Its been a long week, and here at PBK we came up with a hugely productive exercise. The results are in, and quite surprising to be honest. With guesses of mostly over 100psi and one up to 198psi! We were shocked to find that the gauge didn’t really even get off its stop.

The end result was a psi of approx. 8psi. This gives ‘Gunnar Soroos’ the proud honour of being the winner with a guess of 22psi.

If there are any more experiments you want trying then please get in touch, we’re willing to don the lab coats and goggles for the next one!

Also because of the flying valve and rubber please don’t try this (at least not in a confined space)

Wishing you all a good weekend

How Far Will An Inner Tube Inflate Before It Explodes? It turns out only about 8psi.

What PSI can a standard MTB inner tube take (this one in particular) without a tyre on in our yard.

We need your guesses in now, to the nearest psi please. Use the comments section below, the closest to the result will gain the bragging rights of the Pbkblog community.

We’ll be finding out the results at coffee break tomorrow afternoon (GMT) and will use our new HD video camera to record the events.

Good luck!

What Happened.

The new Ultegra 6700 wheelsets are in: click here

I thought I’d take 5 mins to take some pics (with the new super duper camera) of the rims and hubs. Out of the box they look good and certainly seem light. The front with its lack of spokes (16) looks great and cutting edge. The rear has 20. This new wheelset is tubeless tyre compatible along with the normal clincher tyre. There is no access to spokes from inside the rim, instead you have a nice smooth surface. To allow water out of the rim there is a drain hole and also useful wear indicators on the rim to tell you when they’ve had enough.

They come supplied with quick releases and a small spoke spanner.

Let us know how you get on with them!

A Little gallery of some of the pictures from our photoshoot. All the clothing in the pictures are from our PBK range, either our 2009 Team Clothing or our PBK Race Line clothing.

Oh yeah and we had this little incident.

Dan Whelan

Here’s a brief report of what Dan’s been up to for Probikekit over the last week or two.

Prescot Eagles organised the final race at the Litherland Circuit (12 August) Dan WON the junior race in style, doing PBK proud once again! He than had a go with the seniors but was pulled out. (Not due to lack of speed I might add)

Next up was the Bert Owen’s Handicap Sprint at Kirkby. In memory Of Bert this race has been run since 2001 and consists of a 500m handicap sprint. Dan was told before the start that he needed first or second to get the much coveted trophy. Given a 35m start, he was slightly behind the guy started at 225m! This huge head start didn’t give him the confidence he needed, but once rolling there was no stopping him. Winning again, Dan’s mantlepiece now has another trophy – the Bert Owen’s Handicap – Nice one!

A week later and Dan was racing in Preston (The SIS circuits). continuing his winning streak the 3rd/4th race was no problem for him and he WON!!! In a race strewn with crashes he did well to stay up and all this experience is hopefully going to put him in good stead for the upcoming Youth Tour of Wales which starts in a week or two.

Once again from PBK well done, it’s great to have quality riders on our team.

Hi we are very fortunate here to get a few products in to try to use and abuse and to generally evaluate long before they come to market, as well as a few items that are new but not unique,

First off is the excellent Castelli Body Paint bibshort, I was fortunately invited to the Castelli 24h race in Italy way back in June to race for there world team and Castelli kindly provided pre production samples of there latest designs for us to try (and keep)

So what can they do with a short you ask?? Well quite alot as it happens this short is as different as a short can be, to start with it is made of a single piece of engineered power stretch lyrca yes a single piece, it also includes integrated leg grippers, integrated so nothing bonded sewn injected or stuck on just a subtle increase in the amount of lycra content, But the real star is the pad, (ProgettoX2) this is a double skinned pad with a free floating pad next to the saddle and a fixed body hugging micro fleece next to the skin, There is a lot of science behind it , but you only need to know one thing, they work, they work very well in fact, they are by far the most comfortable short i have ever worn.

The nice people at Ritchey sent me one of there super logic seatpost to try. Now a seatpost is a pretty static thing so there is nothing to report (but that’s the highest praise going) it is light (approx 160g) hasn’t slipped , doesn’t creek there are optional heads available for oval rails (its supplied with ones for a round rail) and it is well finished, Its expensive but if you are after a premium seatpost you wont go wrong with it.

