Raneman and I are in Taiwan right now, working hard to bring you some new product. We are here checking samples, doing QC checks, and supervising production of the new 2011 Chili Con Crosso, as well as a few other new suprises that are yet to come.
Our Chili Con Crosso adventure continued on Friday morning, when we commuted through the streets of Taichung out to Nantou to pick up a pre-production sample of the new Chili Con Crosso, and then carried it to our assembly factory for a complete bike build and check.
Mark, Leeche, Joe Y and myself started the 25k ride earlier in the morning to avoid the sweltering mid 90-degree heat of later in the day. We were treated to something I've rarely seen in Taiwan: a gorgeous sunny, blue sky day.
The updated Chili Con Crosso has exceeded our best wishes for reduced weight and increased front end stiffness over the previous model, and it looks pretty hot to boot, even without paint. Here's a shot of Mark on the unpainted sample.
Then, it was back to the frame factory to do a few more checks on the finer details of the frame
It was a tiring, exciting day, and it was well over 95 degrees outside so we decided to call it a day and head back to take a rest. However, with some luck we were invited to join a friend's cycling club up at Sun Moon Lake for a weekend ride. Sun Moon Lake is a very popular tourist destination up in the mountains from Taichung. It has the feel of a Chinese brush painting. We were camping, so what better time to shoot a few photos of the sunset?
And Mark found a great spot for some Chili testing...
Mark and I will be spending this week taking these Chili Con Crosso samples and moving them through further testing, paint and decals. By week's end we will give you a 'real' presentation of the 2011 bike, complete with colors and graphics. We will also be working on creating some new sneak peaks on a few other models that are up and coming.
------------------ UPCOMING EVENT: NORTH CENTRAL CYCLERY, DEKALB, ILLINOIS ---------------------
On Wednesday August 18th Salsa will present a preview of some never-before-seen products at an event hosted by North Central Cyclery in Dekalb, IL. Salsa sales manager, David Gabrys will be present with the Mukluk, El Mariachi Ti, La Cruz Ti, the new steel El Mariachi and the background behind our Adventure By Bike direction. He will also be sharing some cool stuff that can only be seen by attendees of the event, so it will be worth your while to make the visit and see what’s happening for 2011.
The event begins at 7pm and will be followed by a campfire (and hopefully S'mores). There will be beer too! RSVP at rideaway@northcentralcyclery.com. North Central Cyclery, 534 E. Lincoln Hwy, Dekalb, IL (815) 758-2403.
When I get out into the wild, I crave the silence and the solace of leaving the societal world behind. Something about the digital distractions of our everyday life clouds the mind with some permanent state of white noise. I try to escape, but its hard to break out of the grip of alternating current, its interesting to see what small piece retains the hold.
In this case, it was a song by the Indigo Girls. My mind would not quiet, even with the large expanse of air surrounding me, trying so hard to give space and relieve the pressure. “I’m trying to tell you something about my life, maybe give me insight between black and white”
I am out on a 6 day trip with 3 good friends, and one new one. I went to college with Adam and Justin, we have ridden thousands of miles together, and this time they brought along Matt, a new friend that I seemed to have known for a long time. The other good friend was El Mariachi, as I brought out one of the new prototypes with the Alternator dropout to do product testing. We were setting off on a 6-day trip to ride the Kokopelli trail, White Rim, and a smattering of other Moab area trails to connect it all together in bikepacking wanderlust.
“The best thing you’ve ever done for me, is to help me take my life less seriously, its only life after all” the words kept coming in my head. I couldn’t shake the remains of city life, but I suppose it was better than Britney Spears or Justin Bieber.
El Mariachi and I have been friends since 2007, and this third reincarnation brought back all the good memories of our times before. It was that old friend, the one you knew for years, you get together and don’t miss a beat, its an easy friendship, one you know will always be there. It was great to have my friend El Mariachi along in this capacity, as this was the same experience I was having with Matt, Justin and Adam. Sure, we went to school together, but now are spread out across the country, and really are only able to congregate a few weeks a year for good mountain biking trips. But as with any good friends, we can always pick up where we left off.
Leaving Fruita with 26 lbs of gear dry, 300oz of water, and 300 miles of trail ahead, we had the butterflies of the long trip ahead, but the excitement of what adventures these 6 days would bring us. We had done Kokopelli the year before, so the first day was very familiar. We did however find that an MSR ceramic water filter does not work as well in the muddy Colorado as it does in the crisp, clean streams of Minnesota. The first night was spent 62 miles in, with no water, and dry EasyMac for dinner.
“I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains, I look to the children, I drank from the fountain. There’s more than one answer to these questions, pointing me in a crooked line. The less I seek my source for some definitive, The closer I am to fine.” The ladies kept singing into my ear, even in the painful dehydrated night, and while I could not shake the noise in my head, the lyrics they were telling me were soothing, giving me reason to why I was willingly out in the desert suffering. Healing. Being out, not knowing what is next, adventure. It heals my wounds from a consumerist metropolis lifestyle.
