ssorgs

Can't let go of all my excuses. Actually I have no complaints with my GX 1x11. But the Level TL brakes... though they did the job, even after having both levers warranteed for sticking, they were a mistake from the get-go, especially bc they're 2-piston. I used to prefer SRAM's modulation to older Shimanos, but that fine line between stopping and not is just stupid.

Just listed on CL: https://austin.craigslist.org/bop/6972133160.html

Kinda timely... episodic, affordable Buddy Insurance This Adventure Insurance Is Good News for Risk-Takers These days, a bad fall or hospital visit can cost you thousands of dollars. But new on-demand accident insurance for adventurers gives you backup. bout two years ago, Charles Merritt and Jay Paul, both singletrack cyclists, river runners, skiers, snowboarders, and adventure racers who live in Richmond, Virginia, noticed a problem among their friends and other sports enthusiasts: high deductibles and limiting health-insurance policies meant that a broken bone often broke the bank. “We have dozens of stories about ourselves, friends, and others who’ve been injured pursuing their outdoor passions,” says Paul, 58, who has worked in the insurance industry for more than 25 years. “I personally have been to the emergency room four times through the years for everything from broken ribs and a broken shoulder to lacerations.” Then Paul and Merritt started seeing GoFundMe campaigns for injured active friends who couldn’t pay their medical bills. “After contributing to GoFundMe after GoFundMe for friends, we decided that we could do something about it,” says Merritt, 34, a financial technology marketing specialist who started his career at Kayak, helped launch Jetsetter, and later consulted for insurance giant Allianz Global Assistance. The last ten years of health care and health-insurance policies have opened up huge financial risk for outdoor enthusiasts. “In general, insurance is opaque,” Merritt says. “The cost of care is always increasing, and the 2010 Affordable Care Act has caused health insurers to shift more of it to the individual.” So Paul and Merritt teamed up with computer-programming expert David Vogeleer, 39, to develop a radical new concept for people with an active life: on-demand accident insurance that is efficient, affordable, and user-friendly, rebooting the insurance process much the way Uber rebooted taxis. In October 2018, they launched their company and named it Buddy. “Just as breakthroughs in materials science have enabled us to have faster, lighter gear, the revolution in insurance technology allows for us to create new types of coverage to better protect adventurous lives,” says Merritt, Buddy’s CEO. “We’re starting to see the first wave of how risk will be managed in the era of on-demand everything, and getting what you need when you need it will enable adventurers and active people to choose when and where they add a layer of protection.” Buddy’s coverage is episodic, and you can tailor it to your needs. You can buy it on your phone or laptop 24/7 at Buddy’s website in as little as 90 seconds, from virtually anywhere with cell service, including the base of the mountain you’re about to climb or the bank of a river you’re about to run. The policy, backed by Lloyd’s of London and others, is e-mailed to you instantaneously. It costs less than $10 for a day (slightly more if you need the competition rider). Or you can scale it up. A week costs $21, a month $50. You can also buy a family policy. Buddy covers most adventure sports—from climbing and skiing to road and mountain biking—and it doesn’t ask what sport you plan to do. (While Buddy hopes to expand what activities and adventures it covers, it does exclude a number of more extreme sports, which Merritt describes as activities where you are “not attached to the earth and falling from high heights,” like BASE jumping, big-wave surfing, parachuting, free soloing, wingsuit jumping, and a few others.) Buddy covers you for the amount of time you sign up for, no matter how many activities you engage in during that time (as long as they aren’t on the excluded list), whether you’re taking part in the sport or heading home and slip on a patch of ice. And you don’t have to worry about being rejected: with Buddy, you are “guaranteed issue,” which in insurance lingo means there’s no underwriting and there are no tests, so you can’t be denied coverage. Buddy’s benefit payouts include cash for ambulance rides—up to $5,000 for an airlift or $250 for the road—as well as $500 for an urgent-care visit and $1,000 for the ER (for injuries like sprains and minor broken bones), $1,000 a day for a hospital stay (for up to ten days), $5,000 for a break or an ACL tear requiring surgery, and $10,000 for serious burns or a dislocated or broken hip. A more gruesome list of injury awards ranges from $25,000 for the loss of a hand or foot or eyesight in one eye to $50,000 for quadriplegia, severe brain damage, or death. Physical therapy is compensated at $75 a day for up to ten