Bike Wrapper Pre-view

Sharon Surly Cross Check Bike Wrapped!

Bike Wrappers are a set of 3 velcro attached cloth sleeves for your bike’s frame. They have two sides: fashion [shown above] and reflective silver. The fashion side dresses up your bike and also protects the frame from leaning up against poles, bike racks or walls. The reflective side offers some extra visibility when you are out at night.

Hearts...

Switching between the fashion and the reflective sides takes a few seconds. You can also swap a set of Bike Wrappers between two different bikes very quickly.

Naked Cross Check at night...

Bike Wrappers are well made and pretty snazzy in fashion mode, but do they add a lot of visibility to your bike at night?

Bike Wrappers fashion mode at night...

I’ll be away a fair bit for the next couple weeks so I didn’t have time for any elaborate testing. I just setup the bike in my yard and shoot some flash photos from various angles to get an idea of what the bike would look like at night.

Reflective side of Bike Wrappers on frame...

So far the results are promising. You definitely get some addition pop from the Bike Wrappers when the reflective side is installed and you hit it with some light.

Fashion side installed from rear at an angle...

In general I don’t think having reflectors on the side of your bike is that useful because by the time they are in a car’s headlights you are either about to be hit or you are fine.

Reflective side out from an angle to the rear...

So I tried some shots from the rear at an angle and then from almost directly behind the bike.

Fashion side out from almost directly to the rear...

I didn’t bother from to shoot any photos from directly behind the bike as the Bike Wrappers wouldn’t be visible and the bike’s rear reflectors would cover that angle of approach well.

Almost directly from the rear with reflective side out...

In all these test the Bike Wrappers add significantly to your night time visibility when installed with the reflective side out, but of course there was no rider on the bike to obscure the Bike Wrappers. I suspect the rider’s body/legs will generate a strobe effect as the bike moves through a driver’s line of sight.

When I get back from my travels I’ll setup a more realistic experiment with my F150 and a video camera where I ride past the F150 and we’ll see how effective the Bike Wrappers are in that test.

Looking good...=-)

For now Sharon is pretty stoked about her jazzed up Cross Check and she’ll be using her Bike Wrappers on her daily commute to test how they stand up to regular use. I’ve got a set of more manly black/white/silver Bike Wrappers I’ll install on my 26″ Surly LHT build. We’ll provide some additional review comments later in the summer.

Surly 26″ Wheeled LHT Inital Impressions…

Time to ride...

Although my 26″ wheeled Surly LHT build project is not finished I’ve done enough wrenching so I wanted to taste the fruits of my labours and see what I thought so far. I’ll just touch on a few topics in this post.

On my way to get some groceries...

26″ wheels and 2.15″ Schwalbe Big Apples

• big rubber lots well proportioned for the 58cm LHT
• it rolls well over a variety of surfaces
• rewards a moderate steady effort, but doesn’t want to ride crazy fast
• tires are heavy as is rear wheel

I’m enjoying the monster truck vibe of the current wheelset/tires. They aren’t performance orientated, but they do roll just fine at a moderate cruising pace. The beauty is that they just keep rolling and rolling and rolling no matter what get’s in the way. Yesterday I was run off a narrow paved road onto a bumpy dirt shoulder and then slammed into and off of a square concrete curb scoring some air before landing back on the road. On my 700c LHT with 35mm rubber that would have likely resulted in a crash and/or some wheel damage. With 55mm of soft rubber underneath my 26″ wheeled LHT I didn’t even bother touching the brakes as I knew the bike would handle the sudden obstacles without drama. For 5km-15km around town utility/transportation riding missions these wheels are a blast. If I was going to run this setup 24/7 I would invest in a higher uqlaity rear wheel to lose some of the unneeded weight back there. I’d also invest in the liteskin version of the Schwale Big Apple for a faster rolling balloon tire.

Lovely Velo Orange water bottle cages...

650B & Grand Bois Hetres

• fast and comfy
• I love this setup on my rando bike
• would provide a spare wheelset if my primary wheels on my rando bike fail
• not nearly as plush as 55mm Big Apples, but much faster

I have some 650B Velo Orange rims leaning against my garage wall waiting for some love and a spare set of Grand Bois Hetres 650b x 40mm tires that I could use on them. I love these tires on my rando bike and having a second 650B wheel set in operation means I have a spare should my primary wheels fail before a ride or even to take with me to a big event as a spare emergency set. The downside is the don’t exist yet so I have to spend a far bit of $$$ [new hubs, spokes, wheel build & new brakes+ levers] to make them happen and they won’t be nearly as plush as 55mm tires.

To be honest both options have a lot of merit and maybe in the long run I’ll do both. For now I’ll ride the 26″ wheels I have and give it some more thought. I’m enjoying the monster truck vibe well enough at the moment….=-)

Velo Orange stem mounted bell...

