Wired thinks it’s fake, but I think they could be boosting a battery in there with the bikes. I choose to believe.

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/12/b … ed-ch.html

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sight’s gonna love THIS.

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1. why aren’t mountain bike frames used for fixed gear bikes
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I am getting closer to achieving man-shed approval status (MSAS), I juts have to trim and paint my daughter’s room at this point

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This isn’t it. It’s whatever’s the opposite of it. But I thought you might be amused by what I’m scheming. Sealed stainless bottle, hung at the rails, which will then be anchored to the seatpost, like an old school bike pump. Sure, we could just go with a bottle cage, but hell no!

I *am* bringing in my fly satpost mounted aluminum bi-cage carrier to see if it fits. You may recall it was too large for the post on wB(tm) as originally intended.

Anyway, haven’t posted a bikemod in awhile, so this one is in progress…

Previous and other feasible coffee-carries include two carafes with L-arm handles that fit on the bars under the brake cable, but this was rejected ultimately because it’s not a large coffee. Also, riding one handed is tough on the bullhorns because to get to the brake, you are way leaned forward, and to not use the brake, well that’s space madness in this town. ESPECIALLY in the wet. These SUVs have little toleyou stickers with crossed-out fixies on them. GAH!

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If only I could find station no. 3
Pretty cool system.

http://www.dannychoo.com/adp/eng/1630/J … orage.html

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in the "pretty much the greatest invention ever" category today, we have POLERIDER — a bicycle-powered stripper pole.

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wow.

ok, background check … building up SG(f)’s bike, which is geared, i was at a loss of how to structure her shifting system. she chose to run riser bars, so i could’ve easily just bought a $25 set of indexed thumb-shifters from any one of a million and three online or brick-and-mortar shops, and at first, intended to do so. but what if she decided after a while that she didn’t like riser bars anymore and wanted to go to road drops? i’d have to buy entirely new technology to keep her bike shifting. this is money outlayed and shipping time waited and just a general hassle. and that’s when i discovered PAUL’S THUMBIES.

paul’s component engineering is a great specialty part shop who wisely invented this little gem — a riser bar mount for your bar-end shifters. why was this so perfect for my little project? well, having bar-end shifters meant that if she decided to go to road drops at any time, i could use those for her shifting system, and while she’s riding risers, i can retcon those bar-ends into thumbs using the above. basically, it gives versatility and choice. big selling points for me, in all things.

so i strung it up last night and here’s what i found…

PAUL’S THUMBIES…
not much to say about these, as all they are is a mount, essentially. but they’re engineered to fit precisely, and i had no problems whatsoever with attaching my dura-ace bar-end shifters to them. they’re very expensive for what they are, but you have to pay to play, so you do it and smile. the barrel adjuster on them is smooth as silk, and the instructions are pretty clear, but i’d bet that if you didn’t have at least a basic understanding of how all the components work, they could be confusing. of course, if you didn’t have at least a basic understanding of how all the components work, you also probably wouldn’t be custom-constructing a shifting system, so. anyway, approved and recommended.

SHIMANO DURA-ACE 9-SPEED BAR-END SHIFTERS…
this is where i’m really about to flip my fucking lid, because this package, at almost a hundred dollars, is one of the best bike-related purchases i have EVER made. starting off with the basics, there is not just a set of shifters and cables/housings in this box, but there’s also every other part you might possibly need for replacement of your shifting system. the little plastic guide that rides under the bottom bracket shell to guide the shift cables to their respective derailleurs? included. new frame-mount barrel adjusters, WITH mounting bodies? included. snaking plastic housing guides for under your bar tape? included. this package has everything you could possibly need for a shifting system redux, and i’m GLAD to have coughed up the cheddar for this particular system. not only does it afford me the versatility to go between thumbies and bar-ends, but it tightened up the workings of the shift system, too, thanks to all these piecesParts.

now, as to the shifters themselves, i have but one thing to note — the rear shifter has a switch on it which allows you to … wait for it … SWITCH BETWEEN INDEXED AND FRICTION SHIFTING. and why might this be good, you ask? well, despite my preference for indexed shifting, i also know what kind of trouble you can run into if your shifting system experiences any sort of malfunction. and with this particular setup, you can run indexed (as i have it set up currently), yet in the instance of shift system trauma, just switch it over to friction and you haven’t lost a single gear. a backup shifting system? now THAT’S tech i can believe in.

