Nothing to see here folks, move along.....

Ok another question I get is why Mavic ? Why not Enve, or Lightweight or any of the other exotic hoops on the market ?  I guess when it somes down to it am a Mavic fan boy.  I do really like their wheels and apart from the Crossmax mtb line of old have never had any issues and I have also had stellar customer service from Mavic Canada on my other Kysrium's.   The one wheel that had me close to changing though was the Xentis Squad disc but it was a tubular and well..... no thanks.

Looking forward to testing these out and setting them up tubeless but for now they are wrapped in Vittoria Corsa 28's.  The Kalibra has clearance for 30C easily as well.   I am also going to de-badge them as I think they look a little different from all the matte UD carbon you see everywhere else...Stay tuned.

Mavic Ksyrium Pro Carbon SL Disc Wheelset

Air Italia.......

Scapin (www.scapin.com) is one of the most prestigious Italian brands ever, together with DeRosa, Pinarello and Colnago. In fact: the Scapin bikes are the sole mountain bikes ever to win the COMPASSO D’ORO, the most prestigious Italian Design Award.  The 2017 Scapin Kalibra recently bagged a Tech Award at the CosmoBike Show in Verona.

Founded in 1957 by Umberto Scapin, a former pro rider, the brand has become renown through time, for the peculiar craftsmanship, high quality and technological excellence of its creations.The Fontana family, owners of the Olympia brand, bought Scapin in 2005 and started investing in R&D, guided by the experience of the firm’s historical designer: Stefano Scapin.

Picked up the newest disc equipped carbon sled for Scapin called the Kalibra.  Looking forward to some good long rides and to share my thoughts soon.

T.W.'s Lake Ride. Brought to you by tapwater....( that sh&t's good )

Saturday turned out to be the perfect bookend to a pretty solid week on the bike.  2 Don Valley training rides and a pre-tour of the new Dagmar trail with Jeff & Co. 

So the plan was hatched.  A Lake Simcoe ride via Zephyr and Jacksons Point.  Throw in 2 flats ( yours truly ) 1 throw away Vittoria Open Corso tire, 1 km of gravel, a boatload of headwind and that's what the 120+ km route had in store for us.

We started out Saturday at 6 a.m. in the hopes of beating the heat and salvaging some of the long weekend for non riding commitments.  It seems everyone was pulled in one way or another.

The day was perfect, the route was somewhat new and we hit a few roads that I had not done before.  2 flats, fresh butter tarts and coffee equals good times. 

As you can see from the picture the wind strung us out pretty good coming back from Lake Simcoe but that is nothing new it seems for the summer of the changing headwind.  For whatever reason it is a curse and leg destroyer.  What doesn't kill you makes you stronger or something like that...

All in all a solid lake ride with talk of getting another one in this fall.  This weekend is the Ride For Karen and the long range forecast looks perfect.

Maple Syrup and Butter Smoooth Roads.....

Road Riding in Oro County ON.

A Trail In The Woods, In Southern Ontario.....

What a weekend, no rain and the trails are in mint condition. There are so many trail networks that fall off the overly populated locations it makes days like these even better. Only saw 2 other riders the entire day.

A couple of re-con rides equals a perfect single track day with everything thrown in, rocks, wooden stunts, jumps, climbs etc.

I want to also thank GoPro for the deal on the replacement camera in case you were wondering why this years videos have been on the low side make this note to self.

Self.. don't see if your GoPro works under water if you have not double checked that the skeleton housing you have on is indeed the waterproof one, NOT the one with the cut outs for incoming audio.

Retro Days, Retro Rides...

For those that know me personally also know I like anything old school and also anything unique. Digging through some old pictures and came across some old bike photo's. I don't know how many years this spans and this is not a complete bio of bikes long gone by a few bikes not pictured at least but a fun look back.



It all started ( the serious addiction for high end bikes that is ) with the Rocky Mountain Cirrus. I had to talk my dad into driving 2 hours to Precision Bikes in Niagara Falls USA to get my hands on all the 3-d Violet Ringle & Cook Bros parts I could save up for. I still own a fully built Rocky Mountain Altitude T.O. complete with Tioga Disc drive.



Then came the ProFlex a.k.a Slow Flex ( which lived up the nick name ) and the bike I still wish I owned, The GT Xizang with the fork I still wish I owned, The Lawill Leader 3. The Nuke Proof carbon hubs, snowflake twisted front wheel spokes were all trademark parts that carried over from frame to frame.

More pics and Retro posts to follow....

The $15 Dollar Fix for the Mavic Crapmax29 Rear Hub

My.. Mavique ( french for W.T.F. ? ) saga has been going on for a while now and I am happy to say I finally have a fix. So here goes. I originally got this wheel because I wanted UST with no rim tape. In the short time that I have had them they have been back to the distributor twice. The second time they rebuilt the wheel with a crossmax hub from another platform but the issue still occured.

I am not sure why a big company like Mavic can't fix this as it's no secret this is a problem. So if your reading this your probably having the same issue or trying to find a fix. The problem on these otherwise good wheels is the rear hub. Particularly the bushing in the freehub body. The premature wear of the stock one creates slop, shifting issues, play, noise and more importantly fustration. You don't want to spend $600 + and have these problems occur.

Enter Bike WCM. Found their store while on e-bay seeing what I could get for my used cmax29'er wheels as I had made up my mind to scrap them and stick with my Industry Nines. Read a bit about their bushing and decided to buy a set and give it a try. I ordered the oversize bushing pair as I thought since my rear hub had so much movement they would fit the bill.

When they arrived took the hub apart and decided to install them right away. There really is not that much of a difference
between the stock bushing and the bike wcm version until
you put the calipers on them and the size difference is noted.

You get a pretty detailed info sheet but there is not much to do.

In hindsight I should have gotten 1 standard and 1 oversize
but again given all the aggro I have had with these wheels
I was sure the oversize would work.

They went on with no problem and the sloppy feel that the cassette had was instantly gone. So we threw the hub back together and put it back in the frame but it was evident pretty quickly that I got the wrong size. The cassette would not freewheel so took it back off and emailed John.

Explained to John what happenned and he sent out the standard size for me to try no charge ( again hindsight being 20/20 I should have tried this first ). 1 week later the bushing arrives and again swapped them out. This time perfect fit and no more play, hub feels great.

PROBLEM SOLVED !!!



( note: there are few knockoff's on flea bay but make sure you buy from john5w76 )