Urbanus Magnus

Got up early this past Saturday morning at the behest of my pal, who reminded me that the Toronto Int'l Bike Show was on this weekend, March 2-4. It's a place where all of the big names in cycling in Toronto (plus a few other major brands) meet to strut their stuff, and where a few bargains can be found for those so inclined - such as myself. This time it was held in the Better Living Centre of Exhibition Place, as opposed to the Fall "Blowout" show, which is much smaller, and held elsewhere at Exhibition Place. Here are some shots of the show: From Entrance Trek Bike store's display And of course, there are a buncha bikes to drool over. Lots of carbon, whether road or MTB. The bike show seems to cater to "what's new", of course, so there were tons of fancy lightweight components on the road bikes, and 29er bikes galore! Enough carbon here to solve China's energy problems... ...with more carbon! Argon's display ...

All is well on the bike front, and I've now made it up to the 200km mark. I know, not a lot of riding in three weeks, but I've been completing the final push of school into exams (I finished my Chemistry exam today, yay! Only physics left, which is tomorrow). The tires are wearing well enough, but the compound of the CST Critters is fairly soft, so even gravel skids have worn the rear tread down a *weensy bit*. Just enough so that the "herringbone" pattern imprinted on each of the knobs is barely visible. The Herringbone pattern is wearing away quickly... the skid spots are worse than the above picture. So far, here's what I'm liking: - Off road handling - On road handling! - Overall weight - Load Capability - Comfortable seat/steam/handlebar height and position - Top Tube length is good - Rolling resistance ( Speed!) - Gear range (it hasn't been changed from before ) After about 125km offroad (light trails, gravel, a bit of chip seal road...

I'm putting the snow studs to rest (for now) for two reasons: 1. There be no snow/ice on the roads as of late, and its > 5 degrees outside 2. They keep popping inner tubes! Despite my best efforts, and lining each tire with 3-4 layers of duct tape, the occasional screw would be able to wear through the protection and put a cut into the inner tubes. Its quite unfortunate, as they were really quite amazing ice tyres. The only way I can thing of salvaging them is buying a few rolls of Mr. Tuffy or some other tyre liner and completely covering the insides to protect the tubes. They really only seem to pop in hard cornering or trail/ off-road riding. I was caught out the other day up to my ankles in mud, where I had to change a tyre. I was not happy, needless to say, when I ran out of patches from how many punctures there were.

I've done it - the bike is completely finished, and it has been distance-proven; I took it for more than 40 km of wintery riding over the past two days. All the riding and abused has allowed me to 'dial in' all the settings of the bike: the Brooks saddle has been moved foreward, the derailleur cables have stretched/settled and been adjusted, the handlebars have been positioned, the STI levers have been re-positioned, and more than all these other combined, the new brakes have been worn in and re-positioned. Ta daaaah! Hells yeah - 'Standard' That's right; new brakes. Those old Shimano low-profile cantis are gone, and are replaced with one of the widest-of-wide profile brakes; some Tektro 720s. They really have cleaned up the problems, so now there is about 1/2 cm of clearance each side of the rims and more than double the braking power. The quality of workmanship is superb - they come with 6mm allen key fixing bolts, a stainless-steel bushing, both sides ...