10 fuckin CLANKS! and if i could give it more, i would.

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ok, so this is how a shifting system works on a bike — there are a series of toothed rings of varying sizes attached to the rear hub, and another series attached to the cranks. each of these series of toothed rings has a derailleur next to it. a derailleur is the part that moves the chain from one of these rings to another. and a shifter, or shift lever, is what controls the movement of the derailleur. it’s a pretty simple concept, and has been the biggest technological advancement in cycling probably ever. if it weren’t for the advent of the multi-cog/derailleur system, we’d all still be riding single speeds. wait. ok, nevermind. point being, most people have experienced a bike with gears.

but what’s a little less known is that there’s actually two different types of shifters — indexed and friction. now anyone who’s ridden a geared bike produced in the last 20 years has used indexed shifting. this is where you press on your shifter and it moves a pre-determined amount of space. you hear a "click," and you’re in the next gear. this is due to a series of tightly-engineered "stops" in the shifter which are correspondent to the distance between the cogs that the derailleur will move between. grip shifters, STI shifters, thumb-shifters — these are all indexed. click, click, click, as you shift between gears.

a friction shifter is the older technology — the first technology, in fact. most older bikes have it. this is where the shifter does not have pre-determined "stops" in it’s little internal workings. instead, it is up to you, the rider, to stop moving the lever when you feel your gear shift over. no little "click," no stop in the shifter, you just move the lever till it shifts and then stop.

there’s a lot of people that like one, and there’s a lot of people that like the other, when given the choice between the two. on the one hand, when an indexed system is tightly maintained, there’s something reassuring and technically empowering about that little "click." like you know you’ve adjusted your derailleur juuust right, because the measurements in these indexed distances are sometimes fractions of millimeters — that’s more than just a "click," it’s a logistic. on the other hand, though, friction shifters are far more reliable, they don’t have campagnolo/shimano compatibility issues, and they’re 333 times easier to maintain.

for me personally, i’m on the fence, as with most other things. i really love indexed shifting because it feels high-tech. that little click is a little audible success. but if ANYTHING goes wrong between your shifter and your chain, you’ve got problems. by way of an example, when i was on the lifecycle, one of my rear shifting system’s barrel adjusters sheared, creating a lack of tension in the cabling that was just enough to throw off that shifter’s indexing. this essentially took three gears away from me. you see, because that little click represents such a tightly-measured distance, ANY trauma to the shifting system runs the risk of throwing it off. and once a measurement that tight is thrown off, you’ve got problems getting from one gear to the next. so that day, i rode something like 30 miles with a severely limited choice of gears. had i been running friction shifters? that would not have been a problem.

this post is actually in preparation for another post, so that i didn’t have to put all the descriptions of shifter tech into that post if you already knew it.

but that stated, i’ll make this post stand on it’s own by asking…

+ do you have experience with both types of shifters?
+ if so, which do you prefer?
+ if not, does my above description at least explain the other to you enough that you get it?

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what are those little metal protective clips that I see on some rear drops called (don’t say "little metal protective clips")

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So, my next build is probably going to be this 1976 Schwinn Super le Tour 12.2. I got this frame, and only am realizing now how important it is to get one of these old guys with a fork and headset. This one didn’t come with either, so I am having to hunt and I don’t think it will be cheap (actually, the estimates will blow the ol’ budget on this build). M other option is hat I have some bids on 2 other frames that are more"complete",and should know by the weekend. I already have some part for the next one…crank (165/46), BB (68×110) and a seat-post…and killer idea for a paint job.

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