Fat Bikes, Through Axles & BoB

 The first Fat Bike was ridden in the Sahara from Zinder to Tamanrasset in 1980 by Jean Naud. Using Michelin prototype tyres his journey is recorded in his book Trois Rous Pour Timbouctou. If anybody knows of an English translation of this book please let me know. The fat bike we know today sees its' roots in Alaska and New Mexico between Simon Rakower of All Weather Sports in Fairbanks Alaska and Ray Molina in New Mexico. Ray wanted them for his guided desert tour business. Simon's interest came from being involved in the tech support for the then Iditabike Race across the snows of Alaska. Mainstream availability comes in 2005 with the emergence of the Surly Pugsley frame. Since then we have seen most major brands bring a Fat Bike to the market and tyres appear in standard catalogues.

The history of the Thru Axle has yet it appears to be written, even in the Wiki Book of Lies. A far from extensive search discovered two patents raised in 2006 & 2008 neither from a major manufacturer. The RockShox Psylo has been around since 2001/2 so I can't really illuminate much here. Fair to say the various specs are established in the MTB world, rapidly arriving in CX therefore road thru axles are only a matter of time. Ben Delaney's article in BikeRadar points to the age old saw that the manufacturers want a standard system to allow customer choice. Historically in my experience this ends up with a number of differing standards. (Think BB30)

Where does all this fit in with us here at Amba? Well fairly regularly we get asked if there is a way to fit a Bob trailer to a bike with a rear thru axle. Until late last year the answer had always been no. I then fell across the Robert Axle Project and I finally had an answer. I followed them on Twitter to see what they were up to and was pleasantly surprised with a follow back and an email to the office asking if we'd like to distribute in the UK. Sadly this is too niche even for us so we declined the offer but the thru axle brigade have a BoB trailer attachment solution.

Fat bikes reared their head this week with a customer wanting to tow his BoB with his Surly Moonlander 29er with 5” tyres. Unsurprisingly this is all too much for the 28” fork version of the BoB trailers. A short web search threw this answer up on the MTBR forums. A neatly engineered solution. Further down the thread is a link to Coastkid's blog from 2011 where he has radically modified a BoB to work with his fatbike.

Two solutions for the dedicated fatbike rider in a week and one for the thru axle crowd I thought that was worth putting fingers to keyboard.

Waterproof Rating Systems

Overboard iPad Case

Did you ever start researching something then almost instantly regret it?  With Amba Marketing distributing Overboard waterproof kit to the UK cycling world I thought it apposite to gen up on waterproof rating systems and how they relate to each other.  This could get as messy as light output was!  

The ISO in all its' wondrousness deals only in packaging, electrical components in motor vehicles and exposure to radon.  Waterproof standards are there for materials and almost everything else I could imagine but water resistance of a non safety specific manufactured item no.  Footwear gets one and it doesn't seem a massive stretch to take that to specialist outdoor goods but apparently not.  Looking through the clothing listings shows that the vast majority of spec's are, quite rightly, for specialist safety clothing.  It does beg the question, if boots and safety clothing are covered, surely it's a bit of a cut and paste exercise to use the knowledge from existing spec's and apply them to outdoor clothing/luggage?  

On the high street my less than forensic investigation reveals the standard we usually see is actually the waterproof rating of the material not the finished item.  So while a standard we can work with it tells you nothing about the quality of the seams.  My first “waterproof jacket” had great material but after extended use the seams seeped.  I have owned a jacket with zip on sleeves which was considerably more waterproof than my early visit to waterproof clothing.  The figures we usually see relate to the ISO regulation let's take a 10K or 10,000mm material. To end up with this figure you place a square tube over your fabric of choice you have to be able to fill your tube with water  to a height of 10,000mm without water passing through the fabric.  The IP53 used by Ortlieb is an electrical specification for dust and water ingress and you have to start somewhere.   

Seam sealing, sometimes referred to as seam taping, covers the tiny holes made by the needle in the sewing process so the seams don’t leak using a heat application of thin waterproof tape. Sometimes seams are bonded together using glue or heat, but typically they are first sewn then taped. Garments can be either “fully taped” or “critically taped” – the difference is that a fully taped garment has every seam taped, while a critically taped one has tape only on high exposure areas like the neck, shoulders, and chest. Luggage on the whole is fully taped or even welded. 

Welded seams have replaced traditional sewing in many manufacturers.  They look better and have a better in use life however, it is a more expensive process than sewing.  Last year the US Navy were reported to be investigating having welded seam uniforms made.

