WHY IT'S RAD: With the advent of riser bars, even cross country/casual trail riders tend to forgo bar-ends these days. After spending a few months, including one nine-hour trek through the Rockies, sans bar-ends on my mountain bike, I got tired of doing the 'fake bar-end.' You know, where you hold the ends of your grips and make believe you have bar-ends just so you can have an extra hand position. I switched over to the GX2 and my hands have never been happier. I tried the first iteration of the Ergon grips a while back and was pleased with their performance, but they had palm platforms that I found to be a tad too large and the angle between the ergo palm platform and grip surface was a bit funky. Ergon got it right on the GX2, and you can adjust the angle of the bar-ends independently of the grip angle. Killer. The surface area of the ergonomic palm pad has been reduced relative to the first-gen offering, and Ergon seems to have hit the sweet spot this time. If you're riding conventional round grips and haven't tried these, I highly recommend them, either with or without bar-ends depending on your riding preference. I was a bit doubtful that the shorty-style bar-end on the GX2 would be long enough to make much of a difference, but when you take the surface area of the palm ergo platform into account, it's a perfect equation—just enough length to fully support three fingers on the bar-end and your palm on the ergo platform. The bar ends are magnesium and don't add enough weight to be noticeable just the way it should be. These grips have made mountain biking much more fun, have greatly reduced hand fatigue on the trail, and make the long slogs I take through the city on the way to the trails much more bearable by giving me a few additional hand positions to work with. Like all modern grips, these have a bolt that cinches the grip down to the bar, so they will never spin no matter how hard you pull or how much you sweat. Bravo.
WHY IT'S RAD: After spending more than a year lugging around up to 90 pounds back and forth to parks for functional strength and conditioning sessions using a 15-year-old Lowe internal-frame backpack, I began researching a better alternative. Apparently I'm the only person in America walking around in the city carrying heavy loads, because I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for, but I had several mountaineering friends who do training similar to what you see here on www.drillit.tv who recommended I look into Osprey packs. My research led me to the Aether 70, a robust, durable pack with a custom-fit option that comes with AirScape suspension, an IsoFrom Harness and IsoForm CM hipbelt (that can be heat-molded at a dealer for the aforementioned custom fit option). Available in three sizes, I opted for the Large and the 4400 cubic inches of storage space. I've overloaded the Aether more than once with a 50-pound sandbag, a 25-pound sandbag and a kettlebell, all at the same time, and I have yet to blow out anything on the pack. It has dual pockets on the sides that easily swallow large water bottles plus there's a hydration pack sleeve. In addition to a gargantuan main compartment separated from the bottom compartment/tent/sleeping bag ditch area, the top-loading pack has a nice storage space on the top flap, so it's always easy to get at my iPod, wallet, phone, keys, throwing stars, whatever, even when the pack is filled with a cripplingly heavy load. Compression straps galore make cinching down the load easy, and I've never experienced a pack that came anywhere close to feeling as good as this one did on my back thanks to the numerous adjustment options that made dialing in fit easy (even though I didn't read the directions). Big thumbs up, highly recommended for your training arsenal.
WHY IT'S RAD: As a long-time Oakley M-Frame/Razor devotee, I wasn't sure anyone could do a better job of making a cycling-specific shade than Oakley was already doing. After spending months using the Havik 2 Full, I can say that Giro has created an equal to Oakley's offerings that I can highly recommend. Well-ventilated and with Zeiss lenses, these puppies give you a crystal-clear view of the road, cars running red lights, and the ass of the rider in front of you in the paceline, even in a downpour. The lens coating isn't overly delicate, so it's not a problem to brush off snot/spit/road muck/tire spray, a critical feature if you're going to be out in a group or riding in weather. Giro was the first company to offer a higher profile lens over the nose bridge, a feature that cycling shades have needed forever, so kudos to them for spurring competitors to follow their path. The arms on the Havik's fit slightly tighter than what I'm used to on M-Frames/Razors/etc., but not so tightly that they're annoying. The pressure point is to the rear of the ear with the Havik 2's arms rather than directly above the ear as is the case with Oakley's. The look of the Havik 2's is full-on Euro-pro, so if that's what you dig on and off the bike, you're in luck.
