Product Test: HALO II HEADBAND (pt.1)

Last year I started using a regular old NBA style sweatband under my helmet during the summer months. It worked great....until you stopped for a rest. Of course the solution is to NEVER STOP TO REST, but I'm a regular cyclist, not a pro, so sometimes I stop. We all have to stop at stop lights (sometimes) right?

Anyway, the NBA style sweatband worked great at soaking up sweat, but stop for just a second and all of that sweat would come streaming down into my eyes. Then I'd take the backside of my glove and rub my eyes, which just made more sweat go in them. Then my eyeballs felt like someone was jabbing them with a red hot poker for the rest of the ride.But even that was better than no sweatband and having sweat run down into my eyes as soon as I started perspiring.

This year I'm going to give a new solution a try. While browsing REI I discovered the HALO II PULLOVER HEADBAND.

At first glance I thought it was just a reworking of a standard sweatband, with a little bit different shape, but the real difference is on the inside.

 

The yellow rubber strip is known as the SweatBlock Patented Seal (no really it is a legit patented) and it is the reason I opted to shell out the $16.00 price. The seal is pretty self-explanatory, but for those of you who don't get how it works, the seal creates a channel about an inch above your eyebrows, and is supposed to channel liquid back and away from your eyes and face. Think of it as a rain gutter for your mug. 

The HALO II is available in a wide range of colors and is made from Dryline® Visa Endurance Fabric which is a blend of 63% Nylon, 23% Polyester, and 14% Lycra. The result is an incredibly thin product, which is nice because the old NBA headband I was using was almost too this to get a helmet over. However, I am thinking that the HALO II will be more about moving sweat than absorbing it. I'm okay with that, but we'll need to see how it works in practice. The feature set says it is anti-microbial, odor resistant and quick drying. I'm hoping for excellent performance on all of these since they are all areas where the NBA sweatband fell short.

Initial fit seemed pretty good and after wearing it for a few minutes I forgot it was on. That works for me, but I'll be keeping an eye on the elasticity and hoping that it doesn't get loose. 

I'm ready for some summer torture testing. You can probably tell from the pic above, and will shamefully admit, that I probably get more sweaty than some of the super fit cyclists out there. That is one of the many reasons why this blog is called "Regular Cyclist" not "Unsponsored Pro". So this thing is going to get a proper thrashing, which I'll report back on in a month or two. 

I'm thinking that a replacement once a year would be cool with me, and I'd be interested in hearing what you think the lifespan of a product like this should be. Let me know. 

Lake Lanier Cycling Photo

Nothing here but a swell photo of my Scott S-50 at Lake Lanier, Flowery Branch Georgia.

Airborne Seeker Mountain Bike

I want one so bad!

Haw Creek Claims a Victim

My buddy Jay and I hit Haw Creek Park for a cold riding session today. It was not intended to be anything heavy, just a chill ride so jay could test out his vintage 1991 Specialized StumpJumper which he recently converted to a single speed. I call it FrankenBike. 

This bike is pretty rad. It has a super cool lightweight tube set and was actually on the high end of the range when it was brand new. Combine decent specs, the single conversion, and the steep angles and you get one light, quick handling machine.

The ride was a short but fun one. It was fun because the locals have done some work on the trail since we were last there. We found this out when I took a new section and Jay stuck to the trail we knew. I sort of thought the new section would run parallel to the old one, which it did for a while, but then it abruptly hooked back into the woods, and I decided that since Haw Creek is pretty small, I'fd take the gamble that it would sync back up with the regular route.

The next few minutes were awesome. Very cool twisty turney singletrack with a few jumps, a wooden bridge, and rolly-poly elevation changes that made the new cut like riding a skatepark. Very fun. It did indeed sync back up with the trail Jay was on.

The ride was short because when we headed out for a second pass, about 1/3 of the way throgh Jay broke his chain. We both had no tools because Haw is so short. We just walked the climbs and coasted down the new cut section back to the cars.

Oh well.

The thing is, Haw Creek is about halfway between my hut and Jay's, so we ride there pretty often even though it is short. We use it to log miles and stay active, but it is far from a fave trail. That may have changed now that the new section has been added. It is also a directional trail so I can't wait to go back and try it again "backwards".

