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We DO know about it. Even darksiders admit a car tire makes the bike handle “differently.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but nobody uses a car tire on the front, right? Again I ask, if all tires were free, would you still honestly use a car tire? Why don’t sport bike riders use car tires? If car...

Impossible to answer because of the variables, but I can offer some insight. Disc pads don’t last as long as rim brake pads, in general. If you ride a couple thousand miles a year, over rolling terrain, not too often in the rain, and are a smart rider, your front pads will easily last a year...

Be honest. Using isn’t testing. When a drunk imbibes in canned heat he isn’t testing its safety. If he gets a buzz, which he surely will, and lives to see another day he’ll swear it’s great. Well more than tens of thousands of folks do this regularly. I’m not experimenting with it to prove them...

Okay. Let me ask this: If tires were free, which would you use?

Am I misunderstanding? Are you contending that I should use car tires on my motorcycle not to save a few dollars but because they’re actually functionally superior? Is that your assertion, that automobile tires perform better on a motorcycle than purpose-built motorcycle tires?

I do know why. It’s because there are more than six hundred million motorcyclists, thus rendering tens of thousands insignificant. You don’t see headlines on the dangers of ingesting alcohol via enema either. Not because it’s safe, but only because a statistically insignificant number of people...

This logic is not only irrefutable but also a real eye opener. How foolish we’ve been with our dogmatic insistence on fitting motorcycle tires on motorcycles. I did a little digging and did you know that last year there were no CT failures on jet planes? ZERO. Remember the Concorde with the...

They (and the Italian made Alan) held up pretty well but very few let go. Recall, they were screwed as well as glued. No LBS fixed them, unless you worked for Harry Havnoonian in Philly. A lot of people broke them by prying the cast seat lug open. The carbon tubes, naturally, were more fragile.

No, they weren’t stiff but the necessity of a stiff frame is a myth. While the overweight, middle aged editors of Bicycling! magazine panned the 979 (and swooned over the 3 Rensho) a young Sean Kelly racked up a gaudy list of palmares against the fastest road sprinters in the world on his. And...

I’m opposed to bonding, but theoretically there’s nothing wrong with it. Lots of bonded components in other fields are more stressed and at least as mission critical as a crankset, and do fine. These were defective, hence the dates issued. Still, I don’t like it. And we’re talking about a LOT of...

I know a lot about school lunches because it was my job for a long time. My childhood lunches were good (though I usually packed) but they’re infinitely better now, on average. A school district near me is run by a CIA grad who sources locally grown artisanal products, if you can believe it. The...

I feel your pain. I just bought a pair of Dunlop Mutants. Almost $400. I couldn’t find anyone to mount them. Finally had a local car garage fit me in and I had to leave it three days after the appointment. The kicker? It was over $220. To mount two motorcycle tires. My old mechanic, in my old...

They do, but the truth is that there are a little more than a handful of factories that make nearly all the bikes in your LBS. Vietnam, Indonesia, and other countries recently thought of as third world manufacturer bikes for known brands. It’s been a long time since King Lou and Tony Lo made sub...

BTW, that’s an incredible value!

It also looks as if the front derailleur is a little bit high. Once dialed in be sure to remove the red sticker on it.

Oh, here’s a handy rule of thumb: if you can turn the headset spacers by hand, the headset is too loose.

You adjust the headset by first loosening the two pinch bolts on the stem by the steerer tube. The Allen bolt on the top cap is then used to adjust the headset bearings. You tighten this bolt only until there is no more play in the headset and the fork turns freely. Then tighten the pinch bolts...

That’s a nice bike, and I’m sure your wife will like hers. The two years of free adjustment and flat fixes are a nice perk for her as well.