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The Nerdiest Bike Accessory Revealed
from Rookie’s keyboard Hello, friends Today, I am going to present to you in great detail the dorkiest bike accessory known to mankind. Can you guess what it is? Wait for it… It’s the DORK disc (DD) also known as – spoke protector, spoke guard, pie plate…rookie ring…etc. What is this in the first place? …
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Shock Pump = Great Birthday Present
from Rookie’s keyboard Hello, friends I woke up 2 hours earlier today “by accident” and decided to make myself useful and write a short piece for your favorite site – rookiejournal.com. Tomorrow, I will go to a birthday party of a fellow cyclist. To be ultra-honest, I don’t like loud gatherings, but friendships must be…
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One More Reason I Hate Carbon
from Rookie’s Keyboard Hello, friends A while ago, when I was into bike touring, I saw two road cyclists tinkering with what appeared to be a fancy set of aero bars. “Be careful,” said one of them while the other was tightening the bars. I’ll admit that at the time, I was a rookie and…
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The Nightmare Of Bike Messengers – Fixed Gear Slippage
from Rookie’s Keyboard Hello friends, Today, I saw a bike messenger riding a fixed-gear bike with a camouflage frame and fork. He was experiencing some chain tension problems on the side of the road. This isn’t uncommon, to be honest. The local messengers were often talking about “fixed-gear slippage” a few years ago when I…
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Integrating a 3x FD In a 2x Drivetrain (High IQ Tactics)
from Rookie’s Keyboard Hello, friends I’ve been on fire lately. Despite pulling pretty long hours at the courier warehouse where I’ve worked for a while, I have a lot of energy. But honestly, sometimes, we have pretty “low traffic” hours there. Today, I will tell you a little technical secret that the bicycle world doesn’t…
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“Hacking” Thumb Shifters In The Name of Hybrid Road Bikes
from Rookie’s Keyboard Hello, friends Today, I am going to tell you some important technical points regarding thumb shifters and the possibility of integrating them into a road bike/drop bar setup. Why would you want to do that? Well, the main incentive would be to combine road bars with an MTB mech (derailleurs) and drivetrain.…
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“Transplanting” a BMX Pedal On a Hardtail
from Rookie’s keyboard Hello, friends Today, I went to work with my hardtail. I’ve had BMX Odyssey pedals on it since…forever. A fellow cyclist asked me about them while we were waiting at a light. He was shocked that I was running BMX pedals on a mountain bike setup. I told him how I’d installed…
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On “Internal Flat Tires” and Rim Tape Substitutes
From Rookie’s Keyboard Hello, friends I decided to dedicate my weekend topic to a slightly unpopular biking issue known as “internal flat tires”. What does this even mean? Normally, flats are caused by a sharp object piercing the tire and the inner tube. What if I tell you that flat tires could also be an…
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Never do this…to carbon handlebars
from Rookie’s keyboard, Hello, friends Today, I saw a cycling friend of mine try to do something that should never be done – he was about to cut carbon handlebars to length with a pipe cutter. I stopped him. This is a very bad practice for many reasons. Where do I even start? The first…
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Basic Spoke Info Every Rookie Should Know
from Rookie’s keyboard, Hello, friends It’s time for another RJ post. I want to cover all the basics of cycling with my site and that of course includes wheel talk. The wheels are the heart of the bike…at the end of the day. But rookies a.k.a. noobs are often intimidated by articles about wheel-building tuning.…