Some Bicycle Things I’m Stoked About On A Friday, May 8th, 2026
In some ways this is an SBTISAOAF special ‘futures’ edition. That is, it’s half made up of foreshadowing more extensive future musings that we, The Clairebarian & myself, haven’t finished yet. As I noted on Monday, that’s the state of the MEAT right now.
That said, today was a pretty great Friday in a truly decent week. Everyone at work was exactly the right mix of sweet & salty with an extra side of cheek. In keeping with our used-first focus on bicycle hard parts, Nina has a very fresh (and refreshed) new-to-her 2020 Fox Factory 36 Grip2 ready for install. Claire and I had an awesome off-the-Shore ride on Monday with our friend Penny and a rad group ride with the “Sensual Cycles“* crew on Thursday evening. One could say that the trails on Thursday were ‘clogged,’ but everyone still had a pile of fun.
A special thank you to Gramma for the egg-salad-sandwiches, black coffee, and cherry pie after Monday’s ride. I don’t know much about much, but in my book, there’s nothing quite like a sandwich made by your mom.
Also, unrelated, it’s May 8th, World Jackass Day. No, really, it’s true. So, shoutout to both of my brothers and all my closest friends.
*{Sorry JacAttack, that will never not be funny.}
{All Photos by MEATengines unless otherwise noted}
Big Trouble in Little Chainring
Claire and I had the day off on Monday, and a desire to go ride somewhere else. My favourite part of our ‘where to?’ discussion is that Claire quickly narrowed it down to two places, Vedder Mountain or Bear Mountain, based on the fact they have superior climbing trails that she’s hungry to hit on her single speed.
We’ve ridden Vedder’s Kerry’d Away once, in Fall ’24, when the Samurai was still fairly new-to-her, and Claire loved it. It’s been even longer, Marin SQ24″ days, since we rode Bear together. Once a hike-and-bike in the snow with Uncle Crash Test Kevin {CTK}. Once on actual dirt when Claire had her most shocking crash of all time, at the time. She decided that we were overdue to visit Bear Mtn and our friend Penny was free, so the three of us made our way out to Mission, BC.
Big Trouble in Little Chainring (BTLC) starts off beautifully, meandering through moss and salal, and then gradually puts the gears to you with more brutal corners, more sustained steep pitches, and some sections of more technical terrain. Claire hit it in beast mode and surprised everyone, including herself, with how few sections she walked. We rode up Bear Buns and The Back Door, down Lorax, and then climbed back up to finish with Super Bear. A great, weekday, on mountain bicycles.
Mulleting the Un-Mulletable
According to my immediate and extended family members, I’m wrong about stuff all the time. All the time. So I’m unphased to say that I was wrong all this time about the mulletability of my Will’s Chromag Arcturian as well. To be fair, my opinion was routed in the actual experience of having set it up as a mullet {29×2.5 front/27×2.5 rear} and also having tried to have my cake and eat it to on past hardtail builds with a massive Plus tire out back and a standard-sized super-grippy tire up front.
I was ruminating on my past experiments with a fat-minus rear tire cornering strangely relative to a skinner front setup and came to the realization that the problem was side knobs. It’s a hardtail, the back tire is like the second child; as long as it follows along behind the first one, no one is stressed about it. Right, CTK? I had a mostly-good Specialized ‘Round Control’ 27×3.0″ tire and a CushCore Pro insert ready to go, and, well, that sounds like a party right? Upfront is a clear-out priced* non-radial-ish e13 Grappler in their Enduro casing and super-slow Mopo rubber.
I removed the my -2° GeoShift headset which steepened up the head tube angle (HTA) and raised the bottom bracket at the same time. Combined with the MX setup and over-forking, static, I went from a HTA that was sub-62° to one that’s 63°. Still in the ballpark of The Rule of -2°. There’s also a notable amount of sag in the rear tire once I’m on the bike.