visits. The company’s business model relies on frequent usage. The average person Buddy targets takes 77 outings a year. Meanwhile, other companies with similar approaches are hitting the market. There’s Spot, which currently offers life insurance geared to the adventurous starting at $7 a day for a policy and is expanding to offer accident insurance in July, and Trov, which covers gear, like bikes and skis, on a sliding scale that starts at less than $1 a day. “If you engage in many outdoor pursuits, bad things can happen, and it can be expensive,” says Paul, Buddy’s head of business development, who in 2013 was named Insurance Marketing Innovator of the Year by National Underwriter Magazine for pioneering another bold accident insurance: Balance for Cyclists, which pays lump sums to cyclists injured while riding. “Balance was my first effort at creating new innovative insurance coverages,” he says. “After we built that, I knew we could design one for all outdoor enthusiasts, not just cyclists.” Buddy’s coverage is not coordinated with health insurance, and you can do whatever you want with the money, which you receive regardless of other coverage you may have. That means your benefits can be used for any out-of-pocket expenses you’ve incurred, like replacing damaged gear, changing travel plans, covering missed work or your health-insurance deductible, or helping with childcare. “I do a lot of solo bikepacking,” says Bill Ward, a retired financial professional who lives in Buena Vista, Colorado. “I like to have insurance. On my most recent use of Buddy, I was going on an all-day, 50-mile ride up into the mountains. My insurance isn’t that great. Buddy fills in the gaps and gives me peace of mind when I’m out in the middle of nowhere. When I was younger, I didn’t think of it, but now I wear a Road ID bracelet with emergency contact information and carry a Garmin inReach. Insurance like Buddy is the perfect complement to all that.” From the start, Buddy has won insurance and tech-world kudos, incubator awards, and partnerships. It was accepted into the two most prestigious insurance-tech accelerator programs in the country. The only bump in the road has been how slow the insurance industry and its regulators can be. Each of the 50 states has its own insurance standards, so Buddy has to apply separately to regulators in each one. Fortunately, Buddy’s paperwork is solid, with pricing and benefits based on sports-injury data from the CDC and reports from institutions like the Outdoor Foundation, and it’s crunched by actuaries in the U.S. and at Lloyd’s of London. So far, Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas have given the thumbs-up and are the only states in which you can currently purchase a Buddy policy if you’re a resident. Once purchased, the policy covers you wherever you plan to adventure, whether it’s your backyard, across the U.S., or internationally. Buddy expects to be available to purchase in at least 45 states by fall. In the states where it’s approved, Buddy has partnered with regional and national outdoor associations, event promoters, and sports organizations. The American Canoe Association, the Mountain Bike Association of Arizona, Bicycle Colorado, the Colorado Mountain Bike Association, the Colorado Mountain Club, and Xterra adventure races are all early adopters. “Our mission at Bicycle Colorado is to get more people riding bikes,” says Jack Todd, the organization’s communications and policy manager. “Buddy helps by making people feel safe while riding. Our missions are mutually beneficial. Buddy will help us get some more of those people who aren’t riding today, riding tomorrow.” It seems to be catching on. Since launching, Buddy has covered more than 8,000 days of adventure. “Our goal is to help outdoor enthusiasts live their lives more fearlessly,” says Paul. “Our on-demand accident insurance does that by giving people a fast and light way to protect from the maybes,” adds Merritt. “We all know the feeling of maybe or what-if when we’re about to take on something big. Those doubts can cause us to second-guess the commitment to a jump or take our minds off our foot placement just long enough to cause a mishap.” User testimonials on Buddy’s website validate this. “I definitely felt more free to send it!” Noah Moore, an Air Force master sergeant, wrote after a ride on the trails of Mingus Mountain, in the Black Hills of central Arizona. “I knew it was going to be gnarly; it was the next level of awesome I was looking for.” Worried about his carbon bike, Moore signed up for a day of Buddy coverage but still rode cautiously on the first run “to protect my investment.” On the second run, his crew wanted to go faster. “I was, like, ‘Hell, yeah.’ There were features I avoided the first time that I really wanted to do. The second time I hit them. I don’t think I would have if I didn’t have the insurance. I don’t think I’ll ever ride a serious downhill again without it.”

Turns out it's a specific XT M8100 Priority Packet... Still stoke-worthy!

