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Riding the Rails: How Material Choice Affects Your Cycling Experience
from Rookie’s keyboard What’s up, friends? The new week has just begun. Who knows what it will bring? Maybe more of the same; maybe something new and good (hopefully) or maybe just “one of those days” when you don’t wanna wake up. In all cases, it will surely bring you a new post from rookiejournal.…
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Making Informed Handlebar Choices
from Rookie’s keyboard Hello, friends What’s up? Today, I am going to write about butterfly bars a.k.a. trekking bars and drop bars. Personally, I prefer drop bars for my purposes. They are lighter, more aesthetically pleasing, narrower, and aero – hence why I used to run them on my beater road bike (currently operating with bullhorns). Butterflies…
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Catch me if you can (on pursuit bike frames)
from Rookie’s keyboard, Hello, friends It’s time for my Sunday post. Today, I will present you my take on pursuit bike frames – a somewhat obscure part of the cycling industry – but quite interesting nonetheless. Let’s go. As the name suggests pursuit frames are designed for a track cycling discipline known as pursuit racing. There…
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Legends Never Die
from Rookie’s keyboard Hello, friends Yesterday I spent the day working in a village (long story how I ended up there). On my way to the local store I saw a fairly old man (he still had a lot of energy in him) pedaling a retro 26″ MTB. What surprised me was that the bike…
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When 10+9 works…
from Rookie’s keyboard Hello, friends It’s Saturday morning. And I went to the bike shop where I work part-time early. Because later I am going on a fairly long ride, and I wanted to complete the work on a client’s bike beforehand. It’s nothing complicated – just a transition from a 9 to a 10-speed…
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The Most Commonly Confused Fixie Handlebars…
from Rookie’s keyboard Hello, friends The untrained eye can’t tell the difference between road bikes and fixies. This is how disconnected non-cyclists are from the sport. But sometimes there are details that even a dedicated cyclist cannot always pinpoint. One example would be – bullhorn handlebars and pursuit bars. If you don’t know what to…
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When Derailleurs “Slap”
from Rookie’s keyboard, Hello, friends The other day a confused young girl entered the bike shop and said something I couldn’t quite understand so I asked her to repeat her sentence. “It slaps,” she said. “What slaps,” I asked. “Back wheel….slaps,” she repeated. I grabbed the bike saddle, lifted the bike and spinned the pedals…
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Square Taper BBs Win Again
from Rookie’s keyboard Hello, friends I have a confession to make. I am a square taper BB fanboy. It’s sounds weird I know. But I am 100% certain that most people out there will be better off with a simple square taper bottom brack. And the only real incentive to get something different is crank…
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Don’t be an uneducated cyclist…(a big floor pump mistake)
from Rookie’s Keyboard Yesterday, I saw something I never thought I’d see…..certainly not in a bike repair center. Some dude was about to inflate an air suspension fork with a floor pump. When I saw that, my fists clenched at my sides, nails digging into my palms. I could feel the heat rising in my…
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Basic Carbon Fork Info Every Weight Weenie Should Know
from Rookie’s keyboard, What’s up, friends? It’s time for an evening post. Today’s article is dedicated to carbon bike maniacs many of whom are also weight weenies. Here’s the deal. If the steerer of your fork is made of carbon – don’t use star nuts. Star nuts scratch the insides of the steerers during the…