Dear Fat Old Guys,

When I ride on really hot days I sweat a lot. I mean a LOT. It’s like rivers of sweat running off my head, into my eyes and off the end of my nose as I hunker down on my road bike. The salt stinging my eyes is bad enough, but I have ruined two cycle computers that weren’t sweat proof.

Headband, bandanas, even that over-priced thingy with the foam strip across the bottom doesn’t seem to slow the flow. If I don’t find a solution soon, I’m going to buy me a recumbent and ride with my head tilted back, staring up at the clouds. Maybe that will help.

— Melton N. August

It just so happens that Bikin’ Fred and I have been making the sacrifice, riding out in the heat, just so we could test this particular new product designed to solve the stinging-eye problem.

The Sweat GUTR® is pretty simple actually. It’s a rain gutter for your forehead — like the trough that runs along your roof to the downspout, filling your rain barrel, the Sweat GUTR is supposed to catch the sweat coming off your head and direct it to either side, away from your eyes.

Bikin’ Fred: Roger’s Ranch, a dance hall out in the country toward Lockhart used to have a men’s room with a rain gutter nailed up there in place of a urinal. It was kinda at an angle so it emptied out through one wall and into a field down the hill, but that’s another story, kinda like the big cast iron kettle in the men’s room at La Kiva out in Big Bend.

Anyway, the first time the guy at Interbike explained how that little soft rubber rain gutter would direct the sweat from my head back to the side, I was reminded of that old song title, “I’ve Got Tears in My Ears from Lying on my Back, Cryin’ Over You.”

Robbo: As I was saying, the Sweat GUTR is a soft PVC “rubber” headband with a little gutter built in, designed to channel the salty stuff away from your eyes and around your forehead where it won’t cause you grief.

And, the Sweat GUTR really does work. It’s clean, looks good and doesn’t leave a funny looking red mark on my forehead like I was afraid it would. It fits under a bike helmet nicely too. Austin locals can find the Sweat GUTR at RunTex or ask your favorite bike shop to get you one.

Bikin’ Fred: You call that a review? You didn’t even give it a good description. First of all, it has an unusual “plasticy” smell. Not really unpleasant, but noticeable. The GUTR is not as minimalist as you have made it sound. It has a relatively elaborate sizing system. Instead of making out of a real stretchy material, they have put two Velcro, excuse me, hook and loop closures on the thing, not to hold it to your head, but to allow you to select the proper pony-tail tie (for want of a better term) for your size head and squeeze factor.

The GUTR comes with three different sized elastic bands and you pick the one that allows you to get the thing on snugly without cutting off blood flow to the brain. I might mention at this point that they are assuming that you have a convex forehead. If you ride with abandon and have taken so many endos and face plants that your head looks like craters of the moon, this product might not work well for you. Also, if you have one of those face types with frown furrows that go up and down instead of side to side, the Sweat GUTR may not get a good seal when you are perplexed.

But, if you are relatively normal in the forehead department, this little sucker holds pretty snug and as long as you don’t exceed the capacity of the run-off channel, you should notice a definite improvement in sweat diversion. I have challenged it a couple of times with some serious sweating and haven’t overwhelmed it, but I do wish the inventors would find a solution for that sweat that is generated below the Sweat GUTR — the sweat that accumulates in your eyebrows until it is sufficient to cause you some stinging, then drops right into your eyes. It is longer in coming and not of the same flow as sweat from your head, but it is there and it is a pain. My wife suggests I shave my eyebrows. That from a woman who doesn’t have that problem.

Anyway, I have decided to conduct some further bicycling product reviews in a non-traditional setting, but go ahead, Robbo, you were going to leave us both giving the Sweat GUTR a favorable rating.

Robbo: Yeah, I’ve got another letter here and I think it is downright interesting.

Bikin’ Fred: Did you also write this one yourself?

