Recently more dust got kicked into the air in the "debate" over 29ers vs. 26ers. Cyclingnews went to print, G-Ted posted, Dave Harris commented, then our own KW killed it with this well-written wonder. It deserves more eyes I threw it up here.
"I did my own tests. You might have read about them on my blog, myinherentawesomeness.blogspot.com. In these highly personal studies I used two separate tests to see which of my bikes I could ride faster. After each lap of the course, I’d excitedly high five myself. Based on the color of my palm, I concluded that my bike with the Time pedals generated a much more enthusiastic hand slap than my bike with Shimano pedals, and thus a much more red (redder?) palm. Not scientific enough, you say? Well you should also consider that I used a color wheel that I bought on sale from the art supply store, and my observations were based on its near-perfect range of magenta.
On another day, on the same course, I strategically placed logs and medium-sized boulders so as to aggravate other trail users. I’d then hide in the trees and when one of them rode by, I’d jump out and yell, “Enough about me … what do YOU think about me?” and watch as they collided with my well-laid obstacles. As they chased me down—many times bleeding and nursing bent wrists and/or collar bones—I’d start my stopwatch and measure how long it took them to catch me on my bike that had the chain lubed with WD-40 as opposed to the one that had the chain obsessively coated with a perfectly nerdy layer of beeswax. I’m sure these findings will bring a ton of naysayer commentary down on my head, and that’s exactly the point. The point is me. In both tests, I was faster. No doubt about it. Forget wheel size, forget blogs, forget your knee centered over your pedal spindle, and the optimum power output of eggs in China.
If we all just focused a bit more on me, this world would be a much better place to live.
You’re welcome,
—kw"