Gaston, I'm not questioning why you use this carry method, I'm honestly confused on how it could be comfortable and secure on a bicycle. Is most of your riding done in the city or on mountain bike trails? I assume you're on trials, hence the reason for carrying a large survival knife.
This is a sincere request - please post a photo of your typical carry (large survival knife, sheath, survival blanket, sock, and all), inside the pants, sitting on a bicycle. Again, I am sincerely curious.
I'm having trouble with uploading any pics except those already on my photobucket, so it will be a while.
You can't really use a sheath's belt loop on a bike because if you close your coat the handle will pull it to one side: This can't happen when the knife is diagonal across the belly. With a shorter coat, or riding up the coat over the handle, or over a ring loop dangler, the coat would pass over the handle so it would work, but it would still look pretty ridiculous.
In any case with the recent nicer weather I've just done a new evaluation of the knives I have for edge-holding while chopping wood: I hesitate to chop into wood in freezing weather because the frozen humidity just adds a layer of uncertainty: This was done at 10 degrees C: It confirmed some of the issues I had noted in those knives last summer, so even ensuring there was not the slightest wire edge, or opening the angle with a micro-bevel, it did not solve the issues noted a year ago:
-Neeley SA9: That one was only tested last summer, and until it gained a 25 degree per side or more micro-bevel, the 440C steel just crumbled. The edge did hold up when micro-bevelled 25 per side thick, but it nevertheless dulled very quickly. (This knife's handle also started to unscrew itself from its brass fileted base plug, in barely 50 chops, at which point I gave up on it)
-Andrew Clifford Sly II: Last summer with a 0.040" edge, a bit over 15 per side, it showed bad rolling/chipping in Maple: Now back from RazorEdgeKnives at a thickness of 0.020", and with extensive hand-sharpening to 15 per side to move out of a possible "burned" edge area, the edge rolls on Maple so badly in some places the edge points upwards... (Side by side on the same wood, but with 10X more chops, the Randall Model 12 showed not the slightest damage: Will post pics later): I don't know why this is, since some customers have shown satisfaction with them, but this is abyssmal...
-RJ Martin "Blackbird": Extensive re-test from an edge very carefully checked for wire-edges: It is 15 degrees on one side and 20 degrees on the other, all by hand: The same symptoms as last year re-appeared, but this time I had outlined the hit zones to distinguish them from the untouched zones: What happens is not as drastic a failure as the Neeley or Clifford, but in the areas pre-determined, a mere 15X chops was enough to cause wire edges to appear all over the areas where I made sure the hits were concentrated. The wire edge is tenacious however and stays upright: It is also very small in height and not visible; it is only noticeable because it shaves nail where previously it didn't...: Compared to Randall or Lile after hundreds of chops at much thinner angles, this is still a serious failure... Given the wild disparities between makers on 440C, I wouldn't even begin to speculate if the S30V plays a role here: The behaviour is consistent and moderately poor: This will definitely be a beater...
-Lile SLy II: Entire blade geometry thinned by RazoEdgeKnives from 0.043" to 0.020" or less behind the edge: The chopping performance improvement is surprisingly large. No real visible damage to the edge in about 100 chops since the re-grind, at barely 12 degrees per side if that. There was a microscopic and very slight edge bend in one place, not in the center of the hit area, probably from a sand particle embedded in the surface of the branch: Barely visible.
-Lile Mission: Last year this had behaved exactly the same as the Sly II at about 12-15 per side, but not even a blemish from a sand particle or anything else in 100+ chops. Don't know if either is D-2 or 440C, as Lile doesn't mark them.
-I recently tested the Colin Cox: This was my sharpest big knife so far, with an edge of about 10 degrees per side: The edge sharpness held up perfectly in about 80 chops despite the thin angle. However in the first test I hit the guard on the wood, bending the guard back slightly, and light tapping to redress the bent guard cause the handle to slide back (separation): I applied superglue to the exposed area and tapped the handle back halfway, and in 40 more chops the handle continued to separate, revealing it was held only by a sort of green transluscent resin and no mechanical locking: Unlike Randalls, it is not welded... The tang is massive and does fit tightly into the tube: I may try to just superglue again the stuff together with thinner infiltrating glue... I would not call this a serious knife...
So far only the Liles have done well, which I am very annoyed about, but if those are the only ones that are good then that will have to be it... So out of six knives, Neeley, Clifford, RJ Martin, Cox, and 2 Liles, all in the near 1k range or above, here is the tally:
-2 handle separations from very mild use.
-2 edges badly crumbling in a few dozen chops (one overlapping with a handle separation).
-1 edge mildly rolling in a dozen chops. (Stay away from S30V if that's really what it is like)
-2 behaving perfect from start to finish, both Liles...
Gaston
