Jones.

[Jörs Trüli doing the cyclocross on a Jones SWB]

Shifting on, Stëël Wëëk continues, and after placing the brand new wheels on the Pink Faggin I took them for a bit of spin:

I’d been utilizing a chunky, commuter-ish 28mm tire on this bike–the so known as Panaracer RiBMo, extremely the exact same pair that got here on the Milwaukee when it first arrived again in 2015:

However for the brand new wheels I broke out some 23mm Vittorias. As a completely indoctrinated member of each the cults of Jones and Rivendell I really like a large, soft tire as a lot as the subsequent ageing beardo. However I additionally nonetheless take pleasure in a agency, skinny tire once I’m doing the entire roadie factor, and and now impulsively the Faggin with its lengthy and low place and tall gearing is the raciest, fastest-feeling bike I personal, go determine. Certainly, so far as my drop-bar-bikes-with-foot-retention go, with the Cervino as my basic Eroica-worthy showpiece, the Milwaukee as my “gravel bike,” the Faggin reborn as a complete sizzling rod, and me whacking bikes like Jimmy Conway in direction of the top of “Goodfellas,” any person’s in all probability beginning to get nervous:

It’s the odd man out, what with its space-aged supplies and clicky mixture brake lever-shifter thingies, and whereas that might imply the bike is true to be nervous, it might additionally imply that’s precisely why the bike has nothing to concern. I imply you’ve gotta have one correct Fred Sled, proper?

In any case, in addition to the brand new wheels from Ben’s Cycle, I additionally obtained some new stuff from Pearl Izumi. Over time they’ve despatched me sure gadgets which have really gained me over, resembling this vest that I put on on a regular basis however that I don’t suppose they make anymore:

One other standout has been their cheapo Quest highway shoe, which I’ve written about earlier than, and which remains to be holding up fantastically:

As for this newest package deal, it included some badly-needed gloves, which arrived within the type of the AmFIB Lite:

Sadly practically all of my winter biking gloves have both disintegrated or disappeared, and previous to the arrival of those gloves I used to be down to 2 pairs. One in all these was my Pearl Izumi lobster gloves:

I usually put on these when it’s under 30 American Freedom Levels. They’ve obtained to be like 25 years outdated at this level, and I nonetheless use them repeatedly, although they’re…form of exhibiting their age:

In addition to these, a once-mighty glove assortment for all temperatures has been decimated by put on and youngsters who borrow them and lose them–or within the case of my wool gloves from Rivendell, me dropping them and shedding them (or not less than dropping one, which is successfully the identical factor)–with the one different remaining pair being these deerskin gloves Barry Wicks despatched me again in 2017, and that are after all not even cycling-specific gloves:

After I first obtained them I believed, “Yeah, proper, positive, how ironic.” However after awhile I got here to understand them, and as my different gloves met their fates I discovered myself carrying them increasingly more, regardless of the exuberant elaborations:

Because it seems, they’re preferrred in numerous methods. They’re heat, they’re grippy, they’re fairly snug as soon as they break in, and you are able to do stuff like wipe your tire with them with out slicing your finger open on a chunk of glass. The downsides are that they’re not so nice after they get moist, they don’t provide you with numerous handbook dexterity for stuff like fishing round in your pockets or futzing along with your zipper, and when you can wipe your tire with them, you possibly can’t actually use them to wipe snot off your face. However there’s at all times a trade-off, isn’t there?

There’s additionally an uncomfortable seam in one in every of them, and since I now like deerskin gloves a lot I hold that means to go to the ironmongery store or one thing and select a greater pair.

As for the AmFIB Lite, this was my first experience with them:

There’s not so much to say a few pair of gloves after one brief experience, however up to now so good. It was within the excessive 30s (AFD), and I’d say that’s in regards to the decrease restrict of what they’re good for, however after all everybody’s completely different. Some persons are going fingerless in freezing temperatures, and a few persons are already busting out the Bar Mitts in autumn. I’d say they’re in all probability good for about the identical temperature vary because the deerskin gloves are (although I suppose some individuals may put on deerskin gloves even when it’s heat, only for the safety and the grip), although after all they’re thinner and lighter, they usually don’t require breaking in in the event you’re in a rush. They don’t have that entire clichéd “second pores and skin” factor that broken-in leather-based has, however they’re good and grippy, and naturally they’re snug instantly:

This clearly means they work with a contact display screen (which I’d mock as pointless and counter to the ethos of biking with out distraction if I didn’t completely ship texts and browse emails whereas using):