Fast and Easy Winter Bike Maintenance

Here it is January 7, 2012 and we're in a massive snow drought. I use the word massive because it adds drama to our lack of ability to enjoy 'winter activities' that I would love to be doing right now...skiing, ice climbing, snowshoeing, you get my point, but with all this amazing weather, what are we cyclists to do? Ride! If that's what you said, then you got the answer right. 

I wanted to write up a quick post about 15 minute bike maintenance and how to wash off the salt and road grunge that can build up on your bike this time of year. It's really quite simple and though I may have been a little fussy and exceeded the 15 minute time limit, you can really get it done in that amount of time.

Here's what you need-

1. A bucket of hot water, no soap.

2. An old crusty water bottle.

3. Chain lube

4. Three rags- one goes in the bucket of hot water, one greasy rag used to wipe off chain lube, the other used to wipe the bike clean and dry.

5. If you go over the 15 min time limit, you'll also want to have some de-greaser and frame polish.

6. One dirty bike.

 Basic tools for the job.

One dirty bike.

It's really easy to start, you don't need a repair stand as pictured above, leaning the bike against some object that still allows the pedals to rotate backwards works great. I put the chain in the large chain ring, small cog so it spins easily during the process. So fill your crusty water bottle and spray away!

I suggest spraying the whole frame, wheels, tires, drive train and anything else that may have got salt or other grime on while you were enjoying your sweet winter bike ride. I feel the hot water is great to really clean off the gunk and salt, especially if your bike is cold, maybe it's just psychological, but what ever works for you. After you've sprayed most of the salt off, I take the rag from the bucket and give a good wipe down of the whole bike, wheels, spokes, frame, chain and derailleurs and other frame parts. Soak the rag in the bucket as needed and scrub all the salt that wasn't removed from just spraying water over your bike.

When you're done this, use your nice dry rag (I like to pamper my ride with a nice soft, cut up, old towel) and give the bike a good wipe down, wiping dry all the same parts you just washed off.

Giving a nice wipe down and special attention to detail.

The last thing I do is grab the greasy rag from my cleaning kit and wipe the chain down real good to soak up some of the water. Then I apply chain lube to the chain. Again, I'm pretty fussy so I put a drop of lube at each roller pin and bushing. You really don't need an excess amount of lube all over the chain and link plates, just enough to keep the moving bits lubed and happy.

Now that your bike is clean, dry, and chain well lubed, you'll be ready to ride on the next time, no rusted chain or ruined components from the salt and winter road grime.

 That is one brilliantly clean bike!

What I did in my extra fifteen or twenty minutes. 

Lubed all the spoke nipples at the rim with chain lube, cleaned and wiped down both wheels and hubs, used de-greaser to clean my derailleur pulleys taking off all the built up crud, pulled both wheels off the bike to give a little frame and fork inspection and polish. As well as, just a general close eye over every part of the bike, so I'm confident it's absolutely clean and ready to roll.

Bike repair isn't rocket science by any means, but if you're not into cleaning your bike, bring it down to our shop and we'll give it all the love it deserves.

Thanks for reading,

Steve

2012 Specialized Dealer Product Launch- Road Demo Day

The official start of the 2012 Specialized Product launch is now in the books and after a nice healthy breakfast consisting of fresh locally grown fruits, a few eggs, a delicious bagel with cream cheese and most important item of all, coffee, we filed into the auditorium for a welcome from the founder of Specialized, Mike Sinyard. I took this photo of him with as he began to speak, admittedly it's not a great pic with the bright, white background, but his passion for the company, and most importantly for cycling, is very infectious and inspirational. His main theme, "We are Specialized". He is very grateful and thankful to all the dealers for what we do. I'm jumping ahead of myself here a bit, but I've been hearing the same message from all the speakers at the various presentations this week, and I'm amazingly impressed with the team of folks Mike has working for Specialized, all very knowledgeable, passionate about the brand and sport, and all incredibly well spoken. They've all made me feel very positive about this brand (not that I wasn't before), and the support network they provide to us at the dealer level. After the welcome presentation, we had some priorities to attend to- riding bikes!

The 2012 S-Works Tarmac SL4

So my goal with the road demo was to expose myself to the Tarmac and Roubaix, both quite popular bikes in our market. As I'm handed the Tarmac from one of the demo folks, the first thing I notice is how incredibly light this bike is. Spec'd with SRAM Red, Roval wheels, the new SL4 frame has a 19% increase in stiffness-to-weight ratio over the 2011 SL3 Tarmac. As I ride down the lovely Monterey bike path, I feel just how well this bike handles through some tight corners, it's early in the morning, so there aren't too many tourists around and I'm able to step up the tempo a bit and stand on the pedals and sprint for a few pedal strokes, not surprisingly, the bike just propels forward with lightning speed! As I start to head out of town and off the bike path into Pacific Grove, I head up some hills and away from the coast. I love to climb hills on my bike and I am quite amazed at just quickly, and confidently this bike climbed. Returning to the coastal road and about seven miles into my ride, I really started putting some hard efforts into the pedals, trying to get a good workout in the process, but more importantly, trying to really get a feel for the bike's response to my input and force applied. Well, it answered all my questions and far exceeded any expectations that I hadn't really thought about. I have ridden Cannondale bikes for nearly all of my road riding days, but the fit and feel of this bike really has me reconsidering my brand and model of choice. 

