Front, back and shoulder of the XXXXS version of the new True North Jersey. There should be a little tiny black collar going around the neck, but there is no way that is happening with my craft skills! This is the XS template, so there will be more green space on the larger sized jerseys, as the design is the same across all sizes of the jersey.

Here is one of the older jerseys for comparison.

The ‘bike’ of the day today is in fact just a stem – a one-off hand painted custom lugged stem! This is one of the prettiest piece of bike art to pass through the shop in a while. The lucky owner of this stem already has the bike to match. I don’t have any pictures of the bike at hand, but it features the same lug set, matching paint and is dressed up with polished stainless cable stops on the downtube.

• Vittoria Mastik One glue (this glue is a lot firmer than the Gommitalia)
• Three layers on the rim – the middle one quite thick
• Two layers on the base tape, one thick
• A last think layer on the rim
• Mount the tire when the glue is wet
• Mask the tire sidewall and the rim braking surface, deflate the tire, run a bead of glue in the crease between the rim and the tire

All told, 5.5 tubes of glue and four days for two wheels – Grifo tires on Ambrosio rims. I still don’t think the Ambrosio Excellence rims are the best rim for CX tubulars, but it all worked out. Croutch ran the tires around 35psi, and gave them rave reviews.

After the trying the Tufo gluing tape, I next glued the tires on in accordance with the Barnett method – three layers of Gommitalia glue on the rim, one layer on the base tape. The tires were mounted after the last glue layer had dried to tacky. The glue join was infinitely better than the tape. However, Dermont has managed to roll off one of the tires racing, so next we’ll go to the full Greg Reain method.

I haven’t messed around with tubulars much, because, well, gluing tubulars requires a lot of messing around. For the first round, I thought I’d try out tubular gluing tape. Gluing tape is essentially a gummy double sided tape, and is advertised as completely replacing the gluing process – apply the tape to the rim, mount the tire and you are done. Well, let’s see how it works. Today I mounted a Vittoria Evo XG cross tire on a Ambrosio Excellence tubular rim using Tufo Extreme gluing tape. The tire and rim were new. I scraped the cotton base of the tubular lightly, and cleaned the rim with acetone. The tape and tubular were installed following the Tufo directions.

Note that Tufo only recommends the use of gluing tape with Tufo tires, and recommends standard tape for cyclocross. Mounting the tire with the tape was easy….and rolling the mounted tire off was even easier! At 40 PSI the bond seemed pretty secure by hand – I couldn’t seperate the tubular from the sidewall of the rim. However, on the bike, deliberately pushing the front in a corner rolled the tire off. The force required was high, but definitely in the realm of what would be encountered racing. So, for this tire/rim combination at least, gluing tape is NOT recommended! Next I’ll try gluing the proper way.

The white is salt and aluminum oxide dust.  The dark in the centre is a where the handlebar is completely eaten away.  Before the tape was removed, the bike looked completely clean and to be in tip-top shape.  This handlebar was completely destroyed – I could easily rip the end of the handlebar right off.  Good thing this did not fail while riding!  What should you do about this?  Make sure you get your bike tuned up by professionals at least once a year, even if your bike looks like it is in good shape.  Stay off the trainer unless you have to – cross train or get a winter bike.  The funny thing is, winter riding does not normally cause this amount of damage, this quickly, so by staying in on the trainer, especially if you are a heavy sweater, you may be causing more harm than good.  Finally, make sure you protect your bike from sweat with towels, and wash your bike regularly if you are riding indoors!