It’s the middle of November today, which marks about fifteen days since the first time, this year, that Claire asked me when we would hang up the Christmas lights. “Not yet. Not yet. Not yet…” We run a couple of strings across the front of our apartment building and I admit that, while I have a well-earned reputation for being a bah humbuger, it’s nice to roll home to a bit of brightness at the end of a long, wet, dark, day.
Today I witnessed my first example of raw Christmas joy for the season and I must admit, even though it’s the middle of <<insert preferred collage of curse words>> November, I did smile. On my way to get Claire after school, a lady was driving a tiny car stuffed from window to window, from rear hatch to windshield, with a Christmas tree. She was sitting IN the tree. And I couldn’t help but stare a little, and she noticed, and beamed me the most genuine, jubilant, contented smile. It was adorable.
And then, just after that, on the radio, some caller was wildly whinging that Canada Post workers are ruining Christmas (again, it’s November 15th, and even then…) because the thingamawhatzit he ordered is delayed in a warehouse somewhere. Ugh. Anyway, it’s yin & yang I suppose. But the lady with the giant smile whose car is going to smell deliciously like the forest for the next decade is a winner in my books.
With that all accounted for, here’s this week’s SBTISAOAF with the first addition of a new little weekly bonus feature at the bottom.
Nitto
It’s hard to explain, but I am always here for the simple, durable, clean, timeless, construction of Nitto bicycle components. They are not technologically fancy in any way, and they are not lightweight, and, well, it’s not really about what they’re not, is it?
In their own words, “NITTO is a brand of bicycle parts specializing in metal tube processing and welding with hereditary technologies and skills. We do produce original products such as handlebars, stems, seat posts, racks, and bike stands.”
They have a massive influence on the bicycle world, though not the mountain bike world, despite a relatively small workforce – 43 employees according to Nitto – and they’ve been making products their way, in Japan, since 1923.
They make several NJS “Keirin” racing-approved products, which are highly regulated. Their own line of handlebars, stems, racks, and seat posts. Oh, and some simply beautiful bottle cages that I have never seen in person. Additionally, Nitto manufactures products for several other brands. Some are Nitto-branded limited edition parts, some are white-labeled Nitto stock, and some are smaller batch custom options.
I have long loved Nitto products and I feel that’s more the case every year. They are making products to last and manufacturing in their tradition. But that’s not a love that’s been represented on my bicycles until this year. I’ve been running a 145mm (not a typo) Nitto quill stem on Steve’s Talbot and it both makes the bicycle fit, with a -16° bar, and fits the bicycle. It’s a beautiful piece of utilitarianism that’s rated for off-road use, so I suspect it will grace this bike forever.
The Hunter Smooth Move bar on my Waltworks is also produced by Nitto, to Hunter’s geometry spec. It’s not lightweight, and it’s not as forgiving as some, especially higher-rise, aluminum 31.8mm bars, but the geometry is excellent, and it exudes forever energy. I’m not normally lab-focused, but I’d love to see how the Smooth Move does in the Zedler end-of-life test that brands like Chromag and SQlab use. I suspect that the Nitto-made bars would all do exceptionally.
The Best Mountain Bike to Hold Over Your Head While a Weird-Necked Dear Ogles You
Here’s About The Ride throwing some creatively critical mocking towards all of us mainstream bicycle publications rocking the time-honoured annual ‘Best Of’ rolls. Why I tell you, those bold and beautiful seven straight days of the MEATengines Awards ’23 were assembled from only the finest quality cycling journalism. RockShox didn’t pay me a dime to award them for the low-low street price and the huge performance-to-street-price value ratio for take-off examples of their excellent, basic, OE-only Super Deluxe Select shock.
No matter what Cy thinks about these critically important, space-filling, marketing contract completionism pieces, I’m seriously stoked to name names as we (maybe) crush the same seven categories as last year (or different categories entirely). A little sneaky peaky. The best ‘Best Of’ preamble of 2024 goes, obviously, to the MEATengines Awards ’23, and respecting that we’ll be using the same preamble as last year, although, we may increase the number of bonus points:
“Welcome to the MEATengines take on cycling-content-creation’s lowest-of-low-hanging fruit. An entire week of ‘Best Of’ awards where we (I) choose a single product to top categories so diverse in terms of both use-case and price point as to render any verdict irrelevant.
If you can guess the winner(s) before scrolling down then award yourself 1000 bonus points* (*bonus points have no monetary value or value whatsoever).“
{Above artwork by Cy Whitling, hater*.}
*{Drewitors note: HAHAHAHAHA, I’m sorry, Cy.}
Night Riding In The Cloud
If you were thinking I couldn’t, wouldn’t keep milking this rock, well, sorry. Night riding! It’s awesome on a dry crispy night, it’s awesome in the deep dark morning (reverse-light night rides are the best night rides), and it’s even awesome when I’m so deep in the cloud that I can’t see anything, blinded by my own headlamp, as the moisture punches back.
Everything about the forest is amazing when I’m mashing through mists. The sounds, the smells. Oh, it smells incredible. The unsoothable moist burning of my lungs as I pedal hard to warm up in a world where it sometimes feels like I’m destined to be soaked forever. I prefer to ride the single speed at night, why grind the miles into my drivetrain and suspension fork when I’m just puttering about anyway?
