This is a love letter to Schwalbe. I love their Big Apple bike tires. If you have a mountain bike that is going to serve most of its life pounding the pavement these are for you. My Redline 29er mountain bike does 95% of its miles on the pavement, and it does it on Big Apples.
They’re big and fat so you keep the same look and level of comfort, it just lowers the rolling resistance because you’ll sound less like a jeep driving down the highway.
Changing tires has an immediate and apparent affect on how your bike handles. The same thing goes for toy cars and full-sized ones. It doesn’t matter if it’s 2-wheels or 4, those little patches of rubber are the only thing connecting you to the road.
More Big Apples
I got my son a set to put on his Haro Flightline. We’re going on some longer rides this summer – mostly on Minnesota’s expansive network of paved bike trails. He doesn’t have the luxury (or allowance) of keeping a separate road & mountain bike like dad.
It’s a relatively quick change (~30 minutes) to go back to stock tires if we’re going to head out to the single track trails.
Rode with Jules to a friend's party in EP. He did great on his Haro Flightline now equipped with Schwalbe Big Apples. Also convinced him to raise his seat!
He also was our lead out man for most of a 28 mile ride on the Heartland Trail. They really help him roll fast!
3 out of 4 bikes on this trip used Schwalbe tires 😍
Brand Loyalty
Because of my great experience with Schwalbe, when it came time buy studded tires, I went for the (terribly expensive) Ice Spiker Pros. They cost more per tire than the snow tires on my Subaru. But I wasn’t concerned about quality because I knew from my past experience it was going to be great.
My only gripe is that I wish they were cheaper, especially for the smaller sizes. I want to get a set of Big Apples for my cargo trailer – but they’d cost more than the trailer itself! But I can’t complain – whenever I buy their products it’s money well spent. 💸
Bicycle tire tubes are the most prolific piece of trash that is generated by the bicycling industry. Luckily it’s nowhere near the poundage of old car tire waste out there. Still because it’s the thing most often replaced on a bike, people have found several clever ways to use punctured tubes instead of putting them in the landfill.
I like to keep one in my bike trunk bag for carrying things. I use the tube as a shoulder belt to strap things to my back. I’ve used them to carry a shovel, a pole saw, and most recently: snowshoes.
I used one in January to go snowshoeing at my local nature center:
Elapsed Time
Moving Time
Distance
Average Speed
Max Speed
Elevation Gain
Calories Burned
00:57:56
hours
00:13:30
hours
0.43
mi.
31:07
min/mile
12:46
min/mile
27.23
ft.
29
kcal
Went to Innsbruck Nature Center… Honestly didn't need snowshoes – the trail was already hard-packed from hikers. Was good to venture off of the trail however.
Tested out my SCX24 RC Crawler 😎
Rigging With Bike Tubes
Fastening one end of any object is simple, go around the object(s) and loop the tube back through itself to to create a cow hitch.
You can only create a cow hitch on one end. On the other end I use a cheap carabiner (that I also keep in my trunk bag) as a link to fasten it similarly.
Then I sling it over my shoulder and head on my way. I keep a couple different sized punctured bike tubes in the garage. You’ll find that some are too loose and others are too tight, depending on what you’re trying to carry. Experiment with sizes and then put the most versatile one in your trunk bag for ad-hoc trips.
My only complaint about this trunk bag is the Made in China tag. Not because of the country of origin, but because of its placement. From day one of owning this bag, it was perfectly in the way of the zipper. You can see that mine has been “run over” by the zipper a number of times.
Despite the stupid tag, this thing has several useful compartments. Mesh zippered pockets on the sides where I keep sunscreen, lip balm, zip ties, and rain covers for shoes.
There’s a mesh pocket and elastic cords on the top for anything you want to have quick access to – or if you want to strap something down that is bigger than the bag.
Inside it’s one big compartment, but on the lid there’s another pocket inside. I keep a set of repair tools with a patch kit, and a couple maps of the local trail system.
It securely locks into place with the trademark Topeak QuickTrack system, so I never worry about it flying off.
Case Study: RC Trunk
I write about radio control (RC) related stuff over at MeatballRacing.com and recently I found a YouTube channel called Berm Peak that also shares my enthusiasm for both bicycles and RC.
In this video he reviews a different Topeak trunk bag that has fold-out panniers.
He put in a 1:24-scale crawler, which is a perfect fit for these bags. Similarly, I put in my Jeep, the controller, some sunglasses and headed to the local nature center to do some crawling.
Elapsed Time
Moving Time
Distance
Average Speed
Max Speed
Elevation Gain
Calories Burned
01:13:37
hours
00:10:20
hours
1.04
mi.
6.04
mph
8.72
mph
61.35
ft.
118
kcal
Put the studded tires on and rode to a trail nearby for some snowshoeing
When when I got there, I switched to snowshoes for a hike.
Elapsed Time
Moving Time
Distance
Average Speed
Max Speed
Elevation Gain
Calories Burned
00:57:56
hours
00:13:30
hours
0.43
mi.
31:07
min/mile
12:46
min/mile
27.23
ft.
29
kcal
Went to Innsbruck Nature Center… Honestly didn't need snowshoes – the trail was already hard-packed from hikers. Was good to venture off of the trail however.
Tested out my SCX24 RC Crawler 😎
I can’t fit the showshoes in the trunk bag, but I have a carrying solution for those I’ll share later.