That was my 15 yo son that won 3 prizes - including the XTR group - with just 5 tix! He's pretty thrilled but doesn't really mtb (these days only on vacation), though rides the dickens out of my wife's old road bike that I converted to commuter but can't use anymore... Yeah, it's a real quandary about what to do. My bike's all SRAM, except for pedals, and will not be replaced anytime soon! Brakes are about the only thing I 'need'. Will probably piece it out since he's most interested in the $s!

At RPR yesterday we saw 2 small rattlers and a black snake.

Did they get you a halter or event monitor??? Otherwise, they're definitely NOT going to see it. That can be the cardiologist/plumber approach. Do a stress test, which isn't likely to pick up arrhythmias. Nevertheless, if you're asymptomatic that should be a good thing, irrespective of why/how.

While I was being treated, an IronMan woman friend developed SVT, which is a potentially fatal arrhythmia - like other tachychardias. She got hers fixed right away and then went back to school, got a nursing degree, then went to work for that practice... Anyway, the point is even at the practice treating me, they were seeing an increased prevalence of arrhythmias in endurance athletes. There wasn't much literature at the time about that correlation, but plenty of anecdotal (though I've stopped keeping up since getting fixed, myself). So, if you feel something, say something.

Looks like an anti-dehydration elixir. Dehydration is one of the most nefarious (often preventable) conditions. I guess that's because we're mostly water, duh.

I can sense it ok. Not so sure about the relationship(s) between bp or thick blood and electrical problems, though - does seem more a plumbing-related issue. I have pretty low bp and it would typically be lower while in a-fib. Best advice I can give is don't give up on it. You know you better than anyone and if there's something amiss that you can't definitively explain, chase it down. I was 35 with a 1 year old and didn't want to be that tragic guy that dropped dead on a different run, before my wife could ask, 'did you ever get that checked?" While I did have to give up Ultimate, I hardly stopped biking, even while on blood thinners. I still drink caffeine and alcohol, etc., but even quitting all of those would be worth being with my family.

For starters, I'll say that the exact condition I had may feel completely differently in someone else... Episodes are when you're out of (normal) sinus rhythm, or in atrial fibrilation (or flutter, etc). In my case, I could tell instantly when I 'flipped', but sometimes if I was in it for extended periods, it could be difficult to tell whether I still was. What's happening is an electrical storm in your atria and they just quiver instead of pump, so blood can pool, which leads potentially to clots and potentially strokes. Symptomatically, it can manifest a several ways: 1) irregular heartbeat - when not active you can have a handful of normally spaced beats and then an oddball one (think of an electrical signal that makes it out the atria and into the right (?) ventrical for a real beat) and that repeats periodically but not at regular interval - this can be detected with a heart rate monitor (hrm) and I'd feel it - an extra thump; 2) flopping feeling in your chest - this is more than the occasional thump, but can be like a flutter (like atrial flutter, which is very similar in treatment too), but mostly like there's an out-of-water little fish in your chest; and 3) elevated/spiking heart rate - resting hr which may be in 60s or low 70s for me, but in mid- to upper-80s in a-fib, but would shoot up to 120-130 getting up and walking around, or going upstairs; in the extreme, I'd pass out when it shot up but this only happened 2 times, I think. Once, going upstairs to the dentist while I knew I was in a-fib but thought if I went slow enough...(funny story though - passed out on the stairs, came to went to the dentist and after my appointment stopped in the bathroom outside their office and had fresh blood cut on my nose - nobody said nuthin!). The other time was playing Ultimate, which I did competitively for 15 yrs till I had to give it up after passing out during a game when I went into a-fib but tried to finish the point (more blood on nose again!) 4) really goes with 3, but you get out of breath easily, like getting up from seated 5) sometimes I'd see very high spikes ~220 on my hrm after run or ride, even though I never felt 'in' it; but, jury is out on whether those were really short episodes or even a palpitation that got misread by my hrm (this was back with an older polar chest strap and watch). Misreads would happen a lot and they'd usually be multiples of my actual hr - sometimes the hrm would say my hr was 35 or 220, but reality was more likely .5x or 4x, etc. I've got an optical now, and a watch with 24 hr tracking, that's much better. Can't recall anymore if an ekg/ecg ever gave weird readings like that. First time I felt it, though, wasn't really like any of these. I was really sleep-deprived and went on my regular neighborhood run, but just felt 'bad' no energy and was struggling to get up a slight incline during my run. And to add to the episode description... I could go into a-fib playing Ultimate - quick unexpected sprints, etc - but, it also happened following a sneeze, standing at the sink doing dishes, waking up, and lots of otherwise innocuous circumstances. Fortunately, mtb never put me in a-fib, though there were some spikes I'd see in my hrm. Lastly, episodes can last from moments to hours to days. They suck for many reasons, but then again, you're not immobilized or anything. It's like a raining cloud over your head, but then when the episode ends, you still have the cloud that could open up at any time. Getting out of a-fib can vary a lot too. It can happen "spontaneously" (it's a term), with an additional dose of fleccainide, one of many mostly bs for me home rememdies (I did try the ice cold head dunk once - didn't work, neither did trying to sneeze while holding your nostrils closed), or via chemical or electrical cardioversion. Both are done in a hospital and take 2-4 hours and require someone to drive you home - huuuuge pia. I've had mostly electrical (ie paddles where they restart your heart) and in 3 different states.