 A parting shot, fast and furious on the 2012 S-Works Tarmac SL4

The 2012 Specialized Roubaix Pro 

The Roubaix Pro Test Ride was equally awesome as compared to the Tarmac. The last time I rode a Roubaix was in 2005 at the 2006 Dealer Launch, which was actually the first generation Roubaix. Now going on six years of refinement on the product category, they've done a very nice job with capturing and perfecting comfort while riding this bike and increasing performance as it relates to a riders input on the bike. Immediately, I noticed just how comfortable the bike is to ride. Thinking back to that first ride in 2005, there is a significant update in performance on the forth coming Roubaix generation. The bike is a little less slack in the geometry, which increases the handling capability, and makes the bike very predictable at speed and quick to react when you need it, but not so slack as to make the bike feel uncomfortable, or slow and sluggish. That balance they've achieved on this model is rather impressive and I think it's still going to be a very popular bike with our customers. As Josh mentioned in his blog review of the 2011 Roubaix SL3 Expert review it's really the perfect bike for our old beat up New England roads and for folks who want to go fast and be very comfortable on this bike.  I'll include a few more photo's from the road demo, I took more on my Roubaix ride, since I was using that as more of a cool down, I really put myself in the red zone on the Tarmac, completely on purpose of course. Enjoy the pics, and thanks for reading.


Cheers, 
Steve

 During my pre-ride check, GPS on, wallet secured, food items packed.

 Model Branding

 The mighty Pacific Ocean in the background.

Zertz inserts with model branding.

Christmas in July Overhaul Special! Save $50 bucks!

Our summer gift to you! Save $50 dollars on a complete overhaul and get a complimentary set of both brake and shift cables & housing ($35 dollar value) for the whole month of July.

  

If you've been training & riding all season or just getting ready to ride now into the fall, you might be due for a complete overhaul. Bring your bike in to Papa Wheelies for a complete overhaul. This service normally costs you $200, but for the month of July it's $150 including all new cables and housing. Call (603) 427.2060 or stop by the shop to schedule an appointment.

Two Timer on a Twenty Niner

2011 Specialized Stumpjumper FSR Comp 29 Test Bike.

Only recently have I exposed myself to the beauty of the 29'er bicycle. This post title says Two Timer because I'm feeling like I've been cheating on my regular old 26 inch wheeled bikes on the last Two Rides and because I have now done Two Rides on our 29'er test bike. Everything I'd heard and read about before actually trying the Big Wheels was all summed up quite nicely once aboard. Just Riding Along (JRA) in the parking lot of the shop on a few different bikes, was an instant attention grabber. They all felt incredibly stable and rolled nicely along.


Here at Papa Wheelies, we have two 29'er Test Bikes from Specialized, an EPIC Comp 29 in a large frame, and a Stumpjumper FSR Comp 29, medium frame size. I personally have a 2007 Stumpy FSR (26 inch wheel/ 5 inch travel bike) so I have been gravitating toward the Stumpy Test Bike, because it's in my size, but also because I like a little more travel than the EPIC has. I took sometime last week on a day off to ride some of my favorite trails at Mount Agamenticus, these are trails I know quite well and that I have been riding for a long time. I thought that would be the best way for me to compare the 29'er bike. Instantly, I was hooked as I climbed up Ring trail with ease, rolling over rocks and roots quickly and smoothly. What I noticed as I climbed up the switchback Horse trail was how less twitchy it was compared to my regular MTB. It seemed as if I could roll around the switchbacks more smoothly, where if I was riding my 26" bike, I might have had to do a bit more negotiating with my front wheel at every turn, using more energy in the process. The wheels and bike went directly to the position I pointed it, when and where I needed it, all my effort in pedaling making the bike propel forward.

 
As I summited the Big A, I looked forward to the descent toward Second Hill. I love to climb, but who doesn't love to go down hill too? As I started down Chestnut Oak I was absolutely amazed at the handling of the bike through big rocks & roots, into corners, flying with a smooth flow down the trail. Again as compared to my 26'er, I would have had to pre-jump and compress the suspension through a couple of sections to make it through smoothly at my acceptable rate of speed. Railing into some of the tighter corners, I could counter my body weight into the rear suspension, much like my 26, but even faster!  There's a rock drop/ roll off as you start the traverse over toward Second Hill that I've never felt totally positive about rolling over on my 26 inch Stumpy, I've always felt like I had to get way back off the saddle or even in some cases, I've walked down through it if the conditions were super slick or if it was really dark on some of my night rides. The 29'er just made me feel super confident going in that it was no big deal rolling down the rock and I did it with great skill, thinking to myself how much fun it was on this bike. 

