This past weekend I had to switch gears (literally) from back country mountain biking to city dwelling swamp cross. Seeing as I had 2 hounds filling up the back of the car, space was limited to the passenger seat for all my gear. The overnight lowers were forecast to be in the lower 30's, so most of that available space was taken up with keep me warm clothing and bedding. One small bag of cycling clothes and another containing helmet, shoes, and tools squeezed into the remaining space.
I've mentioned before that I'm a huge fan of the toolie roll. To me, it's more Awesome than a box of awesome. Which is rather ironic and a bit serendipitous that this is a post that I had planned back on Monday for today. And today being the day a whole box of Awesome happened to show up at the house.
The box contains several of the newly redesigned Awesome Straps (the Alpha Niners are huge by the way, big enough to securely suspend a Dicky high up on an RV ladder rack, in the event Blair or anyone else is reading), a couple belts, two dog collars (one being modeled by a stick chewing JD who just recently outgrew his puppy collar), shock cords, and a few other Awesome items from our friends at Backcountry Research. So far the collar has lasted 2 hours and 7 minutes in the life of a Catahoula. JD is up for the testing task. We'll post an update on the collar after a few trail days, river swims, and greenway jogs.
JD's nickname is Monkey and the box happened to contain two sets of Monkey Fist Straps (also handy for securely strapping a Dicky to a tree or RV ladder rack) as well. These came at just the right time. I currently have one gear strap to use, then often have to search for some string or bungees to strap stuff down. This also leads to 8Ball breaking spokes on my wheels. Not anymore. The 4 Monkey Fists will resolve the bungie/string hassle and my spokes can travel free of fret. Plus they are are in badass black and kick ass silver. There's nothing faster than silver and black. Though if I need a bungee, I'm covered there as well. Just note that the bungees carry an ocular trauma warning. There's nothing jocular about ocular trauma.
So, back on point. This weekend I needed to swap out gearing and perform some minor maintenance to my bike away from the home shop. Since receiving my toolie roll, I've always kept all my most often used bike tools in the easy to access/tote around rubber burrito roll. Allowing it to tuck easily and efficiently into the limited space available in my gear bag.
Clay's driveway and a cooperative sun offered me a makeshift bike shop. The rear rack on my car was a decent bike stand stand-in and the toolie roll offered search free access to all my tools and a handy place to keep all the small parts together.
I love the thing more than a Fondoadie (for you sick & twisted commentainters).
Christmas is coming, I recommend getting your hard to please biking curmudgeon that has everything a toolie roll. They may not be excited at first, but it'll soon grow into a favorite convenient item. Unless they just like digging through shaving kit bags for tools. But those types are hard to please anyway. Just send them a Walz cap and be done with 'em. Better yet, buy yourself a toolie roll and a Walz cap and forget about those hard to please curmudgeons.
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