Dear Fat Guys,

I love my minimalist fixie bike and I love riding it in the city. Lately, I’ve been riding at night and that’s good too. It’s nice and cool at night, you know. My problem? I need a good effective bike light, but I want to keep the bike simple and minimalist. I don’t want a bunch of junk bolted onto my beautiful bike.

Most importantly, I don’t want some expensive harpy attached to my bike that sings “steal me” while it’s locked up on a rack somewhere in town. I guess that rules out the beautiful $300 light set I saw the other day. Any ideas?

— Franke N. Byker

Robbo: Speaking of thieves, I saw a most brazen sort of bike hijacking the other night. Picture for a moment sixty or so bike Bohemians hanging around Waterloo Cycles following a well-attended Bike-in-Movie event. Everyone is talking, smiling, laughing and making plans for the night. Suddenly, about five feet from me a little punk in a black shirt (Duh!, Practically everyone was wearing black shirts) hops on an unlocked BMX bike and sprints away. Three feet from the punk, another fellow notices, yells “HEY,” drops his backpack and takes off running after him. The bike thief/punk got away. He must have done it for the adrenaline rush because I understand the bike wasn’t anything special; certainly not worth a beat-down or jail time.

So I guess the moral to that true story is this. Even if you’re watching your bike, even if you’re standing only a few steps away and even if you are a fast sprinter … LOCK THAT BIKE!

And if you don’t lock it, at least loosen the front wheel enough so it will fall off if a punk jumps on and tries to ride off. Someone might get a laugh out of seeing that.

What were we talking about anyway?

Bikin’ Fred: You were reading that bogus letter you wrote. I know you wrote it because I know you are in love with your old fixie and spend more time chatting it up to all your friends than even the most fanatical ’bent or Bike Friday owner.

Robbo: Oh yeah? Well, funny you should ask about lights. I’ve been testing a lighting product from Princeton Tec for the past few months. Princeton Tec manufactures a staggeringly diverse line of lighting products, many of which are designed for bike use or adaptable for bike use.

All Princeton Tec products are exceptionally weather resistant, often totally water proof and are very tough — the kind of tough that lends itself perfectly to being tossed into a messenger bag with a cable lock and a leaky water bottle, but will still be ready to work when you really need it.

The model I’ve got mounts on either my handlebar or on my helmet with an alkaline battery pack that is good for 70 hours of full-power lighting. And with the way Princeton Tec LED technology works, there will be hours and hours of lower power lighting available after that by progressively shutting down some of the nine LEDs in a sort of lower power “reserve” mode.

It’s actually very bright and cuts a wide swath. I like to mount mine on my helmet and put it in full flasher mode as a forward facing white flasher. This works well in urban situations when there’s lots of ambient street lighting and you want to make sure the cars see you coming when they’re pulling out of parking lots and stuff. Flasher mode also saves battery life. I turn off the flasher and go to steady light when it gets so dark that lighting the road is a higher priority.

Bikin’ Fred: So, Robbo, what is the model name of this light? Would that be the Corona Bike? Of course it would, but you leave me to mop up after your generalizing statements. Yes, the devil is in the details, or did I disremember that one?

It is a great light with real run-time endurance, but I think if you count those LEDs again you will find only eight of them and I don’t mount this one on my helmet because I don’t want to deal with a cord from my helmet to wherever I’m strapping the battery pack (8 AA batteries in a cylindrical housing in a bag with Velcro, excuse me, hook and loop closures. Fortunately, just about all of the Princeton Tec lights come with several different mountings. I mount the Corona on my handlebar and my EOS Bike on my helmet. Small, self-contained with three AAA batteries the EOS puts out serious light in a “spot.” The Corona is much broader and can illuminate a wider path in front of you, but the EOS is great for picking out the hazards before you get to them or for shining briefly at motorists to ensure they see you. [That’s motorists seeing me, Robbo. I have yet to have a car see me. Just teasing you since I get the final edit.] The last word on the EOS Bike is the size of the whole thing. It fits in just about any seat bag and it makes a great emergency light for doing after dark repairs and flat fixings.