I haven’t been properly cold on a ride yet this year. I’d love to claim it’s about better gear choices but I know better. The nearly-snow rains are yet to hit. Still, as much as I recommended getting some nighttime riding in while the weather was warm and wonderful, it’s never too late to grab a light and ride into the forest at night.
Meg’s Demultispeedification Video
Meg’s first (second) single-speed ride was in my top six for SBTISAOAF on November 1st, and today the video we (Steve & Meg) shot of the demultispeed conversion is live on their Hardtail.Life Youtube channel.
I feel for Steve having to edit this because we (I, Andrew) rambled a ton about single speeding (I might be a bit passionate about the subject), and then on top of that Meg and I rowed, sailed, and occasionally jet-boated off-topic at regular intervals. There’s no drifting when we’re tangentalizing. Still, thanks to Steve’s editing efforts it all actually stays on course.
Anywho, The Clairebarian watched the video today and said it was “good.” That’s a suspiciously concentrated response from a child that regularly rivals my verbosity, but I hope you enjoy it. Oh, here’s the link.
A Solo Self-Slaughtering
When I woke up this morning I would have told you that I was in decent riding shape. Yes, I haven’t been getting out for as many long rides since my gig at BikeMag was whacked and I started wrenching more, but I’ve been getting out. I was wrong.
This was my first solo Fromme-Friday since the FF rides started, and I ripped my own legs off entirely by accident. I walked more, rested more, and still had to back off as my body and breathing mocked, maligned, and mutinied against my boldest efforts. I was seeing stars when I came upon Old Man Pete tossing dirt on the No Quarter climb and I’ve never been so happy to stop and chew the fat.
How am I possibly stoked about this? I still suffered my way to the top of No Quarter (good job Drew-Bob) and I’m taking it as an early intervention. When I get out for solo night rides I need to pack an extra lamp and put in the extra miles. And on shorter rides, I need to be certain I’m putting in the intensity, especially as I’ve been lazing about on the multi-speed bike more often (Arcturian, so good).
When it comes to getting faster and stronger at riding your bike, there’s nothing quite like, well, riding your bike.
Haf, Clipped
I bumped into Hafez, of The Haf-Clip fame, on Fromme twice today. Which, having only met him briefly once before, also riding Fromme, is a significant increase in face time. Still, all impressions led me to the same conclusion when we first messaged a couple of years ago. He’s friendly, excited about all things mountain bikes, and genuinely stoked.
I regularly cite the Haf-Clip as an excellent option when people use the lame excuse of not wearing a pack to justify not sporting a chin bar. Look, wear a helmet with a chin bar, or don’t, that’s completely your choice. But just own your shit. There are plenty of ways to pack around a removable chin bar that’s not in use, and this is a very clean one.
The Haf-Clip is also great for strapping on an extra layer when you decide not to be “be bold & start cold.”
The obvious play-on-names aside, this is called ‘Haf, Clipped’ because it’s only a tiny tidbit of our conversation today, the part I carried home in the front of my brain. It’s easy to be a bit down on the bicycle industry when you’re in it, but Haf elucidates that between his years of experience working in customer service and dealing with all the other products in his life now, the level of support that the bicycle industry delivers is impressive.
This week at work I saw a couple examples of that, including an obvious crash replacement helmet where the manufacturer waived all costs, some warranties getting quickly closed off with small parts in the mail, and fast-tracking another customer’s crash replacement front triangle. All I’m saying, my takeaway from what Hafez was saying, is it’s easy to point to issues anywhere, but there are also endless customer support stories to celebrate.
Good job bicycle industry. I know it has not been easy lately.
Bonus Feature: Larry Talker’s Tunes For The Week
Our friend Model-T argues that it’s indubitably irrefutable that there hasn‘t been any decent music released since Tom Scholz was genuinely creating Boston ballads in the ’70s and ’80s, and I have more than a feeling (more than a feeling) that he’s wrong. So we’re going to flip the usual bike-media-music recommendation bonus feature on its head. Every week we – Claire, me, you, we – will assign LT some homework in the form of an album that he simply needs to absorb.
Now, it was as clear as the sun in the summer sky that we needed to put some boundaries on this, especially since I have too many friends who’ll claim that September 24th, 1991 was the greatest day in music history and he should just go there. So this red-hot quest for musical nirvana is limited to albums released in the last decade. And you know we’re sticklers for the rules.
{Above image: Said The Whale}
The Clairebarian wanted to go first, with the album Islands Disappear by local Vancouver band, Said The Whale, since it contains her favourite STW song, Camilo (The Magician). But, it’s too old. Released in 2009. And, you know, we’re sticklers for the rules. So instead she’s assigning that band’s more recent album, Dandelion, from 2021.
All three members of Juno-award-winning STW contribute musically so Claire would tell you each album contains lyrically and musically obvious “Ben songs” and “Tyler songs” and the occasional piano-piece “Jayce song.”
So there you go Terry Walker, a little bit of unexpected homework for the week. For anyone else, Claire hopes you enjoy some Said The Whale. For Model-T, I hear there’s going to be a quiz.
If you have a must-listen recommendation from the last ten years that you think Terry Walker would enjoy fire me an e-mail and we’ll add it to the queue.
Welcome to MEATengines, I hope you enjoyed this piece. If you did, please consider buying me a coffee. Any questions, concerns, or comments – or to order a MEATengines water bottle – feel encouraged to drop me an e-mail, or join us at r/MEATengines.