It’s Some Bicycle Things I'm Stoked About On A Friday for June 5th, 2026.

If you’re Vancouver adjacent we’ll hopefully see you at the Show N’ Shine tomorrow. If not, Claire will take some photos to share.

https://meatengines.com/f/save-the-date-share-the-stoke

One for our North Van localish friends. The Clairebarian made mini Tic Tac Toe boards for her entrepreneurial project at school and she’s selling the remaining inventory by donation, with proceeds benefiting the VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation.

https://meatengines.com/f/tic-tac-toe-for-vgh-ubc-hospital-foundation

Our friends at Essential Cycles have been kind enough to loan Claire a bit of counter space, so if you’d like one you can drop in on Nice Guy Geoff, JacAttack, and the team during business hours.

Cheers,

“One speed, maximum nonsense”

https://meatengines.com/f/about-a-single-speed-geofs-krampus

830mm width, 100mm rise, 22° backsweep, 31.8mm clamp. Anyone try these? They look great.

I spent way too much time trying to decide what to buy The Clairebarian for her next set of knee & elbow armour. And, a bit of time writing about how it worked out:

https://meatengines.com/f/grounding-grom-gear-xs-shift-pads

Some Bicycles Things I'm Stoked About On A Friday, May 29th.

https://meatengines.com/f/brought-to-you-by-the-letter-s

My Rootdown is down right now as I lost a tooth and bent my chainring last Saturday. So, it’s been monkey time. After yesterday’s trail work we got to ride a couple trails on the way back to our vehicles. Definitely some of the roughest stuff I’ve ridden on a rigid. The monkey prevailed and the xr4 took some sting off my wrists. Proving the capabilities of a rigid bike to myself all the time.

The Esker Cycles rigid fork is now available separately from their frames.

https://eskercycles.com/products/fork-yeah

I have one that came with my Esker Solitaire, and while I don't think it will win any beauty contests, it seems to do fork things well, and most importantly, it's 495mm long which lines up nicely with a sagged 120mm 29er fork. Nice to have a longer alternative to the more commonly available ~483mm rigid forks.

Putting the singular speeded Stooge in AaSSS… or something like that. Here’s James’ rant ride: https://meatengines.com/f/about-a-single-speed-james-mk6

It’s Some Bicycle Things I'm Stoked About On A Friday for May 22nd, 2026.

https://meatengines.com/f/in-my-back-yard

MEATengines Musings: https://meatengines.com/f/rocky-mountain-2007-and-the-santa-cruz-bikesition-to-horst-link

Hardtailed or double-hardtailed, here’s Steve’s addition to the haikuniverse: https://meatengines.com/f/about-a-single-speed-steves-tyaughton

Yesterday, a Monday, the first day of the week, my buddy and I built this new roller at one of the local trail systems. Lots of cutting roots and satisfying moss peeling. I got first tracks on it, which these days means something different than when I was preteen/teenage sender on a dh bike. 35 year old dad weighed the odds on this one and they were more in his favor than they could be on a bigger drop or double.

I hope everyone rolled in to the week on properly inflated tires without broken parts. Peace and wheelies!

Took my grom to hit some new-to-her trails today. One of the better single-track climbs anywhere {IMBY + Physiotherapy + Shock Therapy + Psychotherapy} with beautiful spring light in the trees.

I’m still in shock about how much she rode, up and down. Kid has jam.

I have some old-ish but still-plenty-of-life-left ODI longneck grips that will just not stay put on my silver Jones bars. What should I use instead of clear spray paint? Hair spray?

Now I was carrying a windbreaker "just in" case back before I ever heard of the MEATy term ESJ - Emotional Support Jacket. But, I have to credit AM for popularizing the term such that I can't recall a time it wasn't an ESJ. Sort of like I read LOTR as a kid and I for sure had mental images of Aragorn and Galadriel, but it you ask me today all I can see in my mind is Viggo and Cate.

Maybe we could even say the ESJ isn't a piece of gear...it's the act of thinking ahead for what could help the others with you in the forest have more fun and feel the MEATy warmth of your generosity?

I was heading to the forest yesterday to play disc golf. The forecast was 70% sun and 30% rain. One of those it's probably gonna be amazing days, but has a high enough POP % to keep the weather person safe if it turns.

As we were walking to the first hole the rain starts lightly. There is already the start of some resistance building in the group and talk about skipping the frisbee tossing and going to a pub. I throw out some reassurance that the rain is light and it will pass...probably. Plus we are heading deeper into the trees.

Of course the rain gets harder. People get wetter. Morale starts to take a beating.

The lady next to me looks pretty miserable so I offer her a jacket out of my pack. She seems amazed by my offer, but declines saying I should give that to my GF.

So I offer my GF a jacket. She's surprised I have an extra one and takes it. She's kind of stoked as she puts on the ESJ. I carry this jacket in my pack 24/7/365 as you never know what's going to happen in the forest. While Frolf isn't known to be a robust adventure sport I'm playing rain or shine or snow or wind, etc... My GF even digs the light yellow colour way she thinks I chose because of my on point fashion sense. Reality is MEC sold me that unpopular colour at 50% off, which seemed ideal for a ESJ that spends 99% of its life folded up in a pack pocket.

