04.12.2009 | 6:04 pm
Dear Specialized,
My mom has told me many (many, many) times that if I don’t have anything nice to say, to not say anything at all.
Unfortunately for you, I do have something nice to say.
Specifically, I love your Body Geometry Ridge gloves.
They’re comfortable, regardless of whether I’m riding a road or mountain bike. The gloves last for about a season and a half, which is about what I’d expect from $35 gloves. And most importantly, the palm padding really does seem to help fight the numbness I otherwise tend to get in my hands on long rides.
So: well done, Specialized. Keep up the good work with those Ridge gloves. I’m your loyal Body Geometry gloves customer for life.
Now, with that out of the way, let’s talk about your shoes.
I Am The Kind of Customer You Want
I need to give you a little background about myself, Specialized. When I like something, I am an absurdly good customer. I am ridiculously loyal, I tell my friends, and I buy again and again.
Take, as an example, Keen. They make shoes. Really comfortable, long-lasting shoes. A couple years ago, I bought my first pair of Keens. And here’s how many pair I have now:
To be fair, only the top row of those shoes are mine (along with the cleated commuter sandals at the bottom left). The middle row of Keens are my wife’s, and the two pair on the bottom row, right side are my sons’.
Oh yeah. There’s one more pair, not shown, because one of my boys is out of town visiting his grandma right now.
So the tally of pairs of Keen shoes at Casa de Fatty is 15. And I’ll be buying more, in the near future (the boys need some good shoes for a weeklong hiking trip this summer). Why wouldn’t I? Keens have never let me down.
Can you tell where I’m going with this, Specialized?
Time for Some New Shoes
My two most recent pair of mountain biking shoes have been Specialized, Specialized. The first pair fell apart in fewer than two seasons: the soles cracked and the uppers tore.
However, they had fit well enough — you really do seem to be onto something with your “Body Geometry” system — that I gave you another shot.
So here are my current shoes.
From this perspective, they don’t seem too bad. About two seasons of frequent riding-worth of wear and tear.
But from this first picture, you can’t tell that I’ve already had to replace the ratcheting mechanism on both shoes.
And that first picture doesn’t show this:
Now, that might be an anomaly if it were just one of the shoes, but check out the match:
Same hole, other shoe.
And you know, Specialized, I maybe wouldn’t have called you out if this had just been me. But my friend Nick has the exact same shoes…with the exact same holes.
But that’s not the worst part. The worst part is the sole:
Yep, the crack goes all the way across the bottom, via the cleat, making the shoe flimsy and completely useless.
And there’s a matching crack in the other shoe’s sole.
I Want to Be Someone’s Loyal Customer
Specialized, you’ve sold me two consecutive pairs of mountain bike shoes that have failed in two years or less. As you can imagine, I am now looking for new shoes, and I am looking at other brands.
So here is my challenge, issued to any and all mountain biking shoe makers (including you, Specialized, though you’ve definitely got some ground to make up):
Turn me into a fan.
Send me a pair of mountain biking shoes, and I’ll ride with them and talk about them. Not just review them, but ride with them for a good long time, so people know how they hold up.
The thing is, I’ve been riding for fifteen years, and the shoe is the one piece of equipment I don’t feel like I’ve ever been perfectly happy with. I’d love to have a bike shoe that changes that. If you think you’ve got that bike shoe, email me.
Kind Regards,
The Fat Cyclist
PS: Readers, if you have an MTB shoe you love, tell me what it is.
PPS: If you’ve had experiences with Specialized shoes that either confirm or contradict what I’m saying here, say so.
Comments (146)
04.10.2009 | 12:28 pm
Yesterday I got a big ol’ coffee table book in the mail: Paris-Roubaix: A Journey Through Hell, by Philippe Bouvet, Pierre Callewaert, Jean-Luc Gatellier, and Serge Laget, and published by VeloPress.
And after reading all 224 pages (OK, actually I mostly looked at the pictures, but there are a lot of pictures, and I looked at them very studiously), I had the following astute observations and questions:
- This book has a lot of really cool pictures.
- I didn’t know a tenth as much about this race as I ought to, and now I want to know more.
- I am really glad that Versus is going to be broadcasting some of this race this weekend.
