Wheelbuild: Campagnolo Everything

It's been quite a while since we feature a track wheelbuild here. Not that we no longer deal with them, mind you—they still popped on every once in a while on our mechanic's Instagram—but more than often they are brought home before we have a chance to snap a picture or two. This time, we're working with a build that stayed just enough for a photo session and parts worthy for a feature to boot.

The Japanese Italian

The last couple of years saw the rise of interest in bicycle touring. You can see them everywhere, from brand new builds that you can literally take wherever your minds set you or the classic, timeless setups from decades ago that haven't lost their relevance. You can tell that this adventure cycling bug is here to stay when a popular blog skipped their yearly Red Hook Criterium coverage in lieu of more backcountry cycling features...

Wheelbuild: Light, Strong, Pretty

Contrary to the popular belief, the colour pink have more relation to masculinity in the world of cycling than anyone would ever thought. For years, pink jersey is used to identify the overall leader of the Giro d'Italia, which was based on the colour of the paper used to print the La Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper, the original sponsor of the race.
In 2004 Chris King launched a limited edition series of pink headsets and hubs to raise awareness for breast cancer research and to raise funds for Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Two years later, Chris King added Pretty and Strong pink to its standard list of available colours.

First Experiences are Unforgettable

When was the last time your did something for the first time? That was probably the kind of questions you'll find on self-help books or motivational memes your friends posted on Facebook. But in our case, it was a couple months ago (yes, call this a #latepost if you will, since it's been three months since the last time we updated our blog) when Themma Suwandana dropped boxes of parts for his dream bike.

Throwback Thursday?

We've come a long way when it comes to mountain biking. Gone are the days when the dudes from California converted their balloon-tired cruisers—or as commonly called, klunkers—to shred the dirt on fire roads down the Repack track at Mount Tamalpais, replaced with bicycles made from exotic materials equipped with long travel suspension, hydraulic disc brakes, electronic shifting, and gearing range that allows you to climb all the way to the moon.

Somewhere along the way, romanticism sets in. The need of a throwback, to return to the days where things were much simpler. Those kind of moments where you feel a bit nostalgic.

A Pleasure to Ride

Ah, Japan. The land of manga cartoons, technological breakthroughs, and vertically-stacked, automated underground bicycle parking lot. Speaking of which, you cannot remove bicycle from the Japanese culture. Apart from being home of the largest bicycle component manufacturer, bicycles are still largely used as main form of transportation.

Since many people still rely on bicycles to get around, Japanese have a different approach when it comes to urban/city bicycle design. These bicycles are considered as efficient, functional machines that will stand the abuse of daily commuting: potholes (not that Japanese roads are full of them), train crossings, and worse, being buried under stacks of other bicycles should someone toppled a herd of them in the parking lot.

Wheelbuild: Double Trouble

We're often asked to do rim swaps. Usually the client wanted to switched the hubs or rims of their recent wheelset, whether to drop some weight or to upgrade from the factory, vendor-sourced stock hubs. But in this particular case, we stumbled upon something entirely different. As the certain Team Rocket once said, prepare for trouble, and make it double...

Shorten Your Lock-On Bicycle Grips

If you tend to tinker your bicycle a lot like me, having a pair of lock-on grips is a blessing. No more struggling to get them off when you want to swap your handlebar, shifters, or brakelevers, while the locking mechanism prevents the grips from twisting off when you're mashing your pedals real hard.

But if you're using twist-style shifters, these grips will be too long to use. So how do you shorten them? I'll show you how.