In the end my bottom bracket is only {static} 5mm lower but combined with bumping up from a 28t to a 30t ring at the same time I’m clipping the drivetrain a touch more often. Time to discover some skills I suppose? I’m still running 175mm cranks and yes, thank you, I have tried shorter ones.
*{Wicked rubber for the money. Maybe the best value going in a sticky + aggressive tire.}
ZimmerBuilt PDP
Navigating my role as a consumer in our economically interesting times has proven a challenge for me. Mind numbing at times. Some choices are easy to make, and stick to, like dropping my decades long desire to eat nothing but Adam’s peanut butter in favour of a Canadian-smashed alternative. Pretty sure I’ll make it happily through life never buying another J.M. Smucker product again. But that said, big companies seem to do big company things no matter where they shift their profits. As I’ve watched the profiteering {I know, I’m such a socialist} by gas companies and grocery stores, Canadian or otherwise, I’ve also really leaned into buying from small makers when I can justify the economics of it. Amortize your life, am I right?
Also on the easy choice front, I’ve been actually enjoying my used first policy for bicycle hard goods – I’ve bought frames, forks, wheels, and a couple of pairs of cranks. The savings aren’t always enough to make sense versus that new-new feel and a full warranty, brakes being my notable example, but there are some solid deals from folks who just don’t want to look at their take-offs any longer.
Anywho, sorry for the detour, I was going to arrive here eventually. I’ve been in the market for a new riding pack for a while, something lighter, larger, and with more padded straps to compliment my well-abused Acre Hauser, which I’ll re-weatherproof and use for wetter-season riding. Nothing from the big players has interested me and, worse, a lot of their packs interfere with my full face helmet in steep descents. Yes, despite being ‘mountain bike’ specific bags.
I expanded my search to non-mountain bike packs but helmet clearance is an issue with many of those bags too and eventually I gave up. Finding ZimmerBuilt was entirely accidental, I came across Chris Zimmer’s work whilst looking for a larger shoulder-strap case for my cellphone. Which, for the record, he makes an excellent option. I’ve been using mine this week and CTK will be rocking one too.
Anyway, I fell in love with the idea of Chris’ PDP {Pocketed Day Pack} and a couple of waist belt pockets for snacks, and I ordered one. Just like that. They’re made to order, you pick the colours from a fairly extensive list, and it arrived tout de suite. It’s lightweight, simple, comfortable, and I’m beyond stoked to say that, just going off of photos, there’s zero helmet contact even when the goings become properly steep. Rad.
I did have to resolve one personal complaint, which I’ll note has also come up for me with plenty of mountain bike packs. That’s loud zipper pulls. I can’t handle it. It took me about five minutes to clip off all the metal zipper pulls and replace them with cord pulls. Silence is glorious. Shock cord works great for this, or, in my case, rope pulls salvaged from old retired bags. I used some that I previously salvaged from a fifteen-year-old CamelBak.
Yeah, so. I’ll right a proper PPP review at some point, with the full disclosure of the bias that I bought this for myself, etc. But for now, suffice it to say that value comes from the experience with a product and I’ll hopefully be still writing about this pack a decade from now. The ZimmerBuilt products aren’t inexpensive, especially when factoring in the exchange with the Canuck Bucks at $0.73 to the USD. But, they’re also very nicely made, with premium materials, just across Lake Erie in Ohio.
So comfy for a pack that’s so lightweight and carries so much stuff. More on that at some point down the trail.
Nobex Miter Box
I’ll preface this by saying I do own and occasionally use some power tools. Although, I reach for my big arborist saw or a handheld screwdriver first. Plus, I have often wondered if a hand-crank drill would serve all my needs, battery free. So maybe real life does imitate bikes? Anywho, cordless drill, sander, jigsaw, circular saw, reciprocating saw, it’s not all Luddite all the time chez MEAT.
