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Giro D'Italia 2013
Velominati Community Profile Archive

Velominatus: BikeTart

Order: Level 4 Velominatus

Social: Website / /

Purveyor of bicycle deliciousness. Australian ambassador for some UK bike-related brands. Velominati novice.

@BikeTart's activity:

To Carbone or Not To Carbone?

That is the question. Are carbon wheels a viable option for everyday riding? Should carbon wheels be your go-to wheels rather than your just-for-racing wheels? I don’t really race and I don’t own any carbon wheels and I wonder. Granted, every professional is and has been on carbon wheels for many years so it’s easy to think we sho...

@BikeTart's posts:

  1. @Daccordi Rider Please keep an eye on your brake tracks – my guess is that, after 25,000km, they are probably more than a little… concave.  This tends to lead to the rim blowing apart when you least expect it! »

  2. Carbone.  All the way. Heavier, cheap-ish 40mm carbon tubular rims (Gigantex or similar) that I don’t care about for general riding and training (and racing, on the rare occasion I actually bother), nicer rims – shallow or deep – for nice days and ‘Sunda… »

The Bikes

The Bike. It is the central tool in pursuit of our craft. A Velominatus meticulously maintains their bicycles and adorns them with the essential, yet minimal, accoutrement. The Rules specify the principles of good taste in configuration and setup of our machines, but within those principles lies almost infinite room for personal taste.It seems in s...

@BikeTart's posts:

  1. @Weldertron That’s a shop called Pavé in Barcelona. »

Solitude

The task spreads out before me like molasses poured onto a tabletop, indulging in its viscous immensity. Its growing breadth makes it a kind of enigma, the sort distinguished by an elusive end and therefor an intangible beginning. It occurs to me, at this moment, that the difference between those who achieve and those who stagnate is not measu...

@BikeTart's posts:

  1. @mcsqueak & @Buck Rogers The Giro aero gloves have no padding and are actually pretty comfortable.  Best worn tucked under arm warmers if you want to avoid the “trying to look aero” look.  As it’s summer here in Oz I might take a pair of scissors to m… »

  2. Ahh, the solo ride.  Perhaps my biggest nemesis.  Also usually the time my bike chooses to break The Principle of Silence.  Of course once that’s happened I might as well be holding some kind of external noise-cancelling stethoscope to the source of this … »

Tubulars: Art, Science, and Ritual

As Keepers Tour crossed from dream to reality and routes over the cobblestones of Northern Europe were sketched out, with it came the familiar tingling in my fingertips and uneasy sensation at the base of my spine as my mind starts its irrevocable journey towards categorizing as mandatory an unnecessary indulgence. I was going to need a wheelse...

@BikeTart's posts:

  1. A little more ritual for the tubular users: http://biketart.cc/2012/05/david-asks-the-bike-tart-or-how-i-rolled-that-spare-tub/ Also, just to note that the Schwalbe Milano is a great value training tub that actually rolls quite nicely.  At $35 or so eac… »