WHY IT'S RAD: Weighs nothing, durable, fits my bottom perfectly. After two decades of trying to find a saddle I can ride without destroying my perineum and prostate, I have finally found it. It took running through literally of dozens of saddles and trying everything on the market before I discovered the Toupe. This saddle is simply the best, most awesome seat I've ever tried. I was on the first generation Specialized BG saddle the month it came out more than a decade ago. It was a great, but imperfect concept. Since then Specialized has perfected it. You can sit on this seat all day and not be any worse for the wear in the bedroom the same night—something I can't say of any other saddle I've ever tried. Once you get on the Toupe, you will no longer have to pee every five minutes the rest of the day after you ride a bike, either. That's the way cycling should be—genital pain free.
$: $170
BUMMERS?: If you're not used to riding a very, very firm saddle, the Toupe will take some getting used to as it shifts the load of your bodyweight off your perineum and onto the points of your sit bones. You'll get used to it, though, in a few weeks, and then you'll be very, very glad that you did.
WHY IT'S RAD: My first mountain bike was my mom's pink Schwinn Mirada. I essentially repo'd that rig, a mother's day gift my dad gave her, when I was 14 and getting heavily into the hot mountain bike scene at Kansas City's Minor Park. After that it was a full rigid Specialized Stumpjumper with Shimano Deore DX and thumbshifters. I remember waking up in my tent the day after I rode the 409 trail in Crested Butte thinking that I had literally broken my wrists they hurt so bad. Those days are long gone and in the interim I've had the chance to ride hundreds of different bikes, some good, some that sucked (my K2 Razorback full suspension rig comes to mind. Snapped the chainstay on that one, and it just basically sucked). I'm not a huckomatic kind of guy. That shit's cool, but I'm 34 and use my arms and hands for a living and don't have a desire to be typing one-handed. I put a premium on a bike tough enough to handle my size—6'2", 180 pounds—that's a decent weight (under 27 pounds is good, I'd love lighter but I'm not prepared to trade in my car for one of the current crop of $10,000 full carbon rigs with all the gingerbread), that climbs without much pedal-induced bob and is geared towards xc riding. Right now I'm primarily on fire roads because that's what I can ride to from where I live. I'm not in love with the blue/black/white paintjob on my Giant Anthem 4.0 and sure, I wish I was on the carbon version with XTR, but this is a very, very solid and capable rig. It's the best climbing full suspension bike I've ridden, even out of the saddle, feels solid and stable on wide-open descents, and can take a beating without falling apart. Pedaling is generally very, very smooth to the point that I just don't think about the fact that I'm on a full suspension bike. It disappears underneath me, and that's what it's supposed to do. The Fox F100RL fork has tremendous torsional stiffness, smooths things out adequately, and hasn't blown up, so it gets good marks in my book. The full Shimano XT groupo is bombproof and keeps shifting perfectly, which is great because I like riding bikes, not spending all of my time fixing them. The ancillary components like seatpost, stem, bars, etc. are all quality Race Face stuff, totally adequate, durable, and nice to see name brand components in these areas where many manu's cut corners with house brand kit. My Anthem isn't superlight, probably about 27 pounds, but I'm always confident I'm not going to destroy anything on the bike, and nothing on it is so exotic that I'll have a problem replacing it. Also, it has a water bottle mount on the downtube I can actually fit a water bottle in (awesome, don't always feel like drinking stagnant Camelbak pond scum, nice to be able to grab a bottle out the door and roll). I've also moved back to Shimano XTR clipless pedals on this rig (I'm a longtime Time user). The float isn't as buttery as the Time ATAC's I've used for years, but they also don't have the weird lateral float ATAC's have, which I don't like and which always cause your feet to migrate to the outside of their pedals thus increasing Q Factor and fucking up your spectacular, efficient pedal stroke. Have had zero probs with the Shimano pedals, entry and release is crisp, float is okay but not great, and they don't detach from the spindles like Crank Brothers pedals (which I will never use again after ripping a Crank Bros pedal body off of the axle and impaling my shin bone a few years back). I'm very happy with this bike overall. It's a hell of a value in its category, as Giant bikes usually are and allows you to do some very serious mountain biking without forking over the down payment on a house. I just wish I had the '10 model, which has a much, much better paint job. Curious to try the new Giant 29ers also.
BUMMERS?: Not into the paintjob, but that doesn't impact my ride experience. Saddles are a matter of personal preference. When will someone make a suspension fork that allows you to get up and hammer out of the saddle without bobbing like a pogo stick? The Fox Float RP2 shock on the rear of this rig allows me to do that, the fork doesn't. The WTB saddle on this rig is a genital destroyer IMO. Other folks with different ass shapes may love it. As for me, I'm looking forward to getting a Specialized seat on the Anthem at some point.
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