But when it comes to non-bike tools, my favourite, a gift from my folks years ago, is my Swedish made miter box. There’s a lot that can be accomplished with an 18tpi blade and a sanding block. And, maybe you’re thinking, how is this bike related? Well, I’ve fixed my bicycle storage solutions a few times using the Nobex and I have future, epic, plans for some wooden wonders.
But yes, mostly I use it for household projects and for Claire’s projects. We made a jumbo Jenga set in Kindergarten. She’s building her entrepreneurship products now. That is to say, aside from my own use, proGROMing, it’s an awesome safe-as-sawing-can-be tool for introducing a kid to cutting tools. Before I know it she’ll be cutting steerer tubes and handlebars, letting the tool do the work because she learned in cutting wood.
Hayes Dominion T2 brakes
“Claire has a piece coming” is my most often unfulfilled promise, but in her defence the kid is busy. That said, I’m super stoked about her fresh brakes, a clear-out pair of Dominion T2 stoppers that I purchased. She’s used to carbon blades in the winter, and what a difference they make, so going from her, also clear-out, G2 systems I knew that would be the freezing point. I stockpiled some two piston pads and beyond that with all the faultless years I have on my Dominion brakes I’m not concerned about, discontinued, two-piston small parts.
The power is an upgrade compared to what she’s been running, with the same rotor size, but the uber-difference is that so-light action. The look of incredulity when Claire first squeezed them would have been worth photographing.
From my perspective the difference in incredible. No notification of tired hands or stopping for hand brakes. Instantly fewer and shorter stops on descents. Notably better traction control in the loose-over-hard almost-August riding conditions we’ve been managing since I installed them. I can’t wait to see how much of a change she experiences in green-means-grip-greasy season.
I’ll leave it there but at some point, and it might be July at this point, Claire will put together a piece with her own thoughts on the subject. Poor kid is going to need a decent gig when she grows up, I doubt she’s going to be happy to move over to any system, regardless of power or friction, that isn’t ultra-light action. It’s so nice.
[Aside] It’s been a handful of rides and we still haven’t taken any actual photos of the brakes. Sorry.[/Aside]
{Photo: Penny Deck}
Larry Talker Tunes: By Andrew
I’m pulling a Model-T today, sharing the latest release from a band that’s been around for a long while. But, Terry Walker: “Here’s to the ones who dream / Foolish as they may seem / Here’s to the hearts that ache / Here’s to the mess we made.” Check out the NOFX cover of The Audition and tell me it isn’t awesome.
Claire’s going to be sick of the album A-to-H, the first in the triple-album A-to-Z, by the end of next week, but I don’t want her to one day be Slayden. That is, the otherwise cool young person at the bike shop who has never heard of NOFX. Don’t worry Slayden, we all blamed your dad. Even though he’s the nice fellow.
Anywho, after The Audition, check out Hardcore 84 and then Everything in Moderation (especially moderation) for that classic NOFX sound and Generation Z for a philosophical {and dark} track that hits on every line. I replayed it half a dozen times and I still don’t have a favourite line. At that point you might as well just carry on and spin the whole album.
{Photo: NOFX}
Climbmax
I suppose I took it a bit dark with Generation Z, but it’s maybe a song for the times we’re living in? I’m going to end this Friday on a sad note either way. Our local mountain bike community said goodbye to a good fella this week with the passing of Stuart ‘Stu’ Loewen. I’ve never met another person who was simultaneously so chill and an all-the-speed freak. He was a great supporter of our local trails, and a fast friend to the folks working at many bike shops.
I didn’t know Stu well, certainly not beyond him being one of the kindest and most keenly interesting customers I had the privilege of serving, on the floor and at the bench, at various shops over the years. And I’m assuming some more eloquent and personal accounts will find their way into the bikersphere over the coming days, but I want to send my condolences and best wishes to his family and friends, all the same. I know there’ll be a lot of folks taking some time to remember a kind soul.
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