Author: Grannygear

Lizard Skins was kind enough to supply a couple of the new offerings for 2021 in their cycling glove line. One pair is long fingered and one pair is short fingered and both are what I would call a light weight glove as far as warmth/fabric. I have used them for a bit now, one pair much more than the others…see below about that…and here are my thoughts.

Thank you for joining me for Part 2 of this Round-Up. Hit that link above if you need to read Part 1 yet. Now then, let’s get back to the lights at hand. I am just doing a quick overview for now. When I look at these one at a time I will fill in more details.

It’s almost Fall. Of course in So Cal that does not mean much except that the days get shorter and it is not 105 degrees. No leaves will fall as they have all died of drought and have already fallen or they have burned up in some forest fire.

There have been a lot of recent reports and discussions on how much of a difference ‘better’ wheels make on a bicycle and if they are worth the cost of the upgrade. Do lighter wheels actually matter? Is aero everything? Are red hubs really faster?

So far the Masi Brunello has been smooth riding, good accelerating (especially with the Astral wheels on there), and quite willing for multi hour rides across varied road surfaces.

Now I often ride pure roadie wear on my gravel rides if they are long and fast over mixed surfaces…a typical gravel experience for around here. But for less of a ‘pace’ or for stuff like light bikepacking, I would grab the Explore stuff every time

There seems to be a run on green shoes of late as these are the second set I have seen in green….and I like it. Great color, in my opinion. But is it a great shoe?

GORE has been winning with me of late with clothing that really has been working well. This, after some other items that were real misses, has been a great surprise and has filled out my go-to list of staple clothing quite nicely.

One of the first real rides I did on the Trailblazer wheels was a 50 mile mixed surface loop running the Touareg tires. Now I got a bit suckered into this one. You know that friend that says that “it’s a 30 mile ride with a couple of hills” and it never is? Yeah. That friend. I have one of those.

All of these are not the ‘typical’ multi-tool that you would carry for three different reasons, but all of them serve a useful purpose. Outside the box can be a good thing.