Friday wrap-up

Another week is in the bag. Last night I had a bit of time to throw the tires on the Edge carbon equipped wheels from GT. I mounted up a spare set of the Captain Controls/Eskars on there with tubes. Tubeless on the Edge rims is not something I want to deal with for a short term test.

Some quick impressions:

At first I was stymied by the deep V rim and the lack of presta valve stick-out that they provided. A call to GT and he reminded me that he included these little presta valve extenders in the box he shipped the wheels in. Oh yeah...that is what those little black things are. Now that was a bit of a pain to deal with. What if they get lost, fall off, etc? What about if the tube slips in the rim and the valve gets crooked enough to not allow the extender to fit in there anymore? Could that happen? Seems like.

Mounting the tires was not real inspiring as the rim was an OK fit, kinda loose, but not as bad as the DT Swiss 7.1s are. Not near as tight a fit as the Stan's Flows.

It is a narrow-ish rim, especially compared to the Flows. I lost over a 1/4" of casing width on the Captain compared to the Flow mounted tire.

Weight advantage compared to the tubeless Flow/Hope combo I have (with the same type tires, no QRs or cassette): just less than 100 grams per wheel/tire combo. Significant savings or not?

The American Classic hub feels very smooth and spins muuuuch easier than the draggy Hope hub and freehub combo. It does look like a narrower (although taller) flange though. I slipped a caliper guage between the spokes at the first cross point and it was measurable.

So, we shall see if they knock me out when I ride them. So far I am just so-so about them.

Besides that, the 100 Dollar Ride continues to mess with me. I bent the 34T cog a bit on the cassette. A bit of work with a crescent wrench fixed that. Otherwise I would have had to upgrade the cost of the ride. Sigh.

The Santa Ana winds are back, roaring across So Cal, dessicating the hills and valleys. This Sat I need to get in a pretty long ride and anywhere I had planned to go will be feeling the rage of these high winds. Ugh. At least it will be warm, likely near 80 degrees by Sunday. Nice, that.

Well, the rest of the week was not too significant. I did get another good night ride on the new lights and they are still working well. In fact, two friends want some lights now after seeing the result.

Till the weekend....

go ride a bike.