MTB REVIEWS » Daily Musings

Danny MegaSkill’s Industrial Revolutions vs Ken Block’s Gymkhana FOUR vs Brian Mullin MongoSkills

Brian Mullin — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 18:19:34 +0000

Danny MegaSkill’s Industrial Revolutions
Danny Macaskill just came out with a new video showing off his street trial’s skills, and the riding is inspiring and intense, with some beautiful and well done cinematography. Danny MacAskill is a Scotsman, and a street trial’s pro rider for Inspired Bicycles. Last year he released a YouTube video of his bike stunts, and it went viral, and currently has 27 million hits. The video showed an incredible display of his bike skills, and the music was one of my favorites, ‘The Funeral’ by Band of Horses.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Industrial Revolutions is the amazing new film from street trials riding star Danny. Filmed and edited for Channel 4 ‘s documentary Concrete Circus. Industrial Revolutions sees Danny take his incredible bike skills into an industrial train yard and some derelict buildings.’ Filmed in the beautiful Scottish countryside Danny Macaskill’s latest film was directed by Stu Thomson (Cut Media/MTBcut) for Channel 4′s documentary Concrete Circus. Music is ‘The Wolves’ by Ben Howard courtesy of Universal Island Records.

Ken Block’s Gymkhana FOUR
Ken Block aka Mr. DC shoes, is a professional rally driver with the Monster World Rally Team. His Gymkhana series of videos, have also gone viral, and his mad skills in his rally car are amazing, and he certainly wears through some tires! The new Gymkhana FOUR is certainly wildly commercial with lot’s of product placement, albeit it’s mostly in gist.

Click here to view the embedded video.

DC and Ken Block present Gymkhana FOUR: The Hollywood Megamercial.
GYM4 surpasses the high-production style of Gymkhana TWO with even more spectacular effects shot in the backlots of Universal Studios, California. Filmed over the course of five days, director Ben Conrad (Zombieland and 30 Seconds or Less) and his team at Logan deliver a Hollywood caliber production complete with pyrotechnics, massive stunts and a series of unbelievable tricks. Featuring robotic sharks, deranged zombies, and a hilarious cameo by the Epic Meal Time guys, Ken Block and his Hybrid FunctionHoon Vehicle (H.F.H.V.) bring the magic of Hollywood and gymkhana together.

Brian Mullin Mongoskills
Ok, my video’s seem sedate in comparison, but this is actually is pretty steep, scary and techy terrain. The camera makes it look much flatter than it really is. Brian is sponsored by his Wife!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Warm Fuzzy for the Day

Brian Mullin — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 21:34:09 +0000

I recently wrote an article on ZYM Electrolyte Tablets for MTBR.com and GramsLightBikes. ZYM is flavored electrolyte sports drink, that is a tablet based, and I found it to be a fine product that has great athletic benefits.

I received a nice compliment on the article over on MTBR.com, which was most welcome, though it’s sort of extremely rare, since most comments from readers are criticisms and critiques.

Here is the comment from the article:

“Gram, you are one prolific mofo. Don’t know how you even pretend to care about some salt-tabs. Never mind manage to write a ‘review’. Well done. I hope you were well paid.
It’s like that handlebar one. How much do they cost, what do they weight, will they take my weight for my riding style, do they come in black? That’s it.
But you managed to write an amazing amount. And with multiple photos. You’d have thought that seeing one black alu tube w white markings was like seeing them all.
But your efforts are impressive. I love the little forays into wikipedia for chemistry and stuff. Great. Don’t know how you do it. If someone came to me to sell compressed salt for a massive markup as some kind of useful addition to our kit, I just couldn’t get motivated. I’d feel like I was encouraging innocent people to waste money on useless consumables that they could get elsewhere for nothing thereby reducing the amount they have to spend on more important things.”

I had to respond myself, since it was such a warm fuzzy:

“J, thanks for the acknowledgment and Kudos, in fact, I am not paid at all, just a guest reviewer, and I do it because I am passionate about things. My additional research and in depth analysis of things, means it takes considerably longer to create the final output, so you’ll rarely get a typical 1-2 paragraph review. I try to make the reviews interesting, thought provoking, technical and entertaining? Thanks again, you made my day!”

Moots Cowbells – IMBA Fundraiser

Brian Mullin — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 08:21:43 +0000

Here is a great fund raiser for the IMBA from my buddies over at Moots. I love the secondary name for the Moots Cowbell! I won one of these babies last year in a photo contest, refer to http://www.gramslightbikes.com/2009/12/won-photo-contest-at-moots.html, and these suckers are loud.

