Pearl Izumi Cycling Bib

I remember my first sports shoe purchase. I bought a pair of grey Power Joggers from the Lake Market Bata. Before this we used to wear very basic canvas keds with a thin layer of rubber sole for running and other sporting activities. After the purchase I decided to wear the new pair of shoes from the shop to home and oh my God - what a feeling !!! It was like walking on soft cloud. I felt like floating home. It was a totally out of this world feeling. I had no idea sports shoes felt this good. I learnt to respect and spend money on good sports shoes ever since. 

The next such feeling came when I first bought a set of four Michelin tyres for my Esteem. These were my first upgrade from the usual Indian tyres that I was used to. The road felt like covered with silk and again I was like floating. I have never bought any other set of Indian tyres.

This morning the third such life changing experience happened when I first went out cycling wearing my Pearl Izumi bib shorts. Oh boy what an experience !!! I had no idea a cycle ride could be this comfortable. I just did not feel the saddle under my bums. I ended up cycling some 36 kms in two and a half hours, going up to and coming back from Bobby's house in Salt Lake's AE block. 

No I do not go out like this :-)

My nephew brought this for me from the US the other day for $80 off Amazon. It's a pair of Pearl Izumi Attack bib shorts. It has what are known as chamois padding that makes the saddle very comfortable. The normal burning sensation that I have always felt since childhood while sitting on the saddle was totally taken care of from the moment I sat on the bike. I think it even smothered the shocks a little too and helped with my average speed marginally. I am more than certain this will make the road bike more comfortable. This morning I had gone out with my Hero MTB.

These are cycling bibs as opposed to just simple cycling shorts. In the sense there are shoulder straps or suspenders to keep the shorts in place and not let them slide down. The upper part is perforated to make summer rides more comfortable. The fabric feels good on the body but the chamois takes the cake. It is the ultimate in cycling comfort, I can say without any hesitation. I chose size small for a good snug fit. And it has fitted my small frame perfectly. But with the next pair I might want to experiment with size medium.

As I see it, my life can now be divided into two parts. Cycling till date without padded shorts and from now on with padded shorts. There is a heaven and hell difference. 

Of course these have to be worn like underwear. You wear it straight on the naked skin. If you wear a brief underneath then the entire purpose of wearing it is apparently defeated, Therefore after every ride this will need a good wash. So it would have been better to have a few more. Today I literally wore it like an underwear. I wore my blue Nike full sleeve dri fit T on top over the suspenders. And below I wore the blue Kappa track pants because it was cold. 

The edge of the two legs have thin silicone lining for better grip on the thighs. Mine were sitting a little too tightly perhaps and when I took them off there was a  depression mark on the two thighs. It was itching a little too. I guess one has to get used to them.



Obviously one 36 km ride in Calcutta's winter is not enough to pass a judgement on this. It is comfortable no doubt. But I have to see how durable it is too. So I will take a relook at the review after a few months.

Merida Slider Cycling Helmet

Yesterday my cycling helmet arrived (along with two bottle cages) from Extreme Adventure Sports, a sister concern of Nikita Distributor of Pune. The helmet is a Merida Brand Slider Helmet in size 53-58 cm and colour matt black (with obnoxious white and green stickers). Against the MRP of Rs 2490, I got it at the dealer's price of Rs 1644.34 (plus 6 per cent CST), which is quite a steal. 

This is my first cycling helmet, hence it may not be the best review to trust if you are an unsuspecting reader wanting to buy a cycling helmet. I will just write down my first impressions about the helmet. The first thing one notices about it is its extreme light weight. Possibly mentally I am comparing it against my motorcycling helmet. 

I have no idea about its strength but according to the accompanying literature, it conforms to the following standards - "EN 1078 European standard for cyclists, skateboarders and inline skaters" and also "89/686/EWG: Guidelines for personal protection equipment". It comes with CE markings. So I can assume that this helmet is legal protection in Europe. 

Clip for adjusting the Y below the ear

Now comes the question of fit. The helmet fits me very nicely. I think I have a larger than normal size of head. This helmet is fine for me. The helmet's size around the head can be adjusted by turning the  plastic fitting knob on the back. I think this system is called "ring fit". The chin strap can also be adjusted at two points - below the ear to adjust the size of the Y (this does not affect the fit) and under the chin to tighten it. The clip that is used for adjusting the strap below the ears are very smartly designed and different from anything I have used so far. The quality of the strap material is also very nice and soft. But it's white, which makes it prone to get dirty. 

The inner foam cushion can apparently be taken off and hand washed. I will do that once it gets really dirty. In motorcycle helmets it is not advisable to wash the inside too frequently. I am sure the same would apply for cycling helmets also.

I wore it for a 36 km ride this morning and it was fine. Never felt it was there, particularly after I adjusted the ear's Y.

Apparently Merida helmets are manufactured by Moon helmets of China. At one point of time that used to be a major issue with me but nowadays I do not care any more about that really. Everything is made in China. Also Chinese products these days are much better made than they used to be.

Addition on November 30, 2018

I did not use the helmet hood for riding my road bike Merida Scultura 200. But now that I have a Surly LHT, I wanted to put the hood on. Also the shape of the helmet without the hood does not look nice in selfies.

