Ergon GE1 Ergonomic Grips - Initial Impressions

Buying something you don't need

I saw these in the bargain-bin at a local bike shop. They were still there a week later and temptation got the better of me and I thought I'd give them a go. I've been wanting to try an Ergon with the distinctive  flat palm rest but they are an expensive purchase in New Zealand for something that might not work out. The GE1 model is marketed for freeriding and downhill but I'm sure they will work just as well for everyday riding.

The large clamp on the outside of mine has been slimmed-down on the new 2009 model

It's not like I actually "needed" new grips, I've been more than happy with the Lizard Skin Lock-On's I've been using for the last three years. I've never had any hand or wrist pain and the only improvements I would wish for on the Lizards Skins are slight increases in length, grip-diameter and softness. The ODI style of Lock-On grips are not as soft as standard versions because under the rubber is a hard plastic sleeve that slides onto the bars and gets clamped at each end. I much prefer them though for the ease of taking them on and off and the fact that you could ride underwater and your grips aren't going to twist in your hand or slide straight off the bar. Two frequent happenings when I used to race in wet Auckland winters.

Installation

Installing them was straightforward with a quick wipe-down of the bars with spirits and then gently twisting them on. I had to look at the pictures on the website as I didn't think the large flange on the inside should be poking upwards, but that's what it does and the orientation marks on the outside of it backed this up. The grip is secured at the outside only with a single clamp. I'm sure you could crush a carbon or lightweight alloy bar if you overdid it as the hex bolt is pretty big and you could really apply some torque to it.

How do they feel?

Weird, but natural at the same time. The contouring looks very subtle to the eye but your hands can tell the difference at once. I measured the circumference at 10cm at the inside and it increased to 11cm in the middle portion. The grips on my other bikes measure between 9 and 10cm. There's a light grey panel of softer, tackier rubber in the area your palms rest on and this combined with a long grip-area provided ample comfort and hand positions. 

The day after I fitted them we had a family mountainbiking day in Woodhill Forest so I got to try them out in anger. This is where I struck the first problem. It was a cold winter's morning so I was wearing light polyprop liners under my normal riding gloves. I'm 6' 5" with pretty big hands but I found it uncomfortable holding onto the larger grip diameter. I removed the liners and things got better but you would want to have large hands to fit the large size comfortably (they also come in small). When hitting stutter-bumps or landing a jump I could feel the pressure spread over more of my palm and I guess that is the whole idea. It still felt weird though and I think it's going to take more than a week to get used to them. 

The larger diameter also caused me problems on a beach-ride the following day. Very comfortable when just cruising along but when I had to stand and hammer for extended periods to get up and over the headlands (I'm riding a singlespeed) I just didn't feel as secure. My middle fingers were wrapped around and touching the base of my thumbs but I ended up sliding my hand inwards to the narrower area by the flange to get more purchase. This is the opposite of what you are usually doing when climbing on a singlespeed - i.e. sliding your hands to the ends of the bars to get the most leverage possible. 

The Verdict

These sizing issues aren't the fault of the GE1 of course. I think it's a sound design and just a little large for my hands riding in gloves. On my commute to work they feel just fine and I think I'll leave it a few more weeks before passing final judgement. 

One thing I will pass judgement on is the ridiculous packaging they came attached to. A total waste of plastic, cardboard and metal bolts that looks cool hanging on the wall of a bike shop but is completely unnecessary. 

The large flange on the inside sticks up and has markings for alignment

There is a specific left and right grip, just like pedals

Queens Birthday Ride

Lets just start by saying I don't give a damn how old Betty Windsor is, but for reasons unbeknown to me New Zealand celebrates her birthday each year with a public holiday. It's not even observed on her actual birthday, but I'll take a day off mountainbiking with my kids over working any day. 

We live in a very social street with lots of kids and lots of cyclists. Every month in summer and more sporadically in winter a few of the families meet at the Woodhill Mountainbike Park for a family ride. It's not too taxing, usually a two hour ride followed by a two hour barbecue, pine-cone fight and a re-hydration session for the telling of tall tales. The rider who has the most spectacular crash or sustains the most horrific injury is awarded the "Kamikaze Trophy" and a chocolate bar to ease the pain.

