Ask Bike Hugger: Nike Fixed, Rims, Marriages
Our Twitter followers ask us questions about gear, bikes, and sometimes their personal lives. We poll a team of experts and respond.
- Nike’s CTRS. WTF?
- Hey that’s great that Nike would like to sponsor designers with some level of street cred in order to appeal to a certain demographic and that demo is fixed. The shoes would benefit from more padding and scuff guard for use with toe clips, though. Why is it that designer shoes really just mean that they asked some dude to pick color, but there is little in the structure that says that some particular individual designed the shoe? It’s like the Eddie Bauer edition of the Ford Explorer. Make a fixed shoe sure, but not just a trim level.
- Any reco’s on a good road bike? best place to buy online/bay area? – TanyaNoel
- We encourage you to buy from your local bike shops; especially in these economic times. Sure you can find a better price online, but that shop is there to help you fix a flat, explain fixies to you at length, and remember the days before Missy Giove was a suspected drug dealer. Get Bicycle’s banal buyer’s guide and then start checking your shops. Bikes are really, very good these days and mostly a good value. We’d need to know what type of riding you want to do to narrow it down.
- Can you tell me best rim to get for a disc internal hub for a street bike? – eduvauchelle
- If you want disc specific 700C, try Mavic’s or DT-Swiss’ 29er rims. 23-24mm are wide and strong. If you want lighter weight, go for Hed Belgian-named rims (Ardennes, Bastognes, Kermesse), though they do have a machined brake track. If that doesn’t work, go for Mavic Open Pro CD. They are hard anodized after machining, so they are uniform brownish grey. I don’t like Velocity Deep-V; they are stylish but I now believe wider is better than tall unless the rim is taller than 35mm. Velocity does have some really wide AND tall rims coming out, but they are probably heavier than necessary. After spending 2 years on Hed’s C2 platform, we highly recommend it.
- My wife is pissed about the amount of time I spend on the bike!
- There’s an old bike shop joke about bike mechanics doing doubletime as marriage counselors. The bike breaks people up – sometime brings them together, and it’s a challenge if you start riding big miles mid-relationship. Suggest you explain you’re doing this to get in shape, bettering yourself and aren’t at a bar on the weekends getting fat. Also suggest you do more chores around the house to offset the bike time.
Tip of the week: Come home from a long ride, walk right into the kitchen, make a recovery drink, and do the dishes! Your wife/husband will like you much better.
Photo: Uploaded on March 16, 2009 by simple moth (taking a break)