- Does it really take four guys to write a 224-page book? I mean, did they need to get it done in one day or something? I swear, I got all tired out just typing the list of authors for this thing, and confess I briefly considered just saying it was written anonymously.
A Road Race That Should Be A Mountain Bike Race
Up until spending some time with this book, my clearest memory of Paris-Roubaix was watching A Sunday in Hell while riding my rollers a few winters ago. The thing is, while it’s an interesting documentary, there are big stretches where there is no riding at all. Which made it a difficult video for someone who’s only barely capable of forcing himself to ride the rollers anyway to stay interested.
I bring this up because this book captures the racer’s experience about as well as it could be captured without actually letting you swing a leg over and join in.
And I get the feeling that the Paris-Roubaix is a really terrific mountain biking race — or maybe a really, really epic cyclocross race — that for some reason is ridden on road bikes. In spite of the fact that calling a lot of the course a “road” is the very definition of “euphemism.”
I mean, you can bet Jacques Cadiou (1967, photo on page 89) wishes he had been riding with beefier rims:
A helmet probably would’ve been a good idea, too.
Love
After reading this 224-page book, you know one thing for certain: the authors of this book love this race, and they feel their love pretty darned intensely. Consider the image / caption pairing here:
Belgian star Eric Vanderaerden’s legs are dead, his eyes coated, and his nose stuffed. he has trouble breathing. With his face a mess, he’s drawn like a magnet to the north, like a lost soul emerging from a Rembrandt canvas.
This writing is a little (OK, a lot) purple, to be sure, and the over-the-top verbiage goes permeates the book. I kinda suspect that this is a translation issue. Undoubtedly originally written in French, this kind of prose probably sounds about right in the source language. In English, on the other hand, it feels a little bit like a someone is standing too close to me, talking louder and louder and gesticulating like a madman, occasionally poking me in the chest: tactile punctuation. “Don’t stand so close, man,” I want to tell Messrs Bouvet, Callewaert, Gatellier, and Laget.
But still: you know for certain that these guys care more than just a little bit about this race.
And now they’ve got me excited about watching this race this weekend. So this book’s done its job.
If you’re unfamiliar with the Paris-Roubaix but are curious to see what it’s about before the race this weekend — or if you know it very well and want to relive the punishment — Paris-Roubaix: A Journey Through Hell is a good way to get caught up.
Comments (22)
04.9.2009 | 9:06 am
As an award-winning blogger, I know the rules of blogging. And two of them are: “Don’t talk about politics or religion.” I have broken this rule once before, by making what I considered to be the most innocuous political post of all time. It still started what passes for an argument around here.
Up until now, I have not talked about religion.
And today, I will continue that grand tradition. Which is to say, this is not a religious story, but I will mention religion, because there’s no getting around it if I’m going to tell the story I want to.
How I Ruined Two Suits In One Second
From 1985 – 1987, I was a Mormon missionary, living in Finland. For those of you wondering how I wound up in Finland, no, I did not choose it. Mormon missionaries have no say at all in where they go. However, back in those days prospective missionaries were given a language aptitude test. Those who did well often wound up going to China, or to Navajo reservations. Or to Finland.
The problem with this test, of course, was that it was actually a lot better at discerning whether someone has an aptitude for taking tests than for learning and speaking languages.
Wow, I’m off-track already. I can tell this is going to be a hard story to keep reined in.
Anyway, about a year or so into my time in Finland, I found myself in a little town called Kemi. Kemi’s main claim to fame was its delightful-smelling paper mill. (And, when Chernobyl melted down, it’s proximity to Russia. “Don’t go out in the rain,” townspeople were told…and I’m already off-track again.)
My missionary partner — “companion” in Mormon jargon — and I lived a few miles outside of town in a farmhouse upstairs apartment with only cold-running water, though we did have access to the sauna in the basement. And the rent was cheap, so we figured we had it pretty good.
After I had been in Kemi a few months, I was assigned a new companion: Derek White. Derek was a great guy to be around, and made the long days riding around on bikes going from house to house or apartment complex to apartment complex downright fun.
A natural ham, Derek knew several tricks on bikes. He could sit facing backward on the handlebars and backpedal, riding down the street that way. He could ride a wheelie. And, it goes without saying, he could ride no-handed for any distance, and in any situation.
