Giordana Silverline Lobster Glove Review

The Giordana Silverline Lobster glove was my first adventure in to the realm of lobster claw style gloves. They cost me $40 at the LBS. They've a nice, soft fleece lining on the inside. The thumb and index finger go solo inside the glove while the rest of the fingers camp out along side one another although they are divided by the fleece liner. The outer portion of the glove on the top has a windproof membrane, a terry cloth, fleece like wipe on the thumb, and a neoprene insulation on the inside with some textured plastic for, I'm going to assume, a better grip.

I've had these for a few months now, and used them pretty regularly on commutes where the temperatures dip below 40F. The lowest temperature was probably around 0F to a bit in to the negatives. I tend to be a weenie in the cold, so take my comfort range for what it's worth. Before I address that, though, I have to say I almost always use a glove liner underneath my winter glove to extend the temperature range, and it also seems to significantly reduce the amount of perspiration inside the glove even when my hands are toasty warm. The glove liner I use is made by Icebreaker and is 98% merino wool and 2% elastane. They have lots of little tacky dots on the inside allowing for excellent dexterity. A very nice thing to have on when you get a flat tire in the freezing temperatures!!!

So, thus far, I've been comfortable with this combo for a few hours slightly below freezing. 25F. Below that, my index finger and thumb start getting very cold while the rest of the fingers are generally pretty comfortable. Above 40F and I start getting too warm.

The windproof membrane works well. I can certainly tell it's eliminating all that nasty cold from the top of my hand. The neoprene also seems to insulate nicely. The nose wipe is wide and useful. The thumb seems to not have the windproof membrane under the wipe. I usually don't notice it, but when it's very cold and windy I can feel the chill penetrating in to my lonely thumb! The grips, if you can call them that, are a joke. The grid pattern is way too hard, and is more like plastic. I really don't know why they didn't use something softer and more rubber-like. By completely removing the grid, the glove would not lose anything. That's how bad it is. I've troubles removing my water bottle.

Besides the two minor issues I have with the gloves, I think they are pretty solid. I do think there may be some better options. Craft makes a similar glove, but differs in that the index lives with the middle finger so only the thumb flies solo. I think that makes more sense. The craft gloves also have a much tackier grip. PI also has the lobster claw, but it looks way too heavy for high intensity cycling in all but the coldest temperatures. Of course, there are others, too...

So, my advice is to steer clear of these gloves. I think the lobster claw is excellent, though, and if I cycled more often in freezing weather I'd probably invest in a better pair. Things to look for if you are in the market: windproof top, snot wipe, make sure all fingers share space with another finger besides the thumb, make sure the grip is tacky, and finally, try liner gloves!!!

More bike porn

Litespeed Bella followed by Cannondale 1fg 29er followed by Redline 925, see pics!

The bella is a, uh, beautiful frame like most other titanium frames are when built by a skilled company. The parts are good, not great, but will suit the wife perfectly fine for her leisurely style of cruising. I itch to strip the thing down and toss SRAM Rival or Force on it, but she has banned me from touching her bike! I did manage to convince her to change the saddle and seatpost to a Fizik Vitesse and Thomson Elite, respectively. I also sneaked a pair of carbon water bottle cages on when she wasn't looking:)

I bought the Cannondale 29er on clearance last week quite impulsively although the idea of buying a 29er had been thoroughly researched beforehand. I was originally going to get a Niner One 9 and build it up over the next few months, but the price was right on the Cannondale, and the lefty fork is very nice, so what the heck, I got a complete bike. I'm going to strip the bike down to the frame and fork, and rebuild it with parts of my choosing, though. Right now it's a tank, and not really ideal for being competitive against other SS'ers and, even worse, geared riders (which is my primary target this year:)) I'll be racing the Wilderness 101 and Shenandoah Mtn 100, and perhaps a few more in the NUE series, and I hope to be highly competitive.

The Redline was cleaned right before the pics. It was filthy beforehand. It's been a dirty beast this entire winter, and Sunday was it's first bath. Unfortunately, it'll get dirty again tomorrow and probably look even worse than before I cleaned it due to the snow and salt covered roads. It's had a day of reprieve from the roads, but it's time to live up to it's name, and haul my butt to work on the morrow. The Redline 925 is a great bike albeit stiff riding compared to higher end frames and forks. I recently upgraded the cranks to Dura-Ace 7800, and must admit I felt a significant increase in stiffness over the previous setup - RPM something or other no name cranks. I also dropped, literally, a pound of weight. Yes, I have a digital scale to obsess over the weights of all my bike parts, and to assess whether or not they are worthy of being mounted on such and such bike.