@AntonioGG & @cxagent and others... Sounds to me like you're 'doing it all wrong' 😉 Seriously, you're basically seeing a plumber when you may have an electrical problem. Instead of a cardiologist (aka plumber), you should see an electrophysiologist (aka electrician). At the risk of being both offensive and an alarmist, many, many cardiologists are too arrogant or ignorant to refer someone to an electrophysiologist, even though they may treat someone together. It's like going to see a surgeon when you may not need surgery - they're far more likely to recommend surgery over therapy, because that's what they know and what they do and how they approach 'problems'. Some are dishonest about their biases, but most are just ignorant about the alternatives (in terms of breadth and depth of options). I endured A-Fib for 10 years and while ymmv, my lifetime of experience with specialty docs has confirmed this time and again. A-fib and flutter risks are primarily associated with strokes, while various tachycardias just straight up kill you. So, may be low probability, but worth checking out in my opinion. FWIW, in 10 yrs of treatment, I never had a stress test and I think I had just one CT scan before a procedure. In other words, it's gotta be the right test. There's a whole helluva a lot even EP's don't understand about arrhythmia, so a Cardiologist will be of little help unless you're elderly with typical persistent a-fib. They don't have a complete grasp on triggers or risk factors. My EP would tell me it's nothing that I'm doing that was causing my episodes, but that was bullshit. Dehydration was the main factor for me. Stress/lack of sleep was another and what led to my first recognized episode (going for a run the day a really late nighter). Briefly, I was diagnosed with A-Fib 2002 at 35, by an electrophysiologist (EP). I went on a medication, fleccainide, initially bc it had virtually no side-effects and the pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) procedure that was recommended was only about 2/3 effective, though it was new and they were improving their techniques (on others!). However, by 2008 I had passed out 2x and was ready to fix it and be done. It's a progressive condition since the heart basically re-models when it's in arrhythmia - 'arrhythmia begets arrhythmia'. After 6 years, fleccainide just wasn't as effective. Had a PVI in June 2008 (and a hernia repair, since I was outta commission anyway), but by Oct-Nov I was recovered but still having episodes. Squeezed another PVI in just before EOY (a freebie!). That one worked only well enough to effectively reset the clock some and I went back on the med since it was effective again. But by 2011 I was having more frequent episodes again and cardioversions can really cramp your style. This time I had the #1 EP in world for a-fib do the procedure and have been asymptomatic (still hard to say "cured") for 7 years! This doc, Andrea Natale, had just come to Austin when I had my 1st two in 2008 and I would've had to wait many months. I was already at the same practice, Texas Cardiac Arrhythmia, he joined so he was involved. It may have cost me some heart function, but it's good to have back pocket excuses. Hope this helps. I know getting diagnosed im/properly is at the very least a PIA, but certainty is an awesome thing. You may not have any actual heart problems and the occasional skipped beats and/or palpitations are fairly common and innocuous; however, you may also be nagged by the fear that something could still be wrong and, of course, much worse. Also, Charlie Rioux is also another resource, as he dealt with arrhythmia too. -Scott

https://www.onlinemetals.com/en/gallery-content filter for "bicycle" Not much else to go on.

Couldn't resist, Ran across this at onlinemetals.com while buying some Al bar stock for work... From the maker: "I made this full suspension mtn. bike based on a aircraft frame out of 6061-T651 AL, with titanium pivot points and black delrin plastic, 11 years back in my home shop. The fulcrum suspension points are adjustable to adjust the the ride from soft ride to harder suspension ride, plus the wheelbase is longer, than standard bikes. The longer steering arm gives better high steering performance, too."