Overboard have taken on all the above information and decided to use Roc Gear's WSRS (Waterproof Store Rating System) to rate their equipment.  ROC assert it is, “fast becoming the accepted standard for all types of waterproof containers.” On this point I refer the reader to Mandy Rice Davies.  This does not deviate from the value of a system that is meaningful to both retailer and customer. If ISO ever take on a standard then I think this isn't a bad place to start from.  The reader will notice that both Roc and Overboard refer to the WSRS Rating System, this pedant will not be seen using PIN Number for all the same reasons.

While not the most devastatingly entertaining of posts I hope this article has been of help to you.  I would have included ISO's definitions but at £50 a pop there are more pressing things to throw money at.

Overboard waterproof bags are now distributed to UK & Ireland cycling retailers via Amba Marketing.  If anybody has pertinent information not here or if ISO would like me to help in the outdoor kit testing facility please get in touch. 

Mince Pies

Working on the premise that our food posts get far more interaction than anything other than Eddie Merckx as promised here is @AmbaTechGuys mince pie recipe.  I completely forget where I acquired it from but it is simple and very nice.  I apologise for the lack of a finished item picture but I was on a roll and had boxed and delivered before realising my error.

Serves: Some, about 18 tarts per pack.
Nutritional Info: Calories; Loads.  Allergies; Gluten.  Diabetics: adjust levels before eating.

You Will Need:

1x 375g pack ready rolled puff pastry. (Not straight from the fridge)
1x 820g jar of mincemeat.  (Get the best you can afford it's worth it)
Demerara sugar
A little milk to seal


1. Cover your pastry board with enough sugar to completely cover your sheet of pastry.

2. Lay the pastry on the sugar and press down so the sugar embeds in the pastry.

3. Cover the pastry with the mincemeat leaving a 15mm gap on on long edge.

4. Roll the pastry firmly like a Swiss roll and seal the edge with a little milk.

5. Pop in the fridge to firm up and rest for 30 minutes.

6. Pre heat your oven to Gas 6, 200C, Fan 180C

7. Take the roll from the fridge and slice into 10-15mm slices

8. Press the cut faces of the slices into the remaining sugar so they crush down a little.

9. Place the tarts on a non stick baking sheet allowing a little room between each to allow for spreading

10. Place in the centre of the pre heated oven for around 20 minutes until sticky and golden.

11. Remove from the oven and allow to cool a little on the tray. (Try to remove them too soon and they'll fall apart)

12.  Remove from the tray with a fish slice before they fully cool and the caramel welds to the tray and place on a rack to cool fully.

13. These normally keep long enough to get from my house to the NT car park at White Horse Hill near Uffington, where they are devoured by a group of mulled wine fuelled cyclists in short order.

Enjoy.

Neil

Hello, thanks for visiting the Koolstop stand at the Cycle Show in Birmingham UK. Sorry I couldn't be there but there is no leg room for a 3m polar bear on modern aircraft and that Yeti is very close with the use of his Skoda.

If you've got here you entered our competition for two pairs of pads of your choice, good luck, we'll announce the winners as soon as we've contacted all of you. Now we'd like to keep in touch with you if that's OK?

Below are links to our various social networks, it would be really nice if you'd click through and give us a like or follow. We won't swamp your newsfeed with surrogate adverts they bore us as much as you. There will be links to new products, things our retailers are up to and what we're up to and the occasional cat on a unicycle. (It's the web them's the rules) It would be nice to stay in touch.

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Introducing Swisseye

Introducing Swisseye

The team at Amba are excited to reveal that the first of the new brands from Eurobike 2014 to go live on our B2B is the sports glasses manufacturer Swisseye. This will go live on Monday 22 September and we hope you'll be as impressed as we are.

We have placed an initial order for stock items that we will hold in the warehouse at Exeter. This will show on the B2B and price list as Stock Items and will be with us before the end of September. Items in the Swisseye catalogue not on this initial list will be available as a special order and take a week or two to arrive after an order is placed with Swisseye. With over fifty styles available the chances of us getting what everyone would like was always a big call so with advice from the people at Swisseye we have gone with the obvious and popular lines elsewhere in Europe.

You, our retailers, are at the core of everything we do here at Amba so if there's a style you want to stock give us a call and we'll get you and your customers sorted as quick as we can. If they prove popular it is a fluid list and if customers demand we'll provide for you.