At first, I was wary, and would keep my distance as we rode. I was certain that with all these hijinx, eventually Derek would crash. But he did not.
And so we began to ride side-by-side, so I could listen to him tell stories, gesturing as he talked and rode, un-self-conciously, no-handed.
The thing about anything done well is, it doesn’t look difficult. It looks easy, natural. Now I realize this as I watch my friends fluidly clean mountain bike moves that I know I should never attempt.
But back then, I just thought, “Well, I could do that.”
And so, one time as I was telling a story of my own, I did. I pushed off the handlebars, moving into an upright position. And there, for one glorious moment, we were. Two teenage Americans, each wearing cheap business suits, riding no-handed down a bike path in Kemi, Finland.
Really, what could be more natural?
And then, of course, I veered into Derek. And before I could get my hands down to correct myself, the “veer” became more of a “plow.”
The next few moments are confusing, and quite possibly subject to interpretation. But I’m pretty sure that he reacted to my plowing into him by leaning into me (his theory). Or maybe our handlebars just locked (my theory). Regardless, we didn’t just crash. We crashed into each other.
I am quite certain that I was the first to hit the ground, because I distinctly remember how the ground-up layering went: my bike, then me, then Derek’s bike, and then Derek.
Sort of a Mormon-missionary-and-bike club sandwich, if you will, With a generous side-order of blood.
I learned at that moment that — at least up to a certain point — embarrassment is a stronger and more acute sensation than pain.
It probably really only took forty-five seconds for us to disentangle ourselves from our bikes, but during that time, a pair of old women trudged by, one using her wheeled sled as a walker / grocery cart.
“Mormons,” she said, shaking her head both wisely and disapprovingly. Then she pushed her sled around us and kept going, not giving us another look.
At which point Derek observed that my front wheel was tacoed (though neither of us knew the term at the time) and the tire was blown, and then he started laughing. Derek has the infectious kind of laughter, and before long we were both sitting down on the ground, considering ourselves:
Two American teenagers in cheap, torn, bloody business suits, sitting in and laughing like fools beside their mangled bikes in Kemi, Finland.
Really, what could be more natural?
PS: I do not remember for certain, but I believe we did not win many converts that day.
Comments (47)
04.8.2009 | 9:09 am
Yesterday, I talked about how foolish I felt for having ignored Lambert Park until then. I then said that I was going back that very afternoon to explore some more.
Well, that turned out to be a fine idea indeed.
And there are big chunks of singletrack I still haven’t explored.
Let me remind you that this is a trail network less than a mile from my house. And as I’ve mentioned before, I can ride up Hogg’s Hollowes right from my front door, too, giving me access to Corner Canyon (I’ve got some late winter footage of that I need to put together — tomorrow, maybe?).
And then, of course, there’s the Ridge Trail Network. And Grove. And all the road riding.
There are no two ways about it: I am spoiled, and spoiled rotten.
PS: For those of you suddenly interested in Alpine, UT as a place of residence, this photo might be of interest.
Hey, we could totally be next-door neighbors/riding buddies. And the price is reduced and everything.
You should give Jared a call. And tell him Fatty sent you. That will freak him out, because he has no idea who I am. All the more reason to call, if you ask me.
Comments (46)
04.6.2009 | 11:40 pm
Before I begin today, I think I need to promise you something: eventually, this post will be about bikes. And not just tangentially. But I am taking the long way around.
So you may want to go get yourself a snack.
I’ve been reading Little House on the Prairie to the twins. Specifically, I’ve been reading it to them for a few minutes right when they get up, reading it to them as they eat breakfast, reading it to them during their after-school storytime, and reading it to them during bedtime storytime. And whenever else we both have free time.
The girls are hooked, and the truth is, I am too. Little House on the Prairie (that’s right; I mistakenly skipped Big Woods — the girls understand that we’ll be taking an extended flashback once this book is done) is a compelling, well-written story, though I do a little real-time editing to remove some of the more embarrassing prejudice of the period.
This morning, I was reading the chapter where Laura and Mary are certain that Santa isn’t going to come because the river’s too high (“This was before Santa had reindeer,” I explained to the twins) for his pack mule to get across. Then, of course, Mr. Edwards shows up — having waded the river — and tells the girls that he met Santa in town and was instructed to bring each of these presents: their very own tin cup (they had to share before), a candy cane, a little cake, and a penny.