LARGE Ti STICK

Be one of the lucky few to own a one-of-a-kind Moots Cowbell while supporting the great things our friends at IMBA are doing. These are not the traditional cowbells you may think of. In our world, we like to call them “Ti Sticks”, as we handmade them from recycled Moots titanium tubing. These cowbells will be the envy of all the noise makers at your local cross races, ski races or neighborhood block party; not to mention they give off a sound like no other!

Only 45 total Moots Ti sticks will be sold at this time.

100% gross sales of these Ti sticks will go directly to IMBA – the International Mountain Biking Association.

$85.00

Danny MacAskill – Way Back Home

Brian Mullin — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 08:35:29 +0000

Danny MacAskill is a Scotsman, and a street trials pro rider for Inspired Bicycles. Last year he released a YouTube video of his bike stunts, and it went viral, and currently has 21.5 million hits. The video showed an incredible display of his bike skills, and the music was one of my favorites, ‘The Funeral’ by Band of Horses.

He has just released a new video named Way Back Home, and it follows Danny on a journey from Edinburgh back to his hometown of Dunvegan on the Isle of Skye. The street trails are prominently on display, but this time the cinematography work has greatly improved, and the scenery and staging are breath taking. The MegaSkill has inspired me with another excellent display of his biking prowess and skills!

The first memorizing song is named Wax and Wire, by the Portland Oregon group Loch Lomand.

Here was the original video

Home Bike Shop

Brian Mullin — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 05:47:58 +0000

My Home Bike Shop is actually located down in the large storage room in the basement. It is quite roomy, warm in the winter, cool in the summer, and just darn comfortable. It is my “Man Den”! I have been slowly tweaking things out to make a more useful environment. I finally added some additional lightning, which is very nice to have, since I used to have to move around a swivel lamp to light up work areas, especially while doing detailed work on a bike. I still have trouble seeing things up close (old eyes), so I have been wearing my reading glasses lately. I just ordered a set of magnifying glasses that come with an attached LED light. I was thinking of something like that when I was at my dentist office the other day, and noticed what they use (those can cost upwards of $1500, ouch).

Santa brought me a couple of new toys for my Home Shop. First off, I got a mini air compressor, so I no longer need to keep refilling my old air tank. I have used that method for quite a bit, which meant filling it with air from my monster air compressor in the garage, and then bringing it down to my Shop. I also found it was useful for taking grips on and off. I just change the attachment on the air hose, and can easily squirt air under the grip for fast removal, or fill the grip full of air for addition.Very sweet!

The other new toy was a battery powered screwdriver, which is really just a mini drill. This one had a nice forward and reverse trigger, a slow or fast speed, 4 Volt rechargeable Lithium battery, quick connector, and adjustable clutch. I really wanted it for taking on and off those pesky torx rotor bolts. I am always swapping out wheelsets and rotors, so it is really handy to be able to perform that trick with a minimum effort. I have also used it to take off the usual assortment of bolts on the bike, so it has turned out to be a useful and lazy mans tool. I tried to find some mini allen head bits for metric sizes, but was unable to locate them at the local Sears. My kids hate going with me to Sears sometimes, because I get in a sort of tool daze, drool.

Another new toy was a labeling machine, which has turned out to be very useful. My daughter keeps borrowing it to make silly labels, but she is a precocious 7 year old girl! I have had my mini drawers for quite a while, so with the labeling machine, I finally got around to labeling things, so it’s easier to locate items. Ok, it is also very compulsive of me, but what do you expect! I like to be able to have items handy, and things choreographed where I like them. Of course the ubiquitous scales are handy, can’t be called Gram without them.

One can never have enough tires! I came up with this system, since I got tired of rubber banding them, and trying to stack them on top of each other. Now, I can easily see what tire is in each box, and pull them out handily.

I had been trying to figure out how to get my tools to be set out usefully, and I didn’t really have enough wall space for a pegboard. I came up with this idea to turn these CD and DVD holders upside down, and use the small holes as tool placement. It has turned out to work like a charm. I have found the metal magnetic part and tool holder useful for not only holding parts, but I can test out if a bolt is titanium with any easy “does it stick” crosscheck.

I just recently added these nice hooks that I use for tires and wheelsets, and I use them for things that I happen to be using regularly. It keeps them out of the way, and has been useful for scooping out the tire sealant when I am swapping out tires. It’s a neat and tidy method for taking care of haphazard and cumbersome items.

