Glove Me Tender – Bike Snob NYC

Properly, 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 desire a blocky gravity-gravel bike? Properly, 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 unhealthy 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 could be that you would benefit from all these completely different hand positions by doing stuff like standing up on climbs, however I assume I don’t perceive gravel bikes:

And should you assume that chunky-looking body is simply advertising and marketing, you’re fallacious. It’s truly “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]

Transferring on, Stëël Wëëk continues, and after placing the brand new wheels on the Pink Faggin I took them for just a little spin:

I’d been utilizing a chunky, commuter-ish 28mm tire on this bike–the so referred to 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 totally indoctrinated member of each the cults of Jones and Rivendell I like a large, comfortable tire as a lot as the following ageing beardo. However I additionally nonetheless take pleasure in a agency, skinny tire once I’m doing the entire roadie factor, and and now rapidly 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 the direction of the tip of “Goodfellas,” someone’s most likely 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 correct to be nervous, it may 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, moreover 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 received me over, similar to this vest that I put on on a regular basis however that I don’t assume they make anymore:

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

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

Sadly almost 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 beneath 30 American Freedom Levels. They’ve obtained to be like 25 years outdated at this level, and I nonetheless use them usually, although they’re…type of exhibiting their age:

In addition to these, a once-mighty glove assortment for all temperatures has been decimated by put on and kids who borrow them and lose them–or within the case of my wool gloves from Rivendell, me dropping them and shedding them (or at the very least 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 in fact not even cycling-specific gloves:

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

Because it seems, they’re excellent in numerous methods. They’re heat, they’re grippy, they’re fairly comfy 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 bit of glass. The downsides are that they’re not so nice once they get moist, they don’t offer you numerous guide 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’ll be able to’t actually use them to wipe snot off your face. However there’s all the time a trade-off, isn’t there?

There’s additionally an uncomfortable seam in one in all them, and since I now like deerskin gloves a lot I maintain which means to go to the ironmongery shop or one thing and pick a greater pair.

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

There’s not quite a bit to say a couple of pair of gloves after one brief trip, 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 in fact 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 most likely 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 in fact they’re thinner and lighter, and so they don’t require breaking in should 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 comfy instantly:

This clearly means they work with a contact display (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):

Although I do not know what the crimson material band is for:

Perhaps I simply figured it out.