The girls, naturally, are overwhelmed with this wonderful array of gifts. And as I read this to my own girls, I got all sniffly, misty, and tight-throated myself. Luckily, I am so masculine that I have no problem admitting I cry when reading children’s literature.
Meanwhile, my twins are looking each other with their “What’s dad’s problem?” look. And yes, at age 7, they already have that look.
Tin Cup
Susan’s been doing well lately. She’s not stronger, but she’s not weaker. She has more energy, and has in fact been getting a lot done — she’s down to the last 20 or so of the 80+ bracelets she’s committed to make, and has been spending a lot of time working on finishing her novel (I bought a Dell Mini 9 netbook for her to write with — much lighter and more comfortable for her to rest on her lap).
Then, over the weekend, I talked with my sister Kellene. She volunteered to come over and take care of Susan and the kids toward the end of this month so I can go ride Kenny’s annual Ride Around White Rim in One Day (RAWROD) event. And Susan’s feeling good enough that I feel like it really is OK for me to go.
And suddenly, I am totally giddy. Goofy. More than usual, even. By a lot.
I get to go on an all-day ride. And camp with friends. In Moab.
Of course, I have been on dozens and dozens of overnight mountain bike trips. At one point, they even seemed a little mundane.
Not now, though.
This trip’s my very own tin cup.
Cake
As if that weren’t good enough news, yesterday Spring arrived. And not just in a minor way, either: blue sky, mild breeze, and warm enough to ride in shorts and short sleeves.
My first thought was to get on my road bike and get out on the road for a couple hours. After all, it’s been snowing and blowing so much I just couldn’t imagine trails being any good.
But I so wanted to take the Singlefly out.
So I made a plan: “I’ll ride the Singlefly out to Lambert Park,” I thought, “just to see how muddy the trails are. Then”
I got to Lambert Park and…the trails — at least at the trailhead — were not muddy.
But how could that be? It has been snowing daily for more than a week.
“OK, I’ll just ride up the trail until things get messy, then turn around,” I thought.
But the trails didn’t get messy. They stayed perfect — tacky and clean — for the entirety of a two-hour ride.
Candy
During this ride, I discovered something a little bit embarrassing, but also very wonderful. You see, I have always thought of Lambert Park as a ride of last resort. It’s only a half mile from my house, but I haven’t spent much time there because I’ve been concentrating on the evolving wonder that is Corner Canyon. Or during the Summer, I take every opportunity to ride the Ridge Trail network.
So, regarding Lambert Park as a second-class trail system, I often forgot it even existed.
What a fool I have been!
Here’s the Lambert Park trail network:
That’s almost all singletrack. Miles and miles and miles of excellent, highly-varied singletrack. Half a mile from my house.
And I’ve just been ignoring it. Excuse me for a moment while I pound my head against my desk.
Yesterday, excited about being (finally!) outside on a new bike, I just explored. And I found Wildcat — a fast, open singletrack descent through scrub oak, with several jumps. I found Spring, a twisty climb that tops out and sends you on a forested descent, dodging trees along the way.
And I got reacquainted with Lambert Park’s main claim to fame: Rodeo. Rodeo is a downhill-specific rocketsled ride down a ravine, banking high and dropping fast.
Every time I have ever ridden Rodeo, I’ve immediately climbed back up for another run. Everyone does. It’s that fun.
Lambert Park is a nice piece of frosted cake when you haven’t had cake in months.
After work today, I am heading right back over. And this time I’m bringing the helmetcam.
(If you’re local, email me and join me for a ride this afternoon. This trail is too perfect to not ride today. And besides, helmetcam videos are always a lot more fun when there’s someone in the picture.)
A Penny
I want to be cautious about this, because my joy at just being out on my bike yesterday might possibly have made any bike in the world seem wonderful.
But you know what? That Singlefly feels pretty darned fantastic. It is so light it makes up for the fact that I am fat and slow. It feels nimble and stable. And like all singlespeeds, it feels direct. Unfiltered.
So anyway, the thing I want to be cautious about is saying that this is my favorite bike, ever. Because that’s a bold thing to say after just three short rides.
But it is how I feel at this moment.
I am so glad Spring is here.
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