I am currently testing this very sweet bike holder from Feedback Sports. It is known as the Velo Cache Bicycle Storage Stand. You can actually hang 4 bikes from it if you wanted. It is very sturdy, well made and works better than hanging bikes from the ceiling. The stand comes with 3 or 4 legs (I am using the sturdy 4 legs), and uses dual rubberized arms to hold the bike. The arms are easily adjusted up and down the main column of the unit. It has also been handy to prop a wheel on the arms when I am adding sealant for a tubeless tire.

I located this very cool tool while I was ordering some fork oil. It is a fork oil leveling tool. Just fill the fork leg with oil, adjust the metal engraved tube to the desired millimeter height (top of the fork tube to top of the oil) using the adjustable ring, place the tube into the fork leg with the ring resting on the top of the fork leg, and using the syringe pull oil until you get air. Presto, the oil is exactly at the proper height, no sticking a ruler down into the tube to check. Excellent!

Motion Pro - Fork Oil Level Tool

Won a Photo Contest at Moots!

Brian Mullin — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 02:44:39 +0000

I won a photo contest last week that Moots was doing, how cool is that.

Moots Owner’s Club Newsletter

Happy Holidays!

The holidays are here! Send us your very best holiday photo (extra bonus points if it is bike related, double extra bonus points for Moots holiday related) for a chance to win the most expensive ti cyclocross cowbell known to man! I have (3) Ti-Bells lovingly crafted out of the finest PiTech 3/2.5 alloy seamless titanium for the 3 Mootsers with the best shots submitted before Thanksgiving.

My lovely daughter Rachel took the following winning picture last year at Thanksgiving when we had a monster 26 inch snowstorm. The biking was fine until you had to turn! Very deep powder, that was at least light and fluffy.

And here is the Moot’s cowbell, aka Ti-Bell! And the sucker is loud, as my son found out when he wouldn’t get out of bed this morning.

I can’t wait to take it to a cyclocross event and clang away! It reminds me of the loud noise makers they have in Europe for ski races. My daughter asked if I was going to attach it to my bike and replace my mini bear bell?

I got out the other day for a short ride when the weather turned sunny and got to a balmy 18 degrees. It seemed sort of warm after having below zero and single digit days for almost a week. Today was a heat wave of 39! I made sure this ride to wear warm gloves. It’s easy to take off extra clothing if your torso gets warm, but if your hands get cold you are asking for trouble. I found that out earlier in the week on a windy 10 degree day when I got frost nip on a couple of fingers when I was wearing inadequate gloves, lessen learned! Furthermore, those pocket sized hand warmers don’t help much when the temperature is in the single digits? My fingers were hurting for almost 2 days, oops. My wife thinks I am crazy for going out in inclement weather.

Let it Snow!

Brian Mullin — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:59:54 +0000

I am catching up on my new bike stuff that has arrived at the house the last couple of weeks (post Interbike), but testing is on the back burner for a bit due to the heavy snow conditions on the local trails. I will have some pictures, and ‘First Look’ asap.

So the latest round of snow in Colorado was very spotty, and the further down towards Colorado Springs you got, the smaller the snowfall amounts were, Denco got hammered! We got around 10-12″ at my house, but the blizzard conditions made lots of big drifts in spots, and left my driveway, mostly dry!

Castle Rock: 19.3″
Conifer: 42.0″
Denver (Official): 14.2″
Evergreen: 40.0″
Fort Collins 18.5″
Highlands Ranch: 24.5″
Pinecliff: 46.0″ WOW!
Colorado Springs 7″
Colorado Springs (central) 4″
Woodland Park 20″
Monument 16-20″
Pueblo West 4″

My Son was very stoked this morning when he found out that he didn’t have to go to school for a third day in a row. He is only in the morning half day kindergarten, so if the school district calls a 2 hour delay for snow, then he has no school, how lucky is that! So what’s the news of the world?

I watched another wild video from the uber trial/stunt man Danny MacAskill, this time it’s a VW commercial

Here is his infamous video that most everyone has already seen:

Maybe it’s time to get some trials practice in this Winter?

Then I saw that he is out for 5 weeks with an injury, can we say oops! “Danny MacAskill Bike stunts hero Danny MacAskill takes a tumble.. tripping on kerbstone”

So in Britspeak kerbstone is curbstone, tyre is tire, fanny is ##### (This is the word for a woman’s front bits, so don’t use it in the UK). Smacking someones fanny takes on a whole new meaning!