Frontier Restaurant?

By Pam LeBlanc Posted Nov 30, 2017 at 12:01 AMUpdated Sep 25, 2018 at 12:40 PM Head to New Wall on the Barton Creek greenbelt any warm afternoon and you’ll find climbers inching their way up the 50-foot limestone escarpment, using rocks shaped like chicken heads, elephant ears and cookies for handholds. Climbers have been scaling these grayish-green cliffs for decades, even after the city parkland was incorporated into the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve in 1996. But now, as the preserve’s staff retools its public access rules, some climbers are worried that they could be pushed out. They’re not alone. Motorcyclists who ride designated trails at Emma Long Metropolitan Park, climbers who scramble up chunky boulders at Bull Creek District Park, mountain bikers who pedal through the Barton Creek greenbelt — all uses barred in most sections of the preserve, but permitted in areas that already operated as city parks when it was created — say that the reworded guidelines could squeeze them out eventually. That’s not the goal, according to staff members and the two voting members of the Balcones Canyonlands Conservation Planning Organization Coordinating Committee, who say they’re simply consolidating information already contained in a series of land management plans. “The intent is not to change any grandfathered uses or close down any uses of those parks,” said Sherri Kuhl, the Wildland Conservation Division manager at the city of Austin. The coordinating committee will meet 10 a.m. Friday at City Hall, 301 W. Second St., to discuss the issue, and many park users say they’ll attend. “They say explicitly, ‘We’re not trying to change public access to parks,’” said Brian Tickle, an Austin climber and Texas director of Access Fund, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for climbing access. “Maybe the intent is not to change public access, but you’re changing the language and it kind of opens the door for increased restrictions. ... They’re at the very least creating a lot of uncertainty about the intent. Is this an underhanded way to increase access restrictions? We need assurances.” The Balcones Canyonlands Conservation Plan was created in the mid-1990s to ease rapid development in western Travis County amid concerns about harming the environment — particularly the habitat of endangered invertebrates, salamanders and songbirds. Federal and local officials struck a compromise. The city and county governments agreed to set aside land for preservation, creating the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve, and development proceeded on a smaller scale. Today, the public can visit most of the preserve, a noncontiguous collection of properties, only through guided hikes led by volunteers.But under an agreement struck at the time of the creation of the preserve, certain uses — including rock climbing and mountain biking on the Barton Creek greenbelt, climbing at Bull Creek District Park and motorcycling in a small section of Emma Long Metropolitan Park — could continue. Then, in fall 2014, city of Austin officials said federal rules obligated them to close some of the motorcycle trails that ran through a creek bed at Emma Long because the motorcycles were causing erosion. That reignited a long-running dispute about what people should be allowed to do within the 31,780-acre preserve. The motorcyclists, including advocate Tomás Pantin, 66, who has been riding at Emma Long since 2011, said they were causing no harm and that the city closed the park’s most challenging and desirable trails. He’s now leading a campaign to get park users to submit letters in support of keeping access at all the grandfathered parks open. The Balcones Canyonlands Conservation Plan is administered by a coordinating committee made up of two voting members — one representing Travis County, another from the city of Austin — along with a representative of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and a secretary. Today, county Commissioner Gerald Daugherty and Austin City Council Member Leslie Pool are the voting members, although county Commissioner Brigid Shea, who has long championed environmental causes, will take over Daugherty’s role in January. The committee’s acting secretary, Kimberlee Harvey, was at a conference this week and unavailable for comment.But Kuhl, who served as the interim secretary on the coordinating committee before Harvey, said the park users are misinterpreting the proposed rewrite of the access rules. “The most glaring piece of misinformation that we have seen was that the BCCP Coordinating Committee secretary is attempting to seize the power to close parks unilaterally. There is absolutely no truth to this assertion,” Kuhl said. A section of the draft rules states that “any existing trails not approved by the Coordinating Committee Secretary will be closed.” That language was copied and pasted from another part of the management plan and refers only to trails created by the public without approval, Kuhl said. “The intent there is to close social trails, and if we are going to put in new trails, to put in more sustainable trails,” Kuhl said. Still, officials must responsibly manage the land, she said, “so there may be an instance where an area is suffering from too much use or erosion or overuse, and our goal as a responsible landowner would be to close that trail and build a more sustainable one.” Kuhl said staff members are looking at comments and are willing to edit the language of the rewritten rules so that’s clearer. Pool, one of two voting members of the committee, said she does not intend to bar rock climbers or mountain bikers from the Barton Creek greenbelt or Bull Creek, as long as they don’t cause damage. “I’m certainly not moving to change (the grandfathered uses) — I don’t see that they’re doing the level of damage that motorized bikes have,” Pool said. “We’re simply asking communities who want to use the preserve to do it within agreed upon parameters. “No public access guidelines have been changed. We’re not planning to tighten them. We’re also not planning to loosen them. (Restrictions) could happen at any time if incursions into the preserve get to a point where we have a crisis and the preserve is damaged.” Daugherty, the other voting member on the committee, said he understands why park users are leery. He described Balcones Canyonlands Preserve supporters as “hard-core environmentally minded people,” and said, “If they could do it all themselves, they would have very, very, very limited access to the public because they are concerned about the fragile nature of the habitat.” He said that, although the original contract states that certain uses in parks were grandfathered, “they would like to try to change that, in my opinion.” Daugherty said he has never supported restricting public use in the preserve, except in certain environmentally fragile areas. “If anybody is trying to alter the original intent of it — which had very specifically stated that there were grandfathered uses in certain parks — I would not be supportive of altering that language at all,” he said.