Ok a new product just in and yet to go on a bike is the New Look quartz pedal these appear to be a ideal compromise between Times simplicity , support and ruggedness and Crank bros weight, more news after the weekend.

Looks can be deceiving!

Racing – looks can be deceptive.

Raced last night at RAF Barkston Heath near Grantham. Being the last one of the season I was expecting a fair few and 4 of us at the first gate soon swelled to 9 (does sarcasm work on the internet?) for the senior race. Then the fun began, the man in charge of handicapping put me in the scratch group with a good guy called Neil (Lincs league champion 09 – nice one!) Whether it was the professional looking PBK kit I don’t know but the middle group of 4 (not what I’d call slow riders) were given about 30 seconds on us.

Us two fighting a strong headwind down one side against 4 was never going to be easy and it didn’t turn out well, we clawed the gap to 12 seconds (I think I heard as we whistled past the line) but when they realised they soon put some more time between us. So we never caught them, a shame and a good work out if nothing else! The high5 gels did a great job, on the second to last lap the constant effort proved almost too much but the cover of Neil and some previously undiscovered energy got me across the line in one piece.

I haven’t ridden flat out like that for a while and it took its toll, the steps to the shower took all my upper body strength to haul me up! A nice recovery ride today before watching the Ashes and celebrating a couple of friends’ A-level results should do the trick.

Some shots courtesy of Mr Johnson Senior (http://www.flickr.com/photos/davecrjohnson/ ) catch the great weather here, 30 degrees the car reckoned and the sun set just as we were about to finish – what else are holidays for?!

A lone PBK'er

Having a little break

My turn

At PBK we get alot of sponsorship applications sent in to us every week. Sifting through these to find someone who stands out is sometimes hard work. However when we receive one that is pretty much a comedy masterpiece it certainly stands out form the rest.

John Williams

JOHN WILLIAMS – TRIATHLETE – COMEDIAN

I’ve been reading through ‘supposed’ tips on how to gain sponsorship, funding, backing…etc for athletes over the last couple of months in aid to get myself some help with a race I\’m aiming for. Now, all the tips have told me to write formal, structured correspondence, whilst highlighting the goal and projecting a professional outlook.

I’m not going to do that. You probably have these e-mails all the time. So to stand out, I’m gonna base this on comedy and self character assassination.

Basically, I’m a ginger triathlete. Although this hasn’t alienated all my friends, it certainly hasn’t done me any favors. I spend a majority of my in lycra and rubber. Now, if I had legs carved out of rich mahogany,  it would be a good look. But, as you can probably guess (the ginger bit), I’m as pale as the background of this very e-mail. Fantastic. Now, if your still reading, good job. It gets worse.

My triathlon err…career? has spanned over 5yrs. Notably the first 3 were pretty much very slow – slow. And I’m sure there are people still out on the courses waiting for me to finish. (plus point no1, I’ve never failed to finish an event) Now the last two years have been a big improvement, triathlon wise, I’m still ginger. From finishing in the final third of the field, I’m now hovering around the top 10. Including winning my first trophy in my last event. It’s pure gold, apparently they melted two of Mr.T not-so-needed bling to create this very trophy. Yep, that’s right. 3rd Senior Male. Imagine Gwyneth Paltrow at the
Oscars for my acceptance speech. Epic fail.

Still reading? Nice!

Now, I did complete a Half Ironman distance last year, and am planning on racing the same event this year to see how much I have hopefully improved (5th of Sept 09). I will not win a trophy in this event. Although I will glue the aforementioned trophy to the front of my wetsuit, bike and running hat in homage to my past glory.

You’ve probably stopped reading.

Some bullet points about my interests;

I’m ginger
I enjoy a crisp apple
I don’t tan that well
I have a ginger beard
I once ate 24 doughnuts without licking my lips
I’m a big fan of Celine Dion’s old stylee teeth
And I feel that Rob Schnider is one of the most underrated actors of all time

Now, the *good part. (I did put *juicy in there, but changed it to good. ‘Juicy’ made me heave)

The race I’m doing is The Yak Attack. http://www.yak-attack.co.uk/ It’s a good ‘un. Never done it before, and as far as I’m aware, I’m the first ever Welshman with a ginger beard and a triathlon trophy to attempt it. It’s not going to be easy…it’s been dubbed ‘one of the hardest races in the world’. Fantastic. A brief of what I will attempt to endure….  420km over 10 days with over 8000m of climbing – peaking at an awe inspiring 5416m. With the altitude of the event in mind, (serious bit) 5,416ft, I have e-mailed the conditioning coach of the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) and British and Irish Lions for some information on altitude training, problems and other relevant factors and to my surprise, he has agreed for me to go to the WRU Indoor Training Barn to meet him in person and have a good natter about all things mountainous and oxygen depleted.

