The Bear Necessities {Some Bicycle Things I’m Stoked About On A Friday, Oct 9th, ’26.}

It’s too long of a story to park here, and for reasons of ~~Cooper Quinn~~ a personal nature I’m choosing not to share in any real detail whatsoever, but I’m currently engaged in the arduous process of shrinking my chez-MEAT mountain bicycling footprint in terms of space and, as part of that, the quantity and variety of tools, and spares kept on hand. In the future I will press a drill instead of using a drill press, reach for a hand file instead of setting up my seldom used grinding wheel, and only own bottom bracket tools compatible with the bottom brackets we use – Shimano PF92, standard 24mm BSA, and Chris King 24mm BSA. Every single rig in our place uses an 11-speed chain, so, that’s already settled.

I’ve sold, gifted, donated, and recycled a pile of old tools and parts as part of my quest to approach what I would consider the bare necessities. And yes, I know, that probably looks more like a complete service shop compared to the average rider’s tool roll and spares bin, but I’m genuinely trying. It’s a N-1 situation and I’m still pretty sold on adding a sag-wagon back into my riding options next year.

{Cruising those beauty fall days away. Photos by Andrew unless noted.}

{Single Speed Saturday. Well, at least for the big kids.}

Autumnal Arcturian Action

Seasons change, and certainly, from my perspective here at MEATmag, at least some parts of the bike industry are turning over a new leaf. Namely, there is some fresh budget-friendlier min-max gear review content coming in and my Arcturian Voyager one-speed will be acting as the platform, as well as additional brands now keen to share advanced product information. Cool.

With a readership numbering in the tens of riders and ideas about value {amortize your life} and performance {diminishing returns for the increasing oodles of obols} that doesn’t necessarily, historically, align with most brands, it’s, unsurprisingly, fairly rare that I even receive replies from pitches to brands, even if they’re pre-PPP approved. Fair enough. Whether it’s a blip in time or a changing trend there seems to be some kind of MEAT-resurgence happening. Maybe?

Other than playing with bar height recently, I’ve been running the Arcturian with the same build for ages, which doesn’t lend itself well to the gear side of test writing, so I’m stoked to explore some fresh tech talk. More on that to follow in the future.

{My Will’s Chromag Arcturian Voyager, as it’s been for some while now.}

{Sporting my 2012-esque bar height. Okay, not really. But much lower than I’ve been running.}

MEATengines Presents: Ask a Bike Mechanic

I receive a fair few questions about bike stuff, often but not always, related to setting up single speeds, bleeding brakes at home, stuck bearings, or some service info I’ve shared. I’m a decent wrench with closer to three decades in the industry than two, but more importantly, I know a lot of more experienced, more full time, and more talented, mechanics. So, when I don’t know an answer, or need a backing or alternate opinion, I can usually track one down.

Anywho, going forward I’m going to try and include some of these questions I receive in MEATengines content, for now in the form of an added comic serial at the bottom of SBTISAOAF. If you have a question, technical, gear choice, wrenching, or otherwise, fire in an e-mail and I’ll, or we’ll, see about answering it.

{Bear Mechanics, 1. To participate drop me an e-mail.}

Cousinpalooza

Whether your grom is going hiking in your backpack or shredding single track on an adult-sized bike, my only parenting advice of any real, concise, value remains ‘go outside.’ I used to add a caveat to the effect of ‘especially when they’re small’ but my reality is, as the father of an almost teenager, that outside time is at least as important now as it was then.

On Saturday, Claire paid it back a bit by taking both of her cousin’s riding. It’s far from the first time, but with one being two years younger, and one being four years younger, and both of them wanting maximum big cousin attention, we changed the game for this round. First Claire, myself, Anderson, and Uncle Crash Test busted out three laps of, the FVMBA’s excellent mostly-blue mountain, Thornhill and then we swapped cousins and put in a couple more rotations with Raya.

{Good gear, like good bikes, will last multiple Groms. Claire’s outgrown shoes, MEC jacket-turned-vest, KRS hip pack, Chromag shorts & gloves are all still in use.}

{Mostly well used parts on this frame-up Marin SQ27″ hardtail build, too. The Magura Trail brakes are actually older than the rider.}

{I missed the samesies memo and was disincluded from this photo.}

For the older of her two younger cousins, it was new bike day. We’ve repurposed our Project Claire’s Crew Marin SQ27 with a whole mix of parts I rebuilt. It’s freakin’ rad if I do say so myself and we’ll do a follow up at some point.

Her younger cousin hasn’t quite gained the necessary inches to be the third owner of Claire’s SQ24, but it’s back at home base now going through a full refit anyway. She’s rocking our well abused Early Rider and I’ll have a follow up talking about that bike up next week.