Missed ya by a year (8/2016)...

Thanks for the detail! Good to know. I'll guess that he learned *some* from that experience! I'll say that his initial quote based on pictures over fb messenger (which I did find to be a pia) was "about $190 - 250". After dropping if off with him (he's NE now, though offered to use Nelo's which would've been super convenient for me, but I had to get 1 more ride in...), he completed the work then asked if $275 would be ok, as he cleaned the entire frame lubed rusty bolts, among other things, and added the dt protector (cut up but new knobby). I was fine with that given my options for replacement. He also delivered it to me. Nevertheless, cleaning the frame and lubing bolts during reassembly aren't exactly 'value adds' and should be included, as far as I'm concerned. And by 'included' I mean in whatever price is quoted. Hard for me to say that this is a $250 rather than $275 job. But, I agree Seth, set the right expectations and stick to em. Now, I did have some issues on my 1st ride that I think were a result of his cleaning and lubing, as my rear rotor may have been fouled (very worn pads would not grab it, though was fine before I brought it in) and my pedals were especially loose. Hard to say and I didn't have the vinegar for a pissing match...

Sweat's corrosive!

Great to hear we've got options! I'll shout for Dennis and C6 Carbon Repair! He fixed me up in 4 days, for far less than a crash replacement, and did some meticulously good work. Even installed a knew knobby downtube guard! This happened to be the 2nd Rollik frame I've broken in the same general area, so it was great to hear from Dennis - and from Spot - that the repaired frame will be stronger than new. Check out his fb posts with pix for an idea of just how far gone some of the frames are that he's brought back. I don't have anything but the fb pix he posted, so you don't really see finished result, but you wouldn't know it was worked on unless you stuck your nose in it.

Shoulda clarified - “try” is the key! I’ve only done 2 EBs (both 11:30-12 hrs) and I carry close to that, consuming as much as I can. Probably get 80% there. When it comes to consumption for me, it’s not cumulative, either. In other words, I aim for 400-500 each hour and if I do less, I don’t try to make it up next hour for example. More of a pragmatic approach, recognizing some hours may be a single goo and others may have a beer...

Rides over 3 hrs I try have some nutrition (clif shot or 2-3 blocks) every hour, especially when it's hot. For EB, though, I try for 500 cal/hr! I use, er, Spiz for about half of those hours as 1 - 20 oz will provide 500 cal. I think the key is to eat (and drink) before it's too late. Once your stomach gets too empty, nothing really seems to help. Otherwise, clif bars, blocks, shots work for me and they're portable. I carry Spiz in single-serving ziplocks so I don't have to measure.

I owe someone off the old forum a big thanks for calling out Troy Lee Designs Skyline Air Short! After trying one pair, bought 2 more and am done with bibs. These shorts are as-if not more- cool than bibs, don't snag, don't rub (in multiple places like my bib - so I don't need chamois except for EB), don't get as soggy, and don't get the ladies so worked up like bibs...

Garmin FR935 can go the distance. I had a older Vivoactive a couple of years ago and was able to charge while on my wrist and riding from a small battery pack in my hip belt...

Then we "Jah" people...