Some Bicycle Things I’m Stoked About On A Friday, October 17th, 2025
Bold beams of sunshine blasting through the trees. Rain falling, both misty-light and heavy-hard. A clear but starless night. This was a glorious mid-October week to be in the woods.
I’ve been down low and up high with handlebar setups on the ArctuHawk Voyager. Sometimes winning at cornering; sometimes winning at steeps. For the moment, the 38mm rise Stooge Moto Bar is the all-around winner with the 170mm SR Suntour Durolux RC+. But bike nerds will bike nerd.
The points merely being that when the trails are great and my bike’s running tight, then all must be alright with my mountain bicycling world.
Grom Pressure
Before Claire started mountain bicycling, my usual PPE kit for riding was a basic pad-fit bucket. The Giro Quarter MIPS was my all-time favourite if you’re so inclined. Sometimes I wore a full face. Sometimes I wore knee pads. And I was well aware of the potential outcomes of wearing neither.
When I started off-roading with my grom and had her sorted with a Super 3R and a full pad set, I set an example by rocking my full face and knee pads as well. Short story, shorter, I decided if I was going to wear that kit with The Clairebarian on Blue trails, I’d best rock it all the time. I’d look like a f*cking tool if I smashed my face or knee whilst naked in a bucket on a double black after fully kitting up for golden-dirt laps.
Then I discovered the Kali Invader 2.0, and after making up my mind that I was going to ride chunk with a chin bar, I’ve not looked back. Even climbing in the greenhouse on the hottest summer days.
This brings me to the conundrum I witnessed on our Canadian Thanksgiving holiday on Monday. A dad grudgingly agrees to wear his full-face helmet for Bobsled laps because one of his groms is whining about having to wear theirs.
I’m not telling anyone what to do. Well, except my kid, I indoctrinated her into riding with a chin bar. But let me tell you, all the adults I know who switched to riding in a full face have zero push-back from their groms, and all the adults I’ve witnessed battling don’t rock the extra material.
Grom Pressure, Part Deux
Fecal Fulmination Vs. #TheFullVik, I’ve already celebrated The Clairebarian’s role in saving me from a sticky night soiling. Judging from the comments and questions I’ve received, I’m not alone in thinking some protection from mutt-muck is warranted.
Wet butt, anti-theft factor, neither was enough to convert me all the way, but when I think of what could have been, I just think, oh, crap. Thank goodness for grom pressure!
Manual Bailout Gears
Keep those cassettes smaller, derailleur cages shorter, who cares about taking an extra 30-seconds of a break to change?
I know, I know, manual shift Grannie rings on mountain bikes are so early Y2Ks, no matter how much sense such a system makes for pedal and plunge riding.
This week, I was plotting for a future commuter project and noticed that Garbaruk is still doing 64bcd/26t rings. Most brands have cut SKUs to only offer a 28t and here I am thinking a lot of groms could benefit from a 24t.
Plans change, but for now my commuting future will be on a twelve-speed drivetrain. Two by six. With my 11x26t 6-speed cassette and a 34/26t front ring combo, a quick manual switch would have me equipped for the loaded grind up steeper gravel hills.
It was always my plan to add a manual shift bail-out granny ring on my me-powered cargo bike. Some of the hills of North Vancouver were brutal with littler Claire and all her stuff. More on that in the future.
Thanksgiving Fromme Grom Attack!
Fitting it all in, Penny picked up Claire and me for a quick(ish) morning Fromme rip. Up the gravel to 7th and back down to the car. When we arrived at the Fromme parking lot, it was fairly empty, but at the end of our ride, there wasn’t a spot left. And everywhere there were groms.
Big groms. Little groms. Groms on insanely nice carbon sag wagons. Groms on basic hardtails.
Yeah, so. It was rad to see so many kids out riding. It was a properly beautiful day, but I’m still always stoked to see families making time together.
Marin’s Kid Bike Easter Egg
I was checking out Marin’s sweet little 20″ Bayview Trail {rigid, dual-hydraulic discs with kid-friendly levers, good geo, short-cage clutch-derailleur} and thinking at CA$800 it’s a pretty rad package. I’d add some good pedals and then, over time, a pair of tubelessed Maxxis DHF folding-bead tires, and a PNW Fern dropper.
Anywho, what really caught my eye was the geometry chart. Not just that the numbers look perfect for the application, but that the geo chart itself has the silhouette of the least-Marin Marin that Marin has ever manufactured, the Wolf Ridge.
Not that the Wolf Ridge wasn’t an interesting and surprisingly fun rig to ride, it’s just compared to their usual super sane, solid spec, great geo rigs like the SQ and Rifty, it was a carbon fiber outlier. Anyway, it was a chuckle. I’ll have to watch for the geo-graphics from old Quake, single-pivot or Quad-Link, bikes to start showing up in funny places.
Formula Belva Fantasies
They had me at purple. Actually, I was sold on the Formula Belva long before it existed. Dual crown stiffness where it matters, combined with the potential lower friction of smaller stanchions and increased compliance from the less beefcake lowers? Add in a direct-mount stem? Yes, yes, yes, please.
A 43mm offset, thanks to sharing lowers with the Selva single-crowns, and a simple coil-negative air system. Add in Formula’s excellent, easily user-revalved, damping setup. Lower axle-to-crown height for a given travel and said A-2-C is adjustable. Winner?!
Yeah, it’s a whole lot of money, and the tightest turns would require some extra tools in the skill-box, but it comes in purple. And besides, it’s my fantasy, too bad if you don’t like it.
The only fork I’d more like to try on the front of the ArtuHawk Voyager is the relatively unexciting {not purple, not a dual crown, not quick-swap valving} DVO Diamond D1 SL. My Onyx 38 D1 SL experience was amazing, and remains front of my mind when riding other forks, always. I can’t help but wonder if a 160mm Diamond would provide similar performance in a lighter and more forgiving chassis.
Forgiving Trails
If The Clairebarian felt any anxiety, she didn’t show it. Perfectly poised as she moved wide and initiated a smooth sweeping turn. Far, far, away from the hardest feature she’d ridden on the day, this was the same corner that had taken her out on the cusp of summer.
We’d been back since. She’d looked at it. Made faces at it. Even talked sh*t about how it was well in her wheelhouse. I mean, she first rode it years ago on her rigid 20”-wheeled rig. And then, she’d walked it. “For another day“, we’d say. Such is mountain biking.
I empathize. There are a few features or sections of trails, well within my level of jam, that are always a struggle to overcome. Usually, I know why. And overcoming those features, even awkwardly, is often more rewarding than beautifully beating more brutal bits. But sometimes we have to forgive those trails for their past transgressions and shred.
That little “Yes!” Claire allowed herself as she ripped through was my mountain biking highlight of the week.
Larry Talker Tunes
A single for you this week, Model-T. Coming off of Run The Jewels’ 2020 album, RTJ4, here’s Zach de la Rocha & Pharrell Williams joining the duo for a powerful bit of historiography: JU$T.
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