The wife's new ride

Yesterday brought the arrival of the very slightly used Litespeed Bella for my wife. It's a woman's specific titanium frame with a full carbon fork, Shimano 105, and fsa rd80 wheels. She had no intentions of ever getting such a nice bike, but the price was right, and I think my nearly constant ramblings about fancy bike parts is starting to rub off on her. The bike looks as if it's never been ridden, and besides the saddle and seat post collar (which suck, imo) everything is honky dory. Before you start making fun of them, the pedals were just to check the size indoors yesterday! Needless to say, she's extremely happy with her new bike, and I hope it brings her out on some of my longer rides in the years to come!

Too bad it's supposed to snow about 47 inches today and tomorrow. That reminds me I need to stop typing and go ride!

O, wait, what's that silver bike behind the bella??? An accident. Oops.

Bebop pedals revisited

I've used the Bebop SL pedals for quite a few months now, and have put probably around 3,000 miles on them. Most of these miles are commuting down a flat path to and from work. I've also gone on a few century rides to Bear Mountain.

I think they are good pedals. I don't think they are great pedals. There are some very serious drawbacks to the bebops which I ignored at first, but now have come back to haunt me forcing me to remove them from my Redline.

The low stack height creates a problem I think will eliminate them from all but the most die hard fan who uses mountain bike shoes. I've yet to use them with road shoes, but will have the opportunity when an adapter arrives some time next week. I originally used the bebops with Lake mountain bike shoes and was forced to trim a rather significant chunk of rubber from both shoes where the spindle travels beneath the shoe. Recently, I bought a new pair of commuter shoes which have Vibram tread similar to a light hiking boot. I thought I would be able to get away with no trimming since the shoes did not have the massive lugs like the Lake shoes, but, unfortunately, I was wrong. The spd part of the Shimano shoe is set quite deep so you can actually consider walking around without sounding like a tap dancer. Good for most every pedal besides the bebop. I bought a tool at the hardware store which is for shaving down rubber tires, etc hoping to grind down the tread some. It turns out the Vibram sole is ridiculously tough stuff. I gave up after 15 minutes. I think the only thing that would work on them is a grinder. After the frustration of wasting $10 for the tool and time spent scraping away settled in, I started thinking why the heck should I have to grind my brand new, nice vibram soles down to accommodate a stupid pedal??? They are good pedals, but they aren't that much better than the numerous other models out there in the market. So, off they go in to a plastic bag for storage.

Temporarily, I'm using my old crank brothers egg beaters. They don't require trimming, and are extremely simple to mount and clip in. They are heavier, don't offer free float, and have a far less durable and smaller cleat. They work though and don't ruin my fancy commuter shoes!

Updates

I gave up on the Merlin Extralight. Beauty it is. Light it is. Titanium it is. Ideal fit it is not. I probably could tweak it to fit right, but the handling felt off up front with the short stem and stacked too high steer tube.

I've finally convinced myself after going through numerous road frames over the years that I simply can not fit ideally on any of them out there. O, I can make some fit. But the bike is not happy with high rise, short stems and/or long carbon steer tubes jutting out from the headtube. I've never had a stem over 90mm. I've always had to flip it up - a huge no-no in bike aesthetics!

So what does all this mean? Back to the drawing board, for sure. Literally.

Last Friday I coughed up a painful amount of not-so-hard-earned green for a professional fit session for a custom frameset at the chic Signature Cycles studio on the Upper West side of Manhattan. Three hours of being poked and prodded, stretched and stressed, and finally, spinning away on a size cycle, hooked up to a computer, going through infinitely small micro adjustments in every conceivable direction. Reach, saddle height, angles, etc. All were manipulated until the boss was happy with my position - and I guess, so was I.

At the end of the day and a swipe of the credit card, all I had to show for my time was a lousy piece of paper.

This fine sheet shall be laminated and stored and scanned and copied and framed and worshipped for the rest of my life.

It has the dimensions. THE DIMENSIONS. The numbers that make my bike fit with a 110mm stem flipped DOWN and 1.5cm of spacers beneath. a straight seat post with the rails CENTERED! What the hell is going on?

An Independent Fabrications is going on. Two months! or less or more. Who cares??

On order is a IF SSR 953 painted midnight blue, sterling silver headbadge, and I opted for a steel fork instead of the standard carbon since I figured I could swap easier for a carbon but IF steel forks painted to match are a bit tougher to come by!

Catskills 220km Climb Fest

Last week during the Great River Ride I had the pleasure of meeting two local people, well, local to my parents house in CT, named Don and Paula, and during the week afterwards I was invited to ride the Catskills Climb Fest permanent Randonneur hosted by a New Paltz, NY local named George with them. It turns out I'd ridden with George a few times earlier this year so it was good to see him again. On Friday night I hopped on the Metro North train and travelled up to Poughkeepsie where Don picked me up, and drove me back to a campsite very near the start of the event.

At 6am Saturday the alarm clock goes off. It was very hard to drag my body out of the o-so-warm down sleeping bag, and to start donning the bike clothes I would wear for the next 7 or so hours. The temperature was supposed to reach the mid 50s but that wasn't until afternoon, and we would be nearly finished by then. So, high 30s to 40s are what I had to deal with. Beautiful sunny skies and no noticeable wind greeted us near 8am, and it remained that way for most the ride.