We had the coldest night of the year in Auckland where the temperature plummeted to 4ºC (thanks to some winds blowing North off Antarctica) but Monday morning dawned crisp and clear and the sun stayed out most of the day. 

I might ride the Pugsley fixed next time as you don't get much of a work-out riding with kids, even on a 36lb singlespeed, but I had a great time and look forward to the next one. 

My two boys are not as keen on cycling as their father, but with a dozen of their friends around there's always someone slower than you to pass and someone faster to chase after. It's fun and motivating and they always have a blast.

We just about had the lower car-park to ourselves.

Custom made Possum perch.

Post-ride munching.

Some extra trail-obstacles out there today.

Thing-Two performing for the camera.

Waiting for the stragglers.

Illegal Bicycle Activity in the City of Sails

Well, it was a logistical nightmare for someone as organised as myself, but we did it, we rode across the Auckland Harbour Bridge!

I had the bikes already mounted on the car when we awoke to beautiful winter's morning. Cold, but fine and sunny. The scheduled ferry services from the two closest wharfs were very spread-out on a Sunday so we drove down to Devonport to catch the 8.30am ferry to downtown. 

Thing-One and Thing-Two enjoyed the harbour crossing and it was a little unique to have the boat full of cyclists. The bike racks onboard filled-up instantly and there were bicycles and lycra-clad weirdo's strewn all over the place. I took a chance and purchased one-way tickets ($12!!!) for the 10-minute sailing to the city. Some folks were buying return fares as we weren't sure if they would let us across the bridge or not. 

After a quick 10-minute ride through an empty city we arrived at the rallying point at the foot of the bridge. 

A quick family portrait before joining the crowd of two or three thousand. 

I was getting excited at this point in anticipation of riding over this thing for the first time in my 43 years. The bridge is 50 years old this week and it's still only available to cars, trucks and buses (buses with no bike racks!). The original design had provision for pedestrians and rail but the budget was slashed before construction began. Typically small-minded thinking from those in charge of New Zealand's largest city.

The crowd listened to the speeches and then started to get a little agitated as we were told by the organisers that we would not be allowed  to cross. The police were willing to provide safe passage but Transit New Zealand were refusing permission. 

Thing-One hangin' with some unicyclists as we were waiting for the go-ahead. 

As negotiations continued a roar went up as a bunch of roadies appeared over the guard rail and sprinted straight up the left hand lane of the bridge. This caught the police napping and they took off in hot pursuit after them. 

Word then filtered through the crowd that it was all go and we slowly shuffled around the (hastily erected) barrier-fence to gain access to the bridge on-ramp. 

At this stage I had assumed, as most of the crowd would have, that permission had been given for the crossing. We found out later that night that the police had been forced to shut down all the Northbound lanes when the lead-riders ignored the police road-block and broke through it. 

It's a great feeling being surrounded by a large crowd of people with a combined purpose. You feed off each-other's energy and there was real party-atmosphere up there on the bridge that morning. 

The crowd was a real cross-section of society. Everyone from babies in strollers and on the back of bikes to walking seniors. Lots of children were out strolling with their families and plenty of young cyclists were having fun zipping in and out of the masses. 

On the TV news that night, and in the paper the next day you would have thought we were a riotous rabble of anarchists. The media really put a negative spin on the whole event when in-fact it was just everyday Aucklanders getting out and enjoying the access we should have to our only harbour crossing. 

It didn't look like many people when we were all standing around waiting, but by the time we all got up on the bridge we filled the whole thing up, all 1.2 kilometres of it. It was an impressive sight and the Waitemata Harbour was just stunning from up there. 

You tend to stand out in a crowd when riding a Pug and a lot of my friends from the cycling community, local bike shops and even contacts from the internet came up and said hello. 

Jakob was there on another Pugsley, or should I say "the" other Pugsley and he was singing the praises of running the Endomorph's tubeless. You save half a kilo on each wheel but I'm not sure I can be bothered changing at this point, I've only had one flat in three years after all. 

Before we knew it, it was all over and we had reached Northcote Point on the other side. I did a few wheelies in front of the advancing police line for the cameras and then it was time to head full-circle back to Devonport. 

The protest had delayed the traffic for 1.5 hours and there were a lot of pissed-off drivers stuck in the jam. I sympathize with them but you have to stand up for what you believe in and it's only by actions such as this that opinions change and things actually get done. 

