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Andrew Van Til

Blog Featured January 4, 2022

Wonky Wahoo TICKR HRM? Might be the strap…

After roughly three years of hard use, my original Wahoo TICKR gave up the ghost at the end of the summer. Given how well it had worked for me, I picked up a new, updated version without hesitation. This was August. The photo above shows the new strap on the left, and the older (replacement) strap from my original TICKR on the right which I purchased to troubleshoot my original TICKR. Notice…

Blog Featured December 26, 2021

Shimano E-tube 5.0.3 Incompatible with SM-BCR2

I can get that Shimano is SUPER excited about their new 12 speed Di-2, but in that excitement they seem to have forgotten that the overwhelming majority of their Di-2 user base is running the previous generation. Most of these folks, are probably using the SM-BCR2 to charge and connect with the bike to do things like firmware updates, setup shifting, and configure the gears. Because if you don’t have a D-Fly,…

Blog December 22, 2021

TIL: Zwift Tron Bike Is The Fastest TT Bike

Given the outcome of some previous testing, I was beginning to suspect that the Zwift Concept (Tron) bike is the fastest TT bike, but I didn’t have the proof until today. This came as quite a surprise because the best available information seems to indicate the opposite. The biggest caveat is that I don’t have the fastest time trial wheels that Zwift has; haven’t made it to Level 42 yet. So I…

News December 20, 2021

TOOO Cycling Kickstarting DVR80 Asscam + Taillight

Having a rear-facing camera on the bike is very useful, for a lot of reasons. Integrating one into a taillight is very cool. Personally I see two issues with this though. The first one is that rear radar (i.e. Garmin Varia) is always useful, where a camera is only useful when there’s an event. So displacing my Varia isn’t going to happen. The other, is that light and potentially resolution are going…

News December 14, 2021

Geometry explainer

CyclingTips does a good job of explaining how to understand bike geometry, but there are a couple things they flubbed in the video below. First, “twitchy” isn’t a good word for a bike with a short trail. Twitchy is somewhat pejorative, and implies that the bike might be difficult to control. IMO, “responsive” is a much better term. One of the things I love about my Tarmac is how responsive the bike…

News December 13, 2021

Garmin fēnix 7 – Coming Soon

Of course it was really just a matter of time, but that time appears to be “soon” as the Garmin fēnix 7 / 7S / 7X are up on the FCC test site. Rumor has it that they were supposed to launch last spring/summer, but Garmin held back because of the global supply chain and logistics issues. It will be interesting to see what they offer over the fēnix 6, which I’ve…

News December 4, 2021

OK, I’ll bite. WTF is a “Gravel Saddle”?

Huh, apparently there are gravel specific saddles now? Also apparently, a gravel saddle is the thing I’m missing because I’ve never gotten air like that coming over a hill. Good thing fi’zi:k has me covered. Or, I guess more specifically, CMA? Unless I’m missing something it looks a lot like the Terra Argo X1 is just a wider (?) carbon railed road saddle. There’s no magic to that, carbon rails are generally…

Featured Guide December 2, 2021

Pain Cave Setup – 2021

I spend a lot of time riding the trainer in my “pain cave”, so I’ve had to put a lot of thought into making it work from an comfort and ergonomics perspective. This video walks through the setup and some of the why I made the choices I made configuring it.…

Blog Featured November 30, 2021

Xert Take The Wheel

If you follow me on Strava, you probably saw this one coming. After thinking about it, and talking to a few people who use a coach, I decided to submit to Xert’s training guidance; at least for the most part. Just to clear some things up, I do think there is tangible value in having an IRL coach. A real person providing adaptive workouts, finding areas for fitness improvement, tips, nutritional direction,…

News November 30, 2021

Endura Expands MT500 Freezing Point Lineup

When I started riding my fat bike on MTB trails in the snow, I pretty much wore a mix/match of road cycling and random sportswear. As I spent more time out in the cold, and less time bouncing off trees (skills still aren’t where they should be, but hey, I’ll take the improvement), I’ve been upgrading some of that kit to things that are more purpose built for the task. The main…

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