offtrail.guru

A small blog about offtrail riding, allroad cycling, fatbiking and singlespeeding.

Some rare powder on December 9, 2017.
Patrick

Small Steps To Fight Climate Change

Our climate is heating up rapidly; even more rapidly than climate scientists predicted. Droughts are causing mass starvation and displacement of millions in large parts of the world. Other parts of the world are going up in flames. In October 2017, large areas of the city I used to call home for ten years were incinerated and three more wildfires brought smoke and destruction in 2019 and 2020. Hurricanes are growing stronger and more frequent. Switzerland, which I call home again, is getting hotter year after year. It's not uncommon for February to feel like May. Summer months see more frequent and grueling heatwaves. Swiss summers used to be the best time to ride. Now, summers are the first season during which I often take a break from cycling.

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100km road bike ride on October 25, 2020.
Patrick

Clocks Turned Back

This weekend Europeans turned the clocks back an hour and perhaps for the last time. This would totally suck because I happen to like daylight saving time. If we're not going to change our clocks twice a year, I'd prefer the time to stay on…

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Chuwi Larbox.
Patrick

Finally A New PC On My Desk

A couple of weeks before we moved last November, my trusted Mac Book Pro died. I took it to an Apple computer shop that was certified to do repairs, but they only confirmed what I already suspected; the motherboard was toast and replacing it wasn't worth it. In December of 2019, I bought a Raspberry Pi 4 so that I'd have a simple computer to do basic things online. I ran Raspian for several months and in the summer I installed Ubuntu Mate. In June of 2020, Chuwi launched an Indiegogo campaign for a tiny Windows 10 mini PC; the Larkbox.

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Descending the Montagne de Romont on March 29, 2019.
Patrick

My Road Handlebars Over 28 Years

Looking at the photos of all my road bikes since 1992, one very noticeable change is the handlebar, and in particular, the position of the hoods. On my early bikes, the hoods were extremely low on the bars. Thinking about wrist and arm alignment, particularly in that photo of my black Trek 5200, I wonder how it could have been comfortable. Well, I was a lot younger and rode just fine with that setup. The last couple of years, I’ve standardized my handlebar on all my drop bar bikes, and used a 44 cm wide Thomson KFC-One carbon handlebar. Before that, I ran 42 cm and even narrow 40 cm bars.

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44 Marauder with Ritchey Comp Kyote bar.
Patrick

Another Cockpit Change

When you're the mean bastard who tortures his wrists on top of mountain bikes without suspension like I do, the least you can do is let your wrists hold onto the bars in the most natural way possible, so that they're not angled or twisted in any way. Alt bars with tons of sweep are the solution. I went from Answer bars with a 20° sweep to Jones with a 45° back sweep and my wrists have been happy ever since. Ritchey now has an alternative available with a bit less sweep. The Kyote with 27.5°. At the same time, the Kyote is considerably wider than a Jones H-Bar. 800mm versus 710mm. When I saw it on Bike24 and saw the price tag (25 EUR), I had to get one. Due to the different shapes, I also needed a new stem in order to use the Kyote. I went from a 100mm long stem with the Jones H-Bar to a 40mm stem for the Ritchey Kyote.

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