Holiday Gift Guide – Giro Prolight SLX Shoes

In about 20 years as a cyclist, I’ve owned five pairs of shoes: Diadora, Carnac, Time, Specialized—and now the Giro Prolight SLX. My first three pairs all used three Velcro straps to secure my feet, and my brief detour from the concept (two straps and a buckle) left me underwhelmed. Buckles break, gunk-up, strip, and flat-out fail. Some of them use protruding bolts that—if your foot’s shaped just right—can press painfully against bones or protrusions. And while, Velcro does indeed have the potential to wear out over time, there’s much less of a chance that your strap will snap in...Continue Reading

Holiday Gift Guide – Giro Aeon Helmet

In 2010, my favorite helmet was the Giro Prolight, a helmet that debuted to mixed reviews at that year’s Tour de France. Why mixed? Well, while it was indeed the lightest helmet on the market at the time, fitting it to your head was a hit-or-miss proposition—if it fit you, it immediately became the most comfortable helmet you ever tried; if it didn’t, well…it didn’t. Giro’s nod to the aesthetics of the original Prolight went over uneasily as well—some loved it, some hated it. And of course, Lance Armstrong’ stubborn allegiance to the company’s Ionos, meant consumers were slow to...Continue Reading

Holiday Gift Guide – The Jersey Project & Cyclopedia

With The Jersey Project, Bill Humphreys and Jerry Dunn have created a North American version of the Dutch book Koerstrui (by John van Ierland and Evert de Rooij), a book documenting more than 1,000 historic, iconic, and bizarre cycling jerseys. Visually stunning, you can spend hours leafing through jerseys from all over the world, with several pages added to the original Dutch collection by Humphreys and Dunn commemorating the North American scene.

William Fotheringham’s Cyclopedia: It’s Not About the Bike is the perfect gift for trivia fans who find themselves looking for something they can dip and out of at their leisure. Arranged...Continue Reading

Holiday Gift Guide – Mopha Tool Wrap

Enter the Mopha Tool Wrap. It’s light, holds lots of stuff, and looks good strapped to the rails of your saddle thanks to a custom leather toe strap. Hand-made from wax canvas with leather trim, the roll has 10 pockets and provides a pretty sizeable “workbench” when unrolled (16″ by 7″). If my sweetie were a cyclist, I’d individually wrap all the tools and essential items she’ll need to stock it, then stuff the whole mess into a stocking to be opened one-by-one. (I hope my sweetie’s reading, because I could use another one for my other bike.)

Pros: Hand-made, durable,...Continue Reading

Review: Handspun Cyclocross Tubulars

Recently, Handspun wanted to get a set of their cyclocross tubular wheelsets underneath us, and sent us a set of Velocity Major Toms tied around Shimano Ultegra hubs. Each is built with 32 spokes, handtensioned by Handspun’s expert wheelbuilding staff. I glued up a set of all-purpose tubular tires, adjusted my cantilever brakes to work with a wider rim, and made them my go-to set for local cyclocross races.

The wheels that Handspun sent are a traditionally built, wide-bed tubular rim – Velocity’s Major Tom. In our previous review we talked a bit about the recent surge of wide rims and the...Continue Reading