We were very excited by the quality of the infant and children's glasses available and all colours and styles will be stocked. A far wider variety of styles are available for customers with prescription glasses whether with clip in frames or traditionally glazed by an optician. Spare frames and replacement lenses will be available as well as nose pieces, arm rubbers and a selection of small parts. There are standard, polarised and photocromic lenses and styles to sort all faces and pockets.

As soon as our demo stock arrives we'll be able to come out and show you the range and we are sure you'll be as impressed as we are. In the meantime have a browse through their website and see what you think. Any questions or to organise a visit, contact the office or Neil.

The Amba Team

New Campagnolo Compatible Pads from Koolstop

Koolstop Campagnolo

Campagnolo pads can be a nightmare for the unsuspecting retailer or user and the new offering from Koolstop needn't muddy the waters. The new Super Record designated pads have been produced to fit to the new style Skeleton brake shoes but are compatible with Campag holders from 2000 onwards. Amba will have these in stock very soon.

We will be stocking the pad compounds in our standard ranges, ie Black, Salmon, Dual Compound, Ceramic & Carbon. If you want the carbon 2 or Red Cross pads let your retailer know and we'll get them in for them. For compound details see the Koolstop page here. 

For customers with old style Veloce brakes where the bolt screws into the back of the pad, Koolstop's Dura holders can be used as they fit the smaller slots in the calipers. Pre 2000 pad inserts replacements are still available from us but I suspect most riders have upgraded in the last 14 years so they'll start sliding into retro before too long.

Stop All the Clocks

Say it quietly, but as from today the days are just getting shorter. I know it puts a downer on the weekend but my glass is not half empty, I'm at my Sister's celebrating her birthday so no chance of that.

Between today and the 26 October when the clocks go back a riders thoughts should turn to lights. Whether it's checking over last seasons, did you discharge your rechargeable and fully recharge it before putting it away? or researching this winter's illuminating lovely, prior planning prevents poor performance. Retailers are starting to plan their stock for the lighting season so you the customer can ease their decision by deciding sooner rather than later what you are going to use.

Are you finally going to indulge in a dynohub front wheel and light system that just works? Upgrade to a decent rechargeable system? Or just spend a tenner on a piece of junk off of eBay with no warranty or beam pattern but it has a big lumen number and Cree LED in the title? Why not do the research on what Lux, Lumen and Candella actually mean and where manufacturers measure them. Have a look at the beam pattern maps that more enlightened manufacturers publish then make an informed decision. Heaven forfend but you could even pass your information around and help to quash the torrent of BS that is out there about bicycle lights.

The darkness is coming, be ready.  

Busch and Muller Ixon Core / IXXI Twin Pack

Busch & Muller IXXI / Ixon Core Twin Pack

Yesterday I got my hands on the new USB rechargeable lights from Busch & Muller. I've had access to the Ixon Core for a while but wanted to do a user check on them both. I have been using the original Ixon for 6 or 7 years now and am hugely happy with it. On a personal level I couldn't understand why you'd want a lesser light. I appreciate however, some customers buy with their pocket. In my previous life as a retailer the head to head for rear lights went between two well known brands. The considerably brighter light lost out as the lesser light was ten bob cheaper. The brand name may have come into it but at source the cheaper light was bigger, heavier and nowhere near as bright.

So, twin packs. Usually an excellent light matched up with an okay light at what appears a budget price. The B&M can't be called cheap at £67.50 RRP but, “What price your safety?” as Sorrel's Mum always says. If you live in a town this twin pack should be well up the list for consideration IMHO. My old shop's best selling twin pack had a poor front light and a fabulous rear light yes it was cheaper but you'd need a second front light in reality.

Burn times. In a far from scientific test I discharged both lights totally and then charged the IXXI from the mains for 2 ½ hours and the IXON Core for 3 ½ as stated in the instructions. The IXXI stayed lit for around eighteen hours. The Ixon Core burn time is quoted as more than 3 hours actually ran for the best part of four. This does include the time in low power mode which is considerably longer than the 10-15 minutes my old Ixon gives me. So no mean shakes for a 50 Lux light with a good beam spread on the road.

Attachment to the bike for both lights is by the now ubiquitous rubber strap. The Ixon can be clicked out of its' mount as well so if you have to thread your strap through cables you can leave the mount on the bike.

Charging. Both lights charge with the industry standard micro USB plug so unless you insist on using CDHoJ products your phone/tablet cable will fit. I'm not a great fan of charging off your computers USB ports but over the course of a working day you'll get a fair top up. Come the revolution charging towers will be a part of secure bike parking areas.

