Velocity P35: Bling it on

I've been running Velocity Blunts on my Rawland for just over 2 years now. Last summer, I had a good spill that resulted in a potato-chipification of the front wheel. We banged it out on the trail and then I trued it up a bit when I got home. So I wasn't too surprised to see some of spoke holes bulging on the front rim a few months ago.

This is a two-year-old, well-abused Blunt rim. The eyelet is bulging, which is a difficult failure to capture on camera.

What did surprise me is that I found a bunch of cracked eyelets on the rear Blunt rim. That sucks. So, I'm going to go ahead and go on record and say I'm not a Velocity Blunt fan.

One of many cracked eyelets on the rear, and only moderately-abused Blunt rims. Easy to capture on camera.

The P35 is a Velocity rim that was designed by Kirk Pacenti. I'm pretty much becoming a company man as far as Pacenti goes. He designed the initial Rawland Sogn. And he designed and sells the Quasi-, Pari-, and Neo- moto tires. My favorite tires for the Rawland is the Quasi-moto.
So, as I pondered my next set of 650b disc-compatible rims, it only made sense that I go after the Pacenti-designed Velocity rims. And they come in red, yo. Check that shite out!


For those who are curious. The P35 rim is much wider than the Blunt. Weird thing is, is that one Quasi-moto slapped right on the rim while the other one required a pinched flat and a ripped thumb to mount.

The P35, like nearly all Velocity rims were easy to build up round and stiff. I used double-butted DT Champion spokes. I guess we'll check back in a couple years and see how they hold up.

NW Passage

I took a lovely trail ride today. The trail part was about 20 miles and there was another 10 miles of road. Lots of work.


Pat started the ride with me. About 500 feet into the ride he miscalculated an off-camber junction between two trails and went down. He blew out his front tire and sheered off a thumb shifter. So I ended up doing the ride solo. Which is always nice too.

Check out this Jeep. My gut said take a picture and get out of there, so I didn't go investigate further. Sounds cheesy, but I felt watched. If that Jeep is there next time, I'll investigate.

This is the apple tree on the river trail below the mega-church. Click to see the little red/pink beauts. This trail is part of our Sunday morning ride, so we've been watching these apples all summer. They were a bit chalky a couple weeks ago, but they are good to go now and they're tasty, and mostly worm-free. I only took a few. There's a lot left. Good for eatin, saucing, or pie'ing.


This ride is the one I want to do on Thanksgiving weekend. I'm thinking Friday after Thanksgiving. I'm thinking to do the NW Passage route and tack on our Sunday morning route + Bowl and Pitcher. This would make it almost all single track out to BP, then roads back. A good hearty ride to work off the Thanksgiving gorge.


I met Liza at Taste for lunch. We saw this dude riding down the sidewalk on this ridiculous little machine at about 25 mph. As lame as that is, there's also something that kind of rules about that guy.

New Bike Rack Downtown

This is on Lincoln and Riverside just outside the Next Door Espresso. I think it has a Monroe Street Bridge look to it.

Swan Lake - Rattlesnake Loop

I wanted to get back into the forest before the deer hunting season started so on Tuesday afternoon I took off for Swan Lake in the Colville National Forest. I spent the night camping by the lake and spent the next morning on my bike. Here's the route and some pictures from the trip.

Rattlesnake Loop, Swan Lake, WA

Share your bike routes @ Bikely.com

I heart leaves.

Dramatic Keller Ferry departure.

Sunset on Swan Lake.

Every ride should start like this.

Cool bike sign found on numerous trail markers.

Pretty mushroom.

Western larch on fire.

View of Snow Peak(left) and Sherman Peak(right) I think.

This is a beautiful area of the Colville National Forest that has something for everyone. Swan Lake has a great swimming beach, nice hiking trails and many great campsites on the water. I look forward to coming back here next summer with my family.

Can you dog sit for a couple weeks?

Katherine, sister of Matthew (who is still in ICU), needs help with Matthew's dog. According to Kate, the dog is a well-mannered, house-trained Shepard-Greyhound mutt mix.

Katherine cannot have dogs where she lives and managing the dog is overwhelming an already overwhelming situation. If you think you can provide a nice home for Matthew's dog for a couple weeks, let me know and I'll put you in contact with Katherine.

Review: Columbia Cyclocross Pants

I saw these on the REI sale rack last spring for $40. I tried them on and they fit, though they felt a bit funny somehow. I liked the bikey features, so I decided to buy them regardless of the weird fit -- and the odd white stitching.

Well they have turned out to be heart-breakers. The fit never worked out, specifically, they are short in the butt and not roomy enough in the thigh. Both of these shortfalls are pretty critical failures for bike-specific pants.

The reason they are heart-breakers though is that they have so many great bikey details, but the execution on the basics just falls flat.

To wit:

• I love that they have a built in strap for cinching the leg. But without more taper (which may require a zip and hence increase cost), the strap creates the Bilbo Baggins Effect, creating a billow of pant around the ankle which likes to get all in the chain funk.

Bilbo Baggins Effect

• The reflective bits stitched on the pants at various spots are pretty nice and I would love it if my daily drivers had some built in reflectivity, especially on the back of the pant. But there is now such a thing as reflective material that is not white. You can get muted gray and even slate color material that reflects. The white on black of these pants is fugly. And good lord, the white/gray stitching is just awful. I feel like I'm back in 8th grade when "parachute pants" were the rage. The product page for this pant on the Columbia site does a good job of muting the white stitching.


• Zip rear pocket. Nice. But only one? And the front pockets are so shallow I can't even fit my hand in there. Actually putting stuff (pocket knife, chap stick, change, cash, etc) fills them uncomfortably against the thigh, which, as mentioned, is not cut ample enough for my thighs. Note that I've not run into this issue on other pants that I cycle in daily, which are not cycling-specific pants. So it's not a case of thunder-thighitis. The pants also have the funny thigh pocket that I never understand. What goes in there? Cigarettes?


• Material. Is stated simply as "nylon." And it feels like it. They breathe about as well as plastic wrap.

I have something I want to tell you. I'm not like other guys. I mean, I'm different.
But check out the gusseted crotch, and the darts sewed into the thigh, and the rear panel at the waist line. And the solid button with button hole. The details are rad on these pants. I so wish they fit and they were made with good material and wearing them didn't make me look like an extra in the Beat it video.
And the name is of course preposterous. If done properly, these would be more aptly named, Commuters. God help the poor bastard that attempts to race cross in these.
So, I hope the people at Columbia keep putting out such well thought-out cycle pants, because they could really deliver a high-value pant with their hugeness. They just need to make sure they nail the basics first before piling on the cool bike features.
If you are in Spokane and you wear 34x32, you can have these pants. Just email me and you can have them. Maybe you'll love em.

Rack making at Pat's

Ryan is making a rack for his Kogswell. I'm making a light mount for the SH-80.