Every question I asked in my head about the bike, I was given the answer in the handling and responsiveness of the bike. For example, as many riders who frequent Mount Aggie know, often times you'll be riding at a fairly quick clip and come into left a corner, through a stream and there's a rutted root section as you exit the water and corner. See pic below.

You can see at the far end of the stream the roots. On my 26 Stumpy, I would hit the first root and have to pull up hard on the front end to get my wheels to clear the roots better. With the 29 Stumpy, I was able to pop my front tire on top of the first root, along with my momentum I only had to apply a quick and easy pedal stroke and the wheel just rolled over the second root with minimal effort and less energy used. The rest of this first ride was pretty tame and I ended, feeling less "worked". 

My second ride on this bike was just the other night after a mostly rainy day. I was unsure how the bike would handle through slick rocks and roots and with other riders to influence the speed of the ride. As I reached the top of the first real technical climb on the Lime trail, I just knew the 29'er was/is for me. The whole ride I nailed the real technical climbs and rock/root sections. At the rides end, I felt great, not nearly as tired as I would have felt if I had been on my 26. Now one of the regular old 26 inch wheel bikes I own sits quietly up for sale to fund my next big bike purchase, some 29'er, bike model yet to be determined.

Thanks for reading,

Steve

Cannondale Mountain Bike Sale is on now!

Looking for a new Cannondale Mountain Bike? We're currently running a -20% off sale on the Trail SL2, Trail SL3, & the Trail SL4. Mention this blog post for a complimentary Papa Wheelies / Back Bay Bicycles water bottle. In addition, with any new bike sale, you save 20% on all accessories and every new bike comes with our legendary "Lifetime of free service".

*Sale is on while supplies last.

2011 Specialized Roubaix Expert SL3

Ninety nine percent of us don't need the absolute fastest, stiffest race bike. We don't put out over 1000 watts of power in an all-out sprint like Mark Cavendish, we're not going to pull ahead of a world-class group of climbers headed up Alpe d' Huez like Alberto Contador. We're going to go out for a few 1-2 hour rides a week and throw in an occasional century ride or 60-miler, and we're going to ride New England roads with pavement that is cracked and rutted with frost-heave lumps.

The Specialized Roubaix was built for exactly this kind of riding. Well, actually, it was built to win races like Paris-Roubaix, where the race course includes dusty, muddy, rough cobblestones covered with a patina of tractor gear oil with myriad unexpected obstacles placed between the start and finish lines. Luckily, that just so happens to describe a lot of the roadways here in northern New England too!

The Roubaix SL3 is a fantastic frame whose technology was only available on the $7000+ S-Works version of the Roubaix as recently as last year. Carbon is a fantastic material to build a bike frame out of, since it is almost infinitely tunable in terms of compliance - shaping of the tubes, layup of the carbon fabric make it possible to keep significantly stiff lateral and torsional rigidity while adding a substantial amount of vertical compliance, resulting in microsuspension that both smooths out the potholes and dampens the smaller inconsistencies of the roadway.

The thing that makes the SL3 version of the Roubaix so much better than previous versions is the way it is laid up in better sections. SL2 and earlier versions had a separate bottom bracket piece that chainstays and downtube plugged onto, which resulted in extra structural carbon overlapped and bonded together. The SL3 chainstays, bottom bracket, and seattube make up one piece that makes the bike about .25 lbs lighter, and BB30 carbon bottom bracket shell also contribute to a stiffer, lighter weight system. Size specific stays for EVERY frame size mean that there is specific thought going into every size bike, not just the 56cm one like a number of competitors.

THE RIDE
The geometry of the Tarmac is relaxed. This gives it a longer wheelbase than a race bike, which makes it more stable and predictable at speed. It is still a light (16 lbs.), stiff, responsive bike, just more like a sport sedan than an F1 race car. The ride is plush and forgiving, but there is a sort of positive springy feel to the ride that seems to drive you forward with every pedal stroke. The headtube is probably at least as tall as any of its competitors, and with the 4-position stem that comes spec'd on every level Roubaix there is a huge range for fitting you comfortably (or aggressively) on the bike.

Full Shimano Ultegra 6700 drivetrain, Fulcrum Racing 4 wheelset, and FACT carbon seatpost w/ Zertz insert all add to the ride. Specialized's own Avatar saddle is plush, anatomically correct, and comes in three widths to fit any rider's sit bones.

We have Roubaix SL3 bikes in our Test Bike fleet. Come in, get fitted, and take one for a long ride over any road, smooth or rough!