I hiked to a good spot and played in the snow.
The trunk bag is indeed super versatile – I feel like every year I come up with another useful way to use it.
Looking at it made me think that a similar, but more useful application of vertical bike rack storage, would be for fishing rods. Moore Lake is just down the hill from where I live, and it’s stocked with Bluegills and Bass 🎣
I made this fishing rod holder that attaches to my bike rack for less than $20, mostly from scraps I had in the garage. It holds four rods, but you could adjust it for as many as you’d like, as long as your bike rack setup will accommodate them.
I chose 1-1/4″ PVC because all of our rod handles will fit into that size pipe – you should test fit your thickest fishing rod before you buy.
I attached a PVC coupling to the pipe and then cut the pipe (with the coupling attached) using a hacksaw to 9 inches. This was both the size of my scrap wood and the size of the longest rod handle. You should go longer if your handles are longer than 9 inches.
To make a permanent connection, I used PVC primer and cement to bond the couplers to the pipes.
The couplers are there to serve as stops for the tubing straps – so they don’t fall through them.
To fasten the tube straps to the board I used #10 x 1/2″ sheet metal screws. I pre-drilled holes in the wood with a 1/8″ drill bit, then used a screwdriver on the screws.
I designed 3D printed hangers because I couldn’t find any readily available hooks that I liked at the hardware store. I like Topeak racks because of how their bag systems attach. I designed the hangars to conform to the Topeak’s 10mm rod construction – which I believe is a standard size for many bike racks.
To fasten the hangers to the board, I used #10 x 3/4″ sheet metal screws.
Backing and Hangars
The board I used was some leftover 1/2″ plywood. Mine was 9″ wide so I went with that – luckily that’s how long our rod handles are. You can cut the width to however many rods you want to hold. For my 4 rod holders it wound up being 15″x9″.
To make sure everything lines up well on the back, I used my Thule panniers as an example. The metal plate that sticks to the magnet is approximately 9″x4″ – so I cut a piece of sheet metal that size. You can use a hacksaw to (slowly) cut it. I used a cutting wheel to make quick work.
I also used the Thule pannier as a reference to gauge the placement of the metal backing position relative to the hangers so they’d be generally in the right place. It will ensure the steel plate is the right place so it will line up with the rack magnet without having to move it around on the rack.
I used 3/4″ screws to fasten the hangers, and 1/2″ screws to hold the steel plate. I pre-drilled the steel with a 3/16″ drill bit, and the wood with a 1/8″ one.
There’s no provisions on this rack for bait and tackle, but you can use the opposite side of the rack for a pannier, or just put your bait and tackle in a backpack.
When I’m fishing while paddling, I keep a very small tackle box on the boat with me, and that is also perfect for local fishing by bike.
Usability tips
Riding around with 6-foot fishing poles is like riding around with a whip antenna – it’s real tall. Just beware of any low tunnels or doorways, tree branches, etc.
Also, you’re not going to be able to put a leg over the back like you normally would. A pole (and hooks) will prevent you from doing that. Be mindful while you’re getting on and off.
I (perhaps stupidly) tried out the purple worm seen in my tackle box above – set up as a Texas Rig. I felt some serious bites, but I didn’t land anything. In the end I’m lucky because I didn’t bring a net if I actually had caught a tenacious bass.
While I didn’t bring one, you could certainly put a net in one of the holders. This is more of a catch-and-release type of rig, and I wasn’t planning on any big bites my first time out, just a couple of sunfish 🐟
In 2011 my family and I took a vacation to Three Lakes, Wisconsin (near Rhinelander). While I was there I was able to take my new mountain bike out for a spin at the Anvil Trails.
I love the simplicity of my Redline 29er. Single speed – just pedal. No suspension, which helps keep the cost and maintenance down. I’d had it on other trails in Minnesota before, but this one had me thinking twice about no suspension. Much of the trail consisted of forest bottom beneath pine trees. There was a good layer of pine needles, but beneath that was thousands of roots crawling on the surface. Riding over them at speed felt a little like this:
After that, I told myself I’d buy a front suspension fork.
I looked and looked, created spreadsheets, compared weights and prices (and price per weight). The hardest part was finding a fork that didn’t require me to switch to disc brakes. After expanding my search, I found what I was looking for on eBay 😬
It’s hard to admit, but sometimes Chinese knock-offs wind up serving markets that Americans never thought of. I bought a Spinner mountain bike fork off of eBay. Everything about it screams Rock Shox knockoff including the fact that is weighs only 1480g. Other OEM fork brands like Suntour often weigh twice that. I tried a Suntour fork briefly, but it was soooo heavy that it entirely changed the way the bike handled and behaved.
Spinner offered something that that the light-weight Rock Shox forks don’t: brake mounting posts for v-brakes. When I got back into cycling, linear pull “v-brakes” were the norm. They are so much better than the caliper brakes of yester-year that I don’t feel the need to upgrade to disc brakes. I’m sure the many bike-riding Chinese find v-brakes to be equally adequate, cheaper to maintain, and the suspension welcome on poor roads.
It came with a remote lockout – a switch mounted on my handle bars that I can flip to lock the suspension to be rigid, or to be like normal suspension. I keep it locked for the road, and turn the suspension on as needed. 🚵