So as an in town commuter twin pack I think this is a good package no matter what rear light you use, in town you'd double up with a flashing light as an attention getter.  So there is my early punt into the 2014 lighting season

On Bicycle Lighting 3

If you have a basic physics grounding and/or have researched buying a bike light lately you are probably a mite confused right now. All the manufacturers seem to rate their lights with different methods whether that is watts, candela, lumen or lux and it just muddies the water for the punter on the street.

To clarify my stance early on, I work for Amba-Marketing, the UK distributor for Busch & Muller and Supernova. I bought my first B&M light in the late 1990s (Thank you SJS Cycles) nearly a decade before I left the military and entered the bike world . Over the last 20 years I have used lights from B&M, Smart, Axa, BLT and Cateye for both battery and dynamo. I was given a B&M Ixon IQ by Amba the first winter they were on the market as a sales bonus/trial. I will not hide my respect of B&M's lights they have served me well on tours, club rides and some mostly unlit rural commutes. From my first halogen fuelled Oval to my current LED Oval+ with my trusty Seculite or D-Toplight depending on the bike, I'm now a kid in a sweetshop genuinely unsure what to replace the Oval with.

You only have to visit a cycling forum to discover a variety of differing opinions on what light to have. The trouble is once you get past, “It says 300 million lumens and only cost me a tenner” what do you actually know? So in the third of a number of blogs on terminology todays subject is;

Lux

This is where the two previous articles meet up and all nearly becomes sweetness and light. Lux is the SI unit of illuminance and luminous emmitance, measuring luminous flux per unit area. Illuminance is the total luminous flux incedent on a surface per unit area, it is a measure of how much light illuminates the surface based on an average sensitivity of human perception of brightness. We all see light differently depending on our eyes so science uses a known average, So what we have is lumens = Quantity and Lux = intensity on a surface.

It is arguable that Lux is a more useful unit for the comparison of bike lights which is our initial quandary. However, alone it is also fairly useless unless you have the distance the light is measured from the source. Also it says nothing about field, consistency or colour of the light. So we may have 100 lumens at a point x metres from the lamp but what is the reading 5cm in any direction? We just dont know. So a field map of the light intensity helps us but only if all the manufacturers produced their output in a standard format (Flying Pig1, this is air traffic, remain on pan awaiting clearance to taxi) Power isn't everything, because how you feed all this light through a lens also varies how much light goes where. My old IxonIQ has a third more lumens than the new IQ but the field pattern is much improved on the new model so in this case more lumens doesn't mean more light.

In conclusion while our three main measures used in bicycle lighting are all linked non of them tell us precisely what we want to know. If however a few key distances and comparable lumoinosity maps were included in the promotional bumph we might have half a chance of accurately comparing light a to light b. As it stands the closest we can get is the reviews in the paper press hoping the photog switched off autocorrect so they're all on the same aperture and shutter speed. Will the bike light industry buy into this? Some have but as there are so many tuppeny ha'penny mass manufacturers out there putting quantity over quality it's doubtful. So we're still going to be stuck with the guy on the club forum banging on about the 3K Lux light he got mail order from Ulan Bator. You know the one he'll have two on his handlebars and one on his helmet secured with duct tape and melting the retina's of any poor soul coming towards him so they cant see where they are going, he's fine though.

On Bicycle Lighting 2

The second in a number of items vainly intended to clarify the muddy waters of bicycle lighting terminology.

If you have a basic physics grounding and/or have researched buying a bike light lately you are probably a mite confused right now. All the manufacturers seem to rate their lights with different methods whether that is watts, candela, lumen or lux and it just muddies the water for the punter on the street.

To clarify my stance early on, I work for Amba-Marketing, the UK distributor for Busch & Muller and Supernova. I bought my first B&M light in the late 1990s (Thank you SJS Cycles) nearly a decade before I left the military and entered the bike world . Over the last 20 years I have used lights from B&M, Smart, Axa, BLT and Cateye for both battery and dynamo. I was given a B&M Ixon IQ by Amba the first winter they were on the market as a sales bonus/trial. I will not hide my respect of B&M's lights they have served me well on tours, club rides and some mostly unlit rural commutes. From my first halogen fuelled Oval to my current LED Oval+ with my trusty Seculite or D-Toplight depending on the bike, I'm now a kid in a sweetshop genuinely unsure what to replace the Oval with.

