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Are You a Cyclist or a Biker?

04.20.2010 by Ray Niekamp // 24 Comments

Guest poster Don Blount’s inquiring mind wants to know.

Are you a cyclist or a biker?

I often use the two terms interchangeably to describe someone who rides road bikes.

Dictionary.com, the online reference site, provides these definitions of the two terms:

Biker – noun: a person who rides a bicycle, motorcycle, or motorbike, esp. in competition or as a hobby.

Cyclist – noun: a person who rides or travels by bicycle, motorcycle, etc.

Any difference there would be minute.

However, a member of my bike club makes this distinction:

“I must confess that I cringe when I read about us being ‘bikers’ and going ‘biking’. I’m not a biker, I’m a cyclist. Bikers wear leather and drive motorcycles and look tough and drink beer. Cyclists wear lycra and cool pro team jerseys and drive Honda Elements that have less power than one of those motorcycles.

And I don’t go ‘biking’ either. I go cycling, like I did today; 50 miles and 3800 ft on a beautiful spring day.”

Perhaps the confusion comes from ‘mountain biking’, which means to ride a mountain bike. This is a sport I am unfamiliar with, but which I believe is distantly related to cycling even if I find the bikes repulsive looking compared with svelte road machines.”

By his definition, I would be a cyclist.

How do you see yourself? Are you a cyclist or a biker?

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Categories // guest post, Odds 'n ends Tags // Blount, guest post

Camelbak Podium Water Bottle – Review

03.14.2010 by Ray Niekamp // 4 Comments

Guest poster Jeff Hemmel says if you’re looking for a good water bottle, this is the one to try.

Ray’s recent post on water bottles exposed something interesting. Namely, there are quite a few fans of Camelbak’s Podium water bottle. The proof is that, in a world where cycling enthusiasts often get bottles for free or pick them up dirt cheap, people will actually pay a premium to trade up to a Camelbak.

I’m one of those people. In fact, I’ve paid for two, and may even grab another insulated model before the height of summer. Here’s why.

Like a lot of people, I viewed the Podium with a little skepticism the first time I laid eyes on it. It was probably the whole “reinventing the wheel” thing. After all, a water bottle’s a pretty simple thing. Why throw a lot of tech at it? Even when I ultimately bought one, it was because I liked the bottle’s looks more than I bought into its hype. But after using it for a while I suddenly noticed my other bottles remained in the cupboard, while the Camelbak was on constant rotation.

One reason is the Jet Valve. Rather than a conventional bottle’s pull-up nozzle, the Podium features a medical-grade silicone “valve” that doesn’t drip or leak. Squeeze the bottle and the valve opens up. Stop squeezing and it clamps shut. No grabbing the nozzle with your teeth to pull it open while riding, pushing it against your chin or hip to close, and no sticky sports drink drips on your clothes or bike unexpectedly. Just grab, squeeze, and stick it back in your bottle cage. Should you want to more permanently close the bottle, like if you throw it in a gym bag, you can turn a rotary valve at the base 90 degrees to stop any flow.

Another reason is the 100% BPA-free, polypropylene bottle material. Camelbak calls it TruTaste, and claims it lets you taste your drink, not plastic. I’d say that’s true. You don’t get the nasty taste you get from cheap bottles. Podiums are also lined with HydroGuard, an antimicrobial embedded into the bottle walls that inhibits bacteria growth that could result in odors, discoloration, and deterioration. I’ll take them on their word on that one, as I’m pretty good about washing my bottles after every use.

That polypropylene material is also, however, exceptionally soft, even in the insulated version I picked up as my second Podium. I received another “name brand” insulated bottle as a gift, and it’s ridiculously hard to squeeze. That may seem like a silly thing to gripe about (what am I, some kind of wimp!), but when you’re looking to grab a quick gulp on the fly, it’s nice to be able to squirt your bottle without a second thought, rather than actually squeeze with concerted effort just to get a decent flow.