So far, I have a 4 season sleeping bag and some of the clothing needed. I’ve paid for the deposit and am looking to find a lightweight Mtb to ride/carry for the event. Now, the aim of the e-mail is to reach out to your kindness, warmth, selfnesslessnessism, generosity, free stuff, money and backing.  Could be anything from a bike, small donation, small pieces of equipment or even a ‘good luck e-mail’ will do. Nothing abusive. I already get enough of this.
I’m ginger, wear lycra and rubber and enjoys apples – I’m a walking bully magnet. In return, I will keep a blog on the net, drum up local newspaper support (I have a friend in ‘high places’ that I can blackma…err, contact about getting a couple of articles) and generally plug your product with every living breath (if you get me?).

So, if you feel the need to send me anything, or want to ask any questions…fell free to e-mail me. I’ll even put my phone number down incase you type like my father. One finger stylee. Which will take you a while.

Looking forward to hearing from you hombres,
Peace.
John Williams

Keith Bontrager famously said Lighter, Stronger, Cheaper referring to the fact you can only have two out of three (i.e. If  its light and cheap it wont be strong , if its strong and light it wont be cheap and if its cheap and strong it wont be light) This still bares true for main stream manufacturers components where there is a massive margin of safety involved.

However there is a growing market for extremely lightweight  equipment that is light and very expensive,  should this be strong too??  Well it pushes the boundaries so no this is cutting edge light weight equipment. It should be used with extreme caution and for very specific events you simply cannot expect  (for example) a 12gram bottle cage to support up to a kilo of water as you bounce across cobbles.

Also there are lots of forces involved in cycling so if you insist on ultra light equipment don’t cry when your wheel collapses if you hit a pothole at 90kph. Crashes and impacts put massive strains on components, these forces can’t be anticipated but the lighter your stuff and the heavier the impact the greater chance of failure.

Likewise a racing tyre that has puncture protection is not a puncture proof tyre, car tyres puncture,  a 190g tyre with a micron of Kevlar sheet in it will not protect you from glass and the law of averages state you will run over that glass within 3km on your first ride.

I have some lovely lightweight stuff - I have an ultra light bike for impressing my mates and it’s a joy to own and use  but my race bike is a sensible 17lb. There is a case of too light, buy the good stuff, relish in its weight and the beauty. Take a picture of it on the scales, enter a hill climb but unless your a 8 stone rake, climbing in the alps proceed with some caution. Check components regularly, use a carbon prep and a torque wrench and just accept that ultra light weight is just that, and all that glitters is not gold….

By the number of emails I’ve had through this new Ultegra is being eargerly awaited by the masses. It’s currently in our warehouse and out of the masses of boxes I managed to find the chainset to have a look at.

Click to enlarge

Borrowing heavily and obviously from the 7900 Dura-Ace it is a gorgeous looking chainset. The hollow arms and outer chainring ‘ting’ with a nice, well made noise. The finish is mainly matt silver with polished highlights along the arms and looks like it’ll stand up to rub for many many miles. This colour will please most as it’s similar to the previous Shimano and not as dark as the 7900 is.

As with all hollow-techII chainsets it’s easy to fit and keep an eye on, the chainrings have pins and machined profile all over the place for great shifting.

With the rest of the parts being in a puzzle of boxes I can’t get to the other components without causing the warehouse staff grief (we need to stay in their good books!) The pics are from the office so not the usual standard (There is a blog camera on the way), but they show the finish and outer ring design nicely.

Bike Radar got their hands on a bike with it fitted, read the review here. They gave it 4/5 and seemed very impressed. The rest of the pictures released look good.

Rating:

Keep an eye out here: PBK website