Recent content by Cycologist

That's what I figured. Thanks. This week is shaping up to be bad luck for biking, at least for me. Today I was getting the bike ready for another ride when I noticed the rear tire was completely flat. This is the original Specialized tire which is supposed to have "Black Belt Puncture...

I went on a short ride today and my spoke protector broke. A few rides ago, I noticed one of the plastic clips broke off and it was not centered. I re-centered it and figured it would hold on, but today it completely broke and was flopping around on the rear hub like a dying fish. It freaked...

55/55 might be a bit much since most of the trails around here are basically flat. There are a few steep inclines here and there, but then I'll just push the power up to the Sport default, which I think is 60/60. I might try 45/45. The total elevation gain on this ride was 952 ft (290 m). I did...

Did a 50 mile ride (80.4 km) the other day up the same path I took in my previous post (all offroad, limestone and dirt, through the woods), but this time I rode to the very end of the trail. I had a full charge on both the main battery and the range extender when I started. Had the bike...

Unfortunately, I don't have the Mastermind, but my Garmin GPS does something similar. It will track the ride and charge level and estimate miles remaining. I just do it in my head. At the start of my ride, I pass a few flagpoles and get a read on wind speed and direction. I take a guess as to...

A few days ago, I did my longest ride ever on my Vado SL at over 40 miles. This was almost all offroad on crushed limestone and dirt. We have some great, well-maintained trails here that stretch for hundreds of miles and there was a particular route I've always wanted to try. I finally built...

Interesting. I've been wondering what tire I should use once I replace the stock Pathfinders on my Vado SL. The vast majority of my riding is done on crushed limestone trails and while the Pathfinders seem to work OK, they lack grip when cornering and have given me a few scares. On my old...

Some retirees golf. Others ride bikes. I'm the latter. I could never get that little white ball to go where I wanted.

I think I could live with the crankarm replacement if it only happens once every 12,000km. Still, it should never happen. I have an older bike made by GT which I've had for 25 years and God knows how many miles and it's still fine. For this new Vado, the wheel hub came loose at 400 mi and the...

I hope you're right and that this bike will give me no further serious issues. Unfortunately, my "local" bike shop that services Specialized stuff is about a 45 minute drive one-way. The next closest Specialized shop is in another state and many hours away, so I'm kind of stuck with these guys...

I recently had some service done on my bike, which may have included a firmware update. Unfortunately, my LBS is not the best and didn't make a note of whether they did or didn't update the firmware. The reason I suspect a firmware update might have been done is I have noticed a couple different...

I've also had a mixed experience with the Vado. It's a fun bike to ride, when it's working, but it gets annoying when it has constant issues. I recently brought my Vado SL 4.0 in for service since it had some major issues after one riding season. The rear hub was loose and had a lot of play...

Chalk up another bad crank arm. Mine is bad on the chainring side. I started hearing a noise and feeling a click on the right side when pedaling. Sometimes it would do it, sometimes it wouldn't, but it slowly got worse until it's now doing it all the time. At first, I didn't notice the crank...

Which end falls out? Mine came with a large rubber band to secure it to the bottle cage.

It might have been just water on the pads that caused this. It's strange that they didn't come back after two rides though if that were the case. I had to clean and sand the pads and rotor before they started to work again. I didn't have any brake cleaner handy, so I used polymer safe gun...