So what’s not to like? Some would say the price, although I’d argue an MSRP of $8 ($12 for the insulated Chill Jacket version) shouldn’t be enough to sway anyone from avoiding a Podium. I’d also note the Jet Valve design makes a Podium a little harder to clean. The top of the valve forms almost a small, tight cup, which is hard to get into with a sponge or bottlebrush. Camelbak says throw the cap in the dishwasher. The bottle itself, however, should be hand washed.

But that’s really the only bad thing I can say about it. Others agree. Loren Mooney, the editor of Bicycling, noted last year in an Editor’s Letter that she also thought the Podium was a gimmick, but quickly became a convert.

So yes, apparently you can build a better mousetrap…or at least, a better water bottle.

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Categories // Accessories, guest post Tags // Accessories, guest post, Hemmel

The Chamois Cream Showdown

02.21.2010 by Ray Niekamp // 15 Comments

Guest poster Jeff Hemmel compares two major brands of butt lube.

I’m 40 miles into one of my usual rides and there’s a battle raging in my pants.

The combatants? Two chamois creams, each holding onto their own piece of territory. In this corner, weighing in at $19.99 for an 8 oz. jar is Paceline’s Chamois Butt’r, a pretty common cream found in many bike shops. In the opposite corner, weighing in at a daunting $24 for a 4 oz. tube, is dznuts (pronounced DEEZ-nuts), a premier high-end brand.

Which will take the title in the, uh, end? I’ll let you know as soon as my nether regions finish sorting it out.

Go ahead and laugh, but this is serious testing, from a bona fide professional journalist. Before my ride I had carefully measured out equal amounts of both creams (or just grabbed a two-fingered scoop), applied the creams to specific boundaries of my anatomy (or as specific as you can get when you’re messing with an area you can’t really see), and then got on the bike and rode a precisely measured course (I just go up to this sign, which is about 22.5 miles from home…and turn around).

Why? To find out once and for all if one glob of goo can actually be worth more than twice the price of the other. And yes, let’s face it, just to have the opportunity to say something about Dave Zabriskie’s nuts in print.

One difference between the two products is immediately obvious. Dznuts is a thicker viscosity cream with an almost whipped appearance, where Chamois Butt’r is somewhat lighter, with a shiny, almost watery look to the surface. Apply them and both provide a cooling sensation. On the road they maintained that feeling of coolness, but with subtle differences. Chamois Butter’s sensation was slightly more pronounced, dznuts a little less in your face. (No jokes about the butt-face jump in logic here.) Other than that, however, both seemed to do the job. Late in the ride I did feel like dznuts thickness helped it to stay on slightly better, where the less-thick Chamois Butt’r may have been losing a little of the battle to sweat. The cool sensation of the Chamois Butt’r, however, seemed to last slightly longer than the dznuts, perhaps distracting me a little more from how long I had spent in the saddle. At the end of the day both washed away, from me and my chamois, with soap and water.

The Euro Version of Chamois Butt’r contains menthol, witch hazel, and Brazilian peppertree, but contains mineral oil and a few other ingredients that give a natural ingredients proponent pause. Dznuts relies on tea-tree oil as an anti-bacterial and anti-fungal, Evodia, a Chinese herb, for wound-healing and anti-inflammatory purposes, and Masterwort for its wound-healing and calming properties. It claims a more organic approach, trying to stay as natural as possible.

Why avoid certain products? It’s up for debate. Mineral oil is petroleum-based, however, and has been blamed for doing everything from promoting acne to messing with cell development. It’s also, however, the basis of many baby oils. You’ll just have to make your own call on this issue.

So back to the original question — is one worth twice the price? Probably not. Both get the job done. A lot of dznuts premium probably goes into its fancier, high-end packaging. I do like that it’s a more natural product, however, and I prefer its texture and consistency.

[lasso type=”table” id=”1″ link_id=”2152″]

I said I’d let my nether regions sort things out, and truth be told, my butt has apparently been telling my brain to go for the dznuts, as it’s the cream that’s been seeing the most use since the initial showdown. Once it runs out, however, the butt and the brain will likely have to factor something else into the equation — the wallet — before the next purchase.

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Categories // guest post, Review Tags // chamois cream, guest post, Hemmel, Review

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