You only have to visit a cycling forum to discover a variety of differing opinions on what light to have. The trouble is once you get past, “It says 300 million lumens and only cost me a tenner” what do you actually know? So in the second of a number of blogs on terminology today's subject is;

Lumen

The Lumen is the SI unit of luminous flux, ie how much visible light is emitted by a source. Note visible and emitted it is what's pumped out not what we get back. In simple terms it is to light sources what pints are to beer, but like beer all outputs are not the same. While a pint of beer seems black and white without the ABV it is not as helpful as you might think. The same with lumen. It's not how big it's what you're doing with it that counts. 100 lumen, bomb burst across the sky is less use to us as cyclists from our cycle light than 100 lumen focused where we want it. It is an objective measure of effective luminous output from a light. We need to know how big the area and how far from the light that is.

As with the candela the lumen as an indication of your light needs definition. We don't know how or where it affects our vision merely what there is coming out of the source. We do not know its colour spectrum or useful spread.

The relationship 'twixt lumen and candela can be seen on last weeks diagram as, here comes a difficult sum AmbaTechGuy will fail to answer but expects to see on tee shirts soon:

1 cd·4π sr = 4π cd·sr ≈ 12.57 lumens

Put into simpler terms: Luminous flux (in lumens) is a measure of the total amount of light a lamp puts out. The luminous intensity (in candelas) is a measure of how bright the beam is. If a lamp has a one lumen bulb and the optics of the lamp are set up to focus the light evenly into a one steradian beam, then the beam would have a luminous intensity of 1 candela. If the optics were changed to concentrate the beam into 1/2 steradian then the source would have a luminous intensity of two candela. The resulting beam is narrower and brighter.

Confused? It's just physics but it's beginning to show the limitations of the information on the box and we're not quite half way through my peripatetic ramblings yet. Meanwhile a picture is worth a word or twenty,

On Bicycle Lighting

The first in a number of items vainly intended to clarify the muddy waters of bicycle lighting terminology.

If you have a basic physics grounding and/or have researched buying a bike light lately you are probably a mite confused right now. All the manufacturers seem to rate their lights with different methods whether that is watts, candela, lumen or lux and it just muddies the water for the punter on the street.

To clarify my stance early on, I work for Amba-Marketing, the UK distributor for Busch & Muller and Supernova. I bought my first B&M light in the late 1990s (Thank you SJS Cycles) nearly a decade before I left the military and entered the bike world . Over the last 20 years I have used lights from B&M, Smart, Axa, BLT and Cateye for both battery and dynamo. I was given a B&M Ixon IQ by Amba the first winter they were on the market as a sales bonus/trial. I will not hide my respect of B&M's lights they have served me well on tours, club rides and some mostly unlit rural commutes. From my first halogen fuelled Oval to my current LED Oval+ with my trusty Seculite or D-Toplight depending on the bike, I'm now a kid in a sweetshop genuinely unsure what to replace the Oval with.  I do not put myself up as an expert and the text has evolved from a number of sources not just a C&P from Wiki.

You only have to visit a cycling forum to discover a variety of differing opinions on what light to have. The trouble is once you get past, “It says 300 million lumens and only cost me a tenner” what do you actually know? So in the first of a number of blogs on terminology todays subject is;

Candella

Scrubbing past the history, the current definition of Candella is,

The luminous intensity, in a given direction, of a source that emits monochromatic radiation of frequency 540 x 10¹² hertz and that has a radiant intensity in that direction of 1/683 watt per steradian.

Piece of cake? OK those Hertz and Watt figures. They give you a colour and intensity, which is roughly yellowish-green and is a color that the human eye is highly sensitive to.

Candella is a measurement of light at source, but neither it or Candlepower tells us how powerful the light is some distance away from the source. Instead, we measure the amount of light illuminating a surface area, which is called, naturally enough, the illuminance. The result is measured in lumens, with 1 lumen = 1 candela x steradian. For our purposes here we can think of the the latter term as an area, as the following example illustrates:

Imagine a transparent 1 metre radius sphere surrounding a candle. Its surface area will be given by 4 pi r², so the surface area of our sphere is:

4 pi 1² = 12.57 m²

The amount of energy passing through 1 square metre of the transparent sphere is 1 lumen, and so it follows that 1 candlepower is 12.57 lumens.

So in our bike light scenario the buyer has no idea where the candella has been measured or which direction the light is going or for that matter how many directions. So for our intents and purposes candella is fairly useless as it is a measurement of emitted luminous intensity and without knowledge of the emission cone meaningless.

Calm, there are more of these to come and much will become clear in time.