The motorist traveling in the opposite direction gave us lots of support and there were no end of waves and tooting horns as we made our way across. 

On the way home we rode over the new pedestrian overbridge to the Akoranga Bus Station...

 

Across the long bridge to the O'Neill's Point Cemetery...

With a quick candy-break amongst the headstones...

And a detour past the Devonport Labyrinth...

...Before arriving back at the Ferry terminal to collect the car. We also had two bakery stops to fuel those eight and ten year old legs and stop-offs at two playgrounds. When you're riding anywhere with kids it takes you twice as long and costs you twice as much!

What a fun day we had and I'm looking forward to the "next" bridge-ride, although I suspect the police will take a much harder line in the future.

(I seem to have stuffed-up the links when I was rearranging the photos. If you want to see them big they are all on my Flickr photostream.)

Bridge Access Protest Ride

I have to work out a way to get a myself, my 8 and 10 year old sons and our three bikes to the other side of the harbour, but we will be there. I feel strongly about this cause. 

http://www.getacross.org.nz/

My Cycling Reclassification

Hauling the Midget-Assassin home from unicycle club

It's come to my attention lately that although I've always classified myself as a "mountainbiker", I don't actual get much opportunity to go mountainbiking. 

This became apparent when Paul from the mountainbikingnewzealand blog kindly invited me to contribute some of my posts and I've had nothing relevant to write about since!

Around the same time a good friend purchased a beautiful new Haro MTB and I still haven't had a chance to see it, let alone go riding with him. That's the problem with work and kids - they cut into valuable cycling time and there's never enough money ;^)

So I guess 95% of my cycling could be classified as Utility and I'm just going to call myself a plain old "cyclist" from now on. 

(But NEVER a Lycra-Cowboy)

2009 New Zealand Singlespeed Championships

I was not there. That was a bad decision on my part as the following photos by Graeme Murray and Mike Vincent prove, but I have a cunning plan for next year. 

This guy gets my vote

Kiwi Farmer

Aussi Nana's

Cat and Mouse

Cross-dresser on cross-bike (nice fishnets)

Neon Sperm (hell, that was my best guess)

One of the older competitors

Kids Bike Day 2009

Thing-One puts the Micro-bike though its paces.

I took some time off work to look after the kids during the first week of the school holidays. Luckily for me our local council puts on a Kids Bike Day a couple of times a year and if you pre-register it's absolutely free. Thing-One and Thing-Two at 10 and 8 fell into the 7-12 year age range so we packed up the bikes and headed down to Onepoto Basin for a fun day in the sun. 

Onepoto Basin is a crater formed by a Volcanic eruption. It is just above sea-level on the edge of Auckland's Waitemata Harbour and has been filled in so it's almost flat with the crater rim running three-quarters of the way around it's edge. After the last post it must be the time of year for bike events on volcanoes, but in Auckland you're never too far away from one, we have about 50 of them. 

The crater is parkland with bush walks, sports fields, a pond for remote-control yachts, a playground and most importantly a series of bike-paths set-up like roads for children to learn to ride in safety. It has been really well designed. 

The day started with a bike and helmet check then there was a unicycle demonstration. This guy was pretty skilled and the children were very entertained by his act with plenty of yelling and applause. Afterwards you were encouraged to give it a go but the boys and I were the only ones there who could ride one. Thing-One and Thing-Two thought they were a bit special as they zipped around riding the different uni's on offer. Truth-be-told I did too!

The kids were then split into groups and moved through six different modules with a free morning-tea somewhere in the middle. There was an obstacle-course, bike maintenance, rules of the road, bike handling, follow-the-leader and a bike-safety questionnaire. Lots of fun and I think they learnt some bike safety and skills without even realizing it. 

There is another one at the end of the year and my two are dead keen to attend again. That makes for one happy (cycling-obsessed) dad.

The mandatory kid-jump. I'm still waiting for one of these to go wrong.

Thing-Two tackling the bike-handling course.

Thing-One on the Giraffe.

The Obstacle Course. Some children had no idea how to ride the ramps and see-saws but there was plenty of help on offer and a soft landing if you got it wrong.

I got to ride a unicycle with a tyre that made the Pugs look positively anorexic.

Learning to give-way on the road rules course. The police were there helping on this module.

And finally a mountainbike was given away to one lucky child.