Reviewing a Strange Array of Bike and Outdoor Products

It's been a while since we've taken a look at some

bike

and

outdoor

products

. If you're new here, these videos are for fun. It's just me showing you a bunch of things and telling you what I think of them. With that, let's begin. Many of us prefer to ride

bike

s naked, well, without a backpack, I mean. Sometimes this means strapping some items to the bike, and lately this Dakine Hot Laps Gripper has been my go-to. It can easily hold a tube, valve stems, CO2, an inflator, a multi-tool, and even a little more. The reason it's called "the gripper" is because of this rubber surface on the back that prevents it from sliding around the frame.

I've traveled everywhere from North Carolina to Whistler with this and I can assure you it stays there. This long strap allows you to adjust the bag very firmly. The drawback, or advantage, depending on how you look at it, is that the strap also keeps the bag closed, so to access the things inside you have to untie it. Still, it's fast, secure, looks neat, and only costs $24. There is not much to complain about. Here's another bag that you can attach to your bike frame, the Underdog Down Tube Bag by Troutmoose. Although it's called a down tube bag, you can actually place it almost anywhere on the frame and, like the Hot Laps Gripper, it has this rubber material on the back to help keep it in place.

It also has a very long strap that allows you to hold it and go completely around the bag. But the main selling point of the Underdog Bag is that it is a dry bag. On a trip with a lot of river crossings, you could pack your camera batteries, cell phone, and other items here, and completely submerge it. Like the Dakine Hot Laps Gripper, this one needs to be unzipped to access the compartment, but the Underdog also needs to be unzipped and unrolled. It's also more expensive, at $45, and so all you really get is water resistance. This will appeal more to cyclists who really need that functionality, but for everyone else I think the Dakine bag is neater and a much better value.

Speaking of specialized items, here's a tool that promises to make working with wheels and tires a little easier and, in some cases, less complicated. WH1 Park. I'm pretty sure WH stands for wheel support, and that's exactly what it does. The WH1 mounts to your workbench and includes a fixed thru-axle that can be placed in different positions to keep the wheel in place. This is really useful, more than you think. From installing a new tire with sealant to mounting a brake rotor, the WH1 definitely makes the job about 8% easier, but it does have some drawbacks that will limit its appeal.

First of all, it costs $99. That's a lot for a consumer to spend on a wheel rack, but not a lot for a shop that sells dozens of wheels a day. Because the diameter of a wheel needs to be taken into account, the WH1 can take up more space than a vice and bench grinder combined; That's a lot of room for something stores have existed without for the better part of a century, so Park added the ability to clamp it to the bench or stick it in a vise. I must say that it is a smart tool.

One that I personally could survive without, but can save a lot of time in high volume stores. Here is another product designed for bike shops, the Grand Stand bike display. I've already shown you how to make a bike stand out from scrap 2x4s, basically for free, so this isn't a problem that warrants a big investment unless you're concerned about aesthetics. The large stand is very beautiful and also very heavy. It has ground grips and fits everything from road bike wheels to mountain bike tires. Because the Grand Stand is made for display, each unit comes with an arm that can link multiple units together, making for some interesting arrangements.

The arms also provide a bit of stability. I will be using four of these as guest spots next to my workbench and they will get a lot of use over the next few months. That being said, they were sent to me for review. If I had to spend money on a setup like this, I would definitely build something out of wood, but that's the look I'm going for here. At $65, they cost a little more than competing

products

and are much more polished. Most bike shops will buy them, but if you like to display your bikes they might be worth checking out.

The next product is from Circle Square Diamond. It's a decorative trail map that you can purchase for one of the many trail systems, primarily lift-accessible bike parks and ski resorts. I'm including them here because I bought a bunch of them for my shop build and the company has been adding many more pedal systems since then. To be clear, they are sold as prints, not with the frames. Before I placed my initial order in June, I saw that they had a map of the DuPont State Forest, but not the Pisgah National Forest, which is a larger trail system just a few minutes away.

I emailed them and they added it. They had no idea I had a big YouTube channel, but after purchasing those prints and featuring them in my build video, they must have found out because they sent me this. It is an impressively accurate map of Berm Creek, printed on canvas. For those of you who don't know, this is the trail system from my old house. So there's not much more to say about these prints other than the fact that they look great and are made by a great company. Here is a product to clean you and your bike.