But for the life of me I couldn't understand how one fitted the hood to the helmet. The black hood had come with the helmet. Never used it because I didn't want to. But now it seemed I cannot even if I want to. I searched the internet up and down, googling every possible combination of words to find some clue but no luck there.

Finally last evening I had that Archimedes moment when I discovered two tabs on the sides of the forehead. You simply prise them open with your nail and two tiny holes come out on either side of the temple. That is where you fit the hood. I shall now wear the hood. It looks much better with the hood on. Road helmets don't come with a hood. Making a mountain helmets into a road one by not putting the hood on is a stupid thing to do.

Frankly when I bought the helmet I had no clue about what type of helmet I was getting for myself.

Petzl Tikkina

At our hotel in Leh

I had bought this headlamp before the Chadar Trek in 2016 from Amazon for Rs 1600. I haven't used it much ever since except at home for doing certain odd things and for the odd road trip to Rajasthan. But the Chadar trek itself is a pretty tough testing ground and it passed with full marks.

At the price, which is very low for a product from a well established brand, it is an excellent choice if your requirement does not include night time walking. This is a basic flashlight for using at night in the camp - for looking for things in the tent, eating in the mess tent, going to the loo after dinner etc. 

It is not meant for long walks because the beam is neither too long nor very wide. But, for keeping it handy in the camp even when you go to sleep it is ideal. In Chadar I used to often just keep it on, aimed at the tent's ceiling, to overcome the boredom of the night inside the tent.

It consumes very less battery. So you can keep it on instead of constantly worrying about battery running out and keep switching on and off. The original unit came with pre-loaded batteries. They are still going strong. 

The unit is very light and you hardly feel its presence on your forehead. The unit can also be kept at various angles to either help see things in your sack or the path to the toilet. The headband is of good quality and not itchy. The unit can be used in two intensity modes. It has one switch which is used to serially switch the unit on, dim and switch off. The small problem here is that if you are on the dimmer mode, you need to switch it off first and then go to the stronger light mode.

Our guide at Chadar, Tashi Skelzang liked the unit very much and asked me to give it to him for his hikes to the Stok Kangri where you need to walk in the dark. He said this would do fine for him despite the beam being officially not very wide. I told him since I had got quite attached to it by then, I wouldn't give this particular unit but would buy a new one for him and send it to Leh. Unfortunately that has yet to happen (It happened before the Roopkund trip in May 2017 when Sujan personally carried it to Leh for me. Tashi was ecstatic after getting it. I am deeply indebted to him for what he did for me in Chadar.)  

If I have to find a fault with the unit it is the non-intuitive way in which it has to be opened to insert the batteries. But if I can work it out you can too :-) Someone might say the unit is not rechargeable. I am glad that it is not. In a remote location if the battery runs out you cannot recharge it. It is best that this feature is left out. Of course you can always use rechargeable batteries. It takes three AAA batteries.

Incidentally Petzl is the name of the brand, after its French founder. Tikkina is the name of the model. They have many other models of flashlights and headlamps and other mountaineering equipment. This I think is the most basic one. But it serves my purpose just fine. I take it along even during my self drive trips.

Some Addition After Roopkund Trek (June 2017)

As the battery goes down the unit gets dimmer. I did not realise this was happening. But after I changed the batteries, I realised the light became much stronger. But this was after the early morning Roopkund push :-)

I was researching other headlamps with stronger and wider beams and realised the unit has a few shortcomings. A. It does not have any lock to ensure that the unit is not accidentally switched on inside your bag. The unit also does not have any red or green or blinking feature. These are apparently used as distress signals. The unit cannot be USB charged.

The clear advantage of this unit against its more expensive brothers is that it takes rechargeable batteries. I will perhaps get a stronger light sooner or later like a Black Diamond Storm but this unit will always remain my favourite.

Firmware Update on 5D Mk II

Today I updated the firmware in my 5D Mk II. A very simple process really. Made even easier by this video here.

First of all you take a fully charged battery so that when the update is happening there is no power outage. But frankly it takes less than 3 minutes. So even if you have a half charged battery you are fine. You also need to format the card.

Transcend TS RDF8K USB 3.0 Card Reader

After that you download the new firmware - in my case I was updating from 2.1.1 to 2.1.2 which is available in this website - into your computer. Next is to add the formatted card to the card reader and copy the update file into the card. In fact to do this I had to buy a new CF card reader from Amazon. It's a Transcend that I got for Rs 1100.

Next you eject the card from the computer and put it into your camera. Go to menu and there is a place for firmware update. It's very intuitive after that. Just keep pressing set on the camera and you are done. Forgot to mention that the camera should be in any of the creative modes like M or TV or AV mode for this. Otherwise you cannot find the firmware update icon in the menu.

After the update you need to switch off the camera. Take the battery out and reinsert after at least 2 seconds. The update is complete.

After writing this much I went ahead and updated my 450D and 7D also :-) Exactly the same procedure. Good utilisation of the new card reader. I wonder when it will be used next. Because I download the camera files straight from the camera to the computer. That way, the file name arrangement happens in a very systematic way.