A night void of water for the body can only be followed by dry oatmeal and cold, hard to swallow Pop-Tarts. Those first 25 miles were painful, but soon after another crossing of the Colorado, we found a nice flow out in the slickrock domes, devoid enough of silt to allow the little MSR to fill us up. As the heat of day picked up, it felt good to finally be rehydrating. Throughout the pain of dehydration, one piece of comfort was the El Mariachi was beneath me, acting faithfully as ever, working perfectly without complaint, showing that even some new clothes wont spoil its inner beauty.
“I stopped by the bar at 3am, to seek solace in a bottle or possibly a friend, I woke up with a headache like my head against a board, twice as cloudy as Id been the night before, I went in seeking clarity” Clarity is what I was seeking. But reaching the next stream on the map that was supposed to be clear and a source for water found us with an opposing force of the desert heat only a few hours previous; snow. We were camping up above Onion Creek at around 7000 ft, and the steam was frozen. Prepared for the desert with our 45 degree down bags, we froze, dehydrated again when the temperature dipped to 23 degrees. Clarity is why I came out here. I swore a few times that night wondering what kind of idiot does this for fun?
Taking a break at our halfway stop in Moab, we went into one of the local gear shops to ask how they got water out of the Colorado. Alum. Take the muddy water, let it sit in a container, add alum and it helps precipitate out the sediment. Then filter. Local knowledge is precious. Mental note, ask first next time.
The next few days were spent out in Canyonlands National Park, the only one where you can ride a mountain bike off-pavement. With knowledge of water harvestation, gorgeous views, and a full belly of Denny’s Grand Slam, the next few days seemed to be more exciting than the last. Plus, the altitude is only about 5000 ft, so it wouldn’t be as cold.
“We go to the bible, we go through the workout, we read up on revival and we stand up for the lookout. There’s more than one answer to these questions, pointing me in a crooked line. The less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine.” The 5th day was my 29th birthday. I was out, enjoying the most gorgeous country on my favorite 29er. Some of my yearning concerns and questions were beginning to fade into the red rocks. My mind was clearing. We reached camp, I went to the river to start some filtering, and found a naked man. He was bathing where I wanted to get drinking water. He sure was nice though, as he offered up 4 gallons of fresh distilled, jugged water and a 6 pack of ice cold Bud Light. What a birthday gift. Thank you naked man.
Closer to fine, the name of the song that remained in my head, over and over for 6 days. I felt it. As I rode my adventure with all of my good friends, human and steel, I felt every day that I was getting closer to being fine.
Today's post comes from Tim Krueger, Salsa product manager. -Kid
A double on the Vaya? What the $#&@?
It has been asked what we were thinking when we decided to use a double crankset as a spec on a bike intended for recreational riding and touring.
To put it simply, we were thinking! Double cranksets and modern drivetrains have come a long way since the triple was the standard for those pursuits.
Triple front cranks were intended to create a larger gear range when cassettes (or freewheels!) could only reasonably have a range of 12-28 without large jumps in ratios, or making for poor shifting. Over time, technology and engineering have allowed more gears to be placed in the same space, allowing smoother shifting over a greater range of gears. As this technology plods forward, we will eventually see less of a need for additional front chainrings.
For example, the triple used to be the standard for mountain bikes. Now we are seeing compact doubles take their place on high-end mountain bikes with the advent of SRAM XX and FSA 386 technology, when paired with large range cassettes such as SRAM's 11-36 XX cassette. These drivetrains still yield an equivalent range to a standard triple drivetrain, yet are lighter and simpler.
This is the idea with the Vaya. We took a close look at the overall ratios involved with a road-based triple drivetrain. Take our Casseroll Triple for example. With a 30-39-50 front combination, and a 12-25 rear, it has a low gear inch measurement of 32.4. For those unfamiliar with this measurement, it means that in this lowest gear, the bike will travel 32.4 inches forward with every revolution of the pedals.
On the Vaya, this measurement in the lowest gear is 29.0 inches. So while on the surface, the Vaya's double appears to have less of a climbing gear than a road triple, in practice, it actually has a slightly lower gear than a standard road triple drivetrain. Even the traditional road triple with a 12-27 on the back still only has a 30.4 inch low gear.
Now, one could argue that even though this is true, the Vaya is still not as low as a touring setup such as a Sugino XD600 crankset paired with an 11-34 rear cassette, which yields a 20.9 inch low gear. And to that, you would be correct. However, we didn't design the Vaya to be a bike solely for touring. We designed the Vaya to be more of an 'all around' bike, one good for a variety of purposes. The Vaya is our road adventure bike. If you truly want that low of gearing, consider basing your build on a Vaya frameset and choose the gearing that you prefer, or start with a Vaya complete bike and change out your crankset.
Keep your eyes open, because in the near future you will begin to see a trend in cycling towards double cranksets. Because the Vaya may be among the first, but definitely not the last to be sporting the 34-50 and 11-32 combo to give the recreational cyclist the greatest all-around experience.
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