It's called Crud fabric. It is a cloth pre-moistened with soap and water, impregnated with hippie oil. That's a shorthand for all of this. The instructions say to wipe yourself with it and then use the dirty cloth to wash your bike. The only disposable part of the Crud Cloth is the plastic it is wrapped in, the rest can be washed and reused. But once you've done that, it will be a normal cloth. This begs the question; Why not have some regular cleaning cloths on hand? Even with all the hippie oil this thing contains, you'll still be getting in the shower when you get home.

So I think it's good to leave the Crud cloth in the glove compartment and forget about it. Someday you will need a damp cloth in the worst way and this will save your life. But after a bike ride, I can think of more economical and sustainable ways to wash. The following is a product from our friends at Helmetor, the makers of these little helmet hooks. His new product is called a hub, which is a hook for his entire team. You mount it on the wall with the included hardware and then you can hang your gloves, helmet, shoes, and anything else you want all in one place.

You can't even pretend that's not smart. Now let's be honest, this is a little ridiculous and won't be to everyone's taste, but it's well thought out, solid, and does what it's supposed to do. So if you want a giant Helmetor logo on your wall with a place for all your gear, you know where to get it. In another product review video I presented this gem, which has since saved my life several times. The company, Potty Packs, makes a lot of products that you should never need. For example, they sent me the Tick Kit, which is an emergency tick removal kit.

Luckily, I don't have an actual tic embedded in me to demonstrate, but I came up with something just for this video. Inside the tick kit is a pair of tweezers to remove said tick, a tick storage bag so you can send it in for testing, and some first aid supplies. The kit also comes with insect repellent, I guess to prevent more ticks. Ticks can be a serious matter, especially if they really embed themselves in the skin, but I'm not totally sold on this kit. If you are really prepared enough to carry a tick kit, you probably have a first aid kit.

Which brings us to the next product from the same company, the first aid kit. While the name isn't all that creative, the “first aid kit” is actually a good idea. As with things you hope to never need, no one wants to carry a first aid kit, but this one is small enough to be completely insignificant. When traveling naked as I prefer to do, even a mini first aid kit like this would require me to wear a backpack. So I generally don't carry one. This can be stored anywhere, including the two bike packs shown earlier in this video.

The medicine cabinet is missing some important items such as butterfly closures, but it does have bandages, gauze, antiseptic wipes, and aspirin. It's certainly better than nothing and might be the only first aid kit you'll carry with you. So, we've been breaking a trail here on Berm Peak and I've been using some new tools. Let's take a look at some of them and see how they have fared. First, there are these Fiskars loppers, which are designed to cut branches two inches or less. I'm not going to lie, it was a 2+ inch branch that caused them to get stuck and damaged the cutter, but these bad boys are still going strong.

Even with a damaged blade, it takes very little effort to move these things through the limbs, and I can't deny that they were worth 40 bucks. Like most pruners, these are a little awkward to use on smaller things as you still need to open the handles a lot, but that's even more evident on these as they have this gear that gives you more leverage. Since I bought them a couple of months ago, they have been left outside and suffered a lot more abuse than a typical owner would subject them to, so it will be interesting to see if they survive another season.

Next, these machetes. I have two, because sometimes I invite friends. Everyone wants to use this one, which I call a cricket because it's made by CRKT. It's clearly the better of the two in almost every way. It cuts better, holds an edge longer, and has a more ergonomic handle. But it also costs almost twice as much: $50. For that, you obviously get pretty good steel and an excellent factory edge that's still going strong. It also comes with a case that I prefer not to use. If I had to get an extra machete, it would be this one, but that doesn't mean I don't like the other one.

This $30 machete is made by Cold Steel, which may sound familiar to you. They have this YouTube channel where they demonstrate products like these, in a great way. I doubt they are using the factory edge to cut this string or anything else as it is pretty dull. But with a little sharpening this is no joke. It has a lot of weight, which increases its destructive power, and the flat end also works as a rake. When friends come over, this is usually the machete I grab, and it's for a fairly superficial reason: it looks cool. The strong ending seems super brutal.

It takes a couple more moves to get the job done, but I like it anyway. That's all. I hope you enjoyed watching me demonstrate these things, and as we build more on Berm Peak, hopefully we can include more of these trail tools in future videos. Of course, that also means more bike stuff. As always, thanks for riding with me today and we'll see you next time.