{Plenty of parts have been changed out, but the bones of this Early Rider are the same as what Claire cut her trail riding teeth on and it’ll soon be onto its fourth grom.}

Dekerf, Crated

Whether it’s those Vancouver-made late-’80s super-steel Rocky Mountains, or the small-batch local Chromag 29’ers, or wide variety of beautiful Dekerf-branded titanium and steel bikes rolling around BC and well beyond, not to mention some lovely repair work, well, I’m a massive fan of everything Chris Dekerf makes. A massive fan of everything Chris Dekerf crates?

And I’m going to admit a couple of things here before I post some photos and a link the the Dekerf Gallery {bib warning, if you’re prone to salivating at the sight of cycling artworks you’ll want something to catch the drool} and I hope you can meet me with grace if not acceptance.

This is the very first bicycle with cable adventurism {more than tourism} that I have loved, or even liked. The bike is built to fit a certain rider and integrated rack clearance matters, and, well, it just works here. Right?
This is the very first bicycle with a flat-mount brake that I’m into. Normally I’d be all advocating for IS-mounting on sliding dropouts, but the normally too-future integration mated to the classic brazed-lug build has my heart in a tizzy.

There, I said it, judge away. And if you need more photos of this super-commuter, or more Dekerf in your life in general, check out the Dekerf Cycles Gallery.

{Definitely too nice to ship in a cardboard box. All Dekerf photos from Dekerf.}

{Carbon lever luxury and sweet custom rack integration.}

{The must-ask bar and cable adventurism just works on this bicycle?!}

{Non-drive side photos are my favourite right now.}

{Okay, yes, it definitely needs some King Ti H2O cages.}

Georgia’s Chainsaw

I’ve never really been into the Redbull Rampage. When it comes to mountain biking I’m certainly much more of a rider than a spectator, and as a spectator folks risking life and limb riding terrain I can’t imagine myself on isn’t my cuppa. I do always check out the ‘bikes of Rampage’ pieces but even those typically leave me less technically interested than XC, DH, or Enduro racing rigs.

The exception then is Georgia Astle’s incredible electric-storm-blue Devinci Chainsaw, which sports a colourful RideWrap finish as opposed to custom paint?! From the anodized Wolf Tooth pedals to the Fox 40 lowers and frame paint, to the rim graphics, this beauty pops.

If you’re Rampage-rig hungry, check out more photos by Joe Wakefield and for the 12x Rampage-women’s whips check out coverage by Jesse-May Morgan.

{Oof, beauty. No non-drive side photo though, Joe? Chainsaw photos by Joe Wakefield.}

{Wolf Tooth Waveforms are wicked pedals and this finish is wonderful.}

{From a distance, a custom painted finish. But up close? That’s a wrap.}

Climbmax

Short & sweet, I’ll conclude this week by saying if you’ve ever though of planning a riding trip to the Shore-to-Sky, the last few years our late September/early October season has been amazing. The light is incredible, the dirt is incredible, the woodwork and rockwork isn’t too greasy {with an ultra-soft front tire} and the temperature is just riding right. Best conditions of the year, truly.

And I know, I know, everyone’s a hustler, but if you’re, or someone you know, is traveling to the North Shore with a group of mountain bicyclists and want to book a guided ride of Mt. Fromme of Mt. Seymour, I occasionally side-side-gig doing tours for my friends at Essential Cycles. Please feel encouraged to ask for me by name.

{Just some not-actually-way-back Clairebarian Early Rider action. Photo by Deniz Merdano.}

Larry Talker Tunes: By Terry

A wild one this week! I was not completely sold on the first listen, but its creativity earned another spin. Since then, it’s been on repeat all week*. Prog, Heavy, Rock! Yes, damn creative!

Terrifying Angels by Pure Reason Revolution

Pure Reason Revolution, formed in 2003 in England. They had a run up to 2011, then back on again in 2019 through now. I have never heard of the band. Seven albums deep in their catalogue. I’ve dabbled a bit in their latter albums; this newest release will give you the best intro into what they are all about. Heavy!

Every track deserves your full attention. Three of the tracks are 9, 12, and 14 minutes in length, the musical journey through the creative transitions is worth the experience.

*{Drewitors note: I will second Model-T here, I wasn’t sold after the first play through but have now spun the album a few times. It’s rad. I do have a favourite track: Rumination Ruin.}

{Photo by Pure Reason Revolution.}

Ask a Bike Mechanic

{Bear Mechanics, 2. To participate, drop me an e-mail.}

If you’re interested in supporting the MEATengines community there are multiple ways to help out. You can submit an About a Single Speed or Bicycle Valentines piece, or fire me an e-mail if there’s some other ATB or mountain bicycling topic you’re passionate to write about. I’m interested. You can engage with a comment below, join the crew at r/MEATengines, or, if you have a couple spare bucks {ha!}, you can always buy me a coffee. Thank you.