Velo Orange Rando Bars

I’ve really enjoyed the shape of these VO Rando bars. The complex curves all seem to fall to hand very naturally and make my hands happy. I ended up with a fairly narrow set [37cm at the brake levers – 44cm at the flared ends]. I need closer to 42cm at the brake levers so I’m going to have to swap these out for a wider set. VO makes a set that are 48cm at the flared ends which will likely be perfect for me. Speaking of the flared ends it’s nice to be able to have both a narrower position on the hoods/in the drops and a wider more stable position further back towards the ends of the bars. The VO stem and headset mesh well with the bars and the LHT. They provide a classy modern look. No issues with any of these items so far – although it’s early in the game.

Velo Orange Bell & Bottle Cages

I use a similar setup on my rando bike and they are very nice to use. The bell is attractive and stays out of the way until you need it. The sound is pleasant and isn’t overly jaring which makes for friendlier encounters with other bikers and peds. The bottle cages are light and grip a bottle securely even on bumpy roads.

The elusive Acorn Roll Bag...

Acorn Roll Bag

My online buddy Gary helped me score this Acorn Roll Bag [thanks Gary!…=-)] I’ll use it on this LHT and my rando bike depending on what’s going on at the time. The Acorn bag will get a full write up later in the year.

VO elk hide chain stay protector...

VO Chainstay Protector

The VO chainstay protector looks nice on the bike and keeps the chain off the chainstay. I have one on my rando bike as well and so far it’s worked well.

Ortlieb panniers on an OMM Sherpa rear rack...

Ortlieb Bags on OMM Rack

Ortlieb bags and OMM racks are my go to solution for carrying gear on most of my bikes. They’ve served me well for a decade plus. You can’t go wrong with them.

Bike Wrappers...

Bike Wrappers

I put a set of Bike Wrappers on my black 58cm LHT. They fit on the bike without issues although they don’t cover as much real estate on this big frame as they do on Sharon’s Cross Check. Sharon has been complaining about her commuter MTB’s ugliness and since she is forced to ride it until her Cross Check is back in action I think I’ll move these Bike Wrappers to her current commuter to make it a bit easier on the eyes. I haven’t tested the visual safety aspects of this product yet [the dark times they are coming!…=-)], but they do provide an easy and very fast way to change the look of your ride if you want a different feel without committing to the $$$/effort of a repaint.

Might as well get rid of some recycling...

Downtube Friction Shifting

So far the 9 speed drivetrain has worked well. I’m fine with the limited gear range for my utility riding around town. The shifter falls to hand well enough and I like the simplicity of this setup. Using a friction shifter with a cassette designed for indexed shifting isn’t ideal as any offset from a narrow optimal cable position results is ghost shifting under power. I don’t shift like mad so it’s only a minor hassle to tweak each shift to get the right derailleur position. I’m going to keep the shifter on the downtube so in the long run I will either get an indexed downtube shifter or a cassette that isn’t ramped and pinned for index shifting. I’m not in a rush to make a change on this.

VO Crankset

I’m only using the smaller ring of this double crankset. I can manually shift to the larger ring if I need to. Despite a long BB spindle these cranks have a very low Q-factor. I’m not overly sensitive to a variation in Q-factor so this is not terribly important to me. I haven’t noticed any flex in the long BB spindle, but I’m a fairly weak rider so that’s not shocking. Not much to say about these bad boys – I turn my feet, the chain goes round and my Trucker trucks…=-)

Surly Cross Check Nexus 8 Shifter Update

Sharon checking out the new control setup...

Sharon has really been enjoying the Titec H-bars on her Surly Cross Check daily commuter. The only point of dissatisfaction was the Nexus 8 twist-shifter took up too much room on the bar necessitating a hacked Ergon Grip that was too short to be comfortable. The solution was either a Jeff Jones Loop H-bar [with a longer grip area] for $120+ shipping or a Alfine 8 speed trigger shifter for ~$50. In the interests of cost we went with the later.

The problem is that hacked right Ergon Grip...

The comfort issue is pretty obvious looking at the photo above.

The new setup with Alfine 8 trigger shifter and a decent sized Ergon Grip...

Swapping out the Nexus 8 twist shifter was a breeze. I love how easy the Shimano IGHs are to work on…=-) I still had to hack a small bit off a stock Ergon Grip to make it fit, but this time that left a reasonable amount of hand space on the grip and a smooth transition to the controls.

Sharon tries the new grip/control setup...

Sharon’s initial reaction was positive to the new configuration. I’ll let her commute on it a few days and then we’ll tweak the position of the components as needed.

The blue beast ready for more commuter action...

Since I had the bike in my work stand I took the opportunity to check the brakes, chain tension and fenders. I lubed the chain and added some air to the rear tire. Because of the IGH and quality parts this bike sees daily use and doesn’t need much maintenance.

Sharon is really enjoying the Donkey Boxx and it’s performed solidly for her. She gets lots of positive comments on it and questions about how she built it…lol…she has to let people know it’s a manufactured product not a DIY project.

Sharon hearts her Bike Wrappers...

We have so much daylight at the moment in Canada that Sharon hasn’t had a chance to use the reflective side of her Bike Wrappers yet. However, she’s digging the heart print on the “fashion” side and would be happy with them even if they didn’t have a reflective option underneath.