Recent content by jabberwocky

Just curious how you came up with your list of must haves? Theres nothing wrong with any of them, but honestly shopping for a bike this way seems kinda backward. Better to put forward the use to which you intend on putting it (Commuting? Leisure? Pavement only, or some dirt? Carrying a load...

We are at the tail end of 45+ years of policy treating homes as investment vehicles instead of places to live. As much as people complain about foreign ownership or professional investors purchasing homes, its completely predictable that professional investors will get involved when government...

Rad def seems like a victim of the venture capital death cult. Successful niche company took in big wads of cash from VCs looking for the next big thing, tried to expand rapidly to meet growth expectations from those VC investors and (predictably) weren't able to because growth just wasn't...

Prices have gone up, the question is mainly which idiotic policy to blame it on.

I actually think the big argument for the solid light is that it doesn't register specifically as "cyclist", it registers as "vehicle". My experience on completely unlit roads is that drivers would slow down, approach cautiously, and then pass much more carefully than with just a blinking a...

I bike commuted year round for over 12 years. Lots of night riding in the winter. My experience is that a bright, solid light works a lot better at preventing issues. Blinking lights are, IME, better at getting attention in marginal situations or where theres a lot of light pollution. But a...

Last time I went hunting was for moose in Newfoundland in 2015. We drove around in Argo 8 wheelers, which are impressive machines in their own right. Hunting does seem like an excellent niche for ebikes; you're often off the beaten path and need to carry gear, and ebikes are quiet and capable...

From what I've seen, those hunting type bikes are just emountainbikes with camo paint jobs. Don't really know much else about them.

A lot of component stuff (for example GRX vs something like Ultegra) is pure marketing. I run Ultegra on my non-electric gravel bike and GRX on the electric gravel and there isn't a functional difference between them, aside from the fact that GRX works out of the box as a 1x_ drivetrain. Which...

For the OG question, a lot of the difference between categories comes down to geometry. Its also always worth keeping in mind that bike categories are like 70% marketing. Todays gravel was yesterdays cyclocross bike which was the day before thats endurance road bike. The trends change, the...

I live further out where the trail is less heavily used, but for 12 years I lived in Reston and commuted to Vienna and frequently rode into Arlington/DC to ride with friends so my mileage all over the w&od is probably 20k miles. What is a safe speed is wildly variable, it really depends on the...

I would personally prefer people just treated others with respect instead of obsessing over superficial gestures like saying please and thank you.

Standing may be less efficient in pure energy expenditure, but it lets you apply more absolute power. Even pros in grand tours (which are basically 3 week exercises in energy conservation) are standing when they sprint or attack. There are times to sit and spin and save your energy, and there...

Lol, as the owner of a recumbent tadpole. They vary in stability; mine (a mid 2000s vintage Catrike Speed) is super low to the ground and pretty hard to tip. But the inside wheel lifting up in hard cornering is part of why they are fun. Its a different experience than riding a bike. You feel...

The good news when it comes to mechanical doping is its much easier to check for and much less ambiguous than all the various ways of biological doping. You need a motor which means you need metal and magnets and those can be found relatively simply, and if your bike has a motor in it its hard...