Strange Find on Fun Ride

The weather here in Georgia was incredible yesterday given that it is February. So of course I headed out for some miles on the road bike. On the back side of my ride, I noticed a green and purple duffle bag not too far off the side of the road in an industrial park area. I decided to double back and check it out. You're never going to believe what was in the bag:

When I first looked in teh top of the bad and saw all the glass, I thought, "Holy crap this is a mobile meth lab." But as I started to dig the stuff out it turned out to be weed and meth smoking paraphernalia. At the top there are two empty rifle bullet magazines.

There were two bongs, the large one was made from two pyrex containers modified to be comppressed together by a set of springs. The other was a smaller and still had weed in the hitter, The location was about .5 mile from a local bike shop, so at least 3 times while I was pulling this stuff out and examining it riders went past that asked if I needed help. Thank goodness I was able to wave all of them on without having them stop. Then it occurred to me that if a cop came by, the situation would be very difficult to may be very difficult to explain. I decided I'd better put everything back and get on my way. 

Before leaving I did grab a quick photo of the meth related irems, White stains on the stems are not from weed.

The rest of the ride was very rad for a while. Wind was heavy on the way out so it was all at my back for the return trip. Then I got to Buford and this happened:

Phone camera just would not let me get a shot of this in focus, but you can clearly see that its a safety pin. I had a patch kit, a new tube, and two c02 cartridges with me, First I tried to patch the hole, but I think I got over zealous with the little metal tool that you're supposed to rough up the patch area with. I put air in, it came right back out. I was about 6 miles from the car so I had to make sure attempt 2 with the new tube worked, or I was gonna have to call the sag wagon. Took my time since there was no reason to rush and the 2nd attempt went fine. 

The rest of the ride went pretty well and I ended with about 22 miles total (but only 600ft of climbing).

I wonder what I'll find out on the road next. I find stuff while biking all the time, The craziest thing I ever found was a working Nintendo DS video game. I still have it!

Shimano 2300 STI Shifter Wire Replacement pt.1

Took my first ride of 2015 today with my buddy Jay. About 3 miles into the ride my rear shifter "broke". It would only shift across 3 cogs and then only sometimes. My bike has Shimano 2300 STI shifters, which is a 3x8 system, the cheapest Shimano makes as far as I know. They are about 2 years and 4000 miles old.

Since there is a triple on the front, and we were just doing about 10 easy miles, I opted to finish the ride, and we had a pretty good time. Once I got home it was time to dig in and find out what was going on.

First thing I did was actually run my finger along the downtube portion of the inner wire. I could feel a channel spiraling through the length of the wire, which I thought was kind of odd, and it made me suspect that a single wire had unraveled. The thing is though, I am sure I would have noticed a single strand unraveling the entire length all the way up to the shifter, but I never did.

Next I disconnected the wire from the derailleur and sure enough, up inside the shifer, the wire had gone berzerk...

I have never actually replaced an STI inner wire, because this is the first one that has ever gone bad on me. With this particular set of shifters it doesn't seem too hard. The most difficult part of the repair so far was pushing the wire out of the shifter without having it break and get stuck inside. What I had to do was unravel some additional strands that were keeping me from sliding the end of the cable ferrule down the wire on the inner side of the shifter. A little work with some very small needle nose pliers and I managed to get the ferrule to slide about 6" down over the wir, so then I was able to push a few inches of the wire out the outside edge of the shifter. I left it partially in the shifter for now. I have my reasons for this. Also, in order to get access to the hole which the wire installs through, the brake lever needs to be pulled in pretty far.

While I was working on the inner wire, I did not notice that Lucy (my black lab) had decided to munch on the cable housing and ferrule from the rear section. This is what it ended up looking like by the time I caught her in the act.

She pretty much destroyed the metal ferrule, and there were some tense moments where we thought she had actually swallowed it. Thankfully we found it.

So...at the moment, I am -pretty sure- that the actual shifter is fine, and I'll try replacing the inner wire before making the leap to getting some new shifters. Also on the table is possibly upgrading ALL of the cables to a fancy upgraded set. The cables I have now are Jagwire, but I am considering some of the colored aftermarket Jagwire biz. I think it would look pretty rad...

2014 End of Year Stats

Year-to-Date Distance 2,569.1 mi
Time 206h 27m
Elev Gain 93,222 ft
Rides 206

All-TimeDistance 5,645.4 mi
Rides 491
Biggest Ride 52.5 mi
Biggest Climb 509 ft

The all time stats you see here started in July 2012. Prior to that I was keeping logs using a Cat Eye bike computer and some spreadsheets.

Rode 395.9 miles than last year.