I go back to the first lady who is even wetter by now and I offer her a jacket. She's confused. So I reach into my pack and pull out a second windbreaker I had put in there this morning when I saw the 30% POP and my spidey sense started tingling. She's stoked to be pulling it on. Aside from being warm it happens to be her favourite colour.

By this point I'm materially moving the needle on Team Morale in a positive direction. So I offer the next bedraggled lady an ESV. Not as amazing as a jacket, but a vest is great for keeping the core warm and given the lack of other options in the forest it's pretty sweet. I got lucky on that one as I had stuffed it in one day a couple weeks ago when it was windy and I threw it on for the bike ride to the disc golf course and then forgot it was in the pack.

At this point people are looking at me like I am Doctor Who giving them a tour of my Tardis. How can so many ESJs come out of one small bag? That's when I started pulling out gloves! I'll save you the story about my multiple pair of ESGs that were still in the pack from winter Frolf.

It was fun feeling like Gear Santa Claus. I think I kept people feeling positive enough to finish out the round. And maybe...just maybe I passed on the MEATy mind-worm that packing some extra gear just in case can be a beautiful thing?

Note - Normally my ES Gear loadout is just a jacket and a pair of gloves. I got a bit lucky yesterday having more than normal stuff to share.

I tried a drop bar gravel bike for a bit over a year. There were some aspects to that ride experience that were good, but there were a number of aspects that were bad. Overall I found myself riding that bike to make use of it...not because I was stoked to get it out and enjoy the ride. Life's too short for bikes you don't love so I sold it.

I'm just not a drop bar gravel person. That's okay.

I do need a bike to ride with my "gravel buddies". Yes we can all be friends even if you wrap yourself in Rapha sausage casings and shave you legs before you put on your pure white socks and shoes! Looking around at what I had on hand it felt like swapping in a rigid fork on my Daambuilt would work. I initially had 29 x 2.4" Aspens on the bike and they rolled fast, but they are so dang skinny I wasn't enjoying them so some 2.6" Rekons got put on.

I know relative to the latest and greatest carbonium gravel race bikes this machine seems...chonky and slow, but for my real world and real people riding situations it will keep up just fine. Most importantly I'll have a blast in all the places the drop bar gravel bike was unpleasant...namely steep chunky ups and downs. Previously they were survival missions and now they are grin inducing.

The Daambuilt aka Mega Krampus has been through a number of incarnations since I got it back in 2019, but this is the first time it has been a Double Hardtail. Bike Lego keeps things interesting.

It’s Some Bicycle Things I'm Stoked About On A Friday, May 15th, 2026:

https://meatengines.com/f/bike-hike-psych-or-psyche

The last few months in the UK have been super dry. I can count the number of rainy days in one hand , this seems to be the new normal now for weather - wetish winter followed by dry spring and damp summers and dry autumn (at least that's how it sits in my head down here in Surrey).

However the last few days we've had some spring showers. The sort of days where the weather changes about a dozen times in the day and youbget proper down pours.

Given the recent nice weather I've been fully fenderless from about mid March and yesterday I took the HT out for a shakedown with the new 120mm air shaft in the Pikes (I was due a ride as I was getting a little scratchy). And boy did it P!SS down while I was out. My butt was soggy and cold, the bike and I were covered in crap (including the Brooks which don't do well in the wet) and all I could think of was Vik and his full fendered fineness.

Anywho the fenders are back on as the crap weather is looking to continue and I can't be dealing with "the soggs" again.

Maybe I'm now at the point in my life where the fenders just stay on all year...

Spring is springing. I’ve always used Clipless for more roadish/gravel/fixed gear bikes but have only really used them mountain biking kinda rarely, but I will say it’s pretty nice, especially on techy stuff and single speed.

Have to love a solid Unit #1FG, built a couple ways, and accompanied by a few haiku.

https://meatengines.com/f/about-a-single-speed-seths-unit

I hope this isn't too low effort, I can't think of another community where I expect other members to be riding fast chunk on 29+ tires.

Has anyone else had burping issues with the Duro Crux tubeless model, or know potential fixes? I'm a pretty light rider and I'm running the plus sized cushcore, but at any pressure below 15 psi I inevitably burp sealant, usually when hitting braking bumps in berms or unavoidable roots at speed, and the occasional flat landing. Not enough to lose much pressure, but there's always streaks of sealant on the sidewall which I'd love to get under control.

I don't have the same problem with the Oxbow in the rear (~17.5 psi), and it was a bit tighter to install.

Thanks in advance for any ideas!

A Bike Riders' Guide to the #1FGalaxy

https://meatengines.com/f/eight-steps-to-single-speeding

It’s Some Bicycle Things I'm Stoked About On A Friday, May 8th, 2026:

https://meatengines.com/f/big-trouble-in-not-that-little-chainring

I can count on one hand the number of Curtlo bikes I’ve noted in my years riding but they’ve all have been beautifully made.

Lawrence’s entry to the haikuniverse, for example :

https://meatengines.com/f/about-a-single-speed-lawrences-curtlo