Six of us started at 7am. I was the only one on a fixed gear bike. Everyone else had the 'who's who' of the elite custom bicycle world. Moots, Independent Fabrications (2 of them!), a Serotta, a Coppi, and to round it out my Jamis Sputnik! My entire bike cost less than any one of those frames besides maybe the Coppi!

The planned route was roughly 128 miles with around 11,000ft of climbing. It ended up being 137 miles due to a missed turn (which of course was mostly up and down a long hill.) 46-16 was the gearing of choice. It proved to be OK, for the most part, although I had to switch to 2nd gear for a short period of time on two occasions on the 2nd big climb of the day...in other words - start pushing with my feet on the ground!

The route turned out to be simply beautiful. Amazing views of nature were around us the entire ride. Lots of deer were present in the morning - such graceful creatures. The magnificent trees ran the full spectrum of available fall colors. High falling waterfalls, tranquil ponds, reservoirs, rivers, streams - we saw it all! And Mountains! Yes, we climbed around, and over a few of those. There were two really big climbs for Northeast standards, and a third that was very long but not too steep. If we weren't climbing mountains we were attacking rollers on a regular basis.

I ended up riding with Don and Paula most the ride although I played rabbit a few times and went off ahead on my own. Rides like this remind me why most people ride geared bikes. I would've been significantly faster had I been able to shift on occasion. Especially the climbs. It's tough grinding it out for 5 miles up steep grades. It wastes A LOT of energy leg pressing over and over instead of spinning out at a higher cadence! Wah, wah. Well, I survived, and didn't feel tired after we finished. My butt was a bit tired from spinning all day on a hard piece of plastic. Today I'm ready to do it all over again!

I have the cue sheet for this ride so email me if you want it. It's one of the best rides I've done in New England. The start is in Rosendale, NY.

Great River Ride

Yesterday, Sunday the 12th, I went up to Westfield, MA for the annual Great River Ride. It's considered one of the best organized centuries the USA has to offer, and claims to be the hardest event century in New England. It always takes place in the fall, and hopefully around the peak foliage of the trees. I've lived in the Northeast for awhile now, and tend to take fall colors for granted, but if you happen to live in an area the leaves don't change to vibrant yellows, oranges and reds you should definitely consider making the trek to Westfield, MA in October.

The ride was a bit longer than a century at 112 miles, and it had a lot of climbing. Over 7,000ft is what I heard someone say. The climbing started about 5 miles in to the ride, and was relentless until about 100 miles in to the ride! My kind of cycling! The route was mostly on isolated, country roads. I was very rarely passed by cars. Don, the organizer, also marked all the turns so the cue sheet did not once have to be pulled from the pocket. I wish all rides were like this!

The weather was perfect. It was a bit chilly for the first hour but quickly warmed up and was the ideal cycling temperature the remainder of the day. Just cool enough so I barely broke a sweat. The skies were clear and blue and there was no wind.

I rolled in to the parking lot around 6.30 am, and there were already quite a few people loitering about awaiting the start at 7am. I was told over 300 people showed up. I should note there were two other rides as well if you didn't feel up for over 100 miles. I think the other routes were ~65 or ~80 miles. From the hobbling, groaning cyclists I witnessed after they finished, I can only assume the shorter routes had lots of climbing as well:)

I brought the fancy fixed gear along for this ride with a gearing of 46-16. I was the only person riding a single speed and fixed gear. This surprised me as I figured at least one other silly person would join me for some fixie fun! Alas, I was forced to ride with a bunch of freewheeling gear heads.

I started off slowly with my buddy Zack, but the climbing started early on and it was chilly so I dropped the pedal to the metal and hammered it out for the remainder of the ride. I felt pretty strong, and was averaging in the low 20s for the majority of the ride. Around 50 miles in to the ride, I caught up with the lead group, passed them, but then had a long downhill and one of them cheerfully called for me to lock on to her rear - uhm, draft - and tag along wit them. What she didn't know was that I couldn't coast, but I stupidly spun out to nearly 200rpm's and hit 40mph for a few seconds before slowing down to a sane cadence for the remainder of the descent. After that, we drafted off each other at a pretty high pace for the remainder of the ride.

So the final stats were 112 miles in 5 hours and 26 minutes. Lots and lots of climbing, beautiful scenery in every direction, that lovely fall smell in the air, and good company to make a great ride.

A few of the people I was riding with are from near where my parents live so I hope to hook up with them for the occasional weekend ride. It'll be nice to have some company - and they ride around the same speed as me! - on those long, hilly CT rides.

So is it the hardest organized century in the NE? Well, there are very few of those, so perhaps it's an accurate claim. Is it the hardest century I've done? No, it's easy to toss together a 100 mile ride around my parents house that has many more steep, painful climbs, and